Fasting: I find it easier to "not eat" than to "eat less"

Chris Wang wrote:Are their any benefits of longer fasts that you don't get by eating once a day? I don't have any trouble losing weight, are there other advantages to fasting 2+ days?  

Yes!  All kinds of benefits, but the one  I am most interested in is it can cause your body to shed dead cells and then rejuvenate by activating stem cells.  Explained way better here:   https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/zero-fasting-qa

The podcast also talks about a 5 day fast mimicking diet whereby you get to eat limited calories in very specific macronutrient radios.  The easy way to do it is to buy the prolon food package mentioned in the podcast, but I preferred the challenge of making my own food.  

I created my own modeled after this guy: https://www.quantifiedbob.com/fasting-mimicking-diet/#resources.    I did do a little more calories than I was supposed to.  I did the same calories as Bob, and he weighs 172 pounds (I only weigh 120).   Mainly because I was scared.  :)    But it wasn't bad and next time I will scale it back.  

My plan is attached.

Your other question: google food combining.

Chris Wang wrote:Are their any benefits of longer fasts that you don't get by eating once a day? I don't have any trouble losing weight, are there other advantages to fasting 2+ days?

nancy sutton wrote:I think intermittent fasting would be very beneficial, but I have one problem.... I don't know what effect it might have on afib (also high blood pressure).  I suspect it would be beneficial, but can't find evidence to support my 'hope'.  Anyone know of any, one way or the other?  Thanks : )

Julia Winter wrote: I'd rather have one awesome meal than three sad ones.

Victor Johanson wrote:I'm on day 22; down about 30# and my chronic symptoms have either vanished or mostly subsided. Going to resume with a "vitamin" A depletion regime (free info @ https://ggenereux.blog/my-ebooks/ ) to see if that WAPF diet I've been favoring has chronically poisoned me. It's an interesting theory worth investigating, conceived by a guy unaffiliated with either allopathic or naturopathic medicine and their inherent biases. We'll see what happens.

Julia Winter wrote:
I'm still overweight, but much less so and I feel like I could continue like this indefinitely, which is nice.  I'm still working up the nerve to try a longer fast.

Julia Winter wrote:I'm entering my third week of OMAD (one meal a day) and I'm feeling pretty optimistic.  That's a change!

Like most people, as I entered middle age I started to gain weight, slowly.  In the past year I've been struggling with plantar fasciosis (I'm calling it that because the problem is not inflammation) and the inhibition of activity made the weight gain accelerate.  2018 was the year of not doing anything, or at least it seemed like that.  I hardly gardened, I couldn't go on hikes, hell, I couldn't go on walks.  I tried to control my weight via "portion control" and pretty much failed.

Then I watched a presentation by Dr. Jason Fung:

He explained that fat deposition, and fat burning, are controlled by insulin levels.  You're not going to burn fat until your insulin levels are low.  You've got glycogen stored in your muscles and liver, and that's like your refrigerator - it's easy to get to.  You've got a lot more energy stored in fat, but that's like the deep freeze in your basement or garage - it's hard to access.  Basically you need to burn through ALL the glycogen before you break into the fat stores.  If you don't eat, this will happen at about 10-12 hours of fasting.

If you try to lose weight by eating less, but keep eating on a regular basis, the intake of food stimulates insulin release, and as long as there is insulin circulating you're not going to break into the fat stores.  Instead, the body will decrease the resting metabolic rate - you feel cold and crappy.  You can try to overcome this with vigorous exercise through amazing strength of will, but that will give you almost unstoppable hunger.  It's nearly impossible.

The easy version of this is 16:8 eating, which I would recommend to just about any adult (pregnant and nursing moms excluded).  You just fit all your eating into an 8 hour period, say, from 11AM to 7PM.  But I'm an overachiever, and so at the moment I'm doing more like 22:2 eating.  I eat between 6:30pm and 8:30pm most days.  (I do have a latte' in the morning, so it's not a real fast - there's whole milk in there.)  I move from the latte' to tea, water and other no or very low calorie drinks for the rest of the day, up until dinner which I eat with my family.

What I like about this is the simplicity.  I haven't changed my life much.  I already wasn't having a sit down breakfast, but I was eating nuts (walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, pistachios, hazelnuts) that I have in my desk at work, and I was eating lunch.  Various treats show up at work and I've been pretty good about avoiding them.  Now it's simple.  I only drink at work, I don't eat.  When I get home, I eat dinner with my family like always.

Hunger comes in waves, it doesn't grow and grow endlessly.  If you can get through the wave of hunger, you can get on with your life.  For sure, this is easier on days I'm in the office.  Monday is my day off, and I've broken from the pattern on two Mondays: one because I was doing some elaborate cooking and it's hard to cook without tasting and more recently because for the MLK holiday my husband went to the French bakery and bought pastries.

I haven't tried going longer than 22,23 hours, but I hear that's not as hard as it sounds either.  I'd love to hear from other people who have tried this - what was your experience?

Julia Winter wrote:Anybody out there who has gone longer than a day?

I'm continuing with my current pattern, which isn't a true fast since I have at least 8oz of whole milk in my morning latte.  I put my latte' off until 9:30am this morning so I know I went over 12 hours, but I still had one.

I made a beef stew - it is hard to cook without tasting!!  I kept it to a minimum, just to taste for seasoning.

I'm curious about a longer fast, but I think it would be disruptive for my family to miss multiple meals with them.  I'm not losing much weight, but I'm doing a fair amount of exercise and I *think* my waist may be smaller (pants are looser).  I should have measured my waist....  Anyway, I'm definitely not wasting away.

Michael Mosley has set himself a truly ambitious goal: he wants to live longer, stay younger and lose weight in the bargain. And he wants to make as few changes to his life as possible along the way. He discovers the powerful new science behind the ancient idea of fasting, and he thinks he's found a way of doing it that still allows him to enjoy his food. Michael tests out the science of fasting on himself - with life-changing results.

r ranson wrote:Today I'm watching the BBC documentary: Eat, Fast and Live Longer

[snip]

I would love to see a follow-up documentary - how is he doing 8 years later?

What I'm getting out of this the most is that there are a lot of different meanings of the word 'fasting'.  
Some fasting is water only
some fasting allows food consumption.