Intermittent Fasting

Is there a recommended max or min fasting time?

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

There's more than one way of doing it.

I eat from 1-9, so that gives me a 16 hour fast.

Thanks, 16 hours seems extreme but Im sure its something you get used to. I cant imagine not eating until 1pm. Would you train/exercise while fasted also?

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

Is anyone else doing this?

I've used it in the past to lose weight and have had great results. I went off the wagon a little, for various reasons over the last six months and have put on a stone and a half.

Back to using IF once again, along with eating clean and cutting back on alcohol. We'll see how it goes but so far so good.

Been a few months , how has it been ?


Any good guides on where to start ?

How long typically do you go without food for ?

Entered this sub-forum for the first time ever to research Irish sources for some Keto friendly food products and cam across this thread.

I accidentally fell into OMAD (One Meal a Day) IF (Intermittent Fasting) due to lifestyle and food preference (and laziness!!) reasons a few years ago. I eat my entire TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) worth of calories in one main evening meal and drink water the rest of the day. My TDEE is 2500kcals so as you can imagine that means I'm pigging out in my one and only meal of the day in order to eat those 2500kcals. I only realised that OMAD was a thing and even had a name after coming across a Fasting Video on Youtube.

Rest assured, you totally get used to it, certainly if your eating near your TDEE. Never tried eating much less than my TDEE in my OMAD meal though. Hence I never lost weight on it. What it did do though is rid me of my Insulin insensitivity and I am only left with the after effects of the Metabolic Syndrome. ie. the excess weight and high BP. I'm actually starting 3 days of only 600kcals Keto in preparation for a Water and Electrolyte only fast next week so I'll post back how I got on in terms of hunger outside my OMAD hours. With OMAD your body quickly learns to not have the Ghrelin (Hunger Hormone) spike except at your regular meal time. If you eat 3 meals a day your body will secrete Ghrelin at those 3 times every day like clockwork. OMAD trains it to only secrete once a day at your one and only meal time.

I'm the Accidental Faster! I'd been lurking on the r/fasting subreddit for months after discovering fasting but have procrastinated due to apprehension about starting a water/electrolyte longer-term fast. Last Sunday after an especially hard days work a nap turned into a marathon 11 hour sleep and I slept right through my OMAD dinner time on Sunday and didn't wake till 5am on Monday morning. I was amazed to find that I was neither weak nor hungry. I hadn't eaten for 35 hours since Saturday Evening! Mondays family meal was my least favourite so I decided to try and skip it. It was a breeze!! I awoke Tuesday morning and again no hunger nor weakness. I realised I'd have done a 72 hour fast by Tuesday dinner time! However at dinner time I lost a mental battle rather than a physical one. Physically I could have easily pushed through. I had dinner on Tuesday evening but felt no better for it...not that I felt bad before it though. Kicking myself because by day 4 or 5 it becomes easy street for most people when they enter full ketosis. Mental clarity and energy is supposed to rise/return to normal or even above normal levels as the body switches to getting its full TDEE requirement of calories from burning fat. Its not a 100% efficient process though so despite the fact that 1LB of fat equals 3500kcals, my own TDEE of 2500kcals would lead to a near 1LB of fat loss a day. This experience rid me of any fear or apprehension about longer term fasts. I had it in my head that the way I sometimes feel coming up to the 24 hour OMAD mark where I might feel very hungry and edgy and have jelly legs when the Ghrelin surge hits at 24 hours. I imagined thats the way one would feel constantly for the next 4 days till one enters full ketosis as lots of fasters say the first 3-4 days are the worst. Turns out thats not the case at all. Apparently the ghrelin surge weakens every day and it only lasts about 2 hours anyway. I indeed found this to be the case. Was amazed how little hunger pangs or cravings I felt. Remember it was a mental battle I lost, not a physical one. So all apprehension gone now and I am straining at the bit to try again with some tactics to get over that first 24 hour hump.

I tried to restart the fast the very next day after I broke at 72 hours but as soon as my OMAD Ghrelin surge hit on Wednesday evening I caved straight away. Seems like that 'Nap' was more important than I thought for getting me over that initial 24 hour hump but I can't rely on naps to start every fast. I've a plan to get over that hump with 600kcal <50g carb Soup and Sandwich once a day over the next 2 or 3 days which will also pre-start the process of entering ketosis and then switch to a full Water/Electrolyte only fast on Monday or Tuesday. I plan to try for two or three 14-21 day fasts to lose my 50LB excess weight by mid Summer with a break of a week in between. I want to stay KETO during those feeding weeks in order to stay in Ketosis which will make starting the next fast much easier. Hence I've come to this forum to find sources for some low carb alternatives to certain foodstuffs like Spagetti and Noodles for Bolognese and Stir Fry etc because I can't see myself lasting on Soup alone during the feeding weeks!!

I did it under the supervision of a trainer for a month but didn't know I was doing it. He said you eat within an 8 hour window and my routine really suited it! That was the second time I had a decent amount of weight loss and the IF way was far safer and controlled than the first weight loss which I cringe at when I think about how I went about it.

I'm starting back at it again tomorrow with a 16/8 window.

silverharp wrote: »

^^

@marsbar how many days a week , do you get a cheat day? any calorie restriction involved?

Every day was at least 16/8. Cheat day would usually mean cutting out a meal to make room for that cheat. I was eating roughly 1,400 to 1,500 calories (4ft11 female). I lost 6% body fat in 4 weeks.

^^

obviously you need to clean up your act boyo , you're undermining your good work if you totally blow it at the weekend

A simple way to keep you electrolytes up is to just add some salt to a glass of water , also can add in Lo salt which is a potassium based salt.

Is it what our bodies are built for? I'm not criticizing it i think the more strategies exist the better because that way we can see that everyone is finding something that works for them.. but is it what our bodies were built for? I'm sure some of our ancestors went long periods without eating but surely many more ate a little often throughout the day, foraging and eating as they went. The thing you'd only get every now and then would be meat, but we are omnivours, not carnivores...

anyway i guess that is a different debate for a different thread so i won't argue the point.. it's good to see it's working for people!


tell us how it goes with your headaches, Wally, personally i do get headaches when i'm hungry but i find coffee usually clears it up... hangry is a much bigger problem

Started IF last Saturday and despite it being a short timeframe, I have noticed immediate results although may be possibly mostly water. Had got myself in a good routine from the start of the year going to the gym frequently and eating well and lost a stone in the first month. However I began to plateau a little but put this down to back to drinking alcohol at the weekends. The 16/8 1-9 suits me at mo and I have been going to the gym at 12 for the last hour of my fasting but have been fine doing cardio HIIT. Have been eating healthy when I do eat - no white carbs, plenty of lean protein and veg. It working for me so far and have been surprised how relatively easy it has been although I do get a bit famished around 11am but that passes with a black coffee or green tea.

I get the calorie deficit thing with skipping a meal but the research out there seems to indicate that when we constantly eat our body is continually trying to break down that food. So if you have a period of 8 hours of not eating, your body moves into breaking down your fat stores in that extra 6-8 hour window which contributes again to the weight loss.

If you're constantly eating, you're probably not in a deficit

That's not true. I eat constantly most days but a lot of what i eat is stuff like olives and garlic mushrooms, with 0 or almost 0 calories. It is probably very true if you have the typical Irish diet of bread, butter, jam, beef, potatoes and cheese though.I think the jury is still out on whether fasting helps people lose weight above and beyond the deficit it causes. Anyone have the actual science on this? I think it is worth a shot so long as you are vigilant about not getting addicted to it and ending up with an eating disorder!

SuperRabbit wrote: »

That's not true. I eat constantly most days but a lot of what i eat is stuff like olives and garlic mushrooms, with 0 or almost 0 calories. It is probably very true if you have the typical Irish diet of bread, butter, jam, beef, potatoes and cheese though.I think the jury is still out on whether fasting helps people lose weight above and beyond the deficit it causes. Anyone have the actual science on this? I think it is worth a shot so long as you are vigilant about not getting addicted to it and ending up with an eating disorder!

I did say probably. Though an olive is probably 5 cals and I'd go through a dozen easily

Like I said, I'm not dismissing IF in the slightest. It works for lots of people.

I just think in a lot of cases, its presented as more than it is for your average Joe. I'm not saying caloric reduction is the only benefit but for most people who use it successfully for weight loss, I would venture that the reduced intake of calories without having to count anything, is the main driver in that weight loss.

Green tea probably has about 2.5. Don’t think there’s any definitive evidence that either green tea or coffee causes insulin spikes thus keeping you in the fasted state.

Do you have anymore I could read on this? I've always heard caffeine and 0 calorie drinks are fine for staying in the fasted state.

I’d be pragmatic on coffee even if it might take a tiny % off the “ideal” but doesn’t make much of a difference. There are fat mimicking approach to this which is based on the logic of avoiding protein and carbs so calories per say aren’t the important thing. If coffee makes the whole thing more doable that would be more important.

GooglePlus wrote: »

Anyone notice that their resting heart rate lowers a lot when in a fasting state?

I'm far from fit and mine is 54 now in the office but once I break the fast, it'll spike to about 70.

Don't think reduction in resting heart rate is unusual when fasting

D'Agger wrote: »

If I've put in a decent session in the gym right at the start of when I'm fasting, am I undoing a bit of the work I've done? I know there's been many arguments re: protein intake / calorie intake after strength training but it's still somewhat conflicting.

I'm doing a 14/10 split which is fine for me and I'm starting off so I just want to discipline myself to not snack after 18:30 essentially, but I'm conflicted as per whether I should be feeding myself after a good session.

I should point out I normally train first thing in the morning so this isn't normally an issue but the BH weekend meant I had to go this evening.

It's really a non issue especially if it's not a regular occurrence.

SuperRabbit wrote: »

you mean after a training session or a night out?

If you want more energy for training you eat carbs before

As for after it is protein that matters. For some reason that there are only hypotheses about, eating protein earlier or later in the day isn't as effective for building or repairing muscle as eating it right after the workout They talked about this in an episode of SciShow but I can't remember which one so i can't link you or find the original research

No, a good session in the gym I mean!

My query is over doing a decent weights session and waiting 12 hours before eating due to keeping up with my IF

As per Alfs post, once it's the exception rather than the rule I reckon I'm okay as I said, I usually train in the morning when I can eat soon after but just wanted to get some opinions on it.

Joe loves a bit of IF.