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Intermittent Fasting (Read 14653 times)

duncan

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Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 01:18:30 pm
A few people have mentioned Intermittent Fasting in power club and sharkathon posts and I thought it worthy of consideration.

Always believed that breakfast kicked your metbolism out of night time shut-down mode back into full operating mode so skipping it actually means you're burning calories more slowly than you would had you eaten it?
(Not a dig, a very commonly held belief)

Apparently not always. "The effects of food restriction on energy metabolism have been under investigation for more than a century. Data obtained are conflicting and research has failed to provide conclusive results."

Leangains
seems to be the cheer-leader for this approach. How credible is he?

Anyone tried this out?
What did you do?
How did you get on?

monkoffunk

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#1 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 01:32:05 pm
Tried it out. Lost about 10 kg easily. Makes getting to fighting weight before trips pretty straight forward.

I think the concern people have is going into 'starvation mode' but that is something that happens in days rather than hours. You don't feel hungry in starvation mode but you will if you don't eat for 24 hours.

Basically it takes around 14 hours to burn through your glycogen stores and then you'll theoretically start burning far stores.

Whether that is the actual mechanism or whether by restricting your calories to a certain time of day you end up eating less, I'm not sure. However I have noticed I feel much more hungry in middle of day if I've eaten breakfast compared to when I haven't.

Anyway there is a lot more detail out there and studies etc, but it has worked wonders for me, it's the way forward as far as I'm concerned!

Yossarian

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#2 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 01:50:02 pm
I started it, partly because of the potential for weight loss, and also because of the apparent benefits on productivity.

I was led to believe that there is quite a lot of proper research on it. For example, the boost to testosterone / HGH levels.

My experience is that the skipping breakfast = sluggish thing is a myth. I feel far more alert in the mornings having not eaten since the previous day. I usually have my first meal between 2-5pm. I used to get terrible stitches when running after eating. Now I generally run mid-late afternoon and eat afterwards, and have not suffered at all since starting IF.

tommytwotone

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#3 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 02:27:12 pm
As I mentioned on Club De Puissance (or whatever it's called nowadays), I've been doing it for a couple of weeks.

My reading of the various blogs was that it was a way of dropping body fat percentage, as opposed to necessarily losing weight (though I guess if you aren't chucking heavy weights around / eating large meals in your "window" that would be a by=product).

I wish I'd assessed my overall weight / body fat % before and after a couple of weeks, but I certainly felt (and apparently looked) lighter and a bit leaner.

Agree with Yoss' points re: appetite and sluggishness. I felt a lot more alert / had more energy, and found it easier to resist snacking and eating crap as well.

Murph

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#4 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 05:27:43 pm

Leangains
seems to be the cheer-leader for this approach. How credible is he?

He is ripped, surely that's credentials enough? /s

Seriously though, it was his website that got me into it. He was saying it was ok to not eat in the morning, I needed a workable way of eating less, so I gave it a go. I was soon in the form of my life.

I like to think my bullshit detector is quite strong (don't we all?) and he doesn't really bullshit too much. He doesn't advocate IF because of ancestral health or hormones or one-bad-macro or gluten; he advocates IF mainly because of strong dietary compliance. It is a tool rather than a goal.

There's a lot of nutjobs and commercial interests out there advocating all sorts of things but he isn't one of them IMO.

Alan Aragon's summary of IF, hosted here with Leangain's comments is a worthwhile reference point for the state of IF research (summary - it's inconclusive AKA it is about what you eat not when you eat). If he was a quack selling snakeoil there wouldn't be any point in sharing that with his readers.

Teaboy

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#5 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 06:06:35 pm
I'm a sceptic that intermittent fasting does anything other than force you be a bit more circumspect about what you eat. I've not eaten a breakfast for many years and over the last 5 (since I've been working from home) my lunch has got later and later so most week days I'll 'fast' for at least 14 hours but my weight is still subject to the same vagaries as ever depending on what and how much I eat, how much excercise I do etc. If you are someone who suddenly decides you want to make a change and lose some weight then fasting just forces you to eat less. You have to cut out snacking for most of the day, you're not having that packet of crisps at lunchtime etc, and as you are now keen to lose weight you may subconsciously start watching what you do actually eat.

A few years ago my mate was propounding the Atkins diet as it worked for him but really it was because it forced him to stop drinking. Same with this, if you eat less frequently you will inevitably eat less

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#6 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 06:21:27 pm
As usual Examine provide a fairly good overview on IF:
https://examine.com/search/?q=intermittent+fasting


Lots of research pointing to increases in NAD+ levels caused by IF as one of the mechanisms at work behind the 'metabolic changes' claims. If you're interested in NAD+ (and you should be if you're over 30), also worth researching Niagen..

I did a 24hr fast last Monday just out of interest. First time in a couple of years I'd deliberately fasted.

cheque

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#7 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 08:17:13 pm

Wood FT

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Murph

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#9 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 09:40:58 pm
Quiches Lorraine gets me every time.

Reminds me of that one on Little Britain where the posh guy ordered his desert “and a Yorkie Bar......buttered”.  Good times.

Murph

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#10 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 26, 2018, 09:46:47 pm
I'm a sceptic that intermittent fasting does anything other than force you be a bit more circumspect about what you eat
Agreed.

Quote
my weight is still subject to the same vagaries as ever depending on what and how much I eat, how much excercise I do etc.
Of course. Nail on head.

Quote
if you eat less frequently you will inevitably eat less
Most likely but not inevitably. See butterfield (though technically he wasn’t fasting).

Nibile

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#11 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 27, 2018, 09:01:58 am
Haven't read all the above links, but I think that the main factors to take into account - Intermittent Fasting or not - are: food quality (skipping a bad breakfast is probably a good thing, skipping a good one is probably a bad thing); weight loss quality (losing muscle is a bad thing because you lose not only overall power, but also training capacity and most of all you lower your basal metabolism; losing fat is a good thing); time of training (training in the morning, afternoon or evening require different eating strategies); the thing that protein synthesis goes on even while "energy" to perform a task is not required (during sleep, or sedentary work).
Just my 2 cents.

shark

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#12 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 27, 2018, 10:02:17 am
Just listened to this which is pertinent to whether IF might work for you or not:

Quote
Next is failing to find the eating style that fits your nutritional struggles at the moment.  For example, if your main issue is that you mindlessly graze all day and eat at random times and adopt an intermittent fasting approach to fix this, you are likely setting yourself up for failure.  Not because intermittent fasting is incapable of producing weight loss but rather in your specific case it is directly opposite of the mannerisms that are most embedded in your approach to eating right now.  Instead, you would want to do IF if your issues revolved more on frequent large portion eating.

monkoffunk

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#13 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 27, 2018, 10:18:06 am
The slightly disingenuous side to my post is that I didn't just do intermittent fasting to loose weight. I also improved to quality of the food I was eating, cutting out all the junk and switching to more sweet potato and fruit for carbs. Also big cut down on the booze. So my n of 1 study has a lot of confounding factors.

petejh

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#14 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 27, 2018, 12:13:57 pm
Like Teaboy says that's probably quite a common side-effect of consciously restricting calorie intake - to also improve the quality of the calories you still consume:
I'm a sceptic that intermittent fasting does anything other than force you be a bit more circumspect about what you eat.

The science behind calorie restriction is fascinating, especially regarding the role of NAD+. Inflammation, gene expression and optimising the mitochondria's energy production (e.g. ATP for power Nibile) are all strongly linked.
It's more to do with general health (especially in over 30-40s) than about weight loss (although those who overeat to excess show the most obvious symptoms).

Nibile, I doubt many people are quite as concerned about pure power output as you!   

Nibile

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#15 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 27, 2018, 02:35:02 pm

Nibile, I doubt many people are quite as concerned about pure power output as you!
;D probably!
Made my day, have a point!

Ged

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#16 Re: Intermittent Fasting
January 28, 2018, 10:18:47 pm
"Data obtained are conflicting and research has failed to provide conclusive results."

The case for 99% of dietary research?

duncan

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#17 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 05, 2018, 01:32:44 pm
Thanks for your thoughs everyone. Mainly concerned with helping with the behavioural challenges of weight loss and interested if this would suit me. I've never been skinny, even as a teenager, with a build much better suited to mountaineering than rock climbing. My weight has crept up another 1.5-2kg over the last few years. Visual observation suggests this is mostly increase in bodyfat so something has to be done. My diet is pretty healthy most of the time, don't snack during the day, hardly drink, modern fashions might say too much bread, rice and pasta. In the past, cutting out evening snacks has usually been effective but not so much recently.

Just listened to this which is pertinent to whether IF might work for you or not:

Quote
Next is failing to find the eating style that fits your nutritional struggles at the moment.  For example, if your main issue is that you mindlessly graze all day and eat at random times and adopt an intermittent fasting approach to fix this, you are likely setting yourself up for failure.  Not because intermittent fasting is incapable of producing weight loss but rather in your specific case it is directly opposite of the mannerisms that are most embedded in your approach to eating right now.  Instead, you would want to do IF if your issues revolved more on frequent large portion eating.

Where is this quote from? I don't quite follow. My biggest issue is in the evening: I start eating when I get home from work and find it hard to stop. Is this saying IF could exacerbate this? One way to find out I suppose.

shark

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#18 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 05, 2018, 04:59:56 pm
Just listened to this which is pertinent to whether IF might work for you or not:

Quote
Next is failing to find the eating style that fits your nutritional struggles at the moment.  For example, if your main issue is that you mindlessly graze all day and eat at random times and adopt an intermittent fasting approach to fix this, you are likely setting yourself up for failure.  Not because intermittent fasting is incapable of producing weight loss but rather in your specific case it is directly opposite of the mannerisms that are most embedded in your approach to eating right now.  Instead, you would want to do IF if your issues revolved more on frequent large portion eating.

Quote from: duncan
Where is this quote from? I don't quite follow. My biggest issue is in the evening: I start eating when I get home from work and find it hard to stop. Is this saying IF could exacerbate this? One way to find out I suppose.

From this:


jwi

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#19 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 05, 2018, 08:32:04 pm
 :offtopic: Why are American fitness-youtubers so incredibly shouty? Unwatchable.

shark

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#20 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 06, 2018, 08:58:16 am
 ;D Duncan's fault asking for the source.

There is a transcript

jwi

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#21 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 06, 2018, 10:59:20 am

There is a transcript

Thank god. Was quite happy to see that it was not set in all caps

duncan

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#22 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 06, 2018, 01:40:43 pm
Thanks Simon. I think he means small behavioural changes are more likely to stick than big ones. Which is probably true. He spoils it by repeating the '75% dehydrated' factoid. AND SHOUTING!

jwi

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#23 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 06, 2018, 01:49:44 pm
But drinking more water than necessary can make you feel more full, that's pretty well known. Diminishing returns, I suspect.

Murph

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#24 Re: Intermittent Fasting
February 06, 2018, 02:56:57 pm
FWIW I disagree with what he said about IF being unsuitable for grazers as well. It's kind of like saying that if you like eating a lot of food then eating less food might be unsuitable.

If you graze mindlessly all day and struggle with your weight then perhaps having certain times of the day where you don't eat really would be a good idea!

 

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