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IANAE, can only talk from personal experience and observing the people around me. Having started practicing intermittent fasting recently, one of the most inter

IANAE, can only talk from personal experience and observing the people around me. Having started practicing intermittent fasting recently, one of the most interesting aspects of the experience is to see how my body's needs change according to my level of physical activity. On days when I'm not physically active, it's quite astonishing how little fuel my body needs. We're all (in developed countries at least) raised on having three meals a day, day in day out, without much consideration for whether our body needs it. In fact, we're conditioned to feel hungry three times a day, regardless of whether we really need to eat. I've also noticed how many people (myself included) would eat compulsively, or out of sheer boredom.

ramraj07 5y ago
Intermittent fasting is not caloric restriction though.
- awb 5y ago
  It doesn’t have to be, but in practice it helps restrict calories by eliminating late night snacking. Or if you fast for an entire day and don’t overeat during your other feeding windows to compensate you can also find yourself in a caloric deficit.
- thefz 5y ago
  It is. IF should be combined with a diet richer in protein and fat, and poorer in carbs. In the case of OMAD it's also harder to reach the full caloric budget of a day in a single setting.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Normal daily physical activity (not hours of cardio at the gym) isn’t responsible for a huge part of your typical caloric expenditure. If you’re noticing a large difference, it’s likely due to appetite related changes or even simply perception differences, not actual energy expenditure changes.
- joe-collins 5y ago
  "Normal" varies a lot. Via my Oura ring, at 5'10" and 160lbs, I know I typically burn perhaps 250 cal on a lazy day off work. Against that background, working in retail management, ordinary numbers are 700 cal on an undemanding shift, and upwards of 1000 when it gets busy.
  - AllegedAlec 5y ago
    You sure those numbers are right bud?
  - tobylane 5y ago
    My expectations are what I get from a base metabolic calculator. For a 30 year old man with your measurements, that is 1700 cal.
    - joe-collins 5y ago
      Correct. Apologies, as a sibling comment surmised, those numbers are for activity burn, in addition to BMR, for a total range that stretches from roughly 2000-3000 cal daily.
  - DrBazza 5y ago
    250 kcal sounds pretty low to me.
    - darebak 5y ago
      He's not talking about total calories but excess calories due to physical exertion.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        I sure hope so. You'd pretty much have to be in a coma to burn less than 1200 calories a day.
- 5y ago
pasquinelli 5y ago
never noticed with activity, but getting hungrier earlier than normal was a great indicator that i was about to get sick, before any symptom.
- timbit42 5y ago
  Perhaps your immune system was ramping up.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
So your body's immune system attacks some of the food you eat, starch is one of the only sugars you immune system doesnt attack, but not all foods are attacked. Secondly some foods increase inflammation, some reduce it, when inflammation occurs, you could compliment it with chemicals/supps that are needed for cell regeneration, things like choline will help here, which is a chemical found in the cell wall, or if you reduce inflammation with things like painkillers, then look at what the painkillers are doing ie P450 enzymes. There's loads of chemical & biological pathways in the body and you need to map out what they all do. Studies like this are just a snapshot of part of process and ideally you would sometimes need two or three studies using chemicals at different amounts to get a better idea. Chemistry will also help give insights into the chemical pathways, like how fast a reaction might take, things like that. > we're conditioned to feel hungry three times a day, Ghrelin is like an alarm clock, to break that eat at random times of the day. > compulsively, or out of sheer boredom. Stress, look at antioxidants, maybe a fruit juice and some stomp/jog/run around the block or down the street and back. Probably the easiest way to get fit is little regular blasts of exercise, but you'll look like a fool to your neighbours. Little and often until fitness levels get up to something substantial. Some banks/city firms provided a gym at work for traders to go and have a quick 5-10min blast/exercise until exhaustion before returning to the desk to carry on, it could be weights, rowing machines and running machines, but its enough to release the pent up energy. This is why working from home or a small business could be harmful to your health. A good company with desk based work would lay on gym equipment, you need a minimum amount of exercise. Starting from a high fitness level, a week dedicated to all waking hours doing a variety of exercises, saw my fitness levels substantially increased, like better than military PT instructor level. Caveat. I'm not qualified in anything. JMO.
- aklemm 5y ago
  > a week dedicated to all waking hours doing a variety of exercises What does this mean? A blast of energy every hour? How many minutes?
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    I found, but YMMV, intense exercise until exhaustion is probably best, for example when doing some regular gym work, I'd do a sort of HIIT on weights, and only after about 6 months did I then start getting the urge to run and then I would run miles and miles on the treadmill. Just dont do anything which causes pain though which shows up straight away or after some sort of exercise. Personally I'd knock back some vitamin K1 & K2-MK4 to protect your bones especially if older.
weird-eye-issue 5y ago
Even with no exercise if I don't eat enough I feel a little light headed, kind of floaty, and really tired and just overall in a bad mood. Not sure how people skip meals
- leonroy 5y ago
  The first time I even heard about caloric restriction I thought it was out there. I did eventually try intermittent fasting and after skipping breakfast and lunch I was rewarded with a pounding headache from the lack of my daily morning muffin and coffee. I literally had to go home from work to recover. I didn't try again until I saw this programme here in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc Like a lot of difficult things it takes time and practise. I got better at doing it, but it's still really difficult, especially if the rest of your household don't practise it and you're seeing everyone else around you enjoying their usual meals and food treats.
  - reillyse 5y ago
    Honestly I just think different humans are different. My wife gets light headed and can faint if she doesn't eat every 3-4 hours. I've fasted for multiple days without issue.
  - mlboss 5y ago
    Agree. When I started skipping breakfast I got lightheaded after noon, but it went away after 1-2 week. Then there loss of hair which lasted 2-3 months. Now I can do 4-5 day fast without any major side effects.
- codyb 5y ago
  When I’m at the lower end of my weight range, about 155lbs at 6’2” tall, I’m definitely like this. When I’m at the upper end, about 170, it’s a lot better. I think I’m basically just, close to that line by default, so not eating can really have adverse impacts on how I feel because I don’t have a lot of fat or muscle reserves.
  - 5y ago
jcims 5y ago
I sometimes wonder how much our language influences our behavior. There are clearly somewhat distinct sensations that in my English-riddled mind all resolve to ‘hunger’. Then in my head i think ‘hmm, I’m hungry’ and so i do what i do when I’m ‘hungry’. I think this is what leads to me those curious moments where I’m standing in front of the refrigerator trying to remember how I got there. I’ve recently started using ’snacky’ when i have that desire to crunch on something salty. As dumb as it sounds it has helped me ride it out vs mindlessly grabbing something from the pantry.
- sneak 5y ago
  I became much more able to fast when I started supplementing with salt and magnesium and potassium in roughly the same quantities as my non-fasting diet (which includes a rather lot of salt, 5g+ per day). It was an astounding revelation to me.
- rolisz 5y ago
  In German, you say "Ich habe hunger", which literally means I have hunger. In my experience Germans are much more thin. I'm also inclined to think that it's (to some extent) because hunger is something they have, versus something they are.
  - chillingeffect 5y ago
    Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has met its match. German obesity is on the rise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Germany
- halgir 5y ago
  In Danish (probably other norse languages too) there is "sulten" which means hungry and "lækkersulten" which translates to delicious-hungry, for when I feel a craving for something in particular. It's a good point that explicitly distinguishing them might help. If I feel hungry, I might consciously stop and assess whether I'm legitimately hungry or only delicious-hungry.
- dsq 5y ago
lm28469 5y ago
> In fact, we're conditioned to feel hungry three times a day It's a vicious hormonal circle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin Your body gets acclimated and expects three meals a day (+snacks if that how you were raised), anyone who has a pet and feed him at regular interval knows how it works. At that point it doesn't matter if you're hungry or not, your body will signal that you _need_ food. Most people follow what their body tells them without any after thought and that's how we get 70%+ of overweight people in the west. Once people see food as fuel they usually have a whole different view on the topic.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  The main issues are meals size and processed sugars not eating three times a day.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    Which wouldn't be an issue if you understand how your body works and get out of the ghrelin cycle, it's virtually impossible to overeat on IF and processed sugar is the last thing you'll crave once you're out of the addiction
    - nebulous_two 5y ago
      Terrible food gets marketed to you all the time every day. TV, internet ads, highway billboards, subway panel ads, sides of buses, etc. Every time, you have to fight the added pressure of wanting to eat addictive crap and there's only so much strength the average person has been all the other daily pressures and concerns. I'd bet that if all food ads were pushing leafy greens, the obesity rates would drop. It might take a generation or two.

ramraj07 5y ago

Intermittent fasting is not caloric restriction though.

awb 5y ago
It doesn’t have to be, but in practice it helps restrict calories by eliminating late night snacking. Or if you fast for an entire day and don’t overeat during your other feeding windows to compensate you can also find yourself in a caloric deficit.
thefz 5y ago
It is. IF should be combined with a diet richer in protein and fat, and poorer in carbs. In the case of OMAD it's also harder to reach the full caloric budget of a day in a single setting.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

Normal daily physical activity (not hours of cardio at the gym) isn’t responsible for a huge part of your typical caloric expenditure. If you’re noticing a large difference, it’s likely due to appetite related changes or even simply perception differences, not actual energy expenditure changes.

joe-collins 5y ago
"Normal" varies a lot. Via my Oura ring, at 5'10" and 160lbs, I know I typically burn perhaps 250 cal on a lazy day off work. Against that background, working in retail management, ordinary numbers are 700 cal on an undemanding shift, and upwards of 1000 when it gets busy.
- AllegedAlec 5y ago
  You sure those numbers are right bud?
- tobylane 5y ago
  My expectations are what I get from a base metabolic calculator. For a 30 year old man with your measurements, that is 1700 cal.
  - joe-collins 5y ago
    Correct. Apologies, as a sibling comment surmised, those numbers are for activity burn, in addition to BMR, for a total range that stretches from roughly 2000-3000 cal daily.
- DrBazza 5y ago
  250 kcal sounds pretty low to me.
  - darebak 5y ago
    He's not talking about total calories but excess calories due to physical exertion.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      I sure hope so. You'd pretty much have to be in a coma to burn less than 1200 calories a day.
5y ago

pasquinelli 5y ago

never noticed with activity, but getting hungrier earlier than normal was a great indicator that i was about to get sick, before any symptom.

timbit42 5y ago
Perhaps your immune system was ramping up.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

So your body's immune system attacks some of the food you eat, starch is one of the only sugars you immune system doesnt attack, but not all foods are attacked. Secondly some foods increase inflammation, some reduce it, when inflammation occurs, you could compliment it with chemicals/supps that are needed for cell regeneration, things like choline will help here, which is a chemical found in the cell wall, or if you reduce inflammation with things like painkillers, then look at what the painkillers are doing ie P450 enzymes. There's loads of chemical & biological pathways in the body and you need to map out what they all do. Studies like this are just a snapshot of part of process and ideally you would sometimes need two or three studies using chemicals at different amounts to get a better idea. Chemistry will also help give insights into the chemical pathways, like how fast a reaction might take, things like that. > we're conditioned to feel hungry three times a day, Ghrelin is like an alarm clock, to break that eat at random times of the day. > compulsively, or out of sheer boredom. Stress, look at antioxidants, maybe a fruit juice and some stomp/jog/run around the block or down the street and back. Probably the easiest way to get fit is little regular blasts of exercise, but you'll look like a fool to your neighbours. Little and often until fitness levels get up to something substantial. Some banks/city firms provided a gym at work for traders to go and have a quick 5-10min blast/exercise until exhaustion before returning to the desk to carry on, it could be weights, rowing machines and running machines, but its enough to release the pent up energy. This is why working from home or a small business could be harmful to your health. A good company with desk based work would lay on gym equipment, you need a minimum amount of exercise. Starting from a high fitness level, a week dedicated to all waking hours doing a variety of exercises, saw my fitness levels substantially increased, like better than military PT instructor level. Caveat. I'm not qualified in anything. JMO.

aklemm 5y ago
> a week dedicated to all waking hours doing a variety of exercises What does this mean? A blast of energy every hour? How many minutes?
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  I found, but YMMV, intense exercise until exhaustion is probably best, for example when doing some regular gym work, I'd do a sort of HIIT on weights, and only after about 6 months did I then start getting the urge to run and then I would run miles and miles on the treadmill. Just dont do anything which causes pain though which shows up straight away or after some sort of exercise. Personally I'd knock back some vitamin K1 & K2-MK4 to protect your bones especially if older.

weird-eye-issue 5y ago

Even with no exercise if I don't eat enough I feel a little light headed, kind of floaty, and really tired and just overall in a bad mood. Not sure how people skip meals

leonroy 5y ago
The first time I even heard about caloric restriction I thought it was out there. I did eventually try intermittent fasting and after skipping breakfast and lunch I was rewarded with a pounding headache from the lack of my daily morning muffin and coffee. I literally had to go home from work to recover. I didn't try again until I saw this programme here in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc Like a lot of difficult things it takes time and practise. I got better at doing it, but it's still really difficult, especially if the rest of your household don't practise it and you're seeing everyone else around you enjoying their usual meals and food treats.
- reillyse 5y ago
  Honestly I just think different humans are different. My wife gets light headed and can faint if she doesn't eat every 3-4 hours. I've fasted for multiple days without issue.
- mlboss 5y ago
  Agree. When I started skipping breakfast I got lightheaded after noon, but it went away after 1-2 week. Then there loss of hair which lasted 2-3 months. Now I can do 4-5 day fast without any major side effects.
codyb 5y ago
When I’m at the lower end of my weight range, about 155lbs at 6’2” tall, I’m definitely like this. When I’m at the upper end, about 170, it’s a lot better. I think I’m basically just, close to that line by default, so not eating can really have adverse impacts on how I feel because I don’t have a lot of fat or muscle reserves.
- 5y ago

jcims 5y ago

I sometimes wonder how much our language influences our behavior. There are clearly somewhat distinct sensations that in my English-riddled mind all resolve to ‘hunger’. Then in my head i think ‘hmm, I’m hungry’ and so i do what i do when I’m ‘hungry’. I think this is what leads to me those curious moments where I’m standing in front of the refrigerator trying to remember how I got there. I’ve recently started using ’snacky’ when i have that desire to crunch on something salty. As dumb as it sounds it has helped me ride it out vs mindlessly grabbing something from the pantry.

sneak 5y ago
I became much more able to fast when I started supplementing with salt and magnesium and potassium in roughly the same quantities as my non-fasting diet (which includes a rather lot of salt, 5g+ per day). It was an astounding revelation to me.
rolisz 5y ago
In German, you say "Ich habe hunger", which literally means I have hunger. In my experience Germans are much more thin. I'm also inclined to think that it's (to some extent) because hunger is something they have, versus something they are.
- chillingeffect 5y ago
  Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has met its match. German obesity is on the rise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Germany
halgir 5y ago
In Danish (probably other norse languages too) there is "sulten" which means hungry and "lækkersulten" which translates to delicious-hungry, for when I feel a craving for something in particular. It's a good point that explicitly distinguishing them might help. If I feel hungry, I might consciously stop and assess whether I'm legitimately hungry or only delicious-hungry.
dsq 5y ago

lm28469 5y ago

> In fact, we're conditioned to feel hungry three times a day It's a vicious hormonal circle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin Your body gets acclimated and expects three meals a day (+snacks if that how you were raised), anyone who has a pet and feed him at regular interval knows how it works. At that point it doesn't matter if you're hungry or not, your body will signal that you _need_ food. Most people follow what their body tells them without any after thought and that's how we get 70%+ of overweight people in the west. Once people see food as fuel they usually have a whole different view on the topic.

WastingMyTime89 5y ago
The main issues are meals size and processed sugars not eating three times a day.
- lm28469 5y ago
  Which wouldn't be an issue if you understand how your body works and get out of the ghrelin cycle, it's virtually impossible to overeat on IF and processed sugar is the last thing you'll crave once you're out of the addiction
  - nebulous_two 5y ago
    Terrible food gets marketed to you all the time every day. TV, internet ads, highway billboards, subway panel ads, sides of buses, etc. Every time, you have to fight the added pressure of wanting to eat addictive crap and there's only so much strength the average person has been all the other daily pressures and concerns. I'd bet that if all food ads were pushing leafy greens, the obesity rates would drop. It might take a generation or two.