OT: Fitness and Nutrition Part V

[Kriss E]

Same here, I haven't lost a ton of weight, probably because of alcohol, but I feel much better overall now that I do IF, lots more energy and clarity.

I have been wanting to do IF but I realized it's just impossible for me to keep up.
Doing IF means no brunches or dinners on weekends, no bar nights, no snacks at movies...
Life would just become so freaking dull.

 

[MasterD]

I have been wanting to do IF but I realized it's just impossible for me to keep up.
Doing IF means no brunches or dinners on weekends, no bar nights, no snacks at movies...
Life would just become so freaking dull.

Why? Well, I guess I use the terms IF and restricted feeding window interchangeably... Personally I just go with the flow, see what feels right and what fits my schedule. If I'm super hungry, I eat. If I have a social event, brunch, night out, whatever, I attend it. But then the next day I might wait until late afternoon/supper to have my first meal to reach 16ish hours of IF. I think if you try to be super strict about it you'll just eventually end up raising your cortisol.

 

[Kriss E]

Why? Well, I guess I use the terms IF and restricted feeding window interchangeably... Personally I just go with the flow, see what feels right and what fits my schedule. If I'm super hungry, I eat. If I have a social event, brunch, night out, whatever, I attend it. But then the next day I might wait until late afternoon/supper to have my first meal to reach 16ish hours of IF. I think if you try to be super strict about it you'll just eventually end up raising your cortisol.

Don't you have to be consistent in order to see the actual benefits?
If you are constantly changing hours and sometimes even flat out not fasting much, aren't you putting your body in a constant state of changing, which is the opposite point of IF?

 

[MasterD]

Don't you have to be consistent in order to see the actual benefits?
If you are constantly changing hours and sometimes even flat out not fasting much, aren't you putting your body in a constant state of changing, which is the opposite point of IF?

Not from what I've read, no. There are actually many different protocols out there... Some people do 6 or 8hour feeding windows. Some people do 2 24:00 fasts per week.

Also depends what you're going for, if you want autophagy in the context of cancer prevention/treatment then the current thought is you probably need to hit 24:00 of fast... Weight loss doesn't require as much.

 

[Kriss E]

Not from what I've read, no. There are actually many different protocols out there... Some people do 6 or 8hour feeding windows. Some people do 2 24:00 fasts per week.

Also depends what you're going for, if you want autophagy in the context of cancer prevention/treatment then the current thought is you probably need to hit 24:00 of fast... Weight loss doesn't require as much.

I know about the different types, but my understanding was that you need to pick one and apply it regularly. Not flip flop around them and have non-IF days often too.
Otherwise your body never has time to adapt and therefore, you don't get much of the benefits.

I'll try to do more research.

 

[Suiteness]

Consistency is obviously the way to go if you really want to reap the most benefits, but you can manipulate the feeding window somewhat.

My feeding window, on weekdays, is from 7am to 3pm, I workout first thing in the morning so I start eating right after the gym.

On weekends, I will start eating at 4 pm or whatever, so I can enjoy dinners and drinks with the boys and what have you.

 

[DAChampion]

I know about the different types, but my understanding was that you need to pick one and apply it regularly. Not flip flop around them and have non-IF days often too.
Otherwise your body never has time to adapt and therefore, you don't get much of the benefits.

I'll try to do more research.

Maybe maybe not. There isn't enough research to make a conclusion right now, as we don't know all of the mechanisms involved in fasting, and why it's helpful. However, based on what's known, there's no evidence for the need for a consistent schedule other than the fact that it may be psychologically easier for some. What does matter is that fasting be done often, and for decent periods of time.

Here's what's known, that I can remember off the top of my head:

1) Fasting lowers insulin. Eventually your body thus starts burning more fat. It is very hard for the body to metabolize adipose fat when insulin is high. If you cut calories and maintain high insulin, you'll just reduce metabolism.

2) The fat burned during fasting, in contrast to the fat burned from calorie restriction or doing a lot of cardio, is preferentially adipose/visceral/abdominal/organ fat, rather than subcutaneous fat. The fat in the liver is among the first sources of fat that's burned. There's a cost here: though organ fat is what's unhealthy, subcutaneous fat is what's unattractive.

3) Autophagy activates some ~18 hours into a fast. Autophagy is the process by which your body preferentially cannibalizes lower quality / more damaged cells in order to feed itself. This earned the 2016 Nobel prize in medicine.

4) Fasting raises human growth hormone, by ~2000% in men and ~1000% in women some ~24 hours into a fast. This has the effect of making it harder for the body to eat muscle/organ, and so instead the body cannibalizes fat. This is probably why fasting doesn't emaciate muscles, in contrast to eating small meals and doing cardio, which does emaciate muscle.

5) Norepinephrine is increased, but I'm not sure what the effect is.

6) Three days in, your immune system regenerates.

7) If you make it to day 4 or 5, you'll feel a sense of elation (I've experienced this), as your body is finally burning off enough fat to feed your brain properly, and your brain is adapted to. For some people this can take a few extra days.

8) (Only shown in rodents) Brown fat, VEGF, and M2 are unregulated throughout, which probably raises rest metabolism. You'd expect metabolism to go down with fasting, but it actually increases by 10% which is different from calorie restriction. The 10% is coincidentally exactly the normal level for the thermogenic effect of food, which means that your body is probably just successfully maintaining the same temperature.

The way I see it, is that the body is evolved to have different processes in both the fed and fasted state, and over time you need a lot of both.

Then you also have the non-hormonal benefits. Fasting can save time as you don't need to plan your day around meal time, and you can justify eating a larger dinner if you've skipped breakfast (or vice versa) if you're counting calories. Once your body is used to it you can just skip meals which is helpful in situations where crap and crap alone is available to eat.

 

[Lshap]

Wasn't familiar with the term, autophagy. Great info - thanks!

I'm part way there -- already do regular high-intensity running. Now I need to integrate longer stretches of fasting.

 

[DAChampion]

Wasn't familiar with the term, autophagy. Great info - thanks!

I'm part way there -- already do regular high-intensity running. Now I need to integrate longer stretches of fasting.

For reasons that are not clear, to me and possibly to everybody I'm not sure, HIIT and fasting have a lot of overlapping benefits.

 

[Lshap]

For reasons that are not clear, to me and possibly to everybody I'm not sure, HIIT and fasting have a lot of overlapping benefits.

The article I read mentioned the stress & rebuild in exercise having similar benefits as fasting. Obviously both are good for you, though they probably don't act equally on the factors you mention in your list above. Just as obviously, I need to do more reading on what does what to what...

 

[Sorinth]

Don't you have to be consistent in order to see the actual benefits?
If you are constantly changing hours and sometimes even flat out not fasting much, aren't you putting your body in a constant state of changing, which is the opposite point of IF?

The benefits of fasting mostly come from the length of time you fast. Maintaining a rigid same schedule doesn't matter that much. That said it's like anything else, the bigger benefits are going to come from regular practice. So finding a way that works for your lifestyle matters more then anything.

The 5:2 version probably has the smallest impact on your social life since presumably you aren't out drinking/eating out at restaurants 7 days a week. You just fast on days where you aren't out with friends. And since the fasting period is relatively short (1-day), you can change your mind last minute and end up not fasting that particular day even if it was originally planned to be a fast day.

 

[Kriss E]

Maybe maybe not. There isn't enough research to make a conclusion right now, as we don't know all of the mechanisms involved in fasting, and why it's helpful. However, based on what's known, there's no evidence for the need for a consistent schedule other than the fact that it may be psychologically easier for some. What does matter is that fasting be done often, and for decent periods of time.

Here's what's known, that I can remember off the top of my head:

1) Fasting lowers insulin. Eventually your body thus starts burning more fat. It is very hard for the body to metabolize adipose fat when insulin is high. If you cut calories and maintain high insulin, you'll just reduce metabolism.

2) The fat burned during fasting, in contrast to the fat burned from calorie restriction or doing a lot of cardio, is preferentially adipose/visceral/abdominal/organ fat, rather than subcutaneous fat. The fat in the liver is among the first sources of fat that's burned. There's a cost here: though organ fat is what's unhealthy, subcutaneous fat is what's unattractive.

3) Autophagy activates some ~18 hours into a fast. Autophagy is the process by which your body preferentially cannibalizes lower quality / more damaged cells in order to feed itself. This earned the 2016 Nobel prize in medicine.

4) Fasting raises human growth hormone, by ~2000% in men and ~1000% in women some ~24 hours into a fast. This has the effect of making it harder for the body to eat muscle/organ, and so instead the body cannibalizes fat. This is probably why fasting doesn't emaciate muscles, in contrast to eating small meals and doing cardio, which does emaciate muscle.

5) Norepinephrine is increased, but I'm not sure what the effect is.

6) Three days in, your immune system regenerates.

7) If you make it to day 4 or 5, you'll feel a sense of elation (I've experienced this), as your body is finally burning off enough fat to feed your brain properly, and your brain is adapted to. For some people this can take a few extra days.

8) (Only shown in rodents) Brown fat, VEGF, and M2 are unregulated throughout, which probably raises rest metabolism. You'd expect metabolism to go down with fasting, but it actually increases by 10% which is different from calorie restriction. The 10% is coincidentally exactly the normal level for the thermogenic effect of food, which means that your body is probably just successfully maintaining the same temperature.

The way I see it, is that the body is evolved to have different processes in both the fed and fasted state, and over time you need a lot of both.

Then you also have the non-hormonal benefits. Fasting can save time as you don't need to plan your day around meal time, and you can justify eating a larger dinner if you've skipped breakfast (or vice versa) if you're counting calories. Once your body is used to it you can just skip meals which is helpful in situations where crap and crap alone is available to eat.

So this is mostly for longer fasting periods. Fasting for 4-5 days is completely undesirable to me.
But if the debate is still out on consistency of timing, then that would help me a whole lot.

 

[DAChampion]

So this is mostly for longer fasting periods. Fasting for 4-5 days is completely undesirable to me.
But if the debate is still out on consistency of timing, then that would help me a whole lot.

There's a different time scale associated to each of the arguments. For the typical person I'd be inclined to recommend one long fast per year, and either 5+2 or 18/6 on a regular basis.

 

[Kriss E]

The benefits of fasting mostly come from the length of time you fast. Maintaining a rigid same schedule doesn't matter that much. That said it's like anything else, the bigger benefits are going to come from regular practice. So finding a way that works for your lifestyle matters more then anything.

The 5:2 version probably has the smallest impact on your social life since presumably you aren't out drinking/eating out at restaurants 7 days a week. You just fast on days where you aren't out with friends. And since the fasting period is relatively short (1-day), you can change your mind last minute and end up not fasting that particular day even if it was originally planned to be a fast day.

I guess I will give it a shot and see for myself...whenever I do decide to start it.

 

[Mrb1p]

I was wondering, what are the defining factors of a fast? How impactful is zero calories vs a few calories in a fasting windows?

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

I was wondering, what are the defining factors of a fast? How impactful is zero calories vs a few calories in a fasting windows?

I've been wondering about this as well. I may be able to lay off food 18 hours everyday, but I gotta go to work 5 days a week and I need some goddamn coffee. Even with nothing added to it, I figure there must be a calorie or two in my mug. Does it kill the session entirely? Does it prevent Autophagy from happening?

 

[DAChampion]

I was wondering, what are the defining factors of a fast? How impactful is zero calories vs a few calories in a fasting windows?

It's not super well measured. It's also the case that the different processes likely have different sensitivities.

Particularly bad are sugar and two amino acids. One of the two is leucine, I forget what the other one is, but it does mean that animal protein is ruled out. They shut off the process of healing in the body.

Dr. Valter Longo has researched the fast mimicking diet and has shown that it has at least some of the same benefits. It's a diet of fats and very complex carbs, but only 500 calories a day.

A guy I know argued that chia seeds with water doesn't interrupt fasting. It has no sugar, and the amino acids in it have a negligible impact on insulin and rapomycin.

 

[DAChampion]

I've been wondering about this as well. I may be able to lay off food 18 hours everyday, but I gotta go to work 5 days a week and I need some goddamn coffee. Even with nothing added to it, I figure there must be a calorie or two in my mug. Does it kill the session entirely? Does it prevent Autophagy from happening?

Black coffee might have a small positive effect on autophagy.

 

[Mrb1p]

It's not super well measured. It's also the case that the different processes likely have different sensitivities.

Particularly bad are sugar and two amino acids. One of the two is leucine, I forget what the other one is, but it does mean that animal protein is ruled out. They shut off the process of healing in the body.

Dr. Valter Longo has researched the fast mimicking diet and has shown that it has at least some of the same benefits. It's a diet of fats and very complex carbs, but only 500 calories a day.

A guy I know argued that chia seeds with water doesn't interrupt fasting. It has no sugar, and the amino acids in it have a negligible impact on insulin and rapomycin.

Do you have a link to that fast mimicking study?

 

[DAChampion]

Do you have a link to that fast mimicking study?

I think that it's one of these two, but imI on my cell phone so it's hard to tell.

Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. - PubMed - NCBI

A Periodic Diet that Mimics Fasting Promotes Multi-System Regeneration, Enhanced Cognitive Performance, and Healthspan. - PubMed - NCBI

 

[MasterD]

I've been wondering about this as well. I may be able to lay off food 18 hours everyday, but I gotta go to work 5 days a week and I need some goddamn coffee. Even with nothing added to it, I figure there must be a calorie or two in my mug. Does it kill the session entirely? Does it prevent Autophagy from happening?

No, black coffee can actually help autophagy, I think it's because it ramps up your metabolism and you end up depleting glycogen faster... just my interpretation of things, though. Most experts in the field say coffee is fine.

I've read that between 300-500 calories might be ok as long as they don't come from insulin triggering foods... so stuff like bulletproof coffee might be considered fasting by some... I think it might be fine for weight loss, but probably kills or delays autophagy.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Thanks for the pointers, quite re-assuring to hear. I'll keep looking into the matter further as well.

As for Kriss, my personal experience with the Leangains IF method (18 off/6 on) is that you can absolutely get creative with your schedule. Make adjustments on the fly before and after periods where you are indulging in a pleasant late night or brunch, preventing you from getting off track long, and you're golden. Only negative is that this usually means going through longer periods without eating in these instances.

 

[Mrb1p]

I think that it's one of these two, but imI on my cell phone so it's hard to tell.

Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. - PubMed - NCBI

A Periodic Diet that Mimics Fasting Promotes Multi-System Regeneration, Enhanced Cognitive Performance, and Healthspan. - PubMed - NCBI

Thank you, ill read that tomorrow.

 

[Mike Mike Caron]

To have IF work like in the studies you must not drink coffee outside the feeding windows. The experiment revolved around the whole digestive system being shuted down during the non-feeding period, coffee has to be processed by the liver. Water is your only friend.

Coffee is the reason my feeding window is from 9am to 3pm. No way I'm skipping coffee in the morning.

 

[Kriss E]

I've been wondering about this as well. I may be able to lay off food 18 hours everyday, but I gotta go to work 5 days a week and I need some goddamn coffee. Even with nothing added to it, I figure there must be a calorie or two in my mug. Does it kill the session entirely? Does it prevent Autophagy from happening?

Coffee starts your feeding schedule. Anything you put in your mouth outside of water will start this process.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick explains it well here: