Intermittent Fasting Is Gaining Acceptance
well.blogs.nytimes.com
well.blogs.nytimes.com
Heavy olympic lifting hasn't been a problem but I only lift on high calorie days, and not more than 4 times a week. If you are into the Leangains flavor of IF, lifting is the recommended way to do IF. I find that in my and my gfs case, lifting has been far more effective than cardio.
I grew up with a mother as an aerobics instructor and I live in a very active Seattle, so I've seen and tried all number of diets and workout regimens. With IF I have the most energy and the fastest results. It's also reasonably easy to work into real life situations (travel, dinners at friends' houses, etc.).
I will say that using a calorie and exercise counter is very very helpful when starting or resuming IF. Otherwise it is far too easy to mis-estimate calories in or out. I use Fatsecret app. And to calculate target calorie in/out, there is a great tool here at 1percentedge [1]. (Unfortunately it's in Flash, contacting the author to port to a mobile app is on my long list...)
I think I better watch my milk input, particularly on non-lifting days (I'm a real amateur lifting), since it's probably bringing me out of "fasted" state according to my body. I drink a five cups of tea/coffee by lunch time.
You're certainly restricting calories and I'm sure it's a positive step, healthwise, etc., but ...
If we have a goal of depleting the energy stores in our liver, you're interrupting (and perhaps) sabotaging that.
OR, if we are trying to restrict calories into a certain time window, you've opened up that window with the butter and the milk. You're no longer in the 16, you're in the 8 (so to speak).
When I used to eat breakfast, I'd be productive in the morning, until I started getting distracted by craving lunch. Then I'd eat lunch, and end up sleepy and groggy afterwards while I digested.
Now that I'm used to IF, I feel more productive; I spend less time at work thinking about food, and I miss that whole post-lunch carb crash thing.
Obviously it's just anecdotal, possibly all psychosomatic, etc., etc. But I like it.
I haven't really experimented or tested the impact of this yet, but I wonder how it ties in alertness/energy levels. I'm normally a zombie in the morning and don't get productive till the afternoon and evening.
I do agree though, that the concept of breakfast being important is bunk. Everyone is different and as these IF studies show, no one meal is all that important.
Granted, in the 50s we didn't have the same scientific knowledge as we do today, but the food pyramid was "invented" by them for their own benefit, make no mistake. Remember when butter was good for you because it lubricated your arteries?[1] Or when doctors were associated with smoking?[2]
This sort of propaganda easily permeates into popular culture and can cause a lot of harm. Refined carbs are 90% guilty of the worldwide obesity pandemic.
[1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/d4/5b/78d45b7a6...
Granted, Kellogg did hold an M.D. degree, but there's no denying he had a product to sell."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/breakfast-most-impo...
But it makes me think too, other cultures have a strong emphasis on breakfast, and that doesn't necessarily include cereals (but it would include bread). Like France, Germany, and Finland.
I'm in Ireland, where people are definitely under the Kellogg's influence.
I listened to the advice of family and friends for the early part of my life and ate breakfast as others do, but it always made me feel a bit bloated, and then shortly after, actually hungry where I wouldn't have been otherwise.
Left to my own devices I do not eat in the morning, I just drink perhaps a coffee, but mostly water and green tea. I'll start getting hungry a few hours after waking up, which is ideal because that is right around lunch time.
Then I'll eat after work, or after my thrice-weekly lifting session, with perhaps a small snack later on. Usually something like cheese, cucumber and chutney on wholegrain crackers.
My stomach just does not seem 'awake' in the mornings and never has done. When I did eat in the morning it always felt like a bit of a chore.
I'm read somewhere once that hunter-gatherer humans never really ate in the morning either, and our bodies go through some process/reaction after waking from sleep that gives us a burst of energy, enough to go out and forage or hunt, and that eating first thing in the morning is a recent thing in our evolution.
Makes perfect sense to me given my own personal experience.
I heard a sleep doctor give a lecture awhile ago who repeated the advice of eating a hearty breakfast, primarily as a way to encourage good sleep. She said that our bodies interpret food within 30 mins of waking up as a signal that food is abundant, which lowers our general stress levels and makes it easier to sleep.
Skipping breakfast, on the other hand, signals food scarcity or higher predator threat, increases stress hormones, and encourages lighter sleep so you can be woken more easily.
No idea how true it actually is, but it seems to make sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
The "stress hormones" at the beginning of the day are beneficiary - they make you more attentive, easier to focus and, last but not least, make caffeine (and other stimulants) more stronger (you need less caffeine for same effect). So, enjoy fasted wakefullness at the beginning of the day, and gluttony sleepness at the end of it.
Me as well. To help tamper the hunger craving, I drink a 1/2 portion of that popular "soy meal replacement" for breakfast, then again at lunch. I found I can maintain the hyper focused state all day, without a post-lunch crash. Not an expert, but I feel a little something for my stomach to process keeps my metabolism marching along.
Are you doing cardio or lifting? I'd like to try IF, but I'm concerned about how it will affect recovery time and muscle building after heavy lifting.
CrossFit on fast days is easy.
Doing it the day after a fast day is hard.
I write more about it at http://go.DanielOdio.com/health
However, in practice, there are signs as to whether you have good insulin sensitivity or not and possibly whether you over-secrete insulin. Here’s two very simple questions to ask yourself regarding your response to diet.
1. On high-carbohydrate intakes, do you find yourself getting pumped and full or sloppy and bloated? If the former, you have good insulin sensitivity; if the latter, you don’t.
2. When you eat a large carbohydrate meal, do you find that you have steady and stable energy levels or do you get an energy crash/sleep and get hungry about an hour later? If the former, you probably have normal/low levels of insulin secretion; if the latter, you probably tend to over-secrete insulin which is causing blood glucose to crash which is making you sleepy and hungry.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/insulin-sensitivit...
Some good info here:
EDIT: then again, here's useful background as to why this occurs:
http://www.leangains.com/2012/06/why-does-breakfast-make-me-...
http://www.leangains.com/2012/06/why-does-breakfast-make-me-...
I'm mostly doing it as an experiment for myself, after talking with a friend who did it last year, and watching the BBC Documentary on the diet (Eat, Fast, and Live Longer). I thought running on days that I partial fast would be unbearable, but I've felt fine. As well, on my non-fast days for the past two weeks, I'm trying to consume all my meals within 8 hours (1 PM - 9 PM).
I enjoy the discipline the diet requires. Also, somewhat like running a marathon, fasting days are a little bit about putting up with discomfort. I am definitely hungry toward the end of fasting days. Oddly, when I wake up the next morning my hunger has gone away, and I usually don't eat till 1 PM, as mentioned above.
Stats: 44 y/o male, 5'8", 140-145 lbs, down from 145-150. I'd like to be in the 135-140 range for racing purposes.
Yes. :-)
My Tue interval day may include a 12 mi AM run of 2 mi w/u, 8 x 1000M at 8K pace w/600M RI, 2 mi c/d and 4 mi PM recovery run. My Thu tempo is usually something like a 10 mi AM run of 2 mi w/u, 6 mi at HMP, 2 mi c/d, then possibly a 4 mi PM recovery run.
Sunday is my cheat day. But there's only so much ice cream you can eat in one day. :-)
During long runs, I usually carry 21 oz of sports drink.
Post-marathon recovery drink: Guinness Float (that would be Guinness draught and a scoop of vanilla.)
My plan this year is to run a marathon each month, and 3000 miles total. So far so good.
I've been fasting on Mon/Wed, and these are usually the days when I do recovery (i.e. slow) runs. I will run once or twice on these days, with my single meal in between. Typically I'll get up, have coffee (black), work an hour or two, then do a mid-morning run of 6-7 miles (about an hour). I'll have my meal around 1 PM. I then do a second run in the evening of 4-5 miles (about 40 mins).
My "meal" on fasting days is typically a nutribullet shake of spinach, frozen blueberries, banana or apple, cocoa powder (no sugar), unflavored whey protein powder, cashews or almonds, and two tsp of fish oil. My Fitness Pal says its ~ 600 calories, 27g fat, 60g carbs, 34g protein.
I'll have a second black coffee in the afternoon, and a green tea in the evenings.
At my age and weight, I need ~ 1900 calories/day to maintain my weight assuming I'm sedentary. That's 13,300 calories/week.
I run 76 miles per week. That's about 7,600 calories.
So 20,900 calories a week. On two days I restrict myself to 600/day, so that's 19,700 across the other 5 days, or 3,940 calories on those days. But I've been losing about 0.5 lb/week, which is a deficit of about 1750 calories/week. So on those other 5 days I must be around 3600 calories.
3500-4000 calories a day is a lot, but not extreme, just ask any weight lifter. And I happen to really enjoy food. So it hasn't been a problem.
But, I may have to reduce my fasting to 1 day a week once I reach my goal weight.
If anyone here wants to try intermittent fasting, do it for the sake of convenience. I don't eat breakfast or lunch, I just eat when I get home from work or after weight training. On weekends I break my fast earlier than on weekdays.
I wouldn't say you should do it for the "benefits" if it doesn't fit your lifestyle. Right now all we know is that it's not bad for you. It does work pretty well for hunger control, which can help if your goal is weight loss.
Also, don't live by the clock. It's OK to eat outside your feeding window, you might get hungry later during the day and the next day you might get hungry earlier.
Here's a guide if you're looking for a place to start: http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html
Here's a good article if you have general questions about IF: http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debun...
Everybody's different, I use meal time and IF in part to limit what I eat. I have to because I love everything about eating, the taste, the feeling of eating, the socialising environment, etc. . I ccan eat anything at any time, and have a bottom less stomach.
A side effect is that I never feel really hungry anymore, even if I have been fasting for more than 25 hours. Before I could eat at noon and a few hours later be extremely hungry again. I really enjoy my evening meal complete with dessert, but I don't feel that deep hunger, almost pain, anymore.
Most of the time I only drink while eating and this can be a problem, especially in the summer and on the days I jog, as I can become very confused after not drinking for so many hours. As long as I stay hydrated everything is great, so I need to become better at that.
* 'IF' is great if you are "cutting" and trying to achieve a lower body weight or maybe just maintaining what you have.
* 'IF' is not good or practical if you are going through a traditional bulk phase
* The feeling of alertness, energy and maybe slight 'high' during the morning, is real.
* Not sure if it is better or worse at preserving muscle than just lowering your calories (and having 3-4 regular meals). I did lose some muscle mass (as well as body fat) when I did it.
The strongest point of intermittent fasting is that it is very easy to practice. Just skip breakfast, (and no snacks) and have full normal/regular meals between noon and 8pm.
There are ways to temporarily spike muscle synthesis, and one of them is eating a protein rich meal. This specific mechanism has a refractory period in the order of magnitude of hours. Intermittent fasting robs you of the ability to spike muscle synthesis as many times per day as you could otherwise.
This effect is not massive. Your body is pretty good at optimizing this stuff. But when you are cutting, in particular, or trying to bulk without putting on significant fact, these minor optimizations can add up.
Or it may prove beneficial, who knows. I'm not sure if any research exists on this topic. But intuitively I agree with you, maintaining large amounts of muscular mass requires a lot of nutrient input.
Still, intermittent fasting is still far behind straight calorie restriction in terms of data and level of conviction that the output has a certain set of effects under a given set of circumstances. The interesting thing to my eyes is that the gene expression studies show that fasting and calorie restriction at similar overall intake of calories produce overlapping but in some ways quite different gene expression changes. Short-lived species have a much larger response in terms of health and longevity to all these things in comparison to long-lived species such as ourselves, however.
All in all it's quite the interesting area of research, especially now that the scientific community is making significant progress towards biomarkers of biological aging (such as DNA methylation pattern).
Here's a good introductory paper or two for human CR:
Will calorie restriction work in humans? - http://impactaging.com/papers/v5/n7/full/100581.html
NIH study finds calorie restriction lowers some risk factors for age-related diseases - http://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds...
And an interview with Longo on the thrust of his work on intermittent fasting and CR:
http://michelsonmedical.org/2014/12/26/igf-1-fasting-discuss...
The only exceptions are meals I eat for social reasons (e.g., work lunch meetings) and mornings on which I run a road race and want to ensure I'm at peak performance. I find that when I do break the fast, I'm more hungry sooner.
There are days where if I push dinner until too late, I do find myself weak and grumpy.
All of this is probably limited to light resistance/endurance training. This sort of goes out the window while lifting weights, at least for me. Then its very hard for me not to eat a ton. I think the fascination with protein is totally misguided though. Some people think they need 200g/day when probably 30g is sufficient.
One thing I really embraced in college was ketosis. I hardly ate, aside from a few well earned feasts. But its extremely hard to maintain if you don't have the freedom to work out multiple times a day and carbs are a convenient and cheap source of calories.
if i know beforehand there's work lunch i usually ends the "eating window" earlier the night before so i can reach the goal!
That doesn't prove anything, of course. But it does argue that you should be careful with that kind of "it's the way our bodies are intended to work" logic. To a large extent, we're already adapted to "modern" eating styles.
This is basically the new "correlation is not causation" meme equivalent. Yes, correlation indeed does not equate causation in a strict sense. But given a large enough number of samples, it becomes the domain of statistical analysis, and then causation can be solidly inferred with a well determined degree of confidence.
So be careful when repeating trendy memes. Trendy does not equate truthful.
Anyway, to provide some kind of answer: Seeing how studies keep coming in, showing that I.F. is beneficial in a number of different ways, seems to suggest that this regimen is, indeed, better overall for your health than 3 meals a day every day. The jury is probably still out, but perhaps getting close to returning for a decision now.
Also, the 10k year "adaptation" is a weak argument. We've adapted in some ways, yes - lactose tolerance, etc. In other ways the intracellular biochemistry has not changed. 10k years is a short time after all; it allows some adaptations but it's too quick for big changes. Our distant ancestors very likely did not live on a steady caloric input, and the time is too short for us to have adapted completely to a different feeding pattern.
Yes, I agree it's hard to know for sure, that's why I used expressions such as "virtually certain" and "strongly doubt". Both suggest a degree of uncertainty. I was not making it into a science, by any means.
TLDR: Nuance, instead of binary logic.
Getting a large enough number of samples is not enough to show that a correlation implies a causation. It merely demonstrates that a perceived correlation is real and is not the result of random sampling error. Take a few samples, and you'll see a strong correlation between wearing a cast and having broken bones; take an enormous number of samples, and you'll prove the correlation is real, and you'll show the precise magnitude of the correlation with small error bars; but you'll never prove that wearing a cast causes broken bones. To prove causation, you need a causative theory, and evidence that distinguishes it from competing causative theories.
Though perhaps you are thinking of situations where the only plausible causative theories are "A and B are unrelated" and "A causes B".
EDIT: I would also strongly recommend divorcing our DNA from our gut in this case; they are two different things, and both certainly influence our metabolic processes.
Why? The gut flora has its own DNA, and it absolutely coevolves with the rest of the organism. It's non-sensical to say that we're "adapted" for something via one mechanism and not the other. Adaptations use the full spectrum of evolvable media (including culture, for that matter) by definition. They aren't separable unless you can literally point to a specific gene or bacteria or cooking practice. And we can't.
And yet, that's exactly what you implied—that our current metabolic process is entirely the result of the 10k years of change in the gut bacteria, NOT the previous hundreds of thousands of years we spent persistence hunting protein and gathering nutrition.
Basically, any argument of what we are "supposed" to eat in that context is pseudoscientific garbage. The real science says we need to pay attention to agriculture.
What's the source in question here? I've now completely lost you. Gut flora is elastic and can't tell us much about anything but what we eat in our own lifetimes. I see zero evidence anywhere I look that we should use this flora to figure out which diet maximizes long term health. If anything, it's more indicative of what we are eating than what we might eat that would be better.
It's never helped me lose weight, and I can't really correlate to any improvements in my everyday life. It got me on a daily Pantoprazole regime though, since the long periods without food have skyrocketed my gastritis.
So, as most of the stuff out on the Internet, don't go doing it just because everybody else is. Try it, and see if it fits you. Don't overdo it and you should be fine.
I'm sure someone will tell me that must be part of the problem. But why should I eat when I'm not hungry? Breakfast makes me feel queasy and bloated.
I am worried about how it is going to effect me longterm.
As you lose weight, it'll get easier to do some more exercise as well.
I highly recommend you look into Pepcid Complete. I took Prilosec for years and it has some interesting side effects that even the experts don't know what they mean: it turns the lining of your stomach from smooth to all bumpy. I know I'm describing it badly, but when I had an endoscopy before and after being on Prilosec I noticed it in the pictures my Dr. showed me. When I asked him he said "no one knows what effect those will have on you long term." And this was from the premier Gastroenterologist in my area.
I immediately looked for an alternative.
The thing about Pepsid Complete (available at Costco for ~$20 for 100) is it has a weaker proton pump inhibitor and an antacid. I only take them when I need them and I take them far less than I did Prilosec.
Drug side effects are the dirty secret of the pharma industry. The FDA is just too weak to demand better and longer term studies on drugs.
Very related:
My better half had serious acid reflux, but no longer use prescription meds since taking these daily.
Took way too long to find out I wasn't pooping nearly as often as I should have been. I'd usually go about every 3 or 4 days. If you're not pooping at least once a day, I'd very much consider researching things to eat to help you out and even asking your doc about it. I'm still sleepy and grouchy in the morning, but I haven't felt the nausea in a very long time.
Well, isn't that common sense ?
Coupled with intense fasted weight lifting or sport activity, I feel great whether I am cutting or bulking. I can play 90 minutes of soccer while fasted and feel more energetic than anyone else on the field.
For anyone interested in starting: ease into it, track your calories and protein/fats/carbs to get a sense of what ratios make you feel better / lose bodyfat more effectively, and keep in mind caffeine and alcohol will feel more potent. Some people find the first few days uncomfortable, but wait for the one week mark before making any judgments (or 1-month if you're comfortable gathering more data).
People have mentioned to me that I may have a food allergy, or some other type of disorder that makes digestion a problem. Have you considered this?
> "There are two important hormones involved in provoking appetite: ghrelin and peptide YY. Ghrelin is a hormone that stimulates hunger while peptide YY suppresses it. Aerobic and anaerobic exercise, such as weight training, both stimulate an increase in the peptide YY hormone. This is the primary reason healthy people have a feeling of fullness post-workout."
After reflecting for a moment, I realize I experienced that sensation more often before I started intermittently fasting.
[0] http://www.livestrong.com/article/405012-exercise-loss-of-ap...
I only do one meal a day (big lunch around 2pm) and then a protein shake and maybe a beer at 8ish. I like that I can have a beer every day.
I have noticed a couple of things with diet:
* shockingly you can still workout hard while starving.
* it seems to help regulate and improve bowel movements (TMI but if I eat healthy and frequently I kill several trees w/ toilet paper consumption).
* it doesn't seem to work as well if you been skipping breakfast your whole life.
* it doesn't seem to work on females.
Of course these are limited observations.
For me after I fast its almost impossible for me to pack 2k calories in 4 hours IF I eat healthy. I feel disgustingly full but my wife doesn't.
The other thing is my wife also prefers to eat before working out which I do not like at all.
I read an article like this recently that might be the reason why: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3388628/Men-exerci...
During the week I just find I need to start shutting it down earlier or tapering down.. or else. So I do a casein protein shake (just casein) and a beer (usually the beer is prior) as my second meal.
I don't think there is any magic except that I'm doing something that I can maintain (the beer being my treat to help maintain follow through).
Oh I forgot. Sometimes on Friday I will wait till 8:00pm to eat (24 hour fast). A guy on reddit does this and he/she calls it "Fast Fridays". The idea being Fridays and the weekends are usually a calorie fest. I like it for it practicality and for the catchy name.
Why would frequent bowel movements (which I assume were implied by the above) be an "improvement"? Wouldn't the best case scenario be once a day, regularly (same time every day), very low TP consumption (not too much fluid)?
I sometimes can go two days with IF with out visiting the throne.
If I eat old body builder style wih lots of fiber (was considered healthy) I end up going a lot and wiping a lot.
Its always strange when ancient practices like fasting are so poorly understood.
It's beyond foolish to flippantly dismiss knowledge offhand because you dislike or are prejudiced against the source.
The person you replied to worded it rudely about religions, but I agree with his overally point in that I want to hear from scientists not religious leaders when it comes to health advice, regardless of how sensible the religious advice was when it first came into existence.
(For the record, while I wouldn't necessarily agree with a statement of "religions have done more good than harm", I do think they can and have done good in some areas. A religion that promotes good morals and tolerance, without preaching the negatives that you and I dislike, is fine with me, even if I don't personally believe in everything they believe in. And on a personal note, I'm thankful for some of the wonderful music and other art that religion has inspired and/or funded over the years.)
I never asked him for his sources because it doesn't really affect me. The only reason it came up is because he was eating dinner at our house one day.
I cook breakfast for my family a few times a week and have no cravings while smelling or handling food.
The good things about IF are
- more free time - breakfast and lunch can be spent having fun
- no 3.30itis after lunch - productive all day long
- less money spent
The bad:
- socially awkward. Most social gatherings involve eating. All celebrations are eat-feasts.
All in all it's a positive experience and feels more natural.
I've been thinking "eat less, exercise more" for a while. But only when I started doing IF I really understood what it means: 80% eat less, 20% exercise more. And exercise must come before food - having a big meal, then going for a walk is not as good for you as doing it the other way around. Run first, eat second - like the lions do it.
You have to eat way less and exercise just a little more and your body will adjust. IF is much easier than going for controlled portions. Because "limbic hunger" (look it up).
And a popular theme is that fast food is taking a toll in recent decades. Well if basically most gatherings involve food, this being advertised with instapics etc. becoming a norm, why do people wonder that the avg. weight is rising ? After starting IF, I'm actually getting to a point where I'm annoyed because everytime I visit somewhere, people insist to offer something to eat.
I found the opposite: since I can skip breakfast and lunch, going out at night and having beers and snacks without reaching my daily limits is possible.
Not saying he necessarily has a justifiable basis for believing this: in a lot of the book, he really comes off as a know-it-all everyone-else-is-stupid crank :-/
1) autophagy causes the body to consume cancerous and senescent damaged cells
2) by lowering metabolism free radical production is decreased
3) inflammatory effects from insulin don't happen if insulin is not being released into the blood stream
In Julius Caesar, Brutus famously quips
There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
And in Ecclesiastes:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
Just food for a pondering thought.
> Michael Mosley has set himself a truly ambitious goal: he wants to live longer, stay younger and lose weight in the bargain. And he wants to make as few changes to his life as possible along the way. He discovers the powerful new science behind the ancient idea of fasting, and he thinks he's found a way of doing it that still allows him to enjoy his food. Michael tests out the science of fasting on himself - with life-changing results.
You can watch it here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvdbtt_eat-fast-live-longer...
Should that not be the other way around, that more research is needed before recommending you eat three large meals a day plus snacks?
I was on the verge of metabolic syndrome, with a 38 inch waist, high triglycerides and high cholesterol. http://go.DanielOdio.com/health In 10 months of IF I've lost 60 pounds. http://go.DanielOdio.com/fasting
I've also experimented with Ketosis for four months http://go.DanielOdio.com/ketosis and now with "Blue Zones" http://go.DanielOdio.com/guide
Love seeing so much of this gaining a broader audience.
I've been lifting and experimenting with my nutrition for over a decade. Just be careful, it goes from regime to disorder quick.
I intended to lose about 2 1/2 stone, but ended up losing 3 because I was fighting my body's urge to EAT ALL THE THINGS and slowly bring intake back up when going back to three meals a day.
That said - at least for me - I'm not sure it helped my eating patterns in general.
For some background, I got up to about 305 lbs when I was ~19 (about 9 years ago), then lost a bunch of weight over a year and a half or so. Got down to about 180 (way too skinny). I really like food. I eat way too fast, and I eat way too much, and I love eating junk food.
So, for me, IF was kind of a way to compartmentalize what was essentially binge eating. I'd push my fasting periods further and further into the evenings, sometimes going til 4-7 PM, then having an absolute blowout meal.
Eventually I stopped doing IF. Well, kind of. I still don't eat breakfast. I got less extreme with it.
There is this book, published in 1900 by a doctor named, Mr.Edward Dewey, the title of which is - The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure.
I have read this book, and it amazes me how logical, everything that doctor has explained.
I don't have breakfast.
Here is the link to the book on Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27128
The effects on the economy were clear from what I observed in Afghanistan - at least 5% potential GDP loss due to reduced working hours, shutdown of public services, overall latency of business transactions during this time. An actual study across different observing countries would be intriguing.
I've done extended water fasts as well. 18 days of just water is the longest I've done and I felt like I could have gone longer.
I'm probably gonna try doing that today
An experiment: list every topic/theory discussed by paleo enthusiasts. How many are currently supported by evidence? How many have been soundly refuted? How frequently does the evidence shift in either case?
Honestly, Its not all that different than my old eating habits except now I've cut out breakfast (which I only really ate because it is, "the most important meal of the day")
I use to wrestle in college and maintain my weight via exercise but now I work in an office and this is the only diet I've been able to find that allows me to workout a normal amount and maintain a decent weight.
My body(or brain, I guess) works better when I eat small amounts of protein every four hours or so.
But... but.. breakfast is the best part of my day :( Thanks for ruining it, pseudoscientific celebrity fad of the moment!
Few first days was hard, lots of cravings, but after a week/week and a half I get used to it.
I feel more healthy (yeah, I know, I know...) than ever. And I'm losing weight at a steady pace (without the usual hights/lows, etc.
That's the gist of it, but we humans have to complicate it, because "complicated" is supposedly more scientific then "simple".
Also none of that afternoon food coma from lunch!
Still not sure if IF just makes it easier to eat less or there's really something behind it(enough evidence from both sides, like how good/bad egg is for you) but it's worked for me so far
and his squat+dl+bench total is?
Nothing in that article indicates any positive improvement as a result of this self-imposed IF for no apparent reason :)
(edit: I eat two meals a day, except sometimes I'm hungry in the morning and then I do often get hungry again soon afterward too and end up eating 4-5 meals that day, but I think everyone's metabolism is different, and moreover different at different times, and feel more harm than good can often come out of these studies, especially when presented to data-centric people like HN readers). (Not to mention, I think a lot of it doesn't matter at all (searching for "Douglas Adams Nutrition" diatribe but not finding it).
Really? I did a form of time restricted feeding and it was the easiest thing ever. It seems hard to consume all your calories in an eight hour window, until you realize all that really means in practice is skipping breakfast and eating a late lunch. Once you get used to it, it's really easy and natural.
I'm quite an average person (or at least I'd like to think so) but for many years I did what that first guy from the article did, i.e. not having breakfast nor lunch, I was eating most of the calories for the day during dinner. Not sure how that has affected my health, at least now I'm back at having breakfast again, but the culture of "three big meals a day" is certainly not the be-all and end-all of nutrition.
I also cannot eat meat before 4 or 5 PM, I can't understand how people can have things like English breakfast so early in the morning. I also love fruits, if it were to me I'd eat fruits all day, every day.