Intermittent Fasting

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Panda said:
I think exercise is also very important to maintain your ideal weight once you get there. I think the most important question is to find your why? Why do you want to lose 30 lbs? Why do you want to be back in shape? If you know your why? you will get there very quickly.

My personal why was because my dad passed away from a heart disease at young age of 65 five years ago. Heart disease may run in my family, but I am going to do whatever I can within my control.

You need to find a sport that you are very passionate about as a kid and incorporate it to your daily life style. For me, it is playing competitive tennis. Playing tennis keeps me mentally sharp, reduces my stress, and gives me an incredible cardio workout. I am an early bird, and I swim five days a week. Aerobic exercise and play tennis about once or twice a week all before 8am.

Article:
When the team looked just at the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, they found that swimming reduced the risk by 41%, racket sports by 56% and aerobics by 36%. Running, cycling and football showed no protective effect.

Source:https://www.theguardian.com/science...-ace-at-reducing-risk-of-death-study-suggests
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Exercise is definitely a great compliment to a good diet and amplifies the effects of eating right and IF.  However, it is still 90%+ diet when it comes down to it...you can't exercise away eating like crap.  From all the videos I've watched and articles that I've read, it's not eating natural fats (animal foods, butter, nuts, etc) that causes heart and other related ailments...it's metabolic disorder caused by an overproduction of insulin resulting in insulin resistance mainly due to eating too many carbs (sugary foods, flour based foods, and too much fructose).  I got my dad on low carb and IF regimen around 4th of July and he's dropped 18lbs so far and says that his arthritis doesn't hurt as much and is sleeping better.  His doctor's appt is at the end of Oct and I'm hoping he can start dropping some of the meds that he's taking.
 
Two weeks after my last post, I stopped I.F.

The dizziness got worse and worse until one day, I was standing at my kitchen counter, just reading a sheet of paper, when it felt like someone snuck up behind me and whacked me in the head as hard as they could with a baseball bat. One second, I was completely fine. The next second, with no warning, everything instantly went black and I started passing out. I caught myself before I fell. It was then that I decided not to do this anymore. The last thing I would ever want is for this to happen while I was driving and hurt myself, my kids who I'm always driving around, or another innocent driver. Not driving is not really an option for me.

Also, maybe TMI, but Mr. SoCal was getting worried about me during the I.F. Towards the end, I was crying all day, every day, for like 2 weeks straight! This is very bizarre & unusual for me. I'm normally a happy / content person in general. Sometimes I cry happy tears. But these weren't happy tears. Sad tears only happen to me maybe a few times per year. During I.F., I was feeling so low. I started saying that I'm just worthless, just a waste of oxygen, I have no gifts, I'm not good at anything & I have no purpose in life. I seriously have no clue what the heck happened to me on IF. I feel like it's not just a coincidence, though. I think it caused some sort of emotional disturbance. I do normally feel like I'm not good at anything, have no gifts, but I do still usually want to live out the rest of my days on earth despite that when I'm not I.F.

So back to doing whatever it is I was doing before IF. Since I stopped, the vertigo has faded away and I feel "normal" again.
 
Also, had to share this. I saw it right after all this I.F. trouble and of course thought: "How true."

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I've been intermittent fasting for 4 weeks as of tomorrow.  I'll weigh in, in the morning but I'm pretty sure I'm down about 20lbs. 

I took it a bit to the extreme though.  I only ate 2p-8p but stuck to clean healthy eating during that window (had 1 cheat meal each weekend).  Also worked out regularly and didn't feel any energy issues.  I've never done any type of fasting before but I really like this concept, and it's been working for me so I'll probably stick to it a bit longer. 

Strange after eating this way a week or 2 I found myself craving steamed mix vegetables and a big cup of cold water for every meal.  My go to meals are flame broiler white meat chicken bowl (all veggie, no rice, no sauce), Panda Express bowl with steamed veg and teriyaki chicken (no sauce), and my treat meal would be an Acai bowl with fruit/granola/honey, so good.

I would encourage people to try this, it was one of the easier diets I went on and as long as I drank plenty of water I found myself having much better mental clarity than normal, wasn't overly tired and woke up feeling great every morning, not sluggish like if I eat a burger and fries the night before.

I think my weight loss was a bit too rapid so I'm gonna go a bit less intense but keep to the intermittent fasting concept.
 
aquabliss said:
I've been intermittent fasting for 4 weeks as of tomorrow.  I'll weigh in, in the morning but I'm pretty sure I'm down about 20lbs. 

I took it a bit to the extreme though.  I only ate 2p-8p but stuck to clean healthy eating during that window (had 1 cheat meal each weekend).  Also worked out regularly and didn't feel any energy issues.  I've never done any type of fasting before but I really like this concept, and it's been working for me so I'll probably stick to it a bit longer. 

Strange after eating this way a week or 2 I found myself craving steamed mix vegetables and a big cup of cold water for every meal.  My go to meals are flame broiler white meat chicken bowl (all veggie, no rice, no sauce), Panda Express bowl with steamed veg and teriyaki chicken (no sauce), and my treat meal would be an Acai bowl with fruit/granola/honey, so good.

I would encourage people to try this, it was one of the easier diets I went on and as long as I drank plenty of water I found myself having much better mental clarity than normal, wasn't overly tired and woke up feeling great every morning, not sluggish like if I eat a burger and fries the night before.

I think my weight loss was a bit too rapid so I'm gonna go a bit less intense but keep to the intermittent fasting concept.
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Nice congrats, that's a lot of weight to lose in basically a month...you sure you didn't do a 28 day fast?  haha  Anyhow, I'm down like 30-35lbs from when I started in mid-June and that's all diet since I've been so busy and didn't go workout out.  I'm sure my results would have been that much more pronounced if I mixed in exercise.  But as they say, it's 90%+ diet anyhow.  I also found that I sleep better (not as long) and wake up with more energy and feel mental sharper throughout the day.  I don't really call it a diet as I eat what I like (just not high carb and/or highly processed stuff) and rare drink alcohol now.
 
Well done USC.  I was down 24 lbs when I weighed in on Friday.  Correction though it was over 6 weeks not 4, but ya a bit extreme.  I had a celebratory Jersey Mikes sandwich last night, most carbs and sodium I've had in awhile haha, but tasted good.

You're right about both the sleep and mental focus, both of mine are improved as well.  Hope we've both kept it off 6 months from now, that's the real challenge for me.
 
aquabliss said:
Well done USC.  I was down 24 lbs when I weighed in on Friday.  Correction though it was over 6 weeks not 4, but ya a bit extreme.  I had a celebratory Jersey Mikes sandwich last night, most carbs and sodium I've had in awhile haha, but tasted good.

You're right about both the sleep and mental focus, both of mine are improved as well.  Hope we've both kept it off 6 months from now, that's the real challenge for me.
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You know, the first couple of weeks I think I lost 7-8 pounds but that was probably mostly water weight as I was going to the bathroom a lot (when you don't eat a lot of carbs your body doesn't retain as much water).  It's been very steady weight loss for me over the 5+ months and I'm fine with that.  I mix things up between going with a 24-hour fast eating once a day to a 20-hour fast eating twice a day to doing a 3-4 day fast every few months.  I have a semi cheat meal once a week like In'N'Out with a protein style burger and fries or a burrito without eating the tortillas or corn tortilla tacos.  I rarely eat bread, pasta, and anything with flour now but I do regularly eat potato, rice (sushi, mexican, etc) , beans, and corn (corn tortillas and fresh popped popcorn) just in lower quantities.  Liquid carbs, except for a rare drink, have been completely cut out.  I'd still like to lose another 15lbs or so but I think I'll have to mix in exercise since the low hanging fat has been lost already.
 
One of my friends was looking slimmer so I asked them what they have been doing... lo and behold, he was on a 16/8 IF.

So now I'm curious... I've been slowly cutting out my carbs, I don't eat after 8pm and I'm thinking maybe this will work for me. I normally eat breakfast during the week but not during the weekend so I'm thinking maybe a 10a-6p or 12p-8p can work just by cutting my weekday breakfasts.

The one thing that interests me about IF is what USC is saying about the insulin and ketosis elements. It makes sense to me that if you have longer periods of not eating, that would reduce insulin production. Ketosis will work just by reducing calories (as sell4u and Homie point out), but I think by having a very low calorie intake for an extended period of time, that might be more effective in starting ketosis.

I'm just worried about any side effects like what SoCal experienced (maybe ketoacidosis?) and whatever else comes from changing your eating schedule.

I've read IF also helps with metabolism but not sure how that works.

And yes, I plan to exercise more during the week... light weight lifting at home is easy to do. My preferred method is walking but it's so cold and I don't think it's enough.
 
just keep in mind that IF is the tool, and not the mechanism for weight loss.  in the end, you still need to eat less than what your body needs to maintain its current state.  for most people, simply skipping one meal (breakfast) cuts out enough calories to see results.  just be careful that you don't swing the pendulum too far the other way during your feeding periods that you eat more than you normally would during a normal unrestricted eating day.

exercise speeds up that process and IF makes that easier by compressing your window for eating - think of it more as a mental game where you're trying to outsmart your body (and mind).  definitely worth a try.  i don't currently do IF, but have in the past and saw great results.
 
So Day 3 and I'm still hanging in there.

Only thing I noticed which is what USC mentioned is the headaches. At first I thought it was a caffeine headache since I've had those before when I don't have my morning caffeine but I read that it's common to IF.

Other than that, my lunch is earlier because I used to take a later lunch but my nighttime routine hasn't really changed because I already had an 8pm cutoff. Let's see how it is when the weekend rolls around but I that was already a 12p-8p schedule because I'm busy in the mornings. Some weekends are busy, so our dinners could occasionally fall after 8p, so I'll have to adjust that somehow.

It's almost noon... is it weird that I'm keeping track of that?
 
mads said:
https://www.sciencealert.com/intermittent-fasting-is-no-better-than-conventional-dieting-says-new-study
An year long study came to the conclusion that there is no significant difference between a calorie restricted diet and IF (they focused on the 5:2 IF).

In the end, it's about what diet you are personally able to stick to long enough that it becomes a habit. And of course, keep an eye on your intake of highly processed/refined foods, including fries.
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Good advice. But it?s too late I weigh a whopping 300 lbs.
I?m sticking to the Trump diet: KFC and Mc Donald?s

Jk
 
mads said:
https://www.sciencealert.com/intermittent-fasting-is-no-better-than-conventional-dieting-says-new-study
An year long study came to the conclusion that there is no significant difference between a calorie restricted diet and IF (they focused on the 5:2 IF).

In the end, it's about what diet you are personally able to stick to long enough that it becomes a habit. And of course, keep an eye on your intake of highly processed/refined foods, including fries.
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I think IF helps me mentally cut out the bad food (which I usually eat at breakfast) and limits my calories without me having to think too much about it. Being on the IF itself makes me have better decisions on what I eat. I've cut sodas completely so that will go a long way and having less meals and less time to snack will prevent me from getting tempted to drink them.

We'll see... I could fall of the IF wagon tomorrow. :)
 
I think only USC and Panda care but I'm still IFing (or is it AyeEffing?).

As Aquabliss noted, the initial weight loss is surprising. I didn't weigh myself until the end of the week and it looks like I'm down around 10-15 pounds. My delta is usually around +/- 5 so that's pretty good considering I'm not putting too much more effort into this.

And yes, it really is just less calories, but as others have said, IF uses a "pattern" change in your eating rather than just counting calories so it makes it easier to stick to. One or two days my eating window goes longer to 9 hours (usually on Friday or Saturday because of a later dinner) but then I just don't eat lunch until an hour or two later the next day to ensure I get a 16+ hour fast.

One of the things I miss is breakfast food. But I guess I can always have breakfast for lunch at McDs or Jack but I'm also trying to avoid those places (sorry qwerburger).

The hardest thing was Fri/Sat night because that's usually movie night and that's when the snacks tend to come out at our house. :(
 
I've done IF on and off for the past year and a half in addition to working out and eating healthier. I always fall off my health kick after a few months, but this last time I've been going strong.

From my experience @IHO, brushing my teeth early helped me stop eating after 7pm when I first started, but now it's more of a routine. Some say it tricks the mind/body since it knows you're done for the night, for me it's just about being lazy, I don't want to brush my teeth/floss again if I eat more that night.  As for breakfast, have brunch on weekends whenever you start your 8 hour window.  I'm a big breakfast person, so we occasionally have breakfast for dinner too at our house.
 
with Keto or lchf there is no need to count calories, the key here is to minimize the insulin spikes, so reducing carbs helps as well as the IF. also reduce protein as that also spikes insulin.
 
I can resist the night time snacking well enough... it's just getting my family to eat dinner early on the weekends that makes it harder.

But my willpower was really tested last Sunday, for the first time in a while, the Mrs. wanted to try breakfast at Kona Coffee at Diamond Jamboree so I just sat there while watching her and others eat Hawaiian breakfast food... gah.
 
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