Pushing the trend of intermittent fasting for weight loss
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
12 lbs of fat in one week is 7000 Calories/day. Either he had crazy ketonuria (and was literally pissing away calories) or he was significantly dehydrated by the end of the week.
If you're planning on fasting, make sure you stay hydrated. Between the water content of food and the habit of drinking at meals, we get far more water from meals than most people realize; cutting that out without compensating is not healthy.
- Glycogen (stored glucose in your muscles/liver) is depleted - Muscle breakdown may occur (gluconeogenesis-converting amino acids to glucose)
Glycogen is also a multiplier as it draws water into muscles. Less glycogen means less water.
The point remains: If you're losing more than 1 lbs/day and you're not running an ultramarathon (or equivalent), you're almost certainly getting dehydrated.
12 pounds in a week of a real fast seems reasonable for someone who weighs 170. Call it 4 pounds of fat and 8 pounds of glycogen and water.
Let's say he burns 2500 calories a day, or 17500 in a week. If he has 500g of glycogen, subtract 4 calories/gram and we're left with 15500 calories. He's already lost 500g from the glycogen, and somewhere around 2000g from the water storing the glycogen, so he's down about 5.5 pounds. If the other 15500 calories are from fat, at 3500 calories per pound, he would lose about 4.5 pounds, for a total of about 11 pounds.
If the remaining 3450 g is fat, it would be 31000 Calories, for a total of 33000 Calories, or 4700 Calories/day over the week. Not a reasonable amount!
Taking your 2500 Calorie/day value, I get about 1700 g of unexplained weight loss.
You don't want to be dehydrated, but especially if you're fasting, you can overdo it on the water and end up in the opposite arena: overhydrated. This can suck out minerals and nutrients from your body, and since you're not eating to replace them, you're in major trouble.
It's not fasting, it's biohacking.
It's not a tip, it's a life hack.
It's not custom, it's bespoke.
Edit: Aritcle title is "The Silicon Valley execs who don't eat for days: 'It's not dieting, it's biohacking'"
Fasting is also absolutely a diet in the sense of a diet as a state of caloric restriction.
A diet is not a state of caloric reduction, it's a description of the foods you're able to eat. A fast is not a description of the foods you're able to eat, it's a description of the act of eating zero foods and zero calories.
If you're dieting, you're eating food. If you're fasting, you're not. There is an infinite amount of difference between zero and anything-but-zero.
I'm pretty sure you know this is untrue. Your own definition references weight loss, which implies caloric restriction. In common use, "caloric restriction" is the most common intent of a diet. Outside select groups (e.g. bodybuilders), "dieting" is exclusively a weight loss exercise.
> A fast is not a description of the foods you're able to eat, it's a description of the act of eating zero foods and zero calories.
If you're going to refer to the dictionary to support your claims, you should do so consistently: "abstain from all or some kinds of food or drink, especially as a religious observance."
Keyword there is "some kinds". A fast needn't be total to be a "fast".
I do not. You're the one claiming that "fast" and "diet" mean the same thing according to your own definition not backed up by anyone else's definition. A diet is the food you're allowed to eat. Literally everyone agrees with this definition. A fast is abstaining from food. Literally everyone agrees with this definition. There is a big difference between the two.
A weight loss diet defines the food you're allowing yourself to eat in order to lose weight. If someone tells you they are fasting, they mean they're eating nothing. If someone tells you they are dieting, it means they are restricting the foods they're allowed to eat, but are still eating food.
At this point I'm pretty sure you're just trolling me. There is nothing incompatible with our definitions except you claim a fast is the same as a diet and a diet is the same as a fast, which I'm pretty sure you know this is untrue. There is a big difference.
I absolutely did not say that. All I said is that your distinction is vacuous and incorrect:
"Dieting is specially related to food you eat, while fasting is food you didn't eat."
I don't eat oysters. Am I "fasting"?
> A diet is the food you're allowed to eat. Literally everyone agrees with this definition.
Many people go on X calorie diets. The FDA uses a "2000 calorie diet" as the reference. Nothing in this sort of "diet" restricts what foods you're allowed to eat.
Your definition does not match a very common usage. You're asserting your own personal definition as if it is the only valid one, but it's not.
> A fast is abstaining from food. Literally everyone agrees with this definition.
I already gave an example where this is incorrect (juice fast). Medical fasting also often doesn't meet this definition (protein sparing modified fast). The dictionary doesn't even agree with your assertion of "zero food".
> There is a big difference between the two.
By your definitions, a fast is a diet. If a diet is a restriction of foods to certain types, and a fast is a complete restriction of foods, then a fast must be a diet.
> At this point I'm pretty sure you're just trolling me.
At this point you're making up straw man definitions and ascribing them to me. Accusing me of trolling for pointing out the errors in your pedantry is a little ridiculous.
> There is nothing incompatible with our definitions except you claim a fast is the same as a diet and a diet is the same as a fast, which I'm pretty sure you know this is untrue. There is a big difference.
There's nothing incompatible with our definitions (well, yours and the straw man you created for me) except that one is untrue and that there is a big difference? I'm not sure what to do with that.
I fear there's little common ground at this point. Take care.
Advertising is not always about selling products. It can be about selling a concept.
They find these new names to sell these concepts to the people who want to be "trendy" and "hip", and subsequently garner more following.
One comment on the article, on the third day of fasting, I did not feel great like Libin describes: "I woke up on the third day feeling better than I had in 20 years." I probably over-did it with exercise though, playing Ultimate that morning on a hot turf field, then cycling around town. I've done a 2-day fast prior, and that was much more tolerable. I will probably continue with those, about 4 times per year.
I've noticed upto 3 days is not that big a deal once you've done at least one. Also if you mess up your refeeding after a 3 day fast it seems easier. Remember that your gut biome will change. Longer fasts will experience different effects that you might or might not be prepared for hence the reading up.
One thing that made long fasts easier is by slipping into a fast after being in ketosis. That way I've always avoided the dreaded Keto flu.
Know your purpose though definitely. If it's weight loss, then I've learnt a better combination to be Keto + intermittent fasting 23:1 and when possible 4:3(4days feasting and 3 days fasting)
Water fasting has additional benefits like autophagy etc. but really I would not recommend to anyone whose not ready to take on some serious research and doesn't have an experimental mindset. One other thing that will take you by surprise is how much bored you'll get!!
Resources -
https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NaNQcDjUR97yfF3bNYqAmGld...
I also struggled to give up caffeine on my first couple tries. On my last attempt, I noticed that I stopped getting migraines, which gave me all the motivation I needed to stick with it.
I only have a sample size of myself, so my advice may not be worth much, and it's definitely a cliche. What seems to work for me is to set a modest goal and don't get discouraged when I don't meet that goal the first time. Once I hit that goal, I stretch to something more ambitious. Sometimes you'll find you have goals that you don't really care about as much as you think. It's okay to set them aside and pursue the things that matter to you. Okay that's it for unwanted-advice time. :) Good luck with your goals!
[1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/
[2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell
[3] - http://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/fihek/introduction_...
I still like I'm about to faint both times though.
I would like to add that it's impossible to fast and add muscle mass at the same time. To add muscle you need an abundance of calories since you're literally building new parts of your body from food. If you're fasting, even if you're taking BCAAs, you don't have the extra calories to spend adding muscle, your body will use any available calories to retain, not build, muscle. You might think you're adding muscle because your tone is revealed as you become dehydrated and/or burn off extra fat, which might fool you into thinking your muscles are getting bigger. They're not.
You'll notice that the vast majority Silicon Valley CEOs are not overweight, and I believe it is an unspoken "filter" they use to judge a person (whether this is right/just/moral is another story). There seems to be a belief that if a person isn't disciplined enough to be in charge of his hunger, then he's not disciplined.
> At 5’11” and 165lbs, Woo doesn’t need to lose weight, although he did drop 12lbs over the week.
Well, I'm an inch shorter and 15# less. I don't think 5'11 and 165 is particularly skinny!
I started this just over a month ago and have lost ~15 pounds so far (from 240 to 225, I'm 6'3"). I've never felt better. The juice I make is: 5 lbs carrots, 4 red beets, 1 kale, fresh ginger root, fresh turmeric root. All organic. It lasts 3 days, which is good since cleaning a juicer is annoying. I bought the "Tribest GSE-5000Green Star Elite Jumbo Twin Gear Juice Extractor" from Amazon.
Ironically, I started this during a 1-week vacation at an all-inclusive resort. I'd never been to one before, and by the second day I resented being told when to eat enough that it seemed the perfect time to try something like this...
If you can't lose weight, you're eating too much.
He doesn't have to, as he is now at his target weight. He only needs to maintain his current body weight, which isn't the same thing.
A thin dude at work pretty much only eats junk food and washes it down with regular coca cola, of which he drinks 3-4 cans a day. Every single day. Doesn't exercise much either. And he doesn't gain weight. For me, god forbid I eat a single donut a week, I inflate like a balloon.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experimen...
By the way "skipping meals" (aka fasting) is exactly what Dr. Fung recommends to lose weight. Fasting drops your insulin levels and gives your body a chance to burn its stored fats.
People in tech don't have any authority on nutritional practices.
CEOs don't have any increased insight into healthy living.
And the article itself just focuses on a tiny number of individuals. I can't even fathom how the writer tracked them down to weave a narrative here.
More importantly, are there any long term studies on the affects of this?
I've tried both fasting and keto and I've got more or less the same results. I guess some people find fasting more convenient to doing keto, which is fine. I found that with fasting I have more difficulty doing resistance training, and it inevitably leads to a more severe loss of muscle mass, whereas with keto I find that I can more or less preserve the muscle mass and just lose body fat.