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Intermittent fasting


xjohanx
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That sounds like a good breakfast 2 me

 

Yep, haha. I pretty much moved my breakfast to 3pm and made it bigger.

 

Just about to venture into my second meal, which will be some extremely thick soup, which is how I always make it. I will see how many veggies and beans I can stuff down.

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The dark side is good. I will add quite a few more beans into my soup the next time, and a little more nutritional yeast. I ended up eating about 5-6 ounces of nuts yesterday, and still consumed fewer calories than usual. I would like more of those calories to be legumes. Today will work even better.

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Awesome. Yeah I eat a lot of nuts/seeds too. Usually I try to eat most of my fats in my last meal since fat seems to give more long term satiety.

 

Anyway, I did a bodpod test today and without actually trying and just getting back into the gym (3 weeks ago) I'm down to 6,8% bodyfat thanks to IF. It rules, get into it!

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Nice results! That is quite lean, especially for just getting back into everything. I need to find a bod pod or water displacement device in Chicago.

 

I found this abstract on fasting and growth hormone after reading on leangains.com and some other places that IF can increase growth hormone: Abstract

 

The subjects didn't undergo IF, but rather a short-term fast. However, it seems reasonable to conclude that growth hormone secretion would be increased further by IF than a traditional meal schedule. I also found another study that found a positive hormonal effect from IF, but it involved rats and didn't go much into growth hormone.

 

I definitely like not having to prepare breakfast in the morning. I am cooking the equivalent of almost two cans of beans right now, which I plan to eat before bed with a bunch of veggies and some seeds. Thankfully, my stomach is all kick ass and large.

 

Do you remember the poster Veganmaster? He was into low fat/low-to-moderate-protein, but also constantly referenced some studies on IF. I will try to track down his old posts and shore up some of those studies. I know some were on fat oxidation during the fast.

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I usually just eat breakfast and lunch. Sometimes I'll have some durian or such after workout (durian is the best after workout meal I've ever tried, according to my non scientific feeling ).

Sometimes on the weekend I just eat once a day. I'm constantly below 2000kcal, working out 12-17hrs per week and still have trouble keeping my weight down. So much for skinny vegans

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I like being on the dark side too! I don't if I actually consume less calories this way but if does feel better to me which is why I started doing it.

 

There are plenty of benefits even if you don't consume less calories. =)

 

I found veganmaster's blog and posts, but I don't feel like going through them right now. Plus, I should be studying for a midterm.

 

I should hit Dr. Fuhrman up for some studies on IF, since he recommends it so highly.

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I didn't know he recommended it, that's cool.

 

I feel that it's the best way to get some of the benefits of caloric restriction without acctually restricting calories. For an active person/athlete CR isn't an option at all so this will have to do

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Not only Fuhrman talks about it. McDougall had Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD over at the Advanced Study weekend, talking about CR. Even though CR is not necessary the same as IF they are usually talked about by the same people. It also seems like there's more studies on CR than IF.

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That is cool. I have only heard one mention from McDougall about CR. Glad to see he is into it more than I thought.

 

Dr. Fuhrman's version of IF is to skip breakfast and maybe lunch when convenient. Or dinner. He also recommends trying to only eat 2-3 times a day.

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I fast pretty regularly. Even if it is for half a day. Right now I am fasting a lot because I cracked a rib and working out has been very difficult. I can't even laugh, and yesterday I got the hiccups and it was really painful.

 

I usually just drink 5 or more cups of tea all day, and in the evening I have something simple like rice, or lentils, or maybe even just a squash.

 

I find it very hard to work out when I fast because I have no energy. So, I fast when working out is difficult, and I eat hardily when I can work out. I still can't lose this last 5 pounds though:(

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I find it very hard to work out when I fast because I have no energy. So, I fast when working out is difficult, and I eat hardily when I can work out. I still can't lose this last 5 pounds though:(

Work out and fast, you will lose the 5 pounds. Or sometimes even this dont work. But if you have no energy when fasting then its not even a envisageable. But maybe you just need to give yourself a boost, start activate yourself from the inside with self-motivation and then make some vigorous movements. For me, food or no food I got plenty of energy, usually. Its mostly psychological. Because phisically, the body has energy, the heart and soul are the engine, it is like a car with its engine and battery and driver. The fuel for the car is oil. The fuel for the body is food... or bodyfat. But food and bodyfat are not energy, the body makes it into energy.

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I find it very hard to work out when I fast because I have no energy. So, I fast when working out is difficult, and I eat hardily when I can work out. I still can't lose this last 5 pounds though:(

Work out and fast, you will lose the 5 pounds. Or sometimes even this dont work. But if you have no energy when fasting then its not even a envisageable. But maybe you just need to give yourself a boost, start activate yourself from the inside with self-motivation and then make some vigorous movements. For me, food or no food I got plenty of energy, usually. Its mostly psychological. Because phisically, the body has energy, the heart and soul are the engine, it is like a car with its engine and battery and driver. The fuel for the car is oil. The fuel for the body is food... or bodyfat. But food and bodyfat are not energy, the body makes it into energy.

 

Not every's body fat get converted to energy fast enough to supply energy. If I am fasting, and I go for a run, after about a half mile, I am stumbling because my legs are not working right. They feel like noodles. The only exercises I feel comfortable doing are light weight and walking.

 

The fat I am trying to get rid of I have had for 36 years, so my body seems to find it has some sort of sentimental value. It simply doesn't want to turn it into energy at a rate that will allow me to work out. Also, fat will not burn without carbs. So, I need to go off fasting to have enough carbs to work out to burn the fat.

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Classic IF is that you do the working out within the feeding window. Light cardio is in my opinion the only thing that makes sense to do while fasting.

Ducati, do you have a thread where you post your diet/excersise regimen and current stats, maybe we can help you if we learn more about you

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Did you find any cool studies cubbydude?

 

Not yet. I have been without internet for about a week. I will start looking for some more over the weekend.

 

I have been working out in a fasted state, having my post-workout shake right after. I have plenty of energy and have no trouble, even if I am in a hardcore bootcamp workout or lifting heavy as hell. I will know how well it really is working for me in a couple weeks, when I can look back through my workout log and monitor progress.

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Cubby, about working out on empty stomach are you doing this as some kind of experiment or just because you find you perform better this way ?

Anyway I think its good. In the morning I usually dont feel like eating until I do some physical effort.

This thread is interesting but why stop there ? If short fastings have some benefits, is longer fasting can also be beneficial ? In my opinion longer fasting is just the continuation of IF and the benefits can be similar.

 

Some interesting texts there:

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.toc.htm

''The Influence of Fasting On Growth and Regeneration''

 

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.ch16.htm

 

''Gain and Loss of Strength While Fasting''

"In the test made by Luciani on Succi in which a dynamometer was used, the strength of the right and left hands showed results seemingly at variance with the popular impression. Thus on the twenty-first day of the fast, Succi was able to register on the dynamometer a stronger grip than when he first began. From the twentieth to the thirtieth day of the fast, however, his strength decreased, being less at the end than in the beginning of the fast. In discussing these results, Luciani points out the fact that Succi believed that he gained strength as the fast progressed. Considering the question of the influence of inanition on the onset of fatigue, Luciani states that the fatigue curve obtained by Succi on the twenty-ninth day was similar to those obtained with an individual under normal conditions."

 

"On the last days of his fasts Succi would ride horseback or ascend the Eiffle Tower of Paris, running up the tremendous staircase that tires the average man to merely ascend it."

 

Levanzin lost no strength during his thirty-one days' fast as shown by the dynamometric tests. On the last day of the fast, this non-athletic man, used to taking no regular exercise except walking, was able to press up to one hundred and twenty pounds with his left hand.

 

It is somewhat amusing to read that at the end of his fast of thirty-one days in the Carnegie Institute, Levanzin wanted to continue it up to forty days and that Prof. Benedict objected because it would be very expensive and fatiguing to his well-fed men.

 

Dr. Tanner's strength decreased until after he began to take water, but increased thereafter. He was challenged by a reporter who declared one could not keep up his strength without eating. The Doctor said: "Here have I been for several years a semi-invalid, suffering from all kinds of diseases, and now I have fasted for two weeks. You are young, healthy, strong and vigorous. I will just take a drink of water and then I will run you a race around this hall and see who can endure the longest."

 

The reporter confidently accepted the challenge and the race began. To the amusement of the audience, who had expected to see the young man easily win, the doctor easily and speedily outran his competitor, who puffed and blowed in his distress.

 

Mr. Macfadden says: "In several cases treated by myself, and also in a number of cases quoted by Dewey and Carrington, the strength increased from day to day, until the patient was enabled to walk several miles a day toward the close of a long fast, whereas at first he was unable to walk at all!"

 

Again he says: "It is a fact that has been demonstrated again and again that many individuals instead of losing strength by fasting, gain it. In one case a woman was carried to one of our institutions on a stretcher, so weak from malnutrition that she was unable to walk. Her physician had prescribed all kinds of nourishing diets which she had been unable to digest and in spite of food (or because of it--author's note), drugs and nursing she had rapidly grown weaker. She was at once placed on a fast, and to her amazement, she, day by day, increased in strength."

 

In my own practice there is the case of a man who was confined to bed and unable to get out of it, although eating three meals a day. At the end of a week of fasting he was able to get up and walk about the room, although still fasting. There is the case of another man who was so weak he could not walk from one room to another of his home without support. After two weeks of fasting he was able to go downstairs unsupported, go outside and have a sun bath and return upstairs to his bed. After fifty-five days of fasting he was still able to do this. He was much stronger at the end of his fifty-five days without food than when he began the fast.

 

 

In his "Why Did Jesus Fast," Rev. H. Arndt tells of an Italian fencing master who prepared for contests with a week of fasting and continuous practice and who had never been vanquished.

 

Freddy Welsh, one time light-weight champion of the world, always started his training for important fights with a fast of a week. He found that this shortened considerably the time required to get in condition for the fight. He never had to postpone any fights because of colds, boils, etc., as was often done by Joe Beckett, George Carpentier, and others.

 

In December 1903, eight athletes under the supervision of Mr. Macfadden entered a seven days' fast and performed feats of great strength and endurance under the watchful eyes of prominent medical men from different parts of New York. These eight men were entered on the list on Saturday night at the beginning of their fast and the same eight athletes presented themselves in the final contest of endurance on the evening of the seventh day of the fast.

 

Joseph H. Waltering, of New York City, won first prize in the races, winning the 50-yard dash in six and two-fifths seconds, the 220-yard run in twenty-seven and four-fifths seconds, and the mile run in six minutes, fourteen and two-fifths seconds. Gilman Low, of New York City, artist, health-director, athlete, won first prize in strength contests; lifting 900 pounds in a straight hand grip lift and throwing the 56-pound weight thirteen feet six inches. On the sixth day of his fast, Mr. Low lifted with hands alone 500 pounds twenty times in fifteen seconds, and 900 pounds twice in twenty seconds. In the back lift he lifted one ton twelve times in twenty seconds.

 

Following the Saturday night tests in the presence of doctors, to whom he desired to demonstrate that there was no deterioration of strength after a week of fasting, he lifted one ton twenty-two times in nineteen seconds.

 

Mr. Low did not break his fast until the end of the eighth day. Then, at Madison Square Garden, before the astonished gaze of 16,000 people, he established nine world records for strength and endurance, which stood for years before they were broken. These records are:

 

"Raising 950 pounds three times in four seconds.

Raising 500 pounds twenty times in fifteen seconds.

Throwing 56-pound weight thirteen feet six inches (for height).

Leg-lifting--Raising with legs alone 1,000 pounds fifty times in twenty-five seconds.

Leg-lifting--Raising with legs alone 1,500 pounds thirty-five times in twenty-five seconds.

Raising with legs alone 1,800 pounds eighteen times in eighteen seconds.

Back lifting--bringing all the muscles of the back into action raising 2,500 pounds five times in ten seconds.

Raising 2,200 pounds twelve times in twelve seconds.

Raising 2,200 pounds twenty-nine times in twenty seconds."

These remarkable records were made after eight days of fasting in competition with other men who had been eating regularly, Mr. Low going out of his class to do it. He has set other world records, after fasting at other times. On one occasion in reply to the claim of physicians that should one go without food for a week, one would be so weak one could scarcely walk and a few more days would endanger life, Mr. Low challenged any two of them to handle him in any way suitable to them after he had fasted for fifteen days. He asserted that after a fifteen days' fast he underwent a few years previously in Boston, he could have whipped his weight in wildcats.

 

Prof. Levanzin says: "Those who feel any lack of strength during a fast are to be classed in the same category with those who feel hungry. They are nervous and very impressionable people, and their sufferings are only the baneful effects of their too vivid imagination.

 

"If you suggest to yourself that you are strong and that you can walk two miles on the thirtieth day of your fast, believe me, you can do it without great difficulty, but if you fix in your weak mind that you are going to faint, and worry, and persist to worry about it, be sure that not a very long time will elapse before you faint really, a victim of your wrong auto-suggestion."

 

Much to his surprise, Sinclair had none of the weakness during his second fast that he experienced during his first fast. Mrs. Sinclair experienced much weakness during her first fast, but no weakness during her second fast.

 

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I find I perform better this way. I never eat before training in the morning. I also need at least 2 hour and better 3 or more of not eating before training in the evening or my performance suffers. I can't even lift light if I just ate. No matter with the food is. even if it is fruit.

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IYM - Yes, I am doing it as an experiment, but also because I feel great during the fast. I figure so long as I get some post workout nutrition in, I should be just fine.

 

Johan and anyone else interested - I found those studies veganmaster posted about fasting and intermittent fasting. Here is a link to his post on his blog about fasting. He lists a bunch of studies and links to them at the bottom. I haven't gone through it myself, but will probably get around to it tomorrow. I hope there is some good information in it.

http://veganmaster.blogspot.com/2008/08/postabsorptive-metabolism-from-fasting.html#links

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I read through the studies. The only one of much interest at all to IF is the first study veganmaster cites. It just shows the shift that occurs from glycogen usage to fat oxidation, as people go longer and longer without food. I can't wait until the Lean Gains book come out. There will likely be many studies in there to look at.

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An update: I've noticed the past couple of days how much I am leaning out. My abs are popping pretty well already. I am still aiming for the same number of calories as when I was bulking, and have not increased my cardio. It could be due to the extra walking (lots of extra) that I am doing in Chicago, or IF. I think it is a combination. I don't end up munching on nuts at the end of a meal now, thanks to IF, so I think that helps a lot.

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Hmm...the more I read this thread the more it makes me want to try out IF. But I typically work out first thing in the AM and I'm not sure I could eat all of my meals during the first part of the day and then eat nothing around dinner time since that's when I usually cook and sit down with the husband and etc. I might try and do something like Mary and just try not eating after dinner and working out in the AM on an empty stomach. I don't take BCAA's or EAA's though, should I take some of those before I workout? I don't know much about them or what the difference is between the two. I tried Googling it but that just confused me more as I found pages discussing the two and pros and cons and it wasn't clear which one was better. Sorry for my newbie questions.

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