Intermittent Fasting

RIZZEE said:
So my fasting period would start later on in the evening, say if I do 8/16 if I stop eating at 8 then continue at 11ish the next day that should be fine? Since the post meal is supposed to be pretty big won't that be an issue?
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I don't quite see how 8/16 can be considered IF. It's basically just skipping breakfast. You shouldn't be eating after 8 anyway...

I wake up and have a glass of orange juice, I then don't break my fast until it's lunch time at noon. Then I don't eat until dinner at 6pm and that's that. I wouldn't be fat if I exercised and didn't consume copious amounts of beer at the weekend. The scientific theory behind IF suggests that you need to fast longer than 16 hours for the acids in your body to start breaking down your fat. If you believe the science that is, I'll mumble about that in a second. I suggest you watch this short 20minute video, it's a good summary of the idea and currently accepted theory behind IF. It's probably already been posted in this thread!


The science behind IF is theory, it's theory that makes a lot of sense, but it's still theory there isn't really any hard factual evidence that consuming the regular amount of food into a small window makes your body do anything different. I have a feeling most of the 'success' stories are simply because people don't eat as much as they would normally. Most people don't truly realise how much they eat during the day and often forget the biscuit at 11am or the slightly larger than normal helping of potatos at dinner. When it's condensed into a 4-5 hour window though you only eat what you thought you ate before, except this time it truly is only what you thought, there was no extras you forgot about.

If you have 2000 calories spread out over the day your body would consume them bit by bit, however in a 4-5 hour window what do you think the body does? For the body to start eating the fat would mean that it has run out of calories from food, so does this mean your bodie consumes 2000 calories in a few hours, or does it just dump the stuff it can't get to in the typical digestive time period? If it's dumping any then I would suggest you could save a bit of money by not dumping that food in the toilet, however this is starting to sound a lot like a typical calorie restriction diet, it's just a way of tricking your brain into not being hungry.

I don't want to **** on IF because I was an advocate of it and it did help me lose a stone (it was a very easy (ultimately calorie restrictive) diet to stick to), however I'm not completely convinced by the scientific theory that backs it up
 
Interesting points, I'll still give it a shot though.

Think i've gotten my head round the basics of it. Figuring out a split between how long you fast and eat is just personal preference through experience I guess?
 
RIZZEE said:
So my fasting period would start later on in the evening, say if I do 8/16 if I stop eating at 8 then continue at 11ish the next day that should be fine? Since the post meal is supposed to be pretty big won't that be an issue?
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that's wrong

first of all if you were on a 8/16 and you stop eating at 8pm, that means you cannot eat until after 12 noon the next day not 11 "ish" as you stated.

i normally eat between 2pm-8pm in my 6/18 split.

workout is usually either around 12 noon - 2pm or around 5-6 pm

therefore say if my workout gets delayed and i workout at say 7pm i can still eat at say half 8 and my split now becomes 7/17.


also IF theory is that when your fasting your burning fat and when your eating your replenishing your stores and building muscle. it doesn't matter what time you eat or fast so long as you do it consistently. therefore the whole eating after 8 is bad is complete myth, usually spread by people who have no clue what they are talking about.

therefore if you eat late at night it makes zero difference, the energy will get used up, so long as your on a calorie deficit, the total amount of calories matters a lot more than when they are consumed.

since you have such a small "eating" window it usually means you have no time to snack, and only enough time to have 2 proper meals, therefore if you put that into perspective there's much less chance of you over eating and a much better chance of you consuming the right number of calories to lose bodyfat when combined with exercise.


you choose a window which suits you, nobody else can decide what window is best for you.

but it's usually best to skip breakfast and start your window either at noon or after noon.
 
RIZZEE said:
Interesting points, I'll still give it a shot though.

Think i've gotten my head round the basics of it. Figuring out a split between how long you fast and eat is just personal preference through experience I guess?
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Do what suits. I don't really follow a strict window as such, it's just these days I don't get hungry till the afternoon - sometimes my fast is longer than 16 and I get everything eaten between 3pm-7pm, I've had days when it's been easiest to eat everything in one go, although in the main I try and keep fairly consistent with meal timing.

There's nothing super magical about I.F. other than convenience and some possible health benefits - plus bigger, more infrequent meals are way more fun than eating a load of little ones and it gives you more flexibility, to me anyway (the CBL folks here would agree lol). Just eat when it's easiest for you and your routine, and if that means it's not strictly I.F then whatever. I see loads of people at the gym bringing in these pathetic little boxes of chicken and rice, eaten just before training so they don't waste away doing their bicep curls - no thanks jeff. I guess all those predators in the wild have some coco pops before they go off to hunt, then when successful only eat a bit because, in a funny coincidence, their bodies can't absorb more protein in a single hit than a couple of scoops of whey, so they put the rest in their lunchbox and nibble at it every 3 hours.
 
Wrong, as usual. Leangains is not some special ********* thing. Maybe you should read some Lyle McDonald or Alan Aragon research reviews.

People on LCHF or even the guys here who do CBL eat breakfast in the traditional sense (i.e. eating before midday/when they get up etc), albeit with different content than your average person and they still get the same benefits with things like insulin sensitivity.
 
With IF especially, doesn't initial insulin resistance/sensitivity have to be taken into account first?

Someone may be relatively insulin resistant and then using IF could actually send them the wrong way rather than becoming sensitive due to the size of meals and possible carb intakes.
 
Maxeh said:
With IF especially, doesn't initial insulin resistance/sensitivity have to be taken into account first?

Someone may be relatively insulin resistant and then using IF could actually send them the wrong way rather than becoming sensitive due to the size of meals and possible carb intakes.
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I think so yes. People were getting super lean, cycling carbs and looking to slow bulk well before Berkhan, which is no different than people doing 5x5 before Rippetoe or Mehdi - but in any case it seems that particularly for cutting, adherence when following something like 16/8 is easier since things like a larger meal (in roughly 8 hours you could eat as many times as you wanted so it doesn't need to be HUGE) are more psychologically fulfilling and less hassle than making half a dozen meals. Waiting till 12 and finishing by 8 isn't really that much of a big deal anyway, plenty of people do it accidentally, although the quality of their intake is lol.

The benefit of I.F. to me it's taught me not to worry about the bro-sci meal frequency/timing stuff and to change how I look at my carb intake, plus the joy of fats. Of course there's lots of other ways of doing this. I don't even consider myself a 'Leangains' person now, it just happens that particularly on work days, that way of eating suits my routine and when I started out it was a GREAT way of getting dietary adherence for me, and obviously adherence is usually the main reason behind failure/success.
 
Having re-read some stuff, I.F. with higher levels of body fat may cause more issues with fat loss than good - this is due to fasting being quite a stress on the body - which is obviously not good when hormones are all over the place / unstable, which is also the case for people at higher levels of body fat.
 
Chris1712 said:
U wot m8? Congratulations on completely destroying any of the fasted benefits (dat IGF-1, low insulin etc.) by sucking up like 30g of sugar first thing in the morning.
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I don't do IF lol, I just happen not to eat solids for break fast. Besides it's been shown that any benefits from fasting continue as soon as any very small nutrition intake is burned. A glass of Orange juice will be consumed within an hour. Outs why a lot of people on IF don't consider tea and milk to be prohibitive to success.

Also the comment criticising me for saying not to eat after 8, I didn't mean as a general rule, I was being specific to him. Leading a normal 9-5 life means he has no reason to eat after 8.
 
Well i love it, generally have my last meal which is a substantial one as i lift on a Sunday afternoon at 5pm and then don't eat again until Tuesday morning.
breakfast on Tuesday is a good sized bowel of porridge and a protein shake with some fruit.
This routine works well for me and im progressing through weight at the gym so muscle isn't being detrimentally effected from what i can tell. I'm looking to start carb cycling with it as well which by all accounts is a potent combination.

I don't imagine i could completely disregard breakfast to work in some type of constant IF routine in to my 7 day week, seems counter productive to me.


I would recommend it for any one serious about loosing weight while maintaining muscle growth.
 
I did the 5/2 fasting August last year.

Eating just 600 calories on my fast days was hard to start with, but with a bit of research I found lots of low calories foods I could eat and stay within the 600 calorie window without being particularly hungry.

Berries and vegetables are good base to start from.

In 6 weeks I lost 10 kgs and remained at that weight no matter what I ate on my feed days. I tried eating normally on feed days and eating like pig on feed days and my weight stayed more or less the same within a kilo.

Both my partner and I stayed on it for almost a year, without gaining any weight. It wasn't until 7 weeks ago that I decided I wanted to loose more weight, so at the moment I'm on 1300-1500 calories a day until I reach my target weight of 70 kgs, then I'll be back on 5/2 fasting in order to maintain it.

Though I am considering becoming a calories re stricter and just eating 1900 calories a day, everyday.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
5/2 fasting is just a ridiculous concept imo.

why not just eat properly 7 days a week?
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Because its not natural for humans to eat the same quantity of food every single day of the week.

Humans would naturally eat small meals on the move while hunting large animals. Then after a successful kill they would gorge themselves for a few days and then repeat the process.

Or they eat lots of food when readily available to put on fat for leaner times, just like lots of other animals do.

Regular fasting also reduces the body's production of new cells and instead you get your body to repair the old ones. By reducing the body's cycle of making new cells you reduce the risk of producing abnormal cells that have the potential to become cancer cells.
 
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