Raving on about Intermittent Fasting

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Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 3706000523


Above image illustrates the advantages of caloric restriction or intermittent fasting. Caloric restriction has nothing to do with a mediaeval regime of programmed starvation. It is a systematic reduction of one's caloric intake on specified days.

I currently fast (drinking only water) on alternate days. This means that at 8-9pm tonight I will stop eating until 9pm the following night. Today however I ate enough for 2 days. My caloric intake has been eerily high. I can however afford this as tomorrow my body will burn into the fat/carbohydrate reserves leading to ketosis. Ketosis could be described as a state in which the brain utilises its optimum fuel source. Glucose is essentially a neural fossil fuel where fat (Specifically MCT fats) are akin to solar energy.

IF is basically effective due to this, my carbohydrate intake is very very high so I imagine that im not deriving full benefits from the regime, but I consume coconut oil on non fasting days which ensures that my brain has an optimal fuel source. The other advantage is derived from the fact that IF places the body's cellular network under mild stress which induces repair mode. In these conditions the body starts to undergo repair and growth.

This is actually the worst possible diet for an anorexic. On non fasting days you need to be eating alot of fat for instance. You will also become malnourished if you dont eat larger portions on non fasting days. The counter intuitive thing is that hunger tends to be dimminished on fasting days. With adequate water intake its rarely a problem. Of course being around food can be a little difficult the subjective advantages outweigh this by a factor of 10 however: Greater clarity more energy my OCD is far less severe my depression has lifted somewhat im a little more gregarious and demonstrative socially etc

Fasting actually increases the release of BDNF and NGF which are both implicated in the success of SSRI's - they have a cognitive enhancing and mood enhancing effect which I have found to be pronounced

Anyone have any experiences with this or is anyone willing to try it out?


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Sorry, I do not not have loads to say about your original post except that I have been very interested in fasting recently and believe that there might be some sort of scientific basis for it., especially sincer over-eating can easily make one more depressed, sluggish and irritable. It is good to know that you are trying it out. It is interesting that many people are following the principles of religions, such as fasting, nowadays and much scientific evidence is supporting what Hindus and Muslims have been practising for decades. So, what kind of foods do you eat when you are not fasting in order to become not hungry when you are? I would be willing to do it but I am slightly worried about fainting or something. How long are you fasting for and are you taking any vitamins when you are doing it? Are there any dangers to doing this when you are on certain forms of medication? Sorry if my post sounds stupid.

I use intermittent fasting to reduce pain from inflammation during a rheumatoid arthritis flair. If you don't eat, your body has to find ways to harmlessly reduce energy expenditure. What better way than turning off out-of-control inflammation? That's how it seems to work out, anyway. It really does work to reduce inflammatory pain.

This thread is making me hungry.

To respond to your question about anyone trying it, yes.

I did Intermittent Fasting for six months a couple years back.

First I did what was known as The Warrior Diet, 20 hours fast, 4 hours feast. But it didn't work out for me that well, so I wound up switching it up to 16 hours fast, and 8 hours feast.

That was my best.

I decided to do a diet like this because I always found myself eating this way naturally. What I would do is fast from 10pm at night to 2pm the next day.
I would drink some plain black coffee and sometimes eat a small piece of fruit throughout my fasting time, sometimes I wouldn't eat anything, it really depended.

So, I'd wake up at about 8 o'clock, drive off to school, go to class, by the time I got out of class and was on my way home, it was about 12-1 o'clock. I'd head straight to the gym and do my work out, then by the time I come home it'd be about around 2, then I wound start eating.
This was a perfect diet for me, the main issue I ever had was how sleepy I would get after the first meal. It would literally knock me out. If anyone has trouble sleeping and they don't want to take medication - well, this is your answer. I could not for the life of me stay up. I had to take some sort of nap.
Then I'd wake up and eat again, I'd get tired but not as much as before. (My second meal was usually around 5 or 6pm). My third meal was around 8-9) and that'd be it.

I liked this diet a lot, it also helps with keeping you full because your stomach can only eat so much in 8 hours. It helped that I split it up into 3 meals in that time period, but others will do more or less meals depending on what feels good to them. As I said before, I ate naturally like this beforehand, and I knew the hype on needing to have something or a semi-full stomach before weightlifting or doing any kind of work out was not all that true as I had already experienced some of my most powerful work outs on a stomach full of just a cup of water or coffee.

So when I did this I lost a lot of weight and felt really great. I can't remember why I stopped using it to be honest. It's been 4-5 years since I did it so I can't remember what was going on that I switched it up again.

SIDENOTE: I also did a keto diet for 2 months, but 2 months is all I could manage. I bought one of those ketone urine kits from Walmart so you can tell when your body is using fat for fuel. The diet is great, it does exactly what you want it to do - Unfortunately I just couldn't live off of meats and fats (and very few low net carb vegs) for too long. I managed to keep it up for 6-8 weeks, but at the end I couldn't take it anymore. I lost about 18 pounds, (At least 5 of the pounds was water weight, I must admit, maybe even more than 5)
I think if someone is disciplined enough to stick with it, and that particular diet makes them feel great then they should go for it. My body couldn't handle all the proteins and fat. I felt sluggish and was farting and taking emergency dumps constantly. And this is coming from a guy who gets protein farts and sh**s from just eating 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass! When I was on this diet, I was eating like, double the protein.

Anyway, it's great if you don't have much time and you're trying to slim down quick for something, (a wedding, a party, the summer, who knows?), but to keep if you want to keep it up for more than a couple of months, I'd suggest something else. That's not to say there aren't plenty of people out there who keep up the keto diet for 6 months to a year. Some love it so much they eat like that all the time. I personally don't think it's all that healthy to eat for long periods of time, but it can be good to shed off those few extra body fat percentages.

I've been fasting with various regimes for around 5 years. I had dabbled with C.R.O.N since 2003 but wasn't too serious with it. Longest fast I've did is 84 hours. I've did this several times. I had to stop doing very long fasts as I made myself unwell via refeed. I read up why I was feeling unwell after long fasts and "refeed syndrome" was something that I never knew about. After very long fasts the body can go into shock and food should be introduced very slowly and with phosphates as a main source. In concentration camps many of them people who died when they were repatriated died from refeed syndrome,they went into shock after food was intripoduced to quickly. I'm currently eating 3 days a week. if I struggle I go to 4 days a week.