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The power of intermittent fasting

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#11

Post by sandGorgon »

The article is not very clear behind the science of intermittent fasting - for those who are interested, do definitely read Alan Aragon's article [1] as well as /r/advancedfitness.

My personal view is that meal frequency is irrelevant for body biochemistry. What is happening is CNS (central nervous sytem) Adaptation - you are, for the first time, truly understanding how really hungry you are. Your body begins to understand that it does NOT need to eat breakfast, or eat something every 4 hours or eat a dozen nachos as an evening snack. When this happens, you automatically balance out on calories in vs calories out and you start losing weight.

I think this is a workaround for a bug in our brain - it makes pessimistic predictions for food availability and hunger responses.

[1] http://www.alanaragon.com/an-objective-look-at-intermittent-...

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#12

Post by Swizec »

sandGorgon wrote: post #11

The article is not very clear behind the science of intermittent fasting - for those who are interested, do definitely read Alan Aragon's article [1] as well as /r/advancedfitness. My personal view is that meal frequency is irrelevant for body biochemistry. What is happening is CNS (central nervous sytem) Adaptation - you are, for the first time, truly understanding how really hungry you are. Your body begins to unde…

I would wager this depends a lot on the type of activity you're doing.

Sometimes after a really hard boxing practice I can be so hungry that I physically can't eat any more food, but I'm still hungry. And no, it isn't just a bug in the brain, the calorie tracker also agrees that I haven't eaten enough.

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#13

Post by harscoat »

Here you can rate if those "fasting" methods/lifehacks works or not: https://didthis-actionwiki.appspot.com/tag/fasting

To create new ones: https://didthis-actionwiki.appspot.com/create, or fork those already in eg. https://didthis-actionwiki.appspot.com/intermittent%20fastin... (just add "/copy" at the end of the action link).

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#14

Post by maeon3 »

Fast too much and your body goes into famine mode, where your fat storage management system is convinced that this month's food catch is low, and it is likely this will be a lean year. Therefore store everything you can to fat and keep energy outputs low. Causing obesity.

When I was 26 ish, i fasted for 3 days. I'm 30 now. Dumbest thing i ever did. I gained weight from that DAY I started eating again forward, and it's been a battle of the buldge ever since.

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#15

Post by sandGorgon »

Swizec wrote: post #12
sandGorgon wrote: post #11

The article is not very clear behind the science of intermittent fasting - for those who are interested, do definitely read Alan Aragon's article [1] as well as /r/advancedfitness. My personal view is that meal frequency is irrelevant for body biochemistry. What is happening is CNS (central nervous sytem) Adaptation - you are, for the first time, truly understanding how really hungry you are. Your body begins to unde…

I would wager this depends a lot on the type of activity you're doing. Sometimes after a really hard boxing practice I can be so hungry that I physically can't eat any more food, but I'm still hungry. And no, it isn't just a bug in the brain, the calorie tracker also agrees that I haven't eaten enough.

very true - but one is not asking you not to eat after a boxing session. One is asking you not to eat anything for the other 16 hours (assuming eating and boxing fall in the 8 hour block) - which is when your body, conditioned by Kellogs, starts sending panic signals.

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#16

Post by sandGorgon »

maeon3 wrote: post #14

Fast too much and your body goes into famine mode, where your fat storage management system is convinced that this month's food catch is low, and it is likely this will be a lean year. Therefore store everything you can to fat and keep energy outputs low. Causing obesity. When I was 26 ish, i fasted for 3 days. I'm 30 now. Dumbest thing i ever did. I gained weight from that DAY I started eating again forward, and it'…

There have been many, many papers that show that starvation mode does not kick in until after about 36-48 hours of fasting. Intermittent fasting is usually a 16-24 hour fast.

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#17

Post by jamiecurle »

maeon3 wrote: post #14

Fast too much and your body goes into famine mode, where your fat storage management system is convinced that this month's food catch is low, and it is likely this will be a lean year. Therefore store everything you can to fat and keep energy outputs low. Causing obesity. When I was 26 ish, i fasted for 3 days. I'm 30 now. Dumbest thing i ever did. I gained weight from that DAY I started eating again forward, and it'…

Do you attribute your three day fast as the only, or main, factor to your 'battle of the bulge'?

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#18

Post by jamiecurle »

sandGorgon wrote: post #16
maeon3 wrote: post #14

Fast too much and your body goes into famine mode, where your fat storage management system is convinced that this month's food catch is low, and it is likely this will be a lean year. Therefore store everything you can to fat and keep energy outputs low. Causing obesity. When I was 26 ish, i fasted for 3 days. I'm 30 now. Dumbest thing i ever did. I gained weight from that DAY I started eating again forward, and it'…

There have been many, many papers that show that starvation mode does not kick in until after about 36-48 hours of fasting. Intermittent fasting is usually a 16-24 hour fast.

For those interesting in the papers [Leangains][0] has a long informative narrative connecting the papers together.

[0]: http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debun...

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#19

Post by jacques_chester »

maeon3 wrote: post #14

Fast too much and your body goes into famine mode, where your fat storage management system is convinced that this month's food catch is low, and it is likely this will be a lean year. Therefore store everything you can to fat and keep energy outputs low. Causing obesity. When I was 26 ish, i fasted for 3 days. I'm 30 now. Dumbest thing i ever did. I gained weight from that DAY I started eating again forward, and it'…

The "starvation mode" idea comes from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

Wherein the subjects were starved. And are you ready for the punchline?

For months.

There is such a thing as a starvation response. A slight drop in basal metabolic rate, an increase in cortisol and a bunch of other changes. Psychologically, subjects were obsessed with food.

But it takes time to kick in. Weeks. Months even.

One or two days is not going to do it.

Re: The power of intermittent fasting

#20

Post by lucisferre »

jamiecurle wrote: post #17
maeon3 wrote: post #14

Fast too much and your body goes into famine mode, where your fat storage management system is convinced that this month's food catch is low, and it is likely this will be a lean year. Therefore store everything you can to fat and keep energy outputs low. Causing obesity. When I was 26 ish, i fasted for 3 days. I'm 30 now. Dumbest thing i ever did. I gained weight from that DAY I started eating again forward, and it'…

Do you attribute your three day fast as the only, or main, factor to your 'battle of the bulge'?

Yes, this is not a particularly scientific study here.
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