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Intermittent fasting can be effective for weight loss, but no more so than other methods of caloric restriction. I prefer switching out high calorie food for l

Intermittent fasting can be effective for weight loss, but no more so than other methods of caloric restriction. I prefer switching out high calorie food for lower calorie food of the same volume. it's actually not that hard, the average person lives on just seven different meals 95% of the time, so work through optimizing one a week

mgiannopoulos 5y ago
Intermittent fasting does not equal caloric restriction. It is only an arrangement on when you eat, not how much you eat.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  Pedantically, yes. However folks who use it for dieting use it as a tool to restrict calories. There's a reasonable upper limit to the amount someone will eat in one meal, and by delaying their meals they are able to simply reduce the amount they consume in one day.
  - mgiannopoulos 5y ago
    Judging from experience of several years on a 16-8 fasting protocol, it’s super easy to overeat. All it takes is a bag of chips and a couple of cokes :)
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Restricting when you can eat limits the amount you can eat, because humans have a limited storage capacity and throughput.
  - mgiannopoulos 5y ago
    Depends on what you eat. There are plenty of calorie-dense foods that are super easy to consume without much thinking (potato chips, Coca Cola, chocolate, etc) You can still overeat on a fasting schedule.
- URSpider94 5y ago
  Studies have shown that any weight loss benefits of intermittent fasting correlate directly to how many fewer calories you eat, and nothing else.
  - 1270018080 5y ago
    When it comes to diet, consuming fewer calories than you burn in a day is literally only way to lose weight. Anything else is a cheap mind trick.
  - saurik 5y ago
    Ok, but almost no one disputes that, right? The argument is whether intermittent fasting makes it easier--for any number of reasons, such as causing you to feel less hungry or force you into a better schedule or whatever--to cause you to eat less calories.
    - URSpider94 5y ago
      Many people do, actually. They argue that fasting “reprograms your metabolism” or changes how your body digests food or the like. If you think of it as a different way to effect caloric restriction, then you’re on the right track.
vladvasiliu 5y ago
To me, the main advantage of intermittent fasting is diet adherence. I find it much easier to eat less if I eat less often. Plus, for some reason, skipping breakfast helps me avoid being hungry around 10-11 AM. So win-win I guess. I've been looking around a bit into diets, and it seems that "all diets work", if they have you eat less calories than you need. But it would seem that that if is a tall order. Apparently people have a tendency to underestimate how much they eat, so just a basic "don't eat more than X calories" doesn't really work in practice, unless people are willing to do calorie counting, which isn't always practical. And if the diet is "strict", as in "you eat these things in particular and nothing else", there's a psychological (for lack of a better term) component that comes into play. On the one hand, there's the calorie deficit. At the limit, you will probably not adhere to a 0 calorie diet. So the deficit should be "reasonable". I guess defining what that means is the hard part. Then there's the "wants" part, and also the effect some foods have on your appetite. Eating X calories from only Mars bars is not the same as eating a "balanced" diet. In the former case, you'll probably be miserable and feel hungry all the time. In the latter, you'll probably feel OK, though at first it will probably be tough. There's also the fact that some foods are very palatable and just make you want to keep on eating. I think this is very, very important to bear in mind. Just because food X is "healthy" and / or has low calories, it doesn't mean you can eat a ton of it without gaining weight. Fruit is one example that comes to mind, bananas in my case.

mgiannopoulos 5y ago

Intermittent fasting does not equal caloric restriction. It is only an arrangement on when you eat, not how much you eat.

Pfhreak 5y ago
Pedantically, yes. However folks who use it for dieting use it as a tool to restrict calories. There's a reasonable upper limit to the amount someone will eat in one meal, and by delaying their meals they are able to simply reduce the amount they consume in one day.
- mgiannopoulos 5y ago
  Judging from experience of several years on a 16-8 fasting protocol, it’s super easy to overeat. All it takes is a bag of chips and a couple of cokes :)
pessimizer 5y ago
Restricting when you can eat limits the amount you can eat, because humans have a limited storage capacity and throughput.
- mgiannopoulos 5y ago
  Depends on what you eat. There are plenty of calorie-dense foods that are super easy to consume without much thinking (potato chips, Coca Cola, chocolate, etc) You can still overeat on a fasting schedule.
URSpider94 5y ago
Studies have shown that any weight loss benefits of intermittent fasting correlate directly to how many fewer calories you eat, and nothing else.
- 1270018080 5y ago
  When it comes to diet, consuming fewer calories than you burn in a day is literally only way to lose weight. Anything else is a cheap mind trick.
- saurik 5y ago
  Ok, but almost no one disputes that, right? The argument is whether intermittent fasting makes it easier--for any number of reasons, such as causing you to feel less hungry or force you into a better schedule or whatever--to cause you to eat less calories.
  - URSpider94 5y ago
    Many people do, actually. They argue that fasting “reprograms your metabolism” or changes how your body digests food or the like. If you think of it as a different way to effect caloric restriction, then you’re on the right track.

vladvasiliu 5y ago

To me, the main advantage of intermittent fasting is diet adherence. I find it much easier to eat less if I eat less often. Plus, for some reason, skipping breakfast helps me avoid being hungry around 10-11 AM. So win-win I guess. I've been looking around a bit into diets, and it seems that "all diets work", if they have you eat less calories than you need. But it would seem that that if is a tall order. Apparently people have a tendency to underestimate how much they eat, so just a basic "don't eat more than X calories" doesn't really work in practice, unless people are willing to do calorie counting, which isn't always practical. And if the diet is "strict", as in "you eat these things in particular and nothing else", there's a psychological (for lack of a better term) component that comes into play. On the one hand, there's the calorie deficit. At the limit, you will probably not adhere to a 0 calorie diet. So the deficit should be "reasonable". I guess defining what that means is the hard part. Then there's the "wants" part, and also the effect some foods have on your appetite. Eating X calories from only Mars bars is not the same as eating a "balanced" diet. In the former case, you'll probably be miserable and feel hungry all the time. In the latter, you'll probably feel OK, though at first it will probably be tough. There's also the fact that some foods are very palatable and just make you want to keep on eating. I think this is very, very important to bear in mind. Just because food X is "healthy" and / or has low calories, it doesn't mean you can eat a ton of it without gaining weight. Fruit is one example that comes to mind, bananas in my case.