10 ms·

Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body

158 points by gps408 13y ago

gojomo 13y ago
I find it frustrating when people often discuss experience with 'intermittent fasting' without describing exactly what they mean. The term ranges over lots of approaches. I've seen it used to describe just 8 hours (perhaps every/most days) without food, to a full day or couple of days without food (perhaps every other day or once per week or two), to other things, as is the case here. Fortunately, clicking through to another article in the series (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25498742 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25498742) gives more details about what was tested here: The food, during the [5-consecutive-day] period of the restricted diet, was designed to be highly nutritious. It consisted of plant-based soups, kale chips, a nutty bar, a herbal tea and an energy drink. The total number of calories, in five days, was about 2,500 - a little more than the average person consumes in one day. No additional food was allowed. For the rest of the month we were allowed a normal diet. The regime was repeated three times, followed by a control period, when we could eat anything.
- Keats 13y ago
  8h without food wouldn't be intermittent fasting unless everyone does it when sleeping. There is one diet type quite popular right now in fitness called Leangains which calls for about 16h of fasting and a 8h eating window (granted that you can reduce the eating window if you feel like it). Some people even reduce the eating window to just one meal (warrior diet).
  - awjr 13y ago
    Isn't this just skipping breakfast?
    - rosser 13y ago
      That is, in fact, one of the more common forms of IF: one or two days a week, don't eat until the evening meal (and, depending on your specific practice, perhaps eat only lightly then).
    - vidarh 13y ago
      If you usually have long enough between meals that skipping breakfast gives you a 16h period without any food, then sure. When people do leangains they also do tend to focus on getting more protein etc. though, which can turn the 8h eating window into a big ordeal - I struggle to get the calories I need in two meals on Leangains due to the amount of protein I take; I keep wanting to skip the second meal because I'm still so full.
    - Keats 13y ago
      In some ways it is skipping breakfast. As vidarh mentionned, you also have to take into accounts macros (carbs/fat/proteins split) and having to eat 3500kcal in 2 meals can be tough sometimes (in the weekend i often do a 6h or so). I've eaten that way pretty much all my life so it was easy for me to adapt (it mainly consisted of more proteins and alternating more carbs on workout days/more fat on rest days). I made a quick calculator the other day if you want to see how it would look like http://vincent.is/working-on/leangains http://vincent.is/working-on/leangains (github https://github.com/Keats/kCalculator https://github.com/Keats/kCalculator if any angularjs dev want to review some code of an angular newbie!)
    - isleyaardvark 13y ago
      Skipping breakfast and not eating anything after 8pm, typically.
  - kolev 13y ago
    For nearly a year, I've been just having coffee with MCT oil in the morning, which pretty much keeps you satiated until 4 pm when I get a light "lunch" and then eat dinner around 9 pm. No hunger ever, no snacking, a few pound of weight loss even though I've increased my calories (get tons from the chunks of grass-fed cheese). Calorie counting is oversimplification of the complex metabolic processes in the human body and ignore major components such as hormones, thermogenesis, etc. Also, I don't get how sane people can accept that boosting your metabolism is healthier (like eating 5 times a day, exercising, etc.). It can't possibly be. Aging is a natural method of dealing the increasing cancer risk. Also, the faster your metabolism is, the sooner you will reach the Hayflick limit!
stickydink 13y ago
I don't think we're even close to really understanding how the body works here. I'm not obese, but I gain weight from eating a little more, very easily. Last summer, I followed a Keto ("ultra low carb, high fat, medium protein") diet for about 4 months. After the first week of feeling terrible, a well-known side effect, I felt perfectly fine. It felt like I was binge eating, I limited what I could eat and just went mad eating it. Any time I was remotely hungry, grab an approved snack. A big plate of bacon and eggs for breakfast, Chipotle for lunch, and a hefty meal for dinner. I never went hungry, and as someone who likes food, it felt more like a treat than a diet. Colleagues thought I was trying to gain weight, and my girlfriend thought I'd gone mad with hunger. But the fat melted off. I didn't walk into a gym in those 3 months, and dropped 2-3lbs a week (starting ~250 at 6"3'), every single week. I'm not saying it's perfect, or even viable for everybody -- it's not cheap, it's awkward to eat with friends, and the first week or two can be hell. Despite what people have been told, fat won't make you fat, and Keto has been shown over and over to reduce the risk factors for heart disease, 'cure' diabetics, and provide huge body transformations. For anyone interested, /r/keto is a reasonably mature community, and can provide a lot more information.
- fulmato 13y ago
  On top of /r/keto Dr. Peter Attia has a great blog on this topic http://eatingacademy.com/ http://eatingacademy.com/ It's a great resource for a more scientific explanation of what happens to the metabolism when keto-adapted and on the effects of carbohydrates and more importantly insulin.
- sn0v 13y ago
  Did you notice any long term (lasting) effects after those four months? Also, any particular reason you stopped? Thanks.
  - stickydink 13y ago
    After I stopped, and started eating regularly again, I found nothing different at all. One of the side effects, is that you're really susceptible to alcohol. One beer, and I'd be really feeling it. Whereas before, I could drink 3 without really noticing. After I stopped, my tolerance was still pretty low, though it's fine now. I don't know if the low tolerance afterwards could be the diet specifically, or just whether I'd not really drank in 4 months. I stopped because it was just too awkward. Living with my girlfriend, it was annoying that we had to cook separately (she only believes in low calorie, zombie cardio 5 days a week). We could only go out to dinner at certain places, which got a bit tedious. And to be honest, I'd done pretty well, and was back to the sort of weight I wanted to be at. The toss up between the cost/awkwardness, and the amount of weight I still had to lose, it wasn't worth the hassle. Though, if I ever need to lose weight again (hopefully never), I wouldn't even dream of anything else.
awjr 13y ago
Looks like a derivation on the 5/2 diet. The 25/5 diet. My personal issue with these types of diets is that my concentration levels initially drop. I find the first couple of days extremely uncomfortable. The best lifestyle change I've made is to drastically cut down on carbs, generally avoiding wheat and try never to eat sugar, in particular fructose. Note this doesn't stop me eating carbs but that I generally try and avoid them in my day to day eating. I no longer feel tired in the afternoon. I also cycle to work.
- dualogy 13y ago
  What did wheat do to you? Are you a celiac, or are there other reasons one might be interested in avoiding it?
  - beagle3 13y ago
    Not op - My experience is that all grains (corn, rice, wheat) make me bloated and puffy, regardless of caloric content. Wheat is by far the worst offender, also making my breath shorter about 30-60 minutes after eating, lasting a couple of hours, and corn not having an immediately noticeable effect, but causing bloating that will stay for days. Not celiac, and not anything life threatening, but definitely a huge effect. After dropping wheat, I lost 30 lbs in one month, and it stayed off for 18 month without wheat (but some came on again after a week of eating mostly corn products - which is how I discovered that corn is evil too) The best way to determine if this is relevant to you is not to read books or articles or consult with a doctor: rather, take a week or two off grains (much harder than it sounds - wheat and corn are used as fillers in many products), and then adding them sporadically and keeping a journal (what and when you ate each day; and whether you felt good/bad the next hour/day) Not easy, but well worth it and not expensive.
    - awjr 13y ago
      Please please do this. It's what I did. If you find similar affects, this can be life changing in a very very beneficial way.
  - awjr 13y ago
Tarang 13y ago
There was a very interesting documentary on intermittent fasting on BBC Horizon titled 'Eat, Fast, Live Longer' where Michael Mosley experimented with himself fasting trying different types of fasting including intermittent fasting. It did help him alot but the cool thing was there was a guy who lived on a meal a day which had athlete like body fat levels. There's also a runner, Fauja Singh, who ran a marathon at 101 years of age featured in it who practices something close to intermittent fasting [1] It was extremely interesting and I do feel after watching it that 3 meals a day is something conjured by man but may not really be all that natural. Link to episode intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHDBIaibok http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHDBIaibok [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauja_Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauja_Singh
nodata 13y ago
This sounds awfully like regular crash dieting.
- rosser 13y ago
  "Crash dieting", as commonly practiced, is to eat less until your weight goals have been reached, and then go back to "normal". IF is hardly that; instead, it's a controlled pattern of regularly, and for specific durations, reducing your caloric intake. Some IF practitioners use a 6:1 cycle, where they have one fast day a week, some 5:2, and yet others 25:5, as in TFA. Some just take a random fast day whenever they feel like it, even. IF is much less about weight than it is the other, generally scientifically demonstrated benefits of reduced caloric intake — though it does tend to confer some benefit in weight reduction as well.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    And some just reduce the window of food intake within the day. E.g. leangains is 16 hours fasted, 8 hours or less eating window. > IF is much less about weight than it is the other, generally scientifically demonstrated benefits of reduced caloric intake That depends on the type of IF. Again Leangains is not specifically about calorie reduction, but about obtaining some of the benefit of being in a fasted state part of the day coupled with avoiding adding body fat, which for many who uses Leangains still means consciously adding weight.
    - jaiball 13y ago
      Agreed. The fasted state is key here, giving the body a chance not to be processing food. After doing this for a while I can't understand the deal with eating small meals a bunch of times a day.
piyushpr134 13y ago
This is not really a new thing. In India, fasting is a like a culture. More common with females though. Some of them fast like once every week. There are festivals which are based around fasting. Like Karvachauth, in which girls fast for their husbands etc (we are not very feminist yet). There are festivals during which people fast for straight 2-10 days! (chath, durga puja, somwari etc). Even in Islam, during ramzaan people fast everyday for 30 days . They eat before dawn break and eat again after dusk.
- beagle3 13y ago
  Note that in ramadaan they also don't drink any water during the day; and many who can afford to, flip their schedule to sleep through the day so they can eat at night. Also, according to superfreakonomics, this wreaks havoc on gestating babies. Seems like all harm and no benefit fasting (which, perhaps is the idea - Jewish fasting on Yom Kippur is specifically spoused to be a soul-torture/soul-searching experience - both translations are valid - although it is often not experienced as either)
  - uberalex 13y ago
    It's also worth noting that typically people gain weight during Ramadan. They eat way more, richer food as it's a time of celebration and dehydration from the day. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/cairo-the-sun-slips-beyond-the-nile-and-the-fast-is-broken-as-they-have-done-for-centuries-during-the-holy-month-of-ramad.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/cairo-the-...
  - sfjailbird 13y ago
    Pregnant women are exempt from fasting during ramadan.
    - beagle3 13y ago
      So are Jewish woman on Yom Kippur - but many of them still fast; enough to change date-of-birth distribution for Jews and health-of-newborns for Muslims.
iagomr 13y ago
It also might have given cancer to Steve Jobs
- khafra 13y ago
  Citation? I've seen a lot of studies saying intermittent fasting might not help bodyfat loss as much as you'd hope; but no studies saying it increases cancer risk.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
collyw 13y ago
I am really interested in intermittent fasting for the health benefits, having watched BBC's Horizon on it. The thing is I am fairly skinny, and struggle to put on weight. Does anyone know if I am likely to loose weight? And are there any good site to learn about it in a fairly scientific way? I see lots of blogs, but never sure how much is worth reading.
- dualogy 13y ago
  I have for a time put on weight during intermittent fasting (daily 16-19h fast) easily, simply by ingesting excess calories in the "feeding window" for days/weeks on end. If you need 2000 a day and eat 2500-3000 a day or more (averaged over a longer time span), fasting isn't going to reverse that fact. Sometimes it is as simple as calories-in-calories-out.. I did this on purpose to grow some muscle, but some of the "gains" in that approach will always be bodyfat.
Theodores 13y ago
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 ancestors invariably had toxins in them to dissuade any creatures (including us) from eating them. Not one single animal, insect or fish has evolved specifically to be eaten. Hence the wide range of defensive measures most animals/insects/fish have to make sure that does not happen too often. Again, toxins come into play. As you move up the food chain so you get an accumulation of those toxins, hence we tend not to eat apex predators. Compare and contrast with fruit. Fruit has evolved specifically to be eaten, particularly by primates. The idea being that we eat some fruit, wander off to somewhere new, have a dump, eject some seeds from the fruit complete with a handy amount of manure and water. Yep, those pesky plants tricked us into doing all of their work for them! They even managed to get us to cover up our leavings, thereby planting their seeds properly. Our vision system co-evolved with fruit, we (as in primates) see in colour not because god wanted us to live in some world of puppies and rainbows but so we could eat fruit that is ripe and ready to eat. The plants, knowing that we were evolving colour vision, kindly evolved through some process of natural selection to produce fruit that kick in to 'eat me' colours when they are nice 'n' ripe. With this colour coded system it is possible for plants to avoid waste. We (as in primates) only pick the ripe fruit, the stuff that is still green is identifiably no good to us so we leave it until it magically changes colour. Obviously there came a time when grasslands took over and we had to leave the trees, learn to stand up and walk on two feet (so we could see over the grass) and find new meals to try. At this stage the cult of eating dead animals was borne, we adapted, but not that much, our intestines are still a million miles longer than that of a dog, we still have hands for nabbling fruit rather than vicious claws to rip apart stray wildebeest and we can still chew, as you need to do for fruit, in a way dogs don't do. Much like how multi-vitamins are of dubious benefit to you, so it is with fructose. Sugars in fruit are fine, nobody has died of diabetes due to eating too many apples. The 'fibre' is an important part of it, you need 'fibre' if you are to consume sucrose. The problem with diet in America is corn. There is nothing edible about corn grown in America today unless it has been processed by an industrial process or another animal first. All of those corn-stuffed animals Americans eat get killed before the corn kills them. If Americans are not careful they will be remembered as 'the corn people' like some of those American Indian tribes that tried and failed to build corn-based civilisations in pre-Columbian times.
hatu 13y ago
Here's the thing I don't like about fasting - how are you supposed to work out while you're fasting? I can't imagine going to the gym eating 500 calories a day without passing out.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Intermittent fasting does not imply anything about calorie amount on a daily basis. I do IF now and again, and what makes me take periods off is that I get absolutely sick and tired of food on IF because I always feel stuffed. My calorie intake on exercise days on IF is about 2800kcal (as a 6'1 male with a current weight of 108kg/238lbs and a substantially above average muscle volume), which usually meant a lunch consisting of 1800+ calories of protein heavy food. I'd usually exercise fasted (I do power lifting) apart from a low quantity of bcaa's, and have my first meal at noon. But in fact, you adjust to going to the gym on low calorie diets too. Intensity may suffer, but it's certainly possible.
- thinkr 13y ago
  A variation of intermittent fasting that is geared towards those that workout/weightlift is called leangains which you can learn about at leangains.com and r/leangains. I have been doing it for over 2 years and I lift fasted. You may feel light headed the first few times you do it (so go lighter on weights) but you get used to it. I do squats and deadlifts fasted no problem.
- mswen 13y ago
  I started a Lean Gains style fasting approach in Oct 2012. My version has me stop eating by 8PM and not eat again for about 15 to 18 hours. I work out right before the end of my fast. I lift weights 3 days a week and run 2 days a week. These are vigorous workouts lasting 35 to 50 minutes. My body has adapted! Initially I couldn't lift as much nor run quite as quickly while working out on empty, but the fat melted off nicely at about a pound a week for the first 6 months. My weight then stabilized for about 3 months. In the last few months I have been trying a very slow bulk while still keeping to the schedule. Trying to eat above maintenance level and add muscle. It seems to be working I have put back on about 7 pounds and I estimate that about 4 of those are muscle. And, my personal bests in weight lifting have just recently been matched. I have to say that overall I am very pleased with the results of this style of intermittent fasting and the ability to keep working out. Having said all that, I am thinking that this year I would like to experiment with some longer fasts of 24 to 36 hours. I anticipate that I will need to significantly reduce the intensity of my workout during that kind of fast.
rickdale 13y ago
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, and yes I was lifting, but fasting helped my body get from that chubby kid phase to, 'oh wow, I think I am almost ripped'. There are definitely some real benefits to fasting and no one will tell you that because they can't sell it to you in a pill. Something really intriguing to me about fasting for 24hrs+ and then having to eat. For me, I crave healthy foods at that point and I also have the instinct to stuff my face and thus one meal/day works for that. It's tough to eat a bunch of crap when you are only eating once/day. Finally, if you are interested in IF, I recommend reading up on Ori Hofmekler. He is the type of guy who's ideas are so crazy at first they are brushed off. Then science proves him right. http://www.amazon.com/The-Warrior-Diet-Biological-Powerhouse/dp/1583942009 http://www.amazon.com/The-Warrior-Diet-Biological-Powerhouse...
- encoderer 13y ago
  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.
  - rickdale 13y ago
    For lunch requests my go to excuse to people is that I am in the middle of a fast. Thus, I don't mind going to eat with them, I dont seem weird for eating healthy, and for whatever reason, people have been more understanding of the fasting excuse over, oooo I cant eat that. But with cheating in general, I will move the hours of fast around. So if I do go to a lunch, I'll probably eat pretty damn big and then fast until 6-8 the next day, make a good dinner. It's funny how much you enjoy food when you learn how to eat.
brassybadger 13y ago
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 fitness consultant with his clients. Most research (and especially the commercial IF knockoffs) only take some part of these principles, but the "diet" part is only part of the picture when it comes to body recomposition. It's almost worthless without the rest (high intensity, low volume weight training, basic compound movements, progressive overload, no focus on cardio). Quite a few people/company are trying to rip off customers via their IF programs knockoffs and supplements. If you want give IF a shot, read through Martin's blog, and try the original Leangains protocol. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ [2] http://www.leangains.com/ http://www.leangains.com/
- jaiball 13y ago
  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 have a pretty good balance of being in shape and being able to eat what I want. Dr Mercola also has some really good articles on IF - www.mercola.com
  - brassybadger 13y ago
    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 I'm below my calorie intake limit and I'm not missing any important nutrient. Usually hovering around 20% junk food.
leshow 13y ago
if the study didn't control total calories between groups, the improved health markers on his tests were likely a result of lower total calories over time. i.e. the studies probably did not match calories between groups.
pjotr 13y ago
I guess this is one of the reasons Our Lady in Medjugorje has been calling us to fast on bread and water every Wednesday and Friday.
epipsychidion 13y ago
It's impossible to have an actual discussion about this in a non-moderated forum given how eager people are to talk about their personal experiences rather than the actual content of the article. For an amusing overview of some research on intermittent fasting (mildly NSFW) - http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Research http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Research
rficcaglia 13y ago
Maintaining a program year after year is more important to long term health than the immediate benefits of any diet. Most any diet studied shows a short term benefit. Even just participating in a study (placebo effect) usually happens short term. But few diets have notable retention rates after 2 years. Having lost >30 lb multiple times and having regained more each cycle, the problem (for me) is that work, stress, sleep deprivation, children, family crises, work crises, business travel, etc. present significant obstacles to any extreme protocols. I tried IF for 6 months; it worked short term. But I felt so unfocused and unstable during the fast days that it was difficult for me to maintain. My latest effort (lost >100 lb, for over a year) has greatly simplified things - eat lots of veggies before I eat protein or other foods for any meal. No other restrictions, calorie counting, or biochemistry hacks. Very easy to eat out, travel, maintain. I did not join a gym or buy equipment this time - instead I walk to work (5 miles each way.) Also maintain sleep program - no more evening alcohol or coffee.
- brazzy 13y ago
  What has been working for me (I've lost 8kg in 4 months) is Weight Watchers - not the meetings, just access to their points-rated food database via Web and App, which makes keeping track of your points budget reasonably convenient. The biggest advantage is that you don't have to make any fundamental changes to your diet or habits and it's flexible enough to accommodate occasional big, unhealthy meals - so there's not too much self control necessary to stick with it. It also subtly pushes you towards eating fruit and veggies because most of those have no points and thus can be eaten at any time, as much as you want.

158 points by gps408 13y ago

I find it frustrating when people often discuss experience with 'intermittent fasting' without describing exactly what they mean. The term ranges over lots of approaches. I've seen it used to describe just 8 hours (perhaps every/most days) without food, to a full day or couple of days without food (perhaps every other day or once per week or two), to other things, as is the case here. Fortunately, clicking through to another article in the series (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25498742 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25498742) gives more details about what was tested here: The food, during the [5-consecutive-day] period of the restricted diet, was designed to be highly nutritious. It consisted of plant-based soups, kale chips, a nutty bar, a herbal tea and an energy drink. The total number of calories, in five days, was about 2,500 - a little more than the average person consumes in one day. No additional food was allowed. For the rest of the month we were allowed a normal diet. The regime was repeated three times, followed by a control period, when we could eat anything.

Keats 13y ago
8h without food wouldn't be intermittent fasting unless everyone does it when sleeping. There is one diet type quite popular right now in fitness called Leangains which calls for about 16h of fasting and a 8h eating window (granted that you can reduce the eating window if you feel like it). Some people even reduce the eating window to just one meal (warrior diet).
- awjr 13y ago
  Isn't this just skipping breakfast?
  - rosser 13y ago
    That is, in fact, one of the more common forms of IF: one or two days a week, don't eat until the evening meal (and, depending on your specific practice, perhaps eat only lightly then).
  - vidarh 13y ago
    If you usually have long enough between meals that skipping breakfast gives you a 16h period without any food, then sure. When people do leangains they also do tend to focus on getting more protein etc. though, which can turn the 8h eating window into a big ordeal - I struggle to get the calories I need in two meals on Leangains due to the amount of protein I take; I keep wanting to skip the second meal because I'm still so full.
  - Keats 13y ago
    In some ways it is skipping breakfast. As vidarh mentionned, you also have to take into accounts macros (carbs/fat/proteins split) and having to eat 3500kcal in 2 meals can be tough sometimes (in the weekend i often do a 6h or so). I've eaten that way pretty much all my life so it was easy for me to adapt (it mainly consisted of more proteins and alternating more carbs on workout days/more fat on rest days). I made a quick calculator the other day if you want to see how it would look like http://vincent.is/working-on/leangains http://vincent.is/working-on/leangains (github https://github.com/Keats/kCalculator https://github.com/Keats/kCalculator if any angularjs dev want to review some code of an angular newbie!)
  - isleyaardvark 13y ago
    Skipping breakfast and not eating anything after 8pm, typically.
- kolev 13y ago
  For nearly a year, I've been just having coffee with MCT oil in the morning, which pretty much keeps you satiated until 4 pm when I get a light "lunch" and then eat dinner around 9 pm. No hunger ever, no snacking, a few pound of weight loss even though I've increased my calories (get tons from the chunks of grass-fed cheese). Calorie counting is oversimplification of the complex metabolic processes in the human body and ignore major components such as hormones, thermogenesis, etc. Also, I don't get how sane people can accept that boosting your metabolism is healthier (like eating 5 times a day, exercising, etc.). It can't possibly be. Aging is a natural method of dealing the increasing cancer risk. Also, the faster your metabolism is, the sooner you will reach the Hayflick limit!

stickydink 13y ago

I don't think we're even close to really understanding how the body works here. I'm not obese, but I gain weight from eating a little more, very easily. Last summer, I followed a Keto ("ultra low carb, high fat, medium protein") diet for about 4 months. After the first week of feeling terrible, a well-known side effect, I felt perfectly fine. It felt like I was binge eating, I limited what I could eat and just went mad eating it. Any time I was remotely hungry, grab an approved snack. A big plate of bacon and eggs for breakfast, Chipotle for lunch, and a hefty meal for dinner. I never went hungry, and as someone who likes food, it felt more like a treat than a diet. Colleagues thought I was trying to gain weight, and my girlfriend thought I'd gone mad with hunger. But the fat melted off. I didn't walk into a gym in those 3 months, and dropped 2-3lbs a week (starting ~250 at 6"3'), every single week. I'm not saying it's perfect, or even viable for everybody -- it's not cheap, it's awkward to eat with friends, and the first week or two can be hell. Despite what people have been told, fat won't make you fat, and Keto has been shown over and over to reduce the risk factors for heart disease, 'cure' diabetics, and provide huge body transformations. For anyone interested, /r/keto is a reasonably mature community, and can provide a lot more information.

fulmato 13y ago
On top of /r/keto Dr. Peter Attia has a great blog on this topic http://eatingacademy.com/ http://eatingacademy.com/ It's a great resource for a more scientific explanation of what happens to the metabolism when keto-adapted and on the effects of carbohydrates and more importantly insulin.
sn0v 13y ago
Did you notice any long term (lasting) effects after those four months? Also, any particular reason you stopped? Thanks.
- stickydink 13y ago
  After I stopped, and started eating regularly again, I found nothing different at all. One of the side effects, is that you're really susceptible to alcohol. One beer, and I'd be really feeling it. Whereas before, I could drink 3 without really noticing. After I stopped, my tolerance was still pretty low, though it's fine now. I don't know if the low tolerance afterwards could be the diet specifically, or just whether I'd not really drank in 4 months. I stopped because it was just too awkward. Living with my girlfriend, it was annoying that we had to cook separately (she only believes in low calorie, zombie cardio 5 days a week). We could only go out to dinner at certain places, which got a bit tedious. And to be honest, I'd done pretty well, and was back to the sort of weight I wanted to be at. The toss up between the cost/awkwardness, and the amount of weight I still had to lose, it wasn't worth the hassle. Though, if I ever need to lose weight again (hopefully never), I wouldn't even dream of anything else.

awjr 13y ago

Looks like a derivation on the 5/2 diet. The 25/5 diet. My personal issue with these types of diets is that my concentration levels initially drop. I find the first couple of days extremely uncomfortable. The best lifestyle change I've made is to drastically cut down on carbs, generally avoiding wheat and try never to eat sugar, in particular fructose. Note this doesn't stop me eating carbs but that I generally try and avoid them in my day to day eating. I no longer feel tired in the afternoon. I also cycle to work.

dualogy 13y ago
What did wheat do to you? Are you a celiac, or are there other reasons one might be interested in avoiding it?
- beagle3 13y ago
  Not op - My experience is that all grains (corn, rice, wheat) make me bloated and puffy, regardless of caloric content. Wheat is by far the worst offender, also making my breath shorter about 30-60 minutes after eating, lasting a couple of hours, and corn not having an immediately noticeable effect, but causing bloating that will stay for days. Not celiac, and not anything life threatening, but definitely a huge effect. After dropping wheat, I lost 30 lbs in one month, and it stayed off for 18 month without wheat (but some came on again after a week of eating mostly corn products - which is how I discovered that corn is evil too) The best way to determine if this is relevant to you is not to read books or articles or consult with a doctor: rather, take a week or two off grains (much harder than it sounds - wheat and corn are used as fillers in many products), and then adding them sporadically and keeping a journal (what and when you ate each day; and whether you felt good/bad the next hour/day) Not easy, but well worth it and not expensive.
  - awjr 13y ago
    Please please do this. It's what I did. If you find similar affects, this can be life changing in a very very beneficial way.
- awjr 13y ago

Tarang 13y ago

There was a very interesting documentary on intermittent fasting on BBC Horizon titled 'Eat, Fast, Live Longer' where Michael Mosley experimented with himself fasting trying different types of fasting including intermittent fasting. It did help him alot but the cool thing was there was a guy who lived on a meal a day which had athlete like body fat levels. There's also a runner, Fauja Singh, who ran a marathon at 101 years of age featured in it who practices something close to intermittent fasting [1] It was extremely interesting and I do feel after watching it that 3 meals a day is something conjured by man but may not really be all that natural. Link to episode intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHDBIaibok http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHDBIaibok [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauja_Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauja_Singh

nodata 13y ago

This sounds awfully like regular crash dieting.

rosser 13y ago
"Crash dieting", as commonly practiced, is to eat less until your weight goals have been reached, and then go back to "normal". IF is hardly that; instead, it's a controlled pattern of regularly, and for specific durations, reducing your caloric intake. Some IF practitioners use a 6:1 cycle, where they have one fast day a week, some 5:2, and yet others 25:5, as in TFA. Some just take a random fast day whenever they feel like it, even. IF is much less about weight than it is the other, generally scientifically demonstrated benefits of reduced caloric intake — though it does tend to confer some benefit in weight reduction as well.
- vidarh 13y ago
  And some just reduce the window of food intake within the day. E.g. leangains is 16 hours fasted, 8 hours or less eating window. > IF is much less about weight than it is the other, generally scientifically demonstrated benefits of reduced caloric intake That depends on the type of IF. Again Leangains is not specifically about calorie reduction, but about obtaining some of the benefit of being in a fasted state part of the day coupled with avoiding adding body fat, which for many who uses Leangains still means consciously adding weight.
  - jaiball 13y ago
    Agreed. The fasted state is key here, giving the body a chance not to be processing food. After doing this for a while I can't understand the deal with eating small meals a bunch of times a day.

piyushpr134 13y ago

This is not really a new thing. In India, fasting is a like a culture. More common with females though. Some of them fast like once every week. There are festivals which are based around fasting. Like Karvachauth, in which girls fast for their husbands etc (we are not very feminist yet). There are festivals during which people fast for straight 2-10 days! (chath, durga puja, somwari etc). Even in Islam, during ramzaan people fast everyday for 30 days . They eat before dawn break and eat again after dusk.

beagle3 13y ago
Note that in ramadaan they also don't drink any water during the day; and many who can afford to, flip their schedule to sleep through the day so they can eat at night. Also, according to superfreakonomics, this wreaks havoc on gestating babies. Seems like all harm and no benefit fasting (which, perhaps is the idea - Jewish fasting on Yom Kippur is specifically spoused to be a soul-torture/soul-searching experience - both translations are valid - although it is often not experienced as either)
- uberalex 13y ago
  It's also worth noting that typically people gain weight during Ramadan. They eat way more, richer food as it's a time of celebration and dehydration from the day. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/cairo-the-sun-slips-beyond-the-nile-and-the-fast-is-broken-as-they-have-done-for-centuries-during-the-holy-month-of-ramad.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/cairo-the-...
- sfjailbird 13y ago
  Pregnant women are exempt from fasting during ramadan.
  - beagle3 13y ago
    So are Jewish woman on Yom Kippur - but many of them still fast; enough to change date-of-birth distribution for Jews and health-of-newborns for Muslims.

iagomr 13y ago

It also might have given cancer to Steve Jobs

khafra 13y ago
Citation? I've seen a lot of studies saying intermittent fasting might not help bodyfat loss as much as you'd hope; but no studies saying it increases cancer risk.

deleted 13y ago

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collyw 13y ago

I am really interested in intermittent fasting for the health benefits, having watched BBC's Horizon on it. The thing is I am fairly skinny, and struggle to put on weight. Does anyone know if I am likely to loose weight? And are there any good site to learn about it in a fairly scientific way? I see lots of blogs, but never sure how much is worth reading.

dualogy 13y ago
I have for a time put on weight during intermittent fasting (daily 16-19h fast) easily, simply by ingesting excess calories in the "feeding window" for days/weeks on end. If you need 2000 a day and eat 2500-3000 a day or more (averaged over a longer time span), fasting isn't going to reverse that fact. Sometimes it is as simple as calories-in-calories-out.. I did this on purpose to grow some muscle, but some of the "gains" in that approach will always be bodyfat.

Theodores 13y ago

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 ancestors invariably had toxins in them to dissuade any creatures (including us) from eating them. Not one single animal, insect or fish has evolved specifically to be eaten. Hence the wide range of defensive measures most animals/insects/fish have to make sure that does not happen too often. Again, toxins come into play. As you move up the food chain so you get an accumulation of those toxins, hence we tend not to eat apex predators. Compare and contrast with fruit. Fruit has evolved specifically to be eaten, particularly by primates. The idea being that we eat some fruit, wander off to somewhere new, have a dump, eject some seeds from the fruit complete with a handy amount of manure and water. Yep, those pesky plants tricked us into doing all of their work for them! They even managed to get us to cover up our leavings, thereby planting their seeds properly. Our vision system co-evolved with fruit, we (as in primates) see in colour not because god wanted us to live in some world of puppies and rainbows but so we could eat fruit that is ripe and ready to eat. The plants, knowing that we were evolving colour vision, kindly evolved through some process of natural selection to produce fruit that kick in to 'eat me' colours when they are nice 'n' ripe. With this colour coded system it is possible for plants to avoid waste. We (as in primates) only pick the ripe fruit, the stuff that is still green is identifiably no good to us so we leave it until it magically changes colour. Obviously there came a time when grasslands took over and we had to leave the trees, learn to stand up and walk on two feet (so we could see over the grass) and find new meals to try. At this stage the cult of eating dead animals was borne, we adapted, but not that much, our intestines are still a million miles longer than that of a dog, we still have hands for nabbling fruit rather than vicious claws to rip apart stray wildebeest and we can still chew, as you need to do for fruit, in a way dogs don't do. Much like how multi-vitamins are of dubious benefit to you, so it is with fructose. Sugars in fruit are fine, nobody has died of diabetes due to eating too many apples. The 'fibre' is an important part of it, you need 'fibre' if you are to consume sucrose. The problem with diet in America is corn. There is nothing edible about corn grown in America today unless it has been processed by an industrial process or another animal first. All of those corn-stuffed animals Americans eat get killed before the corn kills them. If Americans are not careful they will be remembered as 'the corn people' like some of those American Indian tribes that tried and failed to build corn-based civilisations in pre-Columbian times.

hatu 13y ago

Here's the thing I don't like about fasting - how are you supposed to work out while you're fasting? I can't imagine going to the gym eating 500 calories a day without passing out.

vidarh 13y ago
Intermittent fasting does not imply anything about calorie amount on a daily basis. I do IF now and again, and what makes me take periods off is that I get absolutely sick and tired of food on IF because I always feel stuffed. My calorie intake on exercise days on IF is about 2800kcal (as a 6'1 male with a current weight of 108kg/238lbs and a substantially above average muscle volume), which usually meant a lunch consisting of 1800+ calories of protein heavy food. I'd usually exercise fasted (I do power lifting) apart from a low quantity of bcaa's, and have my first meal at noon. But in fact, you adjust to going to the gym on low calorie diets too. Intensity may suffer, but it's certainly possible.
thinkr 13y ago
A variation of intermittent fasting that is geared towards those that workout/weightlift is called leangains which you can learn about at leangains.com and r/leangains. I have been doing it for over 2 years and I lift fasted. You may feel light headed the first few times you do it (so go lighter on weights) but you get used to it. I do squats and deadlifts fasted no problem.
mswen 13y ago
I started a Lean Gains style fasting approach in Oct 2012. My version has me stop eating by 8PM and not eat again for about 15 to 18 hours. I work out right before the end of my fast. I lift weights 3 days a week and run 2 days a week. These are vigorous workouts lasting 35 to 50 minutes. My body has adapted! Initially I couldn't lift as much nor run quite as quickly while working out on empty, but the fat melted off nicely at about a pound a week for the first 6 months. My weight then stabilized for about 3 months. In the last few months I have been trying a very slow bulk while still keeping to the schedule. Trying to eat above maintenance level and add muscle. It seems to be working I have put back on about 7 pounds and I estimate that about 4 of those are muscle. And, my personal bests in weight lifting have just recently been matched. I have to say that overall I am very pleased with the results of this style of intermittent fasting and the ability to keep working out. Having said all that, I am thinking that this year I would like to experiment with some longer fasts of 24 to 36 hours. I anticipate that I will need to significantly reduce the intensity of my workout during that kind of fast.

rickdale 13y ago

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, and yes I was lifting, but fasting helped my body get from that chubby kid phase to, 'oh wow, I think I am almost ripped'. There are definitely some real benefits to fasting and no one will tell you that because they can't sell it to you in a pill. Something really intriguing to me about fasting for 24hrs+ and then having to eat. For me, I crave healthy foods at that point and I also have the instinct to stuff my face and thus one meal/day works for that. It's tough to eat a bunch of crap when you are only eating once/day. Finally, if you are interested in IF, I recommend reading up on Ori Hofmekler. He is the type of guy who's ideas are so crazy at first they are brushed off. Then science proves him right. http://www.amazon.com/The-Warrior-Diet-Biological-Powerhouse/dp/1583942009 http://www.amazon.com/The-Warrior-Diet-Biological-Powerhouse...

encoderer 13y ago
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.
- rickdale 13y ago
  For lunch requests my go to excuse to people is that I am in the middle of a fast. Thus, I don't mind going to eat with them, I dont seem weird for eating healthy, and for whatever reason, people have been more understanding of the fasting excuse over, oooo I cant eat that. But with cheating in general, I will move the hours of fast around. So if I do go to a lunch, I'll probably eat pretty damn big and then fast until 6-8 the next day, make a good dinner. It's funny how much you enjoy food when you learn how to eat.

brassybadger 13y ago

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 fitness consultant with his clients. Most research (and especially the commercial IF knockoffs) only take some part of these principles, but the "diet" part is only part of the picture when it comes to body recomposition. It's almost worthless without the rest (high intensity, low volume weight training, basic compound movements, progressive overload, no focus on cardio). Quite a few people/company are trying to rip off customers via their IF programs knockoffs and supplements. If you want give IF a shot, read through Martin's blog, and try the original Leangains protocol. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ [2] http://www.leangains.com/ http://www.leangains.com/

jaiball 13y ago
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 have a pretty good balance of being in shape and being able to eat what I want. Dr Mercola also has some really good articles on IF - www.mercola.com
- brassybadger 13y ago
  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 I'm below my calorie intake limit and I'm not missing any important nutrient. Usually hovering around 20% junk food.

leshow 13y ago

if the study didn't control total calories between groups, the improved health markers on his tests were likely a result of lower total calories over time. i.e. the studies probably did not match calories between groups.

pjotr 13y ago

I guess this is one of the reasons Our Lady in Medjugorje has been calling us to fast on bread and water every Wednesday and Friday.

epipsychidion 13y ago

It's impossible to have an actual discussion about this in a non-moderated forum given how eager people are to talk about their personal experiences rather than the actual content of the article. For an amusing overview of some research on intermittent fasting (mildly NSFW) - http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Research http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Research

rficcaglia 13y ago

Maintaining a program year after year is more important to long term health than the immediate benefits of any diet. Most any diet studied shows a short term benefit. Even just participating in a study (placebo effect) usually happens short term. But few diets have notable retention rates after 2 years. Having lost >30 lb multiple times and having regained more each cycle, the problem (for me) is that work, stress, sleep deprivation, children, family crises, work crises, business travel, etc. present significant obstacles to any extreme protocols. I tried IF for 6 months; it worked short term. But I felt so unfocused and unstable during the fast days that it was difficult for me to maintain. My latest effort (lost >100 lb, for over a year) has greatly simplified things - eat lots of veggies before I eat protein or other foods for any meal. No other restrictions, calorie counting, or biochemistry hacks. Very easy to eat out, travel, maintain. I did not join a gym or buy equipment this time - instead I walk to work (5 miles each way.) Also maintain sleep program - no more evening alcohol or coffee.

brazzy 13y ago
What has been working for me (I've lost 8kg in 4 months) is Weight Watchers - not the meetings, just access to their points-rated food database via Web and App, which makes keeping track of your points budget reasonably convenient. The biggest advantage is that you don't have to make any fundamental changes to your diet or habits and it's flexible enough to accommodate occasional big, unhealthy meals - so there's not too much self control necessary to stick with it. It also subtly pushes you towards eating fruit and veggies because most of those have no points and thus can be eaten at any time, as much as you want.