6 ms·

I used to be way overweight. A few years ago I lost a lot of weight by basically walking a lot and doing intemittent fasting. Then I stopped it and started to

by hsn915 5y ago

I used to be way overweight. A few years ago I lost a lot of weight by basically walking a lot and doing intemittent fasting. Then I stopped it and started to slowly gain more weight. Now I'm on an IF regiment again. Now, I really doubt it's the calorie restriction that's at work here. The human body is not a simple physical machine. It's a complex system. A simple machine would be some like like a car that has a set amount of energy needed and simple mechanism to switch energy source when one of them is almost depleted. A complex machine is one that responds to the environment and changes its internal behavior. For example, it can decide to activate or shutdown internal systems that use energy in order to conserve energy. It can decide to let go of conserving energy and just make sure the body has a lot of energy for performing the current activity. Common wisdom says that the body goes in hunger mode if you restrict calories. But I don't think that's what's going on. Because you also restrict calories on IF. Instead I think that when you consistently eat low calorie meals, it activates some mechanism in your body that's meant to conserve energy when you are living through some sort of a famine, or something like that. (another possibility: instead of a famine, it thinks you became a low status individual within your tribe). But when you do IF you typically eat normal size, filling meals, so this mechanism never gets triggered. Further more, there's probably no mechanism in your brain that thinks that going for many hours without food is a bad thing. Quite the opposite: it's just the normal expected thing. So if you do some exercise while in a fasted state, even though you are technically low on calories, your brain probably thinks you might be hunting for food so it will make sure you can utilize all the energy you need and some more. > The problem is, cravings are real, abstinence doesn’t work, I'm not sure what you mean here? Surely fasting is abstinence, is it not? You can at any time decide to open the fridge and eat something. You can decide at any time to go to the nearby convenience store and buy something to eat.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
There are studies on this and, from what I can remember, meal frequency didn't seem to have an impact on weight loss or muscle gain. You don't need to eat 6 meals or 1 per day to lose weight, just do whatever makes it easy for you to consume the amount of calories you want. I agree that doing 1-2 big meal makes it easier to eat little calories because you can stuff yourself up to a point.
- hsn915 5y ago
  > There are studies on this Studies on this are generally poor quality, and you can easily tell by looking at the study content. Remember when early 2020 all the official organizations (WHO, CDC) were telling people to NOT wear masks because studies showed they didn't work? Yea. Turned out all the studies were really bad quality. "Scientific" publishing is broken and you simply can't rely on it for useful information. Many studies don't even replicate, but they still get published and cited. For another example, see: https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1459275924059217920 https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1459275924059217920 Basically, whenever I hear "studies have shown ..." I just don't care. Let the studies show whatever they want. I will go with my own experience and with personal anecdotes I hear from people. They are way more consistent and reliable.
  - aksss 5y ago
    > "Scientific" publishing is broken and you simply can't rely on it for useful information. Many studies don't even replicate, but they still get published and cited. I may take issue with some of your other statements but fully agree with this observation. A critical thinker needs to be highly skeptical of the appeal to authority used by invoking the phrases “the science says”, or “studies have shown”.
  - glofish 5y ago
    The problem is that the studies that shows masks work are just as broken, it is simply a matter of whose broken opininon is the "acceptable" read below how bonkers the stats are in the mask-study that the CDC uses to "prove" that masks work: http://www.argmin.net/2021/09/13/effect-size/ http://www.argmin.net/2021/09/13/effect-size/
    - hsn915 5y ago
      Why would anyone trust the CDC or the WHO after their abject and emarrasing failure to handle covid? Here's a better argument for wearing masks: https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7 https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7 A crucial piece of evidence IMO is "the salon story where two infected stylists failed to infect all their 140 clients (making the probability of infection for bilateral mask wearing safely below 1% for a salon-style exposure)" There's another good point about "evidence". Do you need a scientific study in order to convince yourself to lock your door at night? Does the lack of scientific evidence in that regard make you go "I think I should not lock my door" or worse "people who lock their doors at night are crazy"? It's an absurd thing.
fjabre 5y ago
Yes I agree with you. Body does not go into starvation mode during IF. One meal a day is ideal. My eating window is around 4-8pm most days the last 6 months. Usually just one meal of literally anything I want and Im still finding I have to eat more to stop losing weight.
- throwaway803453 5y ago
  I'll never understand OMAD from a minimum calorie requirement standpoint. I watched a lean muscular YouTuber prepare his one meal which was mostly cauliflower mash and totaled 600 calories, in which case I call BS since he probably needs about 3500cal/day given his size. For those of us that aren't burning off excess fat and are active what would a 2700-ish calorie meal look like. Can you learn to eat 2 lbs of steak in one sitting for example and do that every day ? Because it is unlikely there is room in a typical stomach for 20lbs of cauliflower mash or 4.5lbs of pasta eaten all at once. Also from a time management standpoint spiking your serotonin levels with that massive meal seems counterproductive. Are you really saving time if you are a drowsy for an hour or two after that massive meal ? I realize the parent poster was just contemplating, but if someone has actual experience I would be grateful for a helpful link or comment.
  - phonypc 5y ago
    Presumably most people doing it have losing weight as a goal, not maintaining? Anyway, fat heavy foods make cramming calories pretty easy. You can hide a lot of butter in mashed potatoes or a pasta sauce.
  - fjabre 5y ago
    It is the best I have felt in some time in fact. The body gets used to it over time. I am not strict with it but most days I find it easy to do. Lots of water throughout the day helps with the empty stomach and not feeling dehydrated. I skip breakfast and lunch. But can eat heavily within my time window. The science is off here from my experience. The metric to watch is time between meals. If you can go 16-20 hours before your next meal, sleep can be included, then you will find your gains staggering.
vb6sp6 5y ago
I think he is saying you can have ice cream or pizza or whatever. Just not right now. So you get the benefits of calorie deficit now and can satisfy the craving later
Dah00n 5y ago
>Common wisdom says that the body goes in hunger mode if you restrict calories. Is it common wisdom though? As far as I know common wisdom says that if you restrict calories then the blood sugar drops and that cause the body to go into hunger mode. The difference being that you can eat, say, 1000 calories of your normal diet and go into hunger mode or you can eat a diet that causes the blood sugar to be stable and not go into hunger mode. This is one of the two main reasons LCHF work so well (the other being that you are way less hungry after 1000 calories of a high fat diet than after 1000 calories of high sugar).
- hsn915 5y ago
  I'm very skeptical of the claims about Insulin being a cause of weight gain or preventing weight loss. All insulin is, is a signal to cells to absorb sugar from the blood. Think of it this way: if you consume dietery fat, your body will obviously not ignore this fat in your blood and start pulling fat out of your fat storage. It will wait for the fat flowing through your blood to be all used up first. Why would sugar be any different? You have to believe that the design of the calorie input management system is so broken that it reacts so badly to carbs but doesn't react in any negative way to fats. There's another "theory" of diebetes too: that excess fat int he cells blocks insulin reception. So if you consume high fat, you better not consume any carbs with it or else your body won't know what to do with it. Now, think about it from an evolutionary point of view. Our ancestors have been sustaining themselves on farming carbs for thousands of years (potato, rice, grains, etc). We should all be very well adapted to a diet that is a mix of carbs and fats and proteins. What is different in the modern age is not an excess of carbs; it's the lack of movement. Athletic people consume upwards of 3000 calories per day with no problems.
amelius 5y ago
I totally agree. Since I started IF, my gut seems healthier which is probably interconnected with how I process energy.

by hsn915 5y ago

jokethrowaway 5y ago

There are studies on this and, from what I can remember, meal frequency didn't seem to have an impact on weight loss or muscle gain. You don't need to eat 6 meals or 1 per day to lose weight, just do whatever makes it easy for you to consume the amount of calories you want. I agree that doing 1-2 big meal makes it easier to eat little calories because you can stuff yourself up to a point.

hsn915 5y ago
> There are studies on this Studies on this are generally poor quality, and you can easily tell by looking at the study content. Remember when early 2020 all the official organizations (WHO, CDC) were telling people to NOT wear masks because studies showed they didn't work? Yea. Turned out all the studies were really bad quality. "Scientific" publishing is broken and you simply can't rely on it for useful information. Many studies don't even replicate, but they still get published and cited. For another example, see: https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1459275924059217920 https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1459275924059217920 Basically, whenever I hear "studies have shown ..." I just don't care. Let the studies show whatever they want. I will go with my own experience and with personal anecdotes I hear from people. They are way more consistent and reliable.
- aksss 5y ago
  > "Scientific" publishing is broken and you simply can't rely on it for useful information. Many studies don't even replicate, but they still get published and cited. I may take issue with some of your other statements but fully agree with this observation. A critical thinker needs to be highly skeptical of the appeal to authority used by invoking the phrases “the science says”, or “studies have shown”.
- glofish 5y ago
  The problem is that the studies that shows masks work are just as broken, it is simply a matter of whose broken opininon is the "acceptable" read below how bonkers the stats are in the mask-study that the CDC uses to "prove" that masks work: http://www.argmin.net/2021/09/13/effect-size/ http://www.argmin.net/2021/09/13/effect-size/
  - hsn915 5y ago
    Why would anyone trust the CDC or the WHO after their abject and emarrasing failure to handle covid? Here's a better argument for wearing masks: https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7 https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7 A crucial piece of evidence IMO is "the salon story where two infected stylists failed to infect all their 140 clients (making the probability of infection for bilateral mask wearing safely below 1% for a salon-style exposure)" There's another good point about "evidence". Do you need a scientific study in order to convince yourself to lock your door at night? Does the lack of scientific evidence in that regard make you go "I think I should not lock my door" or worse "people who lock their doors at night are crazy"? It's an absurd thing.

fjabre 5y ago

Yes I agree with you. Body does not go into starvation mode during IF. One meal a day is ideal. My eating window is around 4-8pm most days the last 6 months. Usually just one meal of literally anything I want and Im still finding I have to eat more to stop losing weight.

throwaway803453 5y ago
I'll never understand OMAD from a minimum calorie requirement standpoint. I watched a lean muscular YouTuber prepare his one meal which was mostly cauliflower mash and totaled 600 calories, in which case I call BS since he probably needs about 3500cal/day given his size. For those of us that aren't burning off excess fat and are active what would a 2700-ish calorie meal look like. Can you learn to eat 2 lbs of steak in one sitting for example and do that every day ? Because it is unlikely there is room in a typical stomach for 20lbs of cauliflower mash or 4.5lbs of pasta eaten all at once. Also from a time management standpoint spiking your serotonin levels with that massive meal seems counterproductive. Are you really saving time if you are a drowsy for an hour or two after that massive meal ? I realize the parent poster was just contemplating, but if someone has actual experience I would be grateful for a helpful link or comment.
- phonypc 5y ago
  Presumably most people doing it have losing weight as a goal, not maintaining? Anyway, fat heavy foods make cramming calories pretty easy. You can hide a lot of butter in mashed potatoes or a pasta sauce.
- fjabre 5y ago
  It is the best I have felt in some time in fact. The body gets used to it over time. I am not strict with it but most days I find it easy to do. Lots of water throughout the day helps with the empty stomach and not feeling dehydrated. I skip breakfast and lunch. But can eat heavily within my time window. The science is off here from my experience. The metric to watch is time between meals. If you can go 16-20 hours before your next meal, sleep can be included, then you will find your gains staggering.

vb6sp6 5y ago

I think he is saying you can have ice cream or pizza or whatever. Just not right now. So you get the benefits of calorie deficit now and can satisfy the craving later

Dah00n 5y ago

>Common wisdom says that the body goes in hunger mode if you restrict calories. Is it common wisdom though? As far as I know common wisdom says that if you restrict calories then the blood sugar drops and that cause the body to go into hunger mode. The difference being that you can eat, say, 1000 calories of your normal diet and go into hunger mode or you can eat a diet that causes the blood sugar to be stable and not go into hunger mode. This is one of the two main reasons LCHF work so well (the other being that you are way less hungry after 1000 calories of a high fat diet than after 1000 calories of high sugar).

hsn915 5y ago
I'm very skeptical of the claims about Insulin being a cause of weight gain or preventing weight loss. All insulin is, is a signal to cells to absorb sugar from the blood. Think of it this way: if you consume dietery fat, your body will obviously not ignore this fat in your blood and start pulling fat out of your fat storage. It will wait for the fat flowing through your blood to be all used up first. Why would sugar be any different? You have to believe that the design of the calorie input management system is so broken that it reacts so badly to carbs but doesn't react in any negative way to fats. There's another "theory" of diebetes too: that excess fat int he cells blocks insulin reception. So if you consume high fat, you better not consume any carbs with it or else your body won't know what to do with it. Now, think about it from an evolutionary point of view. Our ancestors have been sustaining themselves on farming carbs for thousands of years (potato, rice, grains, etc). We should all be very well adapted to a diet that is a mix of carbs and fats and proteins. What is different in the modern age is not an excess of carbs; it's the lack of movement. Athletic people consume upwards of 3000 calories per day with no problems.

amelius 5y ago

I totally agree. Since I started IF, my gut seems healthier which is probably interconnected with how I process energy.