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Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#111

Post by Robin_Message »

dharmach wrote: post #80
sn0v wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you notice any long term (lasting) effects after those four months? Also, any particular reason you stopped? Thanks.

The book "The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition" mentioned about the group not able to eat carbohydrate for months. They had only animal products available to survive. They complained about lack of stamina and each physical tasks taking a lot longer to complete.

They were stuck on an Antarctic ice floe for 497 days, and you think it was the lack of carbs that reduced their stamina? What about the debilitating cold, the crushing expectation of a lonely death, or the general ice-induced boredom?

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#112

Post by Nimi »

bobowzki wrote: post #108
Nimi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to read be your response to this - genuinely asking here (skip to 37:30) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RXvBveht0

Thanks for bringing my attention to this interesting video. I can't really comment on the facts since I neither read all the studies or had time to watch the whole video. I'm not an expert in nutrition so this is my personal opinion. I think he's raising some valid points: * It's a surprisingly difficult subject to study. * There're a lot of bad studies. * There're a lot of dubious conclusions. However, losing weight…

Thanks for replying.

So why are you still of the opinion that losing weight is just a matter of energy balance? Are you familiar with other studies which have shown this claim to be correct?

As you can probably tell, I'm a low carber myself, but I'm genuinely curious to understand how did the "energy balance" consensus opinion form. It seems that currently, both opinions aren't rooted in scientific studies. BTW, there's an initiative called nusi.org that attempts to solve this once and for all (by proving low carb diets are right and everyone else is wrong, of course :-)

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#113

Post by bane »

tokenizer wrote: post #35
bobowzki wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a physician. While it's good to lose weight (at least if you are overweight), keep in mind that losing weight is not the only interesting outcome. Any diet might have long term side effects. Such as an increased risk of cancer, arteriosclerosis etc. Also remember that weight loss is not the only benefit of exercise. That said, congrats on losing weight. Now start exercising :-)

Regarding the diet above, which limits your sugar intake to 20 grams a day, what are some potential consequences of starving your body of sugars? Sounds good in theory (sugar is bad), but it sounds stressful (body starts producing ketones due to suck a lack of sugar, flu like symptoms for a week).

I did a diet like this years ago.

One of the possibly side effects is decreased kidney function from the rapid increase of proteins in the diet (which don't metabolize very cleanly compared to fasts or carbohydrates). People with kidney issues or possible problems should avoid these diets. Kidney stones are much more common IIR.

Another is lower bowel problems as these diets frequently don't have enough fiber in them to keep things moving.

I lost a ton of weight (about 60 pounds) but I also had some weird problems that made me give it up:

- I felt unbelievably hungry all the time. Even after eating a huge meal. This is supposed to go away after a few weeks, but months into the diet I still felt like this.

- I felt like grease was oozing out of me at all times. I just felt icky and couldn't ever feel completely clean.

- My hair and fingernails grew at astonishing rates. I was cutting my nails every 3 or 4 days at one point.

- I had wretched B.O.

- I was constipated all the time. Low-carb fiber supplements solved this.

Good things:

- My mental clarity was unbelievable. You don't get drowsy in the middle of the day, and you don't really need anything to help wake up.

- I was doing lots of sports then and injuries healed so fast I felt like Wolverine. I never bruised during this time and I was doing full contact kickboxing.

- I was easily the strongest I've ever been.

- Weight loss was pretty constant till I hit a nice comfortable plateau at a good weight for me (a little under 160).

I've also done vegetarian diets and for a brief spell vegan diets. It's hard to compare how much better I felt overall on the first diet than the vegetable based ones though.

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#114

Post by DrPhish »

jaiball wrote: post #92
brassybadger wrote: post #67

Interesting to see how mainstream intermittent fasting has become. It's worth noting where it started. A few years ago a few hardcore fitness fanatics started playing with the idea of using controlled fasting for weight loss and/or body recomposition. Two people that should be mentioned are Lyle McDonald[1] and Martin Berkhan[2]. Martin especially made IF popular via his blog, laying out the principles he used as a f…

Another recommendation for Leangains.com - been following it for over a year and have seen good results. Although I haven't followed the protocol to the letter - I eat a good amount of junk food during the week, but also good food as well. The point is to narrow your window of time that you eat during the day. I believe I could be doing even better if I concentrated on eating better and cutting out the crap, but now…

I also have a couple of years of leangains under my belt. Doing the fasted early morning training (modified stronglifts) with a feeding windows 10am-6pm. It gives me energy, I don't ever really feel hungry and my muscle gains have been good. Only thing is you really have to watch your macros. You can still gain fat on IF. I made it down to 9% BF by watching caloric intake and when I decided to just try eating as much of whatever I wanted to get some bulk I gained weight and BF (now 16%). Recomp (losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time) is hard and slow

Best part is that it has been a cinch to stick to. I simply don't get hungry during that 16h window

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#115

Post by maxerickson »

Nimi wrote: post #112
bobowzki wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for bringing my attention to this interesting video. I can't really comment on the facts since I neither read all the studies or had time to watch the whole video. I'm not an expert in nutrition so this is my personal opinion. I think he's raising some valid points: * It's a surprisingly difficult subject to study. * There're a lot of bad studies. * There're a lot of dubious conclusions. However, losing weight…

Thanks for replying. So why are you still of the opinion that losing weight is just a matter of energy balance? Are you familiar with other studies which have shown this claim to be correct? As you can probably tell, I'm a low carber myself, but I'm genuinely curious to understand how did the "energy balance" consensus opinion form. It seems that currently, both opinions aren't rooted in scientific studies. BTW, ther…

It's a simple matter of physics and biology that it comes down to energy balance.

The hard part is accurately measuring inputs and outputs and whether some diets will make it easier for a given individual to maintain their inputs below their outputs.

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#116

Post by encoderer »

rickdale wrote: post #53

Been doing IF every day since July 1, 2013. Before that I was eating slow-carb diet and had lost about 50lbs. When I started doing IF, I was lifting pretty heavy and after the first week I had gained weight. I was pissed because I was hungry all the time it seemed, but I gained weight this week? Huh? Well, fast forward to now, and I put about 20 pounds since July 1, and yet I am not fatter. I am muscular. It's weird,…

I too only have 1 meal a day. Some days (few a month?) I cheat, mostly for social reasons. It's hard to refuse every lunch request.

Usually, though, I have an apple and cup of tea about 2PM. Dinner about 8. So I'm doing all my eating in a 6 hour window, fasting the other 18 hours, every day.

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#117

Post by blktiger »

vidarh wrote: post #52
Theodores wrote: post #39

A lot of the diets mentioned on this thread are a long way from the diet used in this article. Note it is not mentioned in the article, however it is mostly vegetables with some fish. That is a long way from 'chipotle'!!! It is worth bearing in mind that a lot of things we consider to be food really does not want to be food. Grains want to be carried away by the wind to plant themselves somewhere else. Their ancestor…

> It is worth bearing in mind that a lot of things we consider to be food really does not want to be food. What they want is irrelevant. As they evolved to avoid being eaten, so we evolved to be able to obtains, eat and digest it. It's not a one-sided process of providing us with a ready made menu. > At this stage the cult of eating dead animals was borne Why do you assume we did not eat animals "in the trees"? Is th…

Not to mention many poisonous fruit that looks just like other, non-poisonous fruit.

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#118

Post by mortenjorck »

Theodores wrote: post #39

A lot of the diets mentioned on this thread are a long way from the diet used in this article. Note it is not mentioned in the article, however it is mostly vegetables with some fish. That is a long way from 'chipotle'!!! It is worth bearing in mind that a lot of things we consider to be food really does not want to be food. Grains want to be carried away by the wind to plant themselves somewhere else. Their ancestor…

  Grains want to be carried away by the wind to plant themselves somewhere else.
This is the very definition of a fruit, against which you're drawing an emotionally-charged, pseudoscientific distinction. It's a seed-bearing structure that evolved to be carried to another location to be planted.

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#119

Post by WalterBright »

Theodores wrote: post #109
ronaldx wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not one single animal, insect or fish has evolved specifically to be eaten. This is an attractive statement but is not trivial: I would question it. (with the caveat that evolution is a passive process) Species may gain evolutionary benefit from being eaten: the weakest of the species are pruned, leaving the strongest candidates. Using toxins to avoid being eaten might have a short-term benefit but a longer-term pe…

I would like to know how your comment would fare at the Natural History Museum. This type of thought goes around the building for a long time... I cannot think of an example where 'free food for predators' is part of the deal. I can see why lots of eggs are produced in the hope that some get to survive, but that is not the same as deliberately producing 'free food for predators' that also happens to be 'designed to b…

Mice come to mind. If there was no predation, wouldn't they rapidly overrun their food supply?

Re: Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

#120

Post by brassybadger »

dudurocha wrote: post #107
brassybadger wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "clean eating" thing is mostly a fad. Nobody has managed to define what food is "clean" and what is not (see e.g. what the typical bodybuilder thinks is clean, and what someone doing paleo, what the average dietitian recommends, etc). The only important things are 1) the number of calories you eat, and 2) what nutrients your diet provides. When I'm cutting, I don't make a fuss about "junk food", as long as…

Do you mean: 1000 kcalories of fries and soda == 1000 kcalories of vegetables, fruits and grains?

If you're only looking into weight loss/gain, then yes. Both are terrible choices as a diet, though. The latter will provide more nutrients, so we can call it 'healthier', but you will lack important ones still, and significantly undereat if you are an adult male of average weight and height.
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