Fasting – anyone do it ?

I don’t remember it in the 1969’s – does that just mean all the months in 1969?  🙂

A stupid fat finger mistype for 1960s. 😕

Mushroom omelettes are great any time of day – you are lucky to have really fresh eggs.

As above over 12 hours you start to see the beneficial effects in blood and hormones. But even just not snacking between meals has big benefits.

Jason Fung has a YouTube channel specifically about the fasting he does with his patients and why, also a really informative book.

https://youtube.com/@drjasonfung?si=MggVgObSGOJh3ElE

If I’m in full control of what I eat and when (i.e. it’s not a day when eating or drinking with others is a social thing as much as a calories in thing) I now prefere a first meal of the day at about midday and last calories about 9pm. So 15/9.

I know it’s just silly nomenclature, but it helps me with “the rules” but I take the name breakfast literally – breaking my fast. So to me that meal at midday is breakfast. It helps me to remember that 2100-1200 is a fast not just no planned meals – so no grazing in the fridge, no (oat) milk in tea, that sort of thing.

I’m sure there is some science to it but for me as a habitual grazer its as much as anything about hours in the day when grazing is banned.

Big days out mean I’m happy to break my own rules – especially if the consequences are high (I’m in the mountains, at sea or in white water) – like Ernie above I think I’m now now quite sugary carbs sensitive so grabbing a sugary energy bar to get myself out of a potential bonk hole has a consequence further down the line.

Good thread this

I think I’m inadvertently doing a 15/9 or thereabouts

The sugary energy bar rescue is interesting. In the past at work I might have scoffed a club biscuit or similar at about 4pm to get me to the end of the job. Inevitably it worked but then along came the sugary crash, hero to zero. Then I swapped to having some home made flapjack in my snap tin and the difference was night and day – no crash and sustained energy

There’s so much pseudo science on show about this, including in this thread. Truth is no one really knows. It definitely can help some people lose weight (inc me) but the other proposed benefits are unproven and often massively overstated.

No randomised trials have been done. The largest observational study of fasting was presented recently at ACC but it was a massively flawed study, so much so I wouldn’t put any weight on its evidence. But the bottom line was that fasting was associated with worse health outcomes. So anyone telling you it’s proven to make you healthier is probably lying.

Re exercise, apparently fasted training has largely been debunked for race training, (at least according to GCN) having been a trend (fad?) for the last few years.

Having done 16:8 myself for a few years now, I suspect the biggest benefit is simple calorie restriction. It’s quite an easy way to eat less. Particularly in that 8pm-10pm time of day where I really “need” to eat chocolate.

Yes it’s a good one if it fits in to your routine.

Definitely less bloating and inflammation in the stomach – seems to help with things like that.

And it does make losing weight easier overall for certain people. My dad went from 19-13st and has stuck to it for years.

Saves time in a morning too!

To mew doesn’t matter whether it’s calorie restriction or whatever if it works for you.

I do it once a week as it just breaks things up a bit and gives you a target.

Ironically I’m laying in bed having a lie in on a Sunday and I’m bloody starving

No randomised trials have been done

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00098-1/fulltext#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20an%20umbrella%20review,liver%20disease%20compared%20to%20a

Omelette for lunch then meat and greens for dinner nearly every sodding day.

May I interest you in the world of the salad?

I am trying to keep starchy carbs down (not as drastically as you) and I love my lunches! Generally have any combination of grated carrot or diced cabbage or beetroot, lettuce etc, avocado, tinned mackerel, olives, capers, things in jars (like roasted peppers or baba ganoush), nuts, seeds, various dressings. One of the highlights of my day.

You could possibly consider beans or lentils in the evening meals, as these aren’t too starchy, if you’ve got any leeway.

I used to have a really early start, I skipped breakfast a few times but found that it screwed my lunchtime swim or run. Go for a run before eating breakfast sure as you’ll be running on glycogen stored in the muscles and liver, but exercise after fasting for long enough to run down energy reserves is asking for trouble in terms of performance and risk of injury.

Yeah I was about to chuck that lancet paper in too.

I’m doing 16:8 (due to work I’m nearer 18:6)  well have done for a week. I know it’s a calorie restriction but gives me a window to work in and helps me avoid snacking. Both in evening and mid morning. I did a couple of easy fasted runs as well (6km and 10km which previously would have been no breakfast but probably snacking from evening before).

I move quite a lot so this is helping with the eat less part.

There’s at least one paper that compares 16:8 fasting to alternate days to restricted calorie diet and the outcomes seemed to say IF had better outcomes for insulin use and was easier than the 5:2 fasting although weight loss was similar.

For record I’ve gone from 71.8kg to 68.7kg in just over a week. Which seems a big step but that last reading was this morning and yesterday’s meal was annoyingly small but once I’d got over that I didn’t snack and I know I’ve got the body fat to see me through. Although it’s not something I’m looking to do too often.

Sorry – yes, I should have been more specific. There are no randomised trials comparing hard outcomes – only short term surrogate markers like insulin use, blood glucose. Promising, yes. But nothing that would justify advocating behaviour change of a whole population.

But nothing that would justify advocating behaviour change of a whole population.

I think Dr J was asking opinions with the view of possibly tweaking his own behaviour not necessarily that of the whole population.

I think the responses he has received has had that in mind.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5tq3?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

More or less recently covered this.

I forgot to add, my wife has ulcerative colitis and uses fasting as a way to keep it in check. It hasn’t fixed the issue but  she hasn’t had a proper nasty flare up since starting fasting and this was a long time ago.

I suggested it as a way of giving her body the chance to proccess what was already in there. No idea if that is whats happening but it made sense in my head.

I used to do the 800(?) calories twice a week but…

I had to stop because it was making me too grumpy at work.

Currently don’t eat after 6pm nor before 8am. Don’t see this as fasting, more normal eating patterns.

Interestingly my YouTube recommendations threw up a video suggesting the  16/8 IF with the feeding 8am-2pm is better for the fasting benefits, I guess because you’re eating the food when most of us need it through the day, and fasting into the evening and overnight where people tend to be less active? Anyway it was the first I’ve seen it that way around.

I think the ‘missing breakfast’ style of IF is probably easier for most though as it’s easier to fit in with other family/social eating? No one cares if you don’t have breakfast, but might get grumpy if you don’t want to eat dinner or tea with everyone.