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So it's good for losing weight. But not anything magic compared to simply eating less?

by vlehto 10y ago

ak39 10y ago
It's both. IF forces you to schedule fewer times to eat, so you eat less. But there are changes to the body when calories are restricted for 16 hour more. Hormonal changes that don't manifest when the body has regular insulin injected into the blood stream. It's both.
- Retric 10y ago
  This is all short term studies. I ate once a day for over a decade, it just means you eat a large meal. If anything stretching your stomach makes over eating easier as you get used to large meals so eating an extra one is easily adds an extra days food. Worse, you end up getting pushed to calorie dense food. PS: My original thought was it would save a lot of time which it probably did.
  - parasitius 10y ago
    My experience in the past 10 months has been 180 degrees opposite. My friends all know I eat once daily, and when we go to a restaurant with the perfect food to double-up on and pig out, I struggle to eat any more than anyone else eating just 1 meal of 3 for the day. I definitely feel my stomach has shrunk. I'm down 40lbs, but have been at this weight since month 2. A much more athletic friend's experiences combined with mine, we are slowing reaching the conclusion that 1x / 24hr can help with weightloss when you are 20~80lbs overweight. But once you are under that you need to start on 48 hr fasts to make progress. And calorie dense food? Ever since my paleo days 5 years back (a 1 yr experiment) I've continually eaten much more calorie dense foods on purpose, to reach satiety with greater ease. I will never, for example, consume whole milk. I drink straight glasses of half&half for the extra fat content and calories.
rsync 10y ago
"So it's good for losing weight. But not anything magic compared to simply eating less?" IF is a marginal step in the path of increased health and performance that you should consider, and experiment with, after you've already taken the other, progressively more important steps. So you're already exercising and maintaining a high level of fitness and athletic output. You're getting good sleep (partly due to the exercise) and meditating. You're eating good, whole foods. It is in that context that you would then optimize even further - possibly with IF. The question of weight loss strikes me as a bit silly, since by the time you're graduating to IF to eke out marginal increases in health, you're already well past dealing with "weight".
- vlehto 10y ago
  But according those studies, anything past weight loss was contested.
xutopia 10y ago
Actually from what I understood about intermittent fasting it is way better than simply eating less. I'm not a doctor but the mechanisms by which the body burns fat is that it has to send the proper signaling at a cellular level. If you listen to the video here starting at 1h03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdJFbjWHEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdJFbjWHEU Though the video is to understand how energy is used and stored for workout reasons it explains a bit the mechanism whereby the body decides to store fat or convert it to phosphates for semi-immediate use. I'm convinced that intermittent fasting turns off the body fat storage mechanism and turns on the burn fat mechanism. Unfortunately if you only eat less you never send the signals to your body that it needs to stop storing fat. An intermittent fast is therefore way better than just eating less. For me intermittent fasting means not eating breakfast and eating around 12h30. I've lost 14 pounds this way and I'm finding it really easy to skip a meal now where I couldn't do it without having a headache before.
- vlehto 10y ago
  Personally I have found that any consistent and conscious change in eating habits typically means losing weight. Also relatively small amount of exercise drops my weight towards ideal level and at very least helps to keep it down. The only problem is to have good energy levels while dieting/exercising. Because that physical/mental exhaustion is the thing that stops diets. And it's doesn't even need to come from the diet itself, work stress suffices. Just that if the diet adds to total load, then it has to be the first one to go. Being unemployed is not an option.

So it's good for losing weight. But not anything magic compared to simply eating less?

by vlehto 10y ago

So it's good for losing weight. But not anything magic compared to simply eating less?

ak39 10y ago

It's both. IF forces you to schedule fewer times to eat, so you eat less. But there are changes to the body when calories are restricted for 16 hour more. Hormonal changes that don't manifest when the body has regular insulin injected into the blood stream. It's both.

Retric 10y ago
This is all short term studies. I ate once a day for over a decade, it just means you eat a large meal. If anything stretching your stomach makes over eating easier as you get used to large meals so eating an extra one is easily adds an extra days food. Worse, you end up getting pushed to calorie dense food. PS: My original thought was it would save a lot of time which it probably did.
- parasitius 10y ago
  My experience in the past 10 months has been 180 degrees opposite. My friends all know I eat once daily, and when we go to a restaurant with the perfect food to double-up on and pig out, I struggle to eat any more than anyone else eating just 1 meal of 3 for the day. I definitely feel my stomach has shrunk. I'm down 40lbs, but have been at this weight since month 2. A much more athletic friend's experiences combined with mine, we are slowing reaching the conclusion that 1x / 24hr can help with weightloss when you are 20~80lbs overweight. But once you are under that you need to start on 48 hr fasts to make progress. And calorie dense food? Ever since my paleo days 5 years back (a 1 yr experiment) I've continually eaten much more calorie dense foods on purpose, to reach satiety with greater ease. I will never, for example, consume whole milk. I drink straight glasses of half&half for the extra fat content and calories.

rsync 10y ago

"So it's good for losing weight. But not anything magic compared to simply eating less?" IF is a marginal step in the path of increased health and performance that you should consider, and experiment with, after you've already taken the other, progressively more important steps. So you're already exercising and maintaining a high level of fitness and athletic output. You're getting good sleep (partly due to the exercise) and meditating. You're eating good, whole foods. It is in that context that you would then optimize even further - possibly with IF. The question of weight loss strikes me as a bit silly, since by the time you're graduating to IF to eke out marginal increases in health, you're already well past dealing with "weight".

vlehto 10y ago
But according those studies, anything past weight loss was contested.

xutopia 10y ago

Actually from what I understood about intermittent fasting it is way better than simply eating less. I'm not a doctor but the mechanisms by which the body burns fat is that it has to send the proper signaling at a cellular level. If you listen to the video here starting at 1h03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdJFbjWHEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdJFbjWHEU Though the video is to understand how energy is used and stored for workout reasons it explains a bit the mechanism whereby the body decides to store fat or convert it to phosphates for semi-immediate use. I'm convinced that intermittent fasting turns off the body fat storage mechanism and turns on the burn fat mechanism. Unfortunately if you only eat less you never send the signals to your body that it needs to stop storing fat. An intermittent fast is therefore way better than just eating less. For me intermittent fasting means not eating breakfast and eating around 12h30. I've lost 14 pounds this way and I'm finding it really easy to skip a meal now where I couldn't do it without having a headache before.

vlehto 10y ago
Personally I have found that any consistent and conscious change in eating habits typically means losing weight. Also relatively small amount of exercise drops my weight towards ideal level and at very least helps to keep it down. The only problem is to have good energy levels while dieting/exercising. Because that physical/mental exhaustion is the thing that stops diets. And it's doesn't even need to come from the diet itself, work stress suffices. Just that if the diet adds to total load, then it has to be the first one to go. Being unemployed is not an option.