intermittent fasting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Instead of doing 16:8, can you do 12:12?

Not sure that's gong to get you anywhere. That's what people normally eat.

[Anonymous]

I don’t really consider it fasting but I’ve gone to 3 meals and zero snacks. It’s helped me control cravings. I find that if I snack, I’m literally always hungry. But if I go for hours without eating, hunger is much more tolerable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read The Obesity Code by Dr Fung. Basically he says it's not as simple as calories in/out. Weight gain/loss is dependent on insulin levels. Fasting is a way to do this. He goes way in depth about how the body processes food but that stuff went over my head. Coffee is fine. Black coffee is best but if milk helps you comply then it's ok. Diet sodas are not fine (sugar subs raise your insulin). Some people do 2 days of fasting to five eating. I do 16:8, do basically I eat from noon-8. Around ten I may feel hungry, but I drink water, stay busy and it goes away.

This doesn't seem so much like "fasting" as "skipping breakfast." Not a great idea.

When it helps someone go from pre-diabetic to healthy it is a good idea, wouldn’t you agree?

Nope. I think eating one meal a day would help with that also. It is about figuring out a healthy relationship with food. You are clearly not there yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. For those who have been doing IF, a couple questions...

1. Did you just jump right into it and fast for 2 days? How rough a start is it? I work and have young kids and worry about being angry and/or unfocussed.
2. If you fast for entire days or multiple days, do you also exercise? Only exercise on days you eat? Or don't exercise at all?

Thanks.

I've been fasting on and off for a couple of years doing 5:2. Yes, I jumped right in. My routine is coffee with cream in the morning, but nothing more until dinner. I drink a lot of water, have herbal tea, sometimes a cup of chicken bullion. For some reason salt seems to help on fasting days - I got headaches when I first started, and the chicken bullion helped a lot. I try to stay to 500 calories on fast days, so for me that is the coffee plus a dinner with lots and lots of vegetables and a piece of protein - chicken breast, an egg, something like that. If I have a few calories left over I'll have a few chocolate chips. During the rest of the week (my non-fast days) I eat the number of calories I can eat a day without gaining weight, which is about 1500 for me. I do most of my exercising (yoga, climbing wall, hiking, kayaking) on the weekends, and I eat normally on the weekends.

Part of what I had to get my head around was mental. I realize some people get dizzy and cranky when they are hungry, but I found I don't have to (but truly, people are different. IF is not a good fit for many people). When I started to see hunger as any other feeling in my body, and not an existential emergency I had to respond to, I stopped feeling so bad when I was hungry. I remind myself that people have always had times of hunger, and they didn't start swooning and hollering when they couldn't bring down a buffalo. They carried on. So basically I told myself to suck it up. Which works for me, but which isn't necessarily helpful for others!

This is disordered and unhealthy, period. Sure, it's a fad now, but it is NOT healthy by any means.

I disagree with you, clearly, and so does my GP and my nutritionist. What for me was disordered was constantly thinking about food and snacking. My body was also disordered and sick with pre-diabetes. I’m healthy now, so I’ll carry on.

DP. Well, I just saw a nutritionist for my teen DD, and honestly these are the same people and GPs who recommended carb full diet for the last 30 years, so I agree with you that Drs who are more open might be on the right track! The list of how much my done growing DD should eat in a day was insane. I grew up in Europe and never ate one third of what this nutritionists was recommending my DD eats, and my DD is not underweight at all. We saw a different nutritionist for my below 1%percentile DS and that is a different story on how much he should eat! So, I decided to take a good look at GPs and many other health professionals who allowed sugar industry to make us into research projects for the last 30 years. Thanks, but no thanks! I will eat how my grandma who was born in 1910 thought me to eat. Plus no way, did us humans evolve to catch up with eating this much food in the last 150 years! Not even in 2000 years can our bodies evolve to process this much food. So, your GP is one of few that is right, the rest are delusional.

I find your post to be fascinating. Please share more!

[Anonymous]

I have been trying intermittent fasting, but tbh I am f'ing starving by 10 AM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read The Obesity Code by Dr Fung. Basically he says it's not as simple as calories in/out. Weight gain/loss is dependent on insulin levels. Fasting is a way to do this. He goes way in depth about how the body processes food but that stuff went over my head. Coffee is fine. Black coffee is best but if milk helps you comply then it's ok. Diet sodas are not fine (sugar subs raise your insulin). Some people do 2 days of fasting to five eating. I do 16:8, do basically I eat from noon-8. Around ten I may feel hungry, but I drink water, stay busy and it goes away.

This doesn't seem so much like "fasting" as "skipping breakfast." Not a great idea.

When it helps someone go from pre-diabetic to healthy it is a good idea, wouldn’t you agree?

Nope. I think eating one meal a day would help with that also. It is about figuring out a healthy relationship with food. You are clearly not there yet.

Weird! See, I think the point of food is to make you healthy, not to have a relationship with it. I had an emotional relationship with food for about 30 years and now I just use it to stay healthy. You are really missing the point if you think eating one meal a day would be healthier but you should eat more because...relationship?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read The Obesity Code by Dr Fung. Basically he says it's not as simple as calories in/out. Weight gain/loss is dependent on insulin levels. Fasting is a way to do this. He goes way in depth about how the body processes food but that stuff went over my head. Coffee is fine. Black coffee is best but if milk helps you comply then it's ok. Diet sodas are not fine (sugar subs raise your insulin). Some people do 2 days of fasting to five eating. I do 16:8, do basically I eat from noon-8. Around ten I may feel hungry, but I drink water, stay busy and it goes away.

This doesn't seem so much like "fasting" as "skipping breakfast." Not a great idea.

When it helps someone go from pre-diabetic to healthy it is a good idea, wouldn’t you agree?

Nope. I think eating one meal a day would help with that also. It is about figuring out a healthy relationship with food. You are clearly not there yet.

NP. I love food. Food and I have a very healthy relationship. I love to cook and bake, love to share food with others. I also feel sluggish if I eat breakfast. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive. My body feels best if I start eating around 11 or 12, and stop eating after dinner. I didn’t know that this was called “intermittent fasting” until recently; it’s just how I eat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been trying intermittent fasting, but tbh I am f'ing starving by 10 AM.

Haha me too!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This doesn't seem so much like "fasting" as "skipping breakfast." Not a great idea.

Why? You do know that breakfast being "the most important meal of the day" was basically a slogan engineered by Kellogg's and Post, right?

Do you think our ancestors ate three squares?

Older people also often start downshifting to just two meals a day.

And if you stop eating sugar and other processed carbs, you'll suddenly find that you're not ravenous at the beginning of the day anyway.

There's no Immutable Law of Breakfast.

But I'm also assuming you're just trolling at this point.

+1
The 8:16 is the first thing that has worked for me to get my HA1c down into normal range. But keep criticizing away if it makes you feel better, doesn't make a difference to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been trying intermittent fasting, but tbh I am f'ing starving by 10 AM.

Haha me too!!

I've been doing it, more or less for the last 4 weeks. I find 7-9 am to be the hardest but usually by 10am I don't feel too hungry. Sometimes I even make it to 12. The funny thing I have noticed is that on the days I do eat bfast, even high protein ones, I am actually hungrier at 11am than when I haven't eaten anything yet. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been trying intermittent fasting, but tbh I am f'ing starving by 10 AM.

Haha me too!!

I've been doing it, more or less for the last 4 weeks. I find 7-9 am to be the hardest but usually by 10am I don't feel too hungry. Sometimes I even make it to 12. The funny thing I have noticed is that on the days I do eat bfast, even high protein ones, I am actually hungrier at 11am than when I haven't eaten anything yet. Go figure.

Green tea helps me curb the hunger pangs.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I’m finally going to try 16:8 even though I’m fond breakfast. I need to lose 25 pounds and haven’t stuck to the usual low calorie diets well enough.

I normally take one prescription pill and some supplements with breakfast. Is it ok to keep taking them in the morning? I’d rather not have to bring them into work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I’m finally going to try 16:8 even though I’m fond breakfast. I need to lose 25 pounds and haven’t stuck to the usual low calorie diets well enough.

I normally take one prescription pill and some supplements with breakfast. Is it ok to keep taking them in the morning? I’d rather not have to bring them into work.

It depends on if your stomach can handle it. I can't take vitamins on an empty stomach, so has to switch them later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. For those who have been doing IF, a couple questions...

1. Did you just jump right into it and fast for 2 days? How rough a start is it? I work and have young kids and worry about being angry and/or unfocussed.
2. If you fast for entire days or multiple days, do you also exercise? Only exercise on days you eat? Or don't exercise at all?

Thanks.

I've been fasting on and off for a couple of years doing 5:2. Yes, I jumped right in. My routine is coffee with cream in the morning, but nothing more until dinner. I drink a lot of water, have herbal tea, sometimes a cup of chicken bullion. For some reason salt seems to help on fasting days - I got headaches when I first started, and the chicken bullion helped a lot. I try to stay to 500 calories on fast days, so for me that is the coffee plus a dinner with lots and lots of vegetables and a piece of protein - chicken breast, an egg, something like that. If I have a few calories left over I'll have a few chocolate chips. During the rest of the week (my non-fast days) I eat the number of calories I can eat a day without gaining weight, which is about 1500 for me. I do most of my exercising (yoga, climbing wall, hiking, kayaking) on the weekends, and I eat normally on the weekends.

Part of what I had to get my head around was mental. I realize some people get dizzy and cranky when they are hungry, but I found I don't have to (but truly, people are different. IF is not a good fit for many people). When I started to see hunger as any other feeling in my body, and not an existential emergency I had to respond to, I stopped feeling so bad when I was hungry. I remind myself that people have always had times of hunger, and they didn't start swooning and hollering when they couldn't bring down a buffalo. They carried on. So basically I told myself to suck it up. Which works for me, but which isn't necessarily helpful for others!

This is disordered and unhealthy, period. Sure, it's a fad now, but it is NOT healthy by any means.

I disagree with you, clearly, and so does my GP and my nutritionist. What for me was disordered was constantly thinking about food and snacking. My body was also disordered and sick with pre-diabetes. I’m healthy now, so I’ll carry on.

DP. Well, I just saw a nutritionist for my teen DD, and honestly these are the same people and GPs who recommended carb full diet for the last 30 years, so I agree with you that Drs who are more open might be on the right track! The list of how much my done growing DD should eat in a day was insane. I grew up in Europe and never ate one third of what this nutritionists was recommending my DD eats, and my DD is not underweight at all. We saw a different nutritionist for my below 1%percentile DS and that is a different story on how much he should eat! So, I decided to take a good look at GPs and many other health professionals who allowed sugar industry to make us into research projects for the last 30 years. Thanks, but no thanks! I will eat how my grandma who was born in 1910 thought me to eat. Plus no way, did us humans evolve to catch up with eating this much food in the last 150 years! Not even in 2000 years can our bodies evolve to process this much food. So, your GP is one of few that is right, the rest are delusional.

I find your post to be fascinating. Please share more!

Really? What would you like to know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read The Obesity Code by Dr Fung. Basically he says it's not as simple as calories in/out. Weight gain/loss is dependent on insulin levels. Fasting is a way to do this. He goes way in depth about how the body processes food but that stuff went over my head. Coffee is fine. Black coffee is best but if milk helps you comply then it's ok. Diet sodas are not fine (sugar subs raise your insulin). Some people do 2 days of fasting to five eating. I do 16:8, do basically I eat from noon-8. Around ten I may feel hungry, but I drink water, stay busy and it goes away.

This doesn't seem so much like "fasting" as "skipping breakfast." Not a great idea.

When it helps someone go from pre-diabetic to healthy it is a good idea, wouldn’t you agree?

Nope. I think eating one meal a day would help with that also. It is about figuring out a healthy relationship with food. You are clearly not there yet.

Weird! See, I think the point of food is to make you healthy, not to have a relationship with it. I had an emotional relationship with food for about 30 years and now I just use it to stay healthy. You are really missing the point if you think eating one meal a day would be healthier but you should eat more because...relationship?

I don't understand what's so "unhealthy" about skipping breakfast? Or dangerous? Or whatever word you would like to use. IMO, the standard should be to eat when you're hungry, stop when you are full. If this poster, or the OP, or whoever, does not feel hunger until noon time, should they force themselves to eat? That seems crazy to me. Just like there are people out there who wake up hungry/need breakfast, there is nothing wrong with them eating breakfast. I myself find that I am hungrier all day long if I eat breakfast. If I simply just wait until I'm hungry to eat, that naturally occurs for me around lunch time.

Why do we feel the need to lump every single human being together? Why do we insist every single person must need the exact same thing? Why can't we just accept that bodies react differently to different things?