91–100 of 216 posts
A good time and place to plug results of the IF experiment I did a few years back. FWIW, I have been on a no-breakfast, no-lunch protocol, on weekdays since then and I absolutely love it because it keeps me sharp through the day (no post-glucose “dullness”).
If people are interested in learning more about fasting, I put together a few visual guides on it here - http://impossiblehq.com/nutrition/intermittent-fasting I also highly recommend the zero fasting app for tracking. Super simple and really clean app that makes tracking fasts simple. Start small and see how it goes. I find the 16/8 routine tends to work best for me personally with 36 hour fasts sprinkled in every c…
Do you find that you're able to do cognitively demanding tasks while fasting? Even small fasts seem to sap my concentration and critical thinking. Once I eat again I feel like I think better.
Absolutely.
> Even small fasts seem to sap my concentration and critical thinking. Once I eat again I feel like I think better.
That's kind of normal when you start with (intermittent) fasting, may take at least some days until it gets better. Especially if are on a high carb diet and already developed some degree of insulin resistance your body is unable to fully switch into fat burning mode while the glucose stores are already depleted. This results in low energy and food carvings. Once that is regulated well your mental abilities likely won't suffer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you find that you're able to do cognitively demanding tasks while fasting? Even small fasts seem to sap my concentration and critical thinking. Once I eat again I feel like I think better.
On the rare occasion I have fasted for a couple of days, I noticed I was more focused not less. Physical exercise I would not recommend though.
Intermittent fasting has a nice advantage - nobody can make any money off of it. This gives it an inherent legitimacy. Contrast all other fad diets, and essentially every supplement ever sold.
I’d like to fast until lunch time but I haven’t found any substitute for milk in coffee and I fear that breaks any fasting benefits.
Intermittent fasting has a nice advantage - nobody can make any money off of it. This gives it an inherent legitimacy. Contrast all other fad diets, and essentially every supplement ever sold.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
in my experience, sleep is the first problem to be solved. If a person can't get good quality and quantity of sleep nothing else helps. First sleep then meditation to tame the chronic stress response. nothing else - fasting, diet, exercise etc helps before sleep. btw alcohol and caffeine screws the quality of sleep.
Can poor sleep interfere with weight loss?
I had periods in the past when I sleep less 3 hours for 5 days and end up "recovering" with a 9h sleep during the weekend. I was not at my best though.
I never noticed any particular patterns between my weight and my sleep.
In the last month though lack of sleep and more carbs seem to start generating joint pains (hopefully it is just temporary).
I’d like to fast until lunch time but I haven’t found any substitute for milk in coffee and I fear that breaks any fasting benefits.
Anecdote: I tried intermittent fasting for 11 months with very, very little to show for it. I did the 18 hours off and 6 hours of eating plan. I have also tried a strict vegetarian diet for 6 months with no real changes in blood work. My Cholesterol didn't move to the dismay of my PCP and myself quite frankly. Biology: I am a professional Firefighter that ran 1000 miles and bicycled 250 miles during this time frame.…
Assuming this is accurate, your lifestyle is not typical. Others trying intermittent fasting and/or vegetarian diet will surely see benefits in blood work.
Same with blood pressure, for example. You might just have it. or a medicine or stress might be to blame. And with things like vitamin D - you might not ever make enough to be healthy.
Fasting might put you in the hospital! I know a relatively young dude that tried it for religious reasons and wound up hospitalized. He's in his early 30's now, but that was years ago. Some folks cannot tolerate going such periods without eating (diabetics, for instance): They aren't really seeing benefits in blood work.
These aren't really outliers either, but more a reminder that there is variation in humans and we can't make such blanket statements for things like diet. At least not with our current information, doubly so when we consider how much of our research has been tainted by food lobbying and other interests in the last 100 years.
Intermittent fasting has a nice advantage - nobody can make any money off of it. This gives it an inherent legitimacy. Contrast all other fad diets, and essentially every supplement ever sold.
[0] even this is debatable