[dead]
Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
121–130 of 169 posts
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#122In my experience and observations, calorie restricted diets are pretty easy to adhere to until sometime between dinner and bed time. This is where people typically go off the rails and eat far in excess of satiation, negating any success of the day. Intermittent fasting typically has people shift their eating times towards the end of the day which should significantly reduce the chances of falling into a pre-bedtime…
I once heard a great tip to prevent those pre-bedtime snacks. After dinner, brush your teeth as if you’re going to bed. Your brain already associates that with “no more food” and so programmatically dissuades you from eating. It’s always worked for me.
In addition to cues of habit, the lingering taste of most toothpaste reduces the tastiness/desirability of any anticipated meal.
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see this kind of 'well actually' style response a lot when calorie counting vs intermittent fasting gets brought up. Yes they're both forms of calorie restriction in general but the mechanism and the ease of adherence is pretty difference so important to study especially given the results that IF seems to be significantly more effective because it's easier to execute.
After causally seeing popular weight loss advice in US media over the years offering all variety of silver bullets (One Weird Trick etc), I was flabbergasted and betrayed to learn how simple the math of weight loss is once I finally looked into it 4 months ago. Very roughly, there’s 3500kcal in 1lb of body. Given that fact plus your current weight and calorie intake, you can build a spreadsheet in 30 mins to compute…
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just don't have any treats for your entire life, easy.
What humans consider food has changed more in the last 100 years than it did in the preceding 10,000. Eat what your great-great grandmother would consider food, not what a scientist in a lab is trying to sell you as food.
Cake, donuts, ice cream, etc derive their extreme calorie density and negative satiety from cream, sugar, and frying, not some recent invention by a "scientist in a lab".
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly me. I can easily do a 16/8 intermittent fast. I just don't eat anything after 8pm and skip breakfast. That's about it. The hunger goes away when I'm sleeping and I'm not hungry in the morning - Lunch at 11 or 12. It's really hard to eat too many calories in the 8 hour window, unless I drink sodas and stuff my face with candy.
I'll add that intermittent fasting (16/8) has also conditioned my brain (and stomach likely) to eat less during the non-fasting window. In 6 months I'm down 20 pounds (198 to 178), I've also removed alcohol consumption except for in-person social events. My main concerns with 16/8 are: 1. I drink coffee in the morning, it helps with hunger, but im also wondering if this will have long-term affect to my stomach 2. I'm…
The more that one experiments with these diet changes, I think, the more one reveals how untrue that phrase "most important meal of the day" becomes. I feel unstoppable if I skip breakfast, lethargic if I don't.
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do 24-48 hour fasts weekly and for me the single biggest determinate of hunger is what I ate the day before. Carbs, especially sugar and processed carbs make the fast day’s miserable. But if I stick to meat, vegetables and some whole grains it’s usually no big deal.
Yes! I've noticed this too. If I have a carb heavy meal at dinner, I'm much more hungry the next day than less carb heavy meal.
Takes longer for protein to be digested, it's just nutrition 101.
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#127The most recent critiques I've seen for intermittent fasting have to do with how it may not preserve lean body mass unless you are extremely conscientious about getting enough protein (and probably resistance training). That is, if you don't get enough protein during your feeding windows, you'll lose lean body mass along with fat mass, which harms body composition. I'd expect to see the TRE arm losing more lean body…
Different intermittent fasting regimens result in different results re: losing lean muscle. The longer intermittent fasting cycles seem to show no significant loss of lean muscle. (i'm way too lazy to go find the studies to back this up claim, but they're out there somewhere)
> The longer intermittent fasting cycles seem to show no significant loss of lean muscle. (i'm way too lazy to go find the studies to back this up claim, but they're out there somewhere)
Absolutely wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38194372
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#128“More effective” in what capacity? Adherence. > The mean (SD) reduction in energy intake was -313 (509) kcal/d for TRE, -197 (426) kcal/d for CR, and -16 (439) kcal/d for controls So — the time restricted eating group reduced calories more than the group that counted calories; but the resulting weight loss has the same cause: reduced calorie intake compared to before. If there’s a take away here, it’s possibly that a…
I think for a lot of people (me included), the primary advantage is in ease of measurement. It's hard to count calories accurately. It's very easy to look at the clock and determine if it's between 1300-1900 hours
Curious why you think it's hard to count calories accurately? If you mean precisely, I'd question why one is trying to do that anyways.
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#129Not surprised. I have been doing intermittent fasting combined with increased cardio activity, significantly reducing sugar intake (only source is from fruits and occasional/once a month indulgences) , and mild increase in fish consumption while reducing beef consumption. So far, 20 lb weight loss in 3-4 month period. Cholesterol levels were “borderline” prior to weight loss (no statins Rx’d). Fasting glucose normal.…
I increased my sugar intake by 1/2 tbsp brown sugar in the morning and about a fifth of a pint (300kcal) of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream every night, I eat 3 meals a day up from 2, and also lost 20 lbs in 4 months! At the end of the day, it’s all about the numbers — my intake is 1600kcal, and estimated expenditure is 2240kcal – and whatever makes it easy to stick to the plan. For me it’s ice cream.
Yes, that is the energy content of the food you eat. Your body still has to metabolize it, store it, and use it. There are sometimes extreme variations on how that takes place between individuals.
Re: Intermittent fasting more effective than calorie restriction
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Different intermittent fasting regimens result in different results re: losing lean muscle. The longer intermittent fasting cycles seem to show no significant loss of lean muscle. (i'm way too lazy to go find the studies to back this up claim, but they're out there somewhere)
An old fashioned way of fasting preserves muscle mass way better due to hormonal response. It only kicks in after 30-40 hours of fasting. I don’t think that a lot if people practice 3-4 of fasting when doing IF.
Longer periods of fasting reduce testosterone, which probably negates whatever GH benefit it provides: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9182756/
And why would your body go out of its way to preserve metabolically more expensive tissue during longer periods of deprivation?