intermitant fasting

O

ozbrawler

Orange Belt
Joined
May 25, 2008
Messages
454
Reaction score
0
ive been experimenting with IF for the last two weeks. has been very good for me and i generally feel better overall so far. i currently do a 16hr fast 4 days a week, mon, tues, thurs and friday.
sorry if i someone has asked this before but couldnt find it. how long is a good time to continue this style of eating? has anyone had a point where the losses diminished ? ive been aiming for 6 weeks with four weeks of then repeating.
am i on the right path or way off being what is suitable?
 
As an aside, its spelled intermittent - that'll help you search for more info on here.

I've been doing IF for about 3 weeks now and I feel great. I've been doing 18-20+ hours of fasting a day with a couple of off days in between (not being too strict). It'll be three weeks tomorrow and I'm down 8 lbs; not bad at all. I am eating cleaner on some days but not super strict. If I have a bit of junk food some days I don't sweat it too much, which is my favorite thing about this way of eating.

I can get off track one day and just get back on the next.

Anyway, as long as you are eating clean and still eating below maintenance calories you will keep losing weight.
 
oyaji poi said:
Why not just do it forever?
Click to expand...

This was kind of my sentiment, too, but I figured let him do it for a bit first then if it works for him he could just keep going.

I have a friend and my wife that tried to do some IF and both didn't like it. Both of them have experience doing ramadan fasting too so its not like its a foreign concept to them.
 
I try to do a 16-18 hour IF after I get a cheat day in. So maybe once a week or every other week. I find it works really well. I take a BCAA with my morning workout and drink black coffee.
 
can someone elaborate a little bit on how IF works (or tell me to fuk off and google, im just lazy)

i get the jist of it, you fast for 15 hours w/e it may be, but do you stop eating at 6 o clock one day and then not eat until noon the next or what? whats the time frame usually look like? and also, how much do you eat during the next day, say you fasted from 6pm to 12pm, do you just eat a half days worth of food like you normally would eat from noon to bedtime, skipping what you would eat for breakfast during the fast, or do you eat your alotted calorie for an entire day after you start eating again?
 
i get the jist of it, you fast for 15 hours w/e it may be, but do you stop eating at 6 o clock one day and then not eat until noon the next or what?

Pretty much. If you stop eating at 8PM, and you fast for 16 hours, you don't eat until noon the next day. At least I think my math is right on that. I'm tired.

whats the time frame usually look like? and also, how much do you eat during the next day, say you fasted from 6pm to 12pm, do you just eat a half days worth of food like you normally would eat from noon to bedtime, skipping what you would eat for breakfast during the fast, or do you eat your alotted calorie for an entire day after you start eating again?


No, you eat the same amount of calories that you would otherwise, just jam it all into the small feeding window.

There are other forms of fasting like Alternate Day Calorie Restriction, or ADCR + IF, where you restrict your calories massively by one day with or without fasting (500kcal for a whole day), and then the following day you can eat as much as you want. Most studies on this have only been done on mice, but so far the results seem fairly promising - although they haven't proved it's effectiveness sans calorie restriction yet, like they have with Intermittent Fasting.

But seriously, fuk off and use google. :icon_chee
 
Seriously-Dead said:
i get the jist of it, you fast for 15 hours w/e it may be, but do you stop eating at 6 o clock one day and then not eat until noon the next or what?

Pretty much. If you stop eating at 8PM, and you fast for 16 hours, you don't eat until noon the next day. At least I think my math is right on that. I'm tired.

whats the time frame usually look like? and also, how much do you eat during the next day, say you fasted from 6pm to 12pm, do you just eat a half days worth of food like you normally would eat from noon to bedtime, skipping what you would eat for breakfast during the fast, or do you eat your alotted calorie for an entire day after you start eating again?


No, you eat the same amount of calories that you would otherwise, just jam it all into the small feeding window.

There are other forms of fasting like Alternate Day Calorie Restriction, or ADCR + IF, where you restrict your calories massively by one day with or without fasting (500kcal for a whole day), and then the following day you can eat as much as you want. Most studies on this have only been done on mice, but so far the results seem fairly promising - although they haven't proved it's effectiveness sans calorie restriction yet, like they have with Intermittent Fasting.

But seriously, fuk off and use google. :icon_chee
Click to expand...

I've been IFing for three weeks now and I spent a lot of time today going through some old threads here. You always post good info especially re: IF so thanks!
 
anaconda said:
Anyway, as long as you are eating clean and still eating below maintenance calories you will keep losing weight.
Click to expand...

Until the thyroid downregulates and you start to feel like crap. I have found cheat day or refeeds to be pretty important trying to keep a low body fat percentage.


Fasting is a pretty good tool. I usually skip breakfast every second day or so and eat at around 12, so that's about a 16 hour fast. If I'm exercising I usually take about 5g of Bcaa.

I can't do it at night and go to bed hungry and I start to get really irritable when it gets to about the 20 hour point.

The benefits are that it usually makes it easier to create a calorie deficit, you don't have to make breakfast if you're lazy (i just have a black coffee), you get to enjoy a big lunch and dinner and you learn to appreciate true hunger. Also I feel really alert and energetic by the time I get to 12 pm, the hunger usually goes away by about 10am.
 
Last edited:
Ive been doing IF for the past 2 weeks, lost 5lbs... Have probably been eating wayy too little though. I eat from 2-10pm, so far the only cheat day I had (as far as timing) was yesterday when I ate 12-10. I have had some crappy meals and snacks. If I work out in the AM I take some BCAAs, start eating at 2pm, and some days I'll have a kickboxing or bjj class at 8-9ish, and then have a final meal afterward at 930. Im going to be very strict the next few days cutting almost all carbs except for an apple daily and a small portion of starchy vegetables (baby corn, carrots) as im trying to make weight on sunday. If im really hungry in the morning ill put 5g BCAA in my coffee and then Im good.
 
I've been doing IF for well over a year with no side effects whatsoever - it would be very strange to go back to my old patterns.
 
anaconda said:
I've been IFing for three weeks now and I spent a lot of time today going through some old threads here. You always post good info especially re: IF so thanks!
Click to expand...

i had two large pizzas and four cups of coffee today and that's it. never ask me anything about nutrition. my life is in shambles.
 
for me to do it forever would be impossible. i go to lunch meetings and stuff like that so its very hard to not eat when there is great food infront of me. i am enjoying the challenge though. i did think there would be a point that the body would get used to the fasting and down regulate. i know one would have to do it for a long time for this to happen but was trying to avoid it.
nemisis whats your eating protocol since your experienced with this?
i am going to play around with the different lengths but am curious about others experiences
 
Look up the "lean gains guide", will tell you everything you need to know!
 
^^ As someone posted above, it's pretty easy to "get back on track" if you don't follow it for one day or even more.

I follow it most days since November and I like it a lot. My diet is far from clean unfortunately (will work on that in a few weeks), and contrary to what some may think, it's not like you can eat whatever you want and it will work. You still have to eat clean to get the best results.
However, since you limit the timeframe for eating, you tend to eat less, because your meals are much closer. I believe that's where most of my fat loss came from.
 
Seriously-Dead said:
i had two large pizzas and four cups of coffee today and that's it. never ask me anything about nutrition. my life is in shambles.
Click to expand...

hahaha awesome!

edit: the pizza part is awesome. Not the whole "life in shambles." lol good luck bro
 
I've been doing a 20-4 IF for about the last week (timing is mostly due to my daily schedule rather than any logic pertaining to it working better than any other time split).

Honestly, I started it just to be spiteful to all of the idiots going on about how you have to eat every 2 hours to "stoke the metabolic flame" etc. Turns out I really like it. So far I haven't lost any strength on my lifts, my endurance and strength in grappling remain intact, and I am down about 5 lbs (note that I was already about 10 percent BF). So, even though I started just to make a point that there isn't one "right" way to lose weight, it turns out this is actually something I really like, and may adopt it long-term.

Also, people seem to think it will be torturous not to eat for that long. Personally, I feel much more satiated throughout the day on IF than I did eating a small meal every 2ish hours. I usually start to feel hungry near the end of my afternoon workout, which is right before I break the fast.

Note: if doing a 20-4 time split somehow disqualifies it as being called IF, I apologize for using the wrong term. Please don't attack me, internet.
 
OP, I did IF for six months and ended up goiwback to a more "normal" eating pattern of 4 meals a day. The larger end of the day meals messed with my hunger cues and I tended to have bouts of over eating with IF. Other people have had similar issues, but this is a very individual based response of course.
 
ozbrawler said:
ive been experimenting with IF for the last two weeks. has been very good for me and i generally feel better overall so far. i currently do a 16hr fast 4 days a week, mon, tues, thurs and friday.
sorry if i someone has asked this before but couldnt find it. how long is a good time to continue this style of eating? has anyone had a point where the losses diminished ? ive been aiming for 6 weeks with four weeks of then repeating.
am i on the right path or way off being what is suitable?
Click to expand...

The key thing to watch for is not overeating at the end of the fasts. Keep the calories down to 1800 per day and you will consistently lose weight.
 
yeah was aiming for 1800 or there bouts, do have some bouts of over eating on my non training days but still getting stronger at this point so i am focused.
thanks for the input
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,236,684
Messages
55,434,524
Members
174,775
Latest member
kilgorevontrouty

Share this page

Back
Top