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Intermittent fasting is as effective as counting calories, new study finds
- englebert 3y agoCan anyone recommend the best books on this topic? I’m not as interested in weight loss as I am the mental health effects and other physiological factors.
- gnicholas 3y ago> New research finds that people who try time-restricted eating can keep it up longer than people who count calories. This is consistent with my experience. IF makes eating a binary choice: either it's eating time or it's not. That simplifies the decision tree in a way that is helpful for me.
- jasonpeacock 3y agoSame here - it's much easier for me to not eat than to eat less. Though after almost 6mo of OMAD I better recognize when I feel full (and my stomach is has shrunk?) so I can actually eat less now which is a big deal. All my life I've been a big eater, and eating a normal portion always left me feeling unsatisfied after a meal. Now a normal portion feels right and me weight is under control, yay!
- danpalmer 3y agoDo you have any tips for OMAD? Which meal/time do you go for? I do this accidentally sometimes and I always feel either awful all day before I eat or late in the day after I eat.
- jasonpeacock 3y agoI focused on dinner only, and would start eating around 4pm and stop at 8pm - 2hrs before bedtime (technically that's 20/4 fasting and not OMAD). I have coffee in the morning, 1-2 cups, then just water the rest of the day. If you're fasting for true fasting effect (autophagy, etc.) then you can't eat more than 50cal or you'll "break" the fast. If you're fasting for dieting/reduced calories, then having a protein shake (100-200cal) is OK if it helps you get through the day. I'm lucky in that my body responds will to fasting, but you may need to ease into it - aim for not eating until 12pm (12-8pm), then push that later each week as you feel better until you get to 4pm or 6pm and are doing OMAD. Also very important when fasting is food quality. OMAD is marketed as "eat anything you like and lose weight!", and while that may be true you'll feel like crap if the only meal you have pizza and ice cream and beer. Start with a salad, then get some good protein & fat in your entree, with a side of carbs. Dessert is OK, but it should be a treat - not a full serving/second meal.
- bilsbie 3y agoBlack coffee?
- jasonpeacock 3y agoYes, black, unless you can keep the cream+sugar <50cal or are not pursuing strict fasting. Tea is good too, but same caveats about milk+sugar.
- jasonpeacock 3y agoAlso, the non-alcoholic beers from Athletic Brewing are great and low-calorie. Their "Athletic Lite" is only 20cal, or their gluten-free is 45cal. The IPA is 65cal, IIRC.
- me_me_me 3y agoOne note from experience. Its better to stay under 50kcals (bit of milk with coffee), than to have small amounts of food (breaking autophagy). Small amount of food will cause hunger triggers making you hungry all the time. With no calories my hunger fades away and its only mental experience of your brain saying 'you should be eating now' rather than physical one of your stomach rumbling. Its a very interesting physical vs mental experience. One more thing. To make most of OMAD its better to switch to Keto diet and focus on eating proteins.
- michaelcampbell 3y agoNot who you asked, but I do OMAD some days and IF on others. I find it easier physiologically to eat a lunch for OMAD; maybe because it's "opposite" of the day from sleep time. However, I live with my wife and son, and socially it's much easier to skip lunch and have dinner with the family. Either works for me, and I don't generally OMAD more than 2 days in a row. In general I kind of IF (I always skip breakfast) most days, OMAD a couple every couple weeks, do a 24 hour fast every month or so, and a 48 hour one every quarter or so.
- nradov 3y agoOMAD can be effective with many patients for weight loss but it probably isn't optimal for protein metabolism. I wouldn't recommend staying on it permanently. While we don't have any good clinical studies on this issue, over the long run I would be concerned about a higher risk of sarcopenia. https://peterattiamd.com/ama40/ https://peterattiamd.com/ama40/
- michaelcampbell 3y agoMany people point to the Minnesota Starvation experiment post WWII, and for the wrong reasons. Many don't realize that experiment was on a restricted calorie diet, and people's bodies react differently to (more or less) steady drip of food than they do to fasting.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y agoYeah but hunger is a spectrum. The longer you get hungry, the worse the effects. I get brainfog immediately when I don't eat, I cannot think properly (affects my work) and I'm irritable. How do you manage that? And before you say "drink", I easily drink 2L of water just in the morning
- sp332 3y agoDid the weight maintenance part actually work? Did extending the eating window to 10 hours pause the weight loss?
- mathgeek 3y agoThe study with abstract is here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32673591/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32673591/
- aSockPuppeteer 3y agoThey measured 4hr and 6hr eating windows versus eat whenever. I think it’s a scooby-do moment where instead of calculating calories you let your stomach do it based on fullness. Drinking zero calorie drinks is essential through the day and having dessert less often helps of course. I mostly follow one meal per day and have lost about a pound per week. The mostly part is drinking 1/4-1/2 cup of some oat milk or almond milk with medicine once or twice per day for a few weeks. I didn’t notice any difference in weight loss.
- mkl95 3y agoIntermittent fasting helps me roughly estimate how much I'm eating, which I would say is enough accuracy for most people.
- wenc 3y agoThis. I haven’t lost any weight from IF because going down to 2 meals just meant I ate larger meals — because I’m one of those people who can eat a lot before feeling full. But I’m the exception. Most people feel full more easily.
- michaelcampbell 3y agoI've deduced I have about a 20 minute lag between eating and feeling the effects of it.
- wenc 3y agoThat’s a useful thing to know! Eating slower does help with calorie intake if you know the satiation signal has a lag time. For me though the satiation signal has low lag but my satiation threshold is just very high.
- tacheiordache 3y agoChew thoroughly instead. That will force you to eat slower too and it's easier on the stomach.
- antisthenes 3y agoOnly because most people who count calories actually don't. They cheat or miscalculate, because the US "serving" system is an insane way to measure nutrients. Also 3% of body weight over 8 weeks is a nothing burger. Did they control for water intake? It's not in the abstract. You can lose roughly 1-2% of your body weight in less than 24 hours, simply by sweating.
- treeman79 3y agoMy wife counted calories for about a year. It was total OCD to get correct numbers. Would get out the scale, so exact measurements. Calculate ever ingredient. Was shocking how much more calories we were eating without realizing it. Drove the whole family nuts. However, She lost 90 pounds from it all. So can’t complain.
- copperx 3y agoCalorie counting is a great exercise whether you stick to it or not. It's shocking to see how calorie dense are some processed foods and how easy it is to overeat. You get a feel for the portions you should be eating. Another cool thing is that calorie counting doesn't make you crazy hungry like some diets where the calories have been miscalculated. However, it is a chore. Apps help.
- JimtheCoder 3y agoWhile I agree with your other points... "They cheat or miscalculate, because the US "serving" system is an insane way to measure nutrients." I'm not sure how many people who count calories use the "serving" system. Almost everyone I know, myself included, goes by weight of the food and calories. Eg. 15g of Peanut butter is 90 Cals
- antisthenes 3y ago> I'm not sure how many people who could calories use the "serving" system. Almost everyone I know, myself included, goes by weight of the food and calories. I bet those who actually use the weight of the food (in a standardized 100g increment, for example) have much better compliance and success in weight control, like yourself.
- throwaway22032 3y agoThe headline here feels like a category error. It literally cannot be as effective, because some people can eat a large amount of food in a short period of time. What I suspect they mean is that the average person is more likely to stick to IF than they are to calorie counting. This feels intuitively obvious to me - it's a lot less work. Even on a bulking diet it can be really hard sometimes to figure out how many calories are in foods, small restaurants don't have a clue for example.
- solarmist 3y ago> It literally cannot be as effective If you're assuming perfect adherence on one side and gaming on the other, then of course not. People who don't want to adhere won't in either case and will find ways to cheat or game the process. Also, IF (and calorie counting) helps shrink your stomach making giant meals less likely over time. People are terrible at calorie counting too. Even when they don't give up. They stick to it they get sloppy over time. They'll estimate and round numbers, so they can have one more cookie, etc.
- throwaway22032 3y agoWith perfect adherence on both sides counting calories cannot be inferior. IF does not specify a calorie count. If it did, it would be a subset of calorie counting. There is nothing preventing me from eating 3-5k cals in 8 hours, I do it all the time when bulking. There is nothing wrong with the idea of IF, it just relies on the fact that you will intuitively eat fewer calories if you restrict your eating to a shorter period. By definition then, it cannot be superior to just actually eating less.
- solarmist 3y agoYou know unless you take into account humans aren’t machines and are terrible at precision and consistency.
- throwaway22032 3y ago
- anonauthority 3y agointermittent fasting got me flexing
- hollerith 3y agoYeah, well, the problem with time-restricted eating (for me) was that I couldn't get enough protein to my muscles: I got weaker and weaker during the 1.5 years or so that I was doing it. I was eating plenty of meat, but cramming all my calories into 2 meals separated by 3 or 4 hours didn't give me enough protein even though I (unlike the average American) I was eating just as much protein in the first meal of the day as the other meals. I still try to have been fasting at least 12 hours when I wake up in the morning, but I also try to get 40 g of protein 3 times a day and to separate those meals by at least 3 or 4 hours, and my muscles are back to being able to benefit from strength training like they are supposed to be.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoCome on man you gotta tell us how big they are. I am semi-serious, this doesn't seem like a common problem are you a powerlifter or?
- hollerith 3y agoThe older you get the harder it is to maintain muscle mass, and I am in my 60s.
- wenc 3y agoI eat 2-3 hard boiled eggs (very high PDCAAS score) a day (intermittent fasting 16:8). I’ve done this for 7 years. My muscle mass seems to have stayed the same.
- vikingerik 3y agoWhat do you do about the cholesterol? I love eggs as well, they're very filling for the calories and I can feel the protein going to my muscles... but when I ate them most days, my blood work showed high cholesterol (and I have a family history of heart attacks), so I felt I had to back off on that.
- wenc 3y ago
- niceworkbuddy 3y agoSome time ago I was through a stage of depression, anxiety attacks and I couldn't eat a thing, my brain was simply refusing to accept a food. I lost a lot of weight then... But this is the worst way of losing weight IMHO. Every now and then I read about intermittent fasting and it reminds me of those days. When simply not eating lead to losing weight.
- CyanBird 3y agoNot eating as a consequence of deep depression is not the same as not eating for personal choice
- soggybread 3y agoI've been mostly doing this, I typically skip breakfast and lunch and eat dinner with my family. The first week or so I was really hungry between meals but it's not so bad anymore. When I get a craving a sip of water usually helps and I like to chew gum to help as well. The weight isn't falling off but I was losing about a pound a week. It's slowed down a bit to maybe a pound every two weeks but at the same time, I'm keeping a consistent weight without having to go to the gym and only walking about 3 miles (sometimes more) a day
- gnicholas 3y agoYeah, it's apparently more useful to skip dinner, but I've found that for social purposes it's much easier to skip breakfast instead.
- xk_id 3y agoChewing gum triggers digestive processes which expect food. It fills your stomach with acid, enzymes, etc which then have nothing to do. I don’t think it’s a useful habit.
- abeppu 3y agoI do find it annoying that it's just assumed that weight loss followed by weight maintenance is _the_ goal against which we should measure "effectiveness". _Everyone_ has to eat, and make choices about what and how they eat, but not everyone needs to lose weight, and even among people who should lose weight, other factors like insulin resistance are sometimes more important measures for picking a strategy than weight loss/maintenance alone. Comparing effectiveness of ways of eating without first identifying (and critically evaluating) goals is meaningless, in the same way it would be meaningless to declare that jogging and weight-lifting are equally effective without specifying a goal.
- lm28469 3y ago> but not everyone needs to lose weight We're getting close to 80% obesity/overweight in the US with many other countries following closely. The majority of people in the west need to lose weight, we just got used to everyone being overweight
- extasia 3y agoGoals are important sure. As the commenter above mentioned, most people are above what would be considered an ideal weight for their body. It's a fair assumption that these people would want to lose weight. As somebody who finds it harder to gain weight, I still recognise that most have the opposite problem and understand that most content will be tailored to the average Joe, which is fine.
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoAlongside the above’s other points, there’s various evidence that intermittent fasting and caloric deficits are actually beneficial to the longevity of the human body. Okinawans are a prime example, as they have some of if not the longest lifespans due in part to this. And while science cannot definitively say whether obesity causes problems, or some underlying problems cause obesity, it’s a fairly well understood fact that even if in your prime you’re healthy while being obese, your joints won’t be further into your life. Arthritis and general immobility are things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
- jrh3 3y ago> "Mainly we're cutting out, I think, after-dinner snacks." I would agree based on my personal experience.
- notyourday 3y agoThe reason IF works is because it over time restores insulin sensitivity. Calorie restrictive eating without IF does not do that. Any style of eating that restores insulin sensitivity becomes a baseline lifestyle as you aren't fighting hormones. Any style that does not means you are going to constantly fight hormones. At the end, hormones will win.
- 2snakes 3y agoAnother way to do this is 600 total for breakfast+lunch, snack on zero-calorie, walk 2 miles, and save your calories for a nice big dinner. You wind up with 12-1500 calories to play with at night when willpower is lower and snacks are handier.