
Intermittent fasting: The good things it did to my body - gps408
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25549805
======
stickydink
I don't think we're even close to really understanding how the body works
here.

I'm not obese, but I gain weight from eating a little more, very easily. Last
summer, I followed a Keto ("ultra low carb, high fat, medium protein") diet
for about 4 months. After the first week of feeling terrible, a well-known
side effect, I felt perfectly fine. It felt like I was binge eating, I limited
_what_ I could eat and just went mad eating it. Any time I was remotely
hungry, grab an approved snack. A big plate of bacon and eggs for breakfast,
Chipotle for lunch, and a hefty meal for dinner.

I never went hungry, and as someone who likes food, it felt more like a treat
than a diet. Colleagues thought I was trying to gain weight, and my girlfriend
thought I'd gone mad with hunger. But the fat melted off. I didn't walk into a
gym in those 3 months, and dropped 2-3lbs a week (starting ~250 at 6"3'),
every single week.

I'm not saying it's perfect, or even viable for everybody -- it's not cheap,
it's awkward to eat with friends, and the first week or two can be hell.
Despite what people have been told, fat won't make you fat, and Keto has been
shown over and over to reduce the risk factors for heart disease, 'cure'
diabetics, and provide huge body transformations.

For anyone interested, /r/keto is a reasonably mature community, and can
provide a lot more information.

~~~
bobowzki
I'm a physician. While it's good to lose weight (at least if you are
overweight), keep in mind that losing weight is not the only interesting
outcome. Any diet might have long term side effects. Such as an increased risk
of cancer, arteriosclerosis etc.

Also remember that weight loss is not the only benefit of exercise.

That said, congrats on losing weight. Now start exercising :-)

~~~
tokenizer
Regarding the diet above, which limits your sugar intake to 20 grams a day,
what are some potential consequences of starving your body of sugars?

Sounds good in theory (sugar is bad), but it sounds stressful (body starts
producing ketones due to suck a lack of sugar, flu like symptoms for a week).

~~~
nkuttler
Producing ketones is perfectly normal. The flu-like symptoms can usually be
avoided by easing into a low-carb/keto diet and/or ingesting sodium, chicken
broth is normally recommended at the early stages.

Potential consequences of reduced carb intake are weight loss. It can be used
to treat type 2 diabetes, epilepsy, a wide range of neurological disorders,
some cancers (yeah, really), and much more.

I'm not aware of any scientic data that found adverse consequences. You get a
lot of resistace from health professionals because for the last decades what
you eat on a ketogenic diet has been blamed for heart diseases or high
cholesterol, but there never was scientific evidence to back up those claims.

~~~
lambda
Here's a study that shows that while low-carb diets achieved effects faster
(involved more weight loss in the first 6 months), after a year the difference
in weight was negligible. Low carb diets led to higher levels of LDL
cholesterol, which is generally considered to be bad, though were also
correlated with better levels of HDL cholesterol, which are considered to be
good. [http://www.ceb-
institute.org/fileadmin/upload/refman/arch_in...](http://www.ceb-
institute.org/fileadmin/upload/refman/arch_intern_med_2006_166_285_nordmann.pdf)

Here is a a long term study that shows that low carbohydrate, high protein
diets were correlated with higher mortality rates. It's an observational, not
a controlled study, so the usual caveats apply, but it's definitely some
evidence that there's no automatic win for low-carb, high protein diets:
[http://folk.ntnu.no/lyngbakk/artikler/trichopoulou.pdf](http://folk.ntnu.no/lyngbakk/artikler/trichopoulou.pdf)

I'm pretty sure I've seen another study that linked long-term use of low-carb,
high protein diets with increased incidence of cancer, but I can't find that
study at the moment.

~~~
HNJohnC
Please don't promote "observational" studies. They are not worth the electrons
it cost to display them on my screen let alone transmit them across the 'net.

You can find an 'observational' study to promote nearly any point of view. If
it's not a properly controlled peer reviewed study it's not worth anyone's
time except the shills who got paid to write it up by whatever corporate group
commissioned it.

~~~
lambda
Controlled studies about lifelong effects of fairly fundamental parts of your
life such as diet are quite difficult to do, especially with large enough
populations to be statistically significant and without being overly affected
by their dropout rate.

Observational studies have significant problems, as I _explicitly pointed out
in my comment about the study_. However, they have some advantages in that
they are a lot easier to do for larger populations over a longer time period.

Both of these are valid scientific techniques, to inform us about what is most
likely to be a healthy way to eat. There are, of course, other valid
techniques, such as studying immediate metabolic effects of ingesting certain
foods, and linking those to known risk factors for a variety of conditions.
Science is not a single, infallible technique, it is a set of techniques which
taken together are intended to give us the best approximation of the truth,
though every method can fail in certain ways.

Diet is an especially difficult topic. Human bodies, human behavior, and
differences between different people are quite complex. There are a lot of
people who are afraid of diseases of affluence or degenerative diseases that
you see coming up more often simply due to our longer lifespan. Lots of people
are interested in solving these problems, and I think that a lot of people
jump to over-simplifying conclusions on these topics. We've seen this played
out in the past; a huge over-emphasis on low-fat diets, that seems to have
left us unhealthier than ever. Warnings about dietary cholesterol, when it
turns out that the cholesterol in our blood stream has very little correlation
to cholesterol consumed.

Every time I hear about some new extreme diet that is supposed to work
wonders, I get concerned. Low fat, low sodium, low carb, no carb, paleo, high
protein, high fat, vegan, raw, gluten free, dairy free and so on. Most of
these things seem to focus on some single source of evil, and claim to offer
amazing benefits if you follow them. Most of those benefits don't actually
play out; despite the huge push for low-fat diets over the 80s and 90s,
obesity continued rising at an alarming rate. Despite the huge popularity of
Atkins, "paleo", and other low carb diets over the past decade, it has
continued to rise.

People keep searching for a silver bullet, and in diets, like much of life,
there is no silver bullet. Eat less, exercise more, eat healthier foods like
fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains while reducing the amount of sugars
and fats, avoiding too much processed food and so on is not some amazing new
diet plan that you'll be able to sell some fancy book about, but it's pretty
much the actual advice you need to follow if you want to stay healthier.

Anyhow, I see this over and over again, and then I hear from eager people who
want to tell me that low-carb, no fasting, no gluten free, no lactose free
diets will help them lose weight, prevent cancer, prevent heart disease,
prevent Alzheimers, prevent autism or ADHD, do all of the above and more, and
there's no risk, they're so healthy, why would anyone not do this? And then I
read the literature, and I find that actually, this new diet has quicker
effects in the first six months but is about as effective as the last fad diet
was after a year, and actually it does have certain dangers, and so on.

Eat less, exercise more, keep it healthy. Beyond that, don't worry too much,
and do everything in moderation. Take all dietary science with a grain of
salt, since it's a tough field to study the real, long term effects of (20
year studies are considered to be long term studies, but that's only a
fraction of a life, meaning that many real long term effects get very little
study). Take industrial food with an even larger grain of salt, as it's more
likely optimized for shelf life, profitability, or narrow nutrition claims to
be able to put some particular label on it, rather than flavor and health.
Don't drink soda; I don't care if it's regular or diet, or whether the sugar
is corn syrup or cane sugar. Soda is always extra calories that you don't
need, or extra sweetness sans calories that confuses your body. And don't
drink venti mochafrappucaremelates, or whatever the hell they're called. Don't
eat salty snacks on a regular basis, but don't be afraid to put a pinch of
salt in your food to make it taste good. Don't have dessert with every meal,
but don't be afraid to have a slice of cake at a birthday party.

Anyhow, rant over. I just get upset when I see people getting religious over
some new diet fad, which in 10 years will be the diet that the people selling
a new diet fad will be talking about in their "you've been lied to for all of
these years. Learn how to really stay healthy and lean!"

~~~
nkuttler
I didn't really see anybody getting religious, but why is it you get so
emotional about this?

> Eat less, exercise more

So eating above one's caloric requirement and a lack of energy are always
problems of willpower?

> eat healthier foods

I think everybody can get behind this, it's like thinking of the children.

> fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains while reducing the amount of
> sugars and fats, avoiding too much processed food

So grains healthy, fat bad? As you don't mention meat that's probably also
bad? Well, it's the details that get interesting, what are healthy foods.

~~~
lambda
> I didn't really see anybody getting religious, but why is it you get so
> emotional about this?

It's just that there have been one too many threads of people promoting some
particular fad diet idea (gluten is poison! sugar is poison! soylent is the
food of the future!) and I'm getting kind of sick of them. I've been hearing
these fad diet ideas for years, it's just different things which are claimed
to be the poison or different combinations of things or combination of
restrictions which are claimed to be the be-all cure.

This thread hasn't been particularly bad, though you were a bit overly pushy
about ketogenic diets and dismissive of criticisms of them earlier: "I'm not
aware of any scientic data that found adverse consequences. You get a lot of
resistace from health professionals because for the last decades what you eat
on a ketogenic diet has been blamed for heart diseases or high cholesterol,
but there never was scientific evidence to back up those claims."

> So eating above one's caloric requirement and a lack of energy are always
> problems of willpower?

No, there is not always a problem of lack of willpower. Metabolism plays a
role, though diet and behavior play a big role too. There are certain
circumstances for which ketogenic diets are appropriate, just like there are
certain circumstances for which gluten free diets are appropriate; likewise,
just because they are appropriate and effective in certain cases doesn't mean
they are appropriate or effective for every case.

I think that for a lot of people, however, the problem is willpower. There are
a lot of people who just want an easy excuse or an easy answer, when there
really is an easy answer that just takes a bit more willpower.

I do believe that the low-carb, paleo, ketogenic, and likewise diet fads have
at least helped combat the harmful emphasis on low-fat above all else. I
recall at the height of the low-fat craze finding lots of fat free and low-fat
foods that were stuffed with tons of sugar to compensate.

> I think everybody can get behind this, it's like thinking of the children.

No, I don't think everyone can get behind it. There are a lot of people who
take the "you can eat whatever you want as long as it's not carbs" idea and
eat way too much bacon, pork rinds, and the like.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are healthy. Eating pork rinds instead of a banana
because the banana is fairly carb rich and the pork rinds are not is not
healthy.

> So grains healthy, fat bad? As you don't mention meat that's probably also
> bad? Well, it's the details that get interesting, what are healthy foods.

I don't think dividing it into "this entire category of food is healthy, this
food is not" is a good way to approach your diet. So no, I'm not claiming
"grains healthy, fat bad". Both grains and fats are good for you, in
moderation. Likewise meat. All of these things can be bad for you when taken
to excess; eating too much meat can give you cancer (and some meats are
fattier, leading to the problems with too much fat), too much fat can raise
your cholesterol leading to heart disease, too much grains (especially highly
refined grains) can lead to spikes in blood glucose and harm your insulin
response.

What I'm saying is favor fruits and vegetables over grains, favor whole grains
over refined, treat meat as a supplement, flavoring, or occasional treat
rather than the central part of every meal, favor unsaturated fats (generally
vegetable oils and fish) over saturated fats (generally from other animal
sources), and keep refined sugar consumption very low. If you need to lose
weight, eat a little less, and try to fill up a little more on things without
much caloric value like greens (but don't go spending all of your time eating
salads, as they generally come with dressings that consist mostly of fat and
sugar, defeating the whole point).

Personally, I follow this by eating meat (of any form, fish, poultry or red
meat) only about 3 times a week. I never drink soda (can't stand the stuff now
that I'm not used to it any more). I generally use unsalted nuts or fruit as a
snack if I need something to tide me over between meals (but don't snack
often). I usually buy whole grain bread. But I cook with butter plenty (as
well as with olive oil, I love sauteing food in a combination of the two), I
put cream in my coffee, I enjoy the occasional juicy steak, I eat a lot of
cheese (my one main vice), and I have the occasional dessert.

Now, I don't claim that my diet would work for everyone. That's why I'm not
out selling it; it's just what happens to work for me. But I do think that
it's good to employ an approach of moderation and avoiding thinking about food
in black and white terms, unless there's a very good reason why a food should
be completely banned (like if you have celiac disease, a nut allergy, or a
moral objection to consuming animals).

~~~
nkuttler
> too much fat can raise your cholesterol leading to heart disease

Actually, foods with a high glycmic load seem to be what's really bad for the
heart
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995)

> favor unsaturated fats (generally vegetable oils and fish) over saturated
> fats (generally from other animal sources)

Doubtful,
[http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009...](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract)

Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils have to be balanced. Too much omega-6
rich polyunsaturated vegetable oil like from soybean or corn may actually
increase risk of heart diseases,
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16387724](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16387724),
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21118617](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21118617)

> though you were a bit overly pushy about ketogenic diets and dismissive of
> criticisms of them earlier

Seriously, you keep calling LCHF keto a "fad diet" and accuse people who talk
about it of "selling books", calling it the "be-all cure" or eating "way too
much bacon, pork rinds, and the like". Your underlying tone is really ad
hominem, you seem to think all ketoers are stupid, uneducated or in it for a
quick buck.

Edit: Let me also add that keto is a proven treatment for diabetes, epilepsy
and there is currently research into more therapeutic benefits:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1325029/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1325029/),
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2367001/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2367001/),
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826507/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826507/)

~~~
lambda
> Actually, foods with a high glycmic load seem to be what's really bad for
> the heart
> [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995)

From the referenced study: "associations of harmful factors, including intake
of trans–fatty acids and foods with a high glycemic index or load"

You seem to have missed the other half of that statement.

> Doubtful,
> [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009...](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract)

From the study you link to:

"Of note, in intervention trials that have shown protective effects of
reducing saturated fat, ie, the Veteran Affairs (19), Oslo Diet Heart (20),
and Finnish Mental Hospital (21) studies, the calculated P:S ratios ranged
from 1.4 to 2.4—values that are much higher than the threshold of 0.49 above
which CHD risk has been reported to be reduced (44). Relatively high P:S
ratios (1.25–1.5) were also observed in the Anti-Coronary Club Study, an early
trial that showed beneficial effects of a lower fat diet (30–32% of total
energy) (45). The presumed beneficial effects of diets with reduced saturated
fat on CVD risk may therefore be dependent on a significant increase in
polyunsaturated fat in the diet. Existing epidemiologic studies and clinical
trials support that substituting polyunsaturated fat for saturated fat is more
beneficial for CHD risk than exchanging carbohydrates for saturated fat in the
diet, as described further elsewhere (46)."

Exactly as I said, favoring unsaturated fat in diets over saturated fats seems
to have benefits as far as cardiovascular disease, while replacing fats with
carbohydrates leads to poor results.

> Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils have to be balanced. Too much
> omega-6 rich polyunsaturated vegetable oil like from soybean or corn may
> actually increase risk of heart diseases

Sure. I wasn't trying to lay out every possible dietary guideline, just a few
rough ones. And I really mean them as rough, and meant to be broken. I don't
believe that we know enough about dietary science at the time to make strong
judgements; making drastic dietary changes on the basis of poorly understood
science can be a bad idea.

One rough metric for whether a diet is good to eat is whether it a similar
diet has been eaten over the past few hundred years by agricultural societies;
that gives at least some evidence that it works over a large population for a
long period of time. It's not perfect, and modern scientific understanding can
help us understand and improve it, but it gives you a good baseline.

I don't really buy the paleo idea that we evolved for the hunter gatherer
diet, and then evolution stopped; after all, Europeans evolved white skin as a
result of agriculture, so I find it a lot more plausible that our digestive
system has likewise adapted to agriculture, though it's too quick for it to
have adapted to modern industrial agriculture and food processing.

Given that we've been eating butter, olive oil, and lard for centuries, while
corn and soybean oil are inventions of modern agriculture, I tend to favor the
former over the latter.

> Seriously, you keep calling LCHF keto a "fad diet" and accuse people who
> talk about it of "selling books", calling it the "be-all cure" or eating
> "way too much bacon, pork rinds, and the like". Your underlying tone is
> really ad hominem, you seem to think all ketoers are stupid, uneducated or
> in it for a quick buck.

I do think that there's a LCHF/keto fad. I've seen a lot of fad diets over the
years, and it has all the trappings of one. I don't think that all ketoers are
stupid, uneducated or in it for a quick buck, but I do think that lots of well
meaning, smart people can get caught up in fad diets, just like the low-fat
fad that was popular for so long (and still has plenty of vestiges in
nutrition advice and policy today).

That doesn't mean that that there aren't valid uses for a keto diet. That has
been demonstrated in a variety of studies, and a classic example is in
epilepsy. What I don't think has been demonstrated is the long-term efficacy
of keto diets over normal calorie restricted diets. Keto tends to get results
quicker (at the expense of some unpleasant side effects) but the advantage
tapers off after a year.

On the other hand, low-fat diets are useful for specific therapeutic purposes
as well, such as people having gallbladder problems. We've all seen the damage
that over-emphasis on low-fat diets for the general population has done. Look
at all the trans-fats people have consumed while avoiding saturated fats; and
all the sugars that have been substituted for fats in foods to try to make
bland processed food taste better.

From the evidence I've seen, I think that low-carb is likely to be a bit safer
than low-fat as it's easier to wind up consuming more calories in carbs when
eliminating fat than vice versa, but I do worry that too many people deciding
to jump on the low-carb high-fat or low-carb high-protein bandwagon may wind
up doing themselves harm; possibly from causes that we already know, and
possibly from things that we don't know.

By the way, I think you've mistaken what ad-hominem is. An ad-hominem attack
is one in which you attack a person rather than their ideas. That's not really
what I've done; I've just been fairly dismissive about the idea. Perhaps I've
been unduly dismissive, but having recently been in a thread discussing gluten
free diets, I'm feeling a bit uncharitable towards the tendency for people to
latch onto a dietary idea that is a very effective treatment for a very
specific problem, and decide that it's the solution for everybody and must be
evangelized far and wide.

~~~
nkuttler
> From the referenced study: "associations of harmful factors, including
> intake of trans–fatty acids and foods with a high glycemic index or load" >
> You seem to have missed the other half of that statement.

What the actual frack? No, I can read, and we weren't talking about trans-
fatty acids at all, how on earth could I have missed something we're not
talking about? Or did I promote eating processed foods?

Anyway, this doesn't seem to lead anywhere, you have made up your mind.

------
brassybadger
Interesting to see how mainstream intermittent fasting has become. It's worth
noting where it started.

A few years ago a few hardcore fitness fanatics started playing with the idea
of using controlled fasting for weight loss and/or body recomposition. Two
people that should be mentioned are Lyle McDonald[1] and Martin Berkhan[2].
Martin especially made IF popular via his blog, laying out the principles he
used as a fitness consultant with his clients.

Most research (and especially the commercial IF knockoffs) only take some part
of these principles, but the "diet" part is only part of the picture when it
comes to body recomposition. It's almost worthless without the rest (high
intensity, low volume weight training, basic compound movements, progressive
overload, no focus on cardio).

Quite a few people/company are trying to rip off customers via their IF
programs knockoffs and supplements. If you want give IF a shot, read through
Martin's blog, and try the original Leangains protocol.

[1] [http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/](http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/) [2]
[http://www.leangains.com/](http://www.leangains.com/)

~~~
jaiball
Another recommendation for Leangains.com - been following it for over a year
and have seen good results. Although I haven't followed the protocol to the
letter - I eat a good amount of junk food during the week, but also good food
as well. The point is to narrow your window of time that you eat during the
day. I believe I could be doing even better if I concentrated on eating better
and cutting out the crap, but now I have a pretty good balance of being in
shape and being able to eat what I want.

Dr Mercola also has some really good articles on IF - www.mercola.com

~~~
brassybadger
The whole "clean eating" thing is mostly a fad. Nobody has managed to define
what food is "clean" and what is not (see e.g. what the typical bodybuilder
thinks is clean, and what someone doing paleo, what the average dietitian
recommends, etc). The only important things are 1) the number of calories you
eat, and 2) what nutrients your diet provides.

When I'm cutting, I don't make a fuss about "junk food", as long as I'm below
my calorie intake limit and I'm not missing any important nutrient. Usually
hovering around 20% junk food.

~~~
dudurocha
Do you mean: 1000 kcalories of fries and soda == 1000 kcalories of vegetables,
fruits and grains?

~~~
brassybadger
If you're only looking into weight loss/gain, then yes. Both are terrible
choices as a diet, though. The latter will provide more nutrients, so we can
call it 'healthier', but you will lack important ones still, and significantly
undereat if you are an adult male of average weight and height.

------
Tarang
There was a very interesting documentary on intermittent fasting on BBC
Horizon titled 'Eat, Fast, Live Longer' where Michael Mosley experimented with
himself fasting trying different types of fasting including intermittent
fasting.

It did help him alot but the cool thing was there was a guy who lived on a
meal a day which had athlete like body fat levels.

There's also a runner, Fauja Singh, who ran a marathon at 101 years of age
featured in it who practices something close to intermittent fasting [1]

It was extremely interesting and I do feel after watching it that 3 meals a
day is something conjured by man but may not really be all that natural.

Link to episode intro:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHDBIaibok](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGHDBIaibok)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauja_Singh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauja_Singh)

------
awjr
Looks like a derivation on the 5/2 diet. The 25/5 diet. My personal issue with
these types of diets is that my concentration levels initially drop. I find
the first couple of days extremely uncomfortable.

The best lifestyle change I've made is to drastically cut down on carbs,
generally avoiding wheat and try never to eat sugar, in particular fructose.
Note this doesn't stop me eating carbs but that I generally try and avoid them
in my day to day eating. I no longer feel tired in the afternoon.

I also cycle to work.

~~~
dualogy
What did wheat do to you? Are you a celiac, or are there other reasons one
might be interested in avoiding it?

~~~
beagle3
Not op - My experience is that all grains (corn, rice, wheat) make me bloated
and puffy, regardless of caloric content. Wheat is by far the worst offender,
also making my breath shorter about 30-60 minutes after eating, lasting a
couple of hours, and corn not having an immediately noticeable effect, but
causing bloating that will stay for days.

Not celiac, and not anything life threatening, but definitely a huge effect.
After dropping wheat, I lost 30 lbs in one month, and it stayed off for 18
month without wheat (but some came on again after a week of eating mostly corn
products - which is how I discovered that corn is evil too)

The best way to determine if this is relevant to you is not to read books or
articles or consult with a doctor: rather, take a week or two off grains (much
harder than it sounds - wheat and corn are used as fillers in many products),
and then adding them sporadically and keeping a journal (what and when you ate
each day; and whether you felt good/bad the next hour/day)

Not easy, but well worth it and not expensive.

~~~
awjr
Please please do this. It's what I did. If you find similar affects, this can
be life changing in a very very beneficial way.

------
rickdale
Been doing IF every day since July 1, 2013. Before that I was eating slow-carb
diet and had lost about 50lbs.

When I started doing IF, I was lifting pretty heavy and after the first week I
had gained weight. I was pissed because I was hungry all the time it seemed,
but I gained weight this week? Huh? Well, fast forward to now, and I put about
20 pounds since July 1, and yet I am not fatter. I am muscular. It's weird,
and yes I was lifting, but fasting helped my body get from that chubby kid
phase to, 'oh wow, I think I am almost ripped'. There are definitely some real
benefits to fasting and no one will tell you that because they can't sell it
to you in a pill.

Something really intriguing to me about fasting for 24hrs+ and then having to
eat. For me, I crave healthy foods at that point and I also have the instinct
to stuff my face and thus one meal/day works for that. It's tough to eat a
bunch of crap when you are only eating once/day.

Finally, if you are interested in IF, I recommend reading up on Ori Hofmekler.
He is the type of guy who's ideas are so crazy at first they are brushed off.
Then science proves him right.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Warrior-Diet-Biological-
Powerhouse...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Warrior-Diet-Biological-
Powerhouse/dp/1583942009)

~~~
encoderer
I too only have 1 meal a day. Some days (few a month?) I cheat, mostly for
social reasons. It's hard to refuse every lunch request.

Usually, though, I have an apple and cup of tea about 2PM. Dinner about 8. So
I'm doing all my eating in a 6 hour window, fasting the other 18 hours, every
day.

~~~
rickdale
For lunch requests my go to excuse to people is that I am in the middle of a
fast. Thus, I don't mind going to eat with them, I dont seem weird for eating
healthy, and for whatever reason, people have been more understanding of the
fasting excuse over, oooo I cant eat that.

But with cheating in general, I will move the hours of fast around. So if I do
go to a lunch, I'll probably eat pretty damn big and then fast until 6-8 the
next day, make a good dinner. It's funny how much you enjoy food when you
learn how to eat.

------
gojomo
I find it frustrating when people often discuss experience with 'intermittent
fasting' without describing exactly what they mean. The term ranges over lots
of approaches. I've seen it used to describe just 8 hours (perhaps every/most
days) without food, to a full day or couple of days without food (perhaps
every other day or once per week or two), to other things, as is the case
here.

Fortunately, clicking through to another article in the series
([http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25498742](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25498742))
gives more details about what was tested here:

 _The food, during the [5-consecutive-day] period of the restricted diet, was
designed to be highly nutritious. It consisted of plant-based soups, kale
chips, a nutty bar, a herbal tea and an energy drink. The total number of
calories, in five days, was about 2,500 - a little more than the average
person consumes in one day. No additional food was allowed. For the rest of
the month we were allowed a normal diet. The regime was repeated three times,
followed by a control period, when we could eat anything._

~~~
Keats
8h without food wouldn't be intermittent fasting unless everyone does it when
sleeping.

There is one diet type quite popular right now in fitness called Leangains
which calls for about 16h of fasting and a 8h eating window (granted that you
can reduce the eating window if you feel like it).

Some people even reduce the eating window to just one meal (warrior diet).

~~~
awjr
Isn't this just skipping breakfast?

~~~
Keats
In some ways it is skipping breakfast.

As vidarh mentionned, you also have to take into accounts macros
(carbs/fat/proteins split) and having to eat 3500kcal in 2 meals can be tough
sometimes (in the weekend i often do a 6h or so).

I've eaten that way pretty much all my life so it was easy for me to adapt (it
mainly consisted of more proteins and alternating more carbs on workout
days/more fat on rest days).

I made a quick calculator the other day if you want to see how it would look
like [http://vincent.is/working-on/leangains](http://vincent.is/working-
on/leangains) (github
[https://github.com/Keats/kCalculator](https://github.com/Keats/kCalculator)
if any angularjs dev want to review some code of an angular newbie!)

------
piyushpr134
This is not really a new thing. In India, fasting is a like a culture. More
common with females though. Some of them fast like once every week. There are
festivals which are based around fasting. Like Karvachauth, in which girls
fast for their husbands etc (we are not very feminist yet). There are
festivals during which people fast for straight 2-10 days! (chath, durga puja,
somwari etc).

Even in Islam, during ramzaan people fast everyday for 30 days . They eat
before dawn break and eat again after dusk.

~~~
beagle3
Note that in ramadaan they also don't drink any water during the day; and many
who can afford to, flip their schedule to sleep through the day so they can
eat at night.

Also, according to superfreakonomics, this wreaks havoc on gestating babies.
Seems like all harm and no benefit fasting (which, perhaps is the idea -
Jewish fasting on Yom Kippur is specifically spoused to be a soul-
torture/soul-searching experience - both translations are valid - although it
is often not experienced as either)

~~~
sfjailbird
Pregnant women are exempt from fasting during ramadan.

~~~
beagle3
So are Jewish woman on Yom Kippur - but many of them still fast; enough to
change date-of-birth distribution for Jews and health-of-newborns for Muslims.

~~~
halflings
Yup but that changed a lot these last years. Some women used to be "ashamed"
of the fact that they couldn't fast like other people did, but now (with TV,
more education, etc.) they know that Islam prohibits that (as it can endanger
the baby) and it's bad for both them and their babies.

------
Theodores
A lot of the diets mentioned on this thread are a long way from the diet used
in this article. Note it is not mentioned in the article, however it is mostly
vegetables with some fish. That is a long way from 'chipotle'!!!

It is worth bearing in mind that a lot of things we consider to be food really
does not want to be food. Grains want to be carried away by the wind to plant
themselves somewhere else. Their ancestors invariably had toxins in them to
dissuade any creatures (including us) from eating them.

Not one single animal, insect or fish has evolved specifically to be eaten.
Hence the wide range of defensive measures most animals/insects/fish have to
make sure that does not happen too often. Again, toxins come into play. As you
move up the food chain so you get an accumulation of those toxins, hence we
tend not to eat apex predators.

Compare and contrast with fruit. Fruit has evolved specifically to be eaten,
particularly by primates. The idea being that we eat some fruit, wander off to
somewhere new, have a dump, eject some seeds from the fruit complete with a
handy amount of manure and water. Yep, those pesky plants tricked us into
doing all of their work for them! They even managed to get us to cover up our
leavings, thereby planting their seeds properly.

Our vision system co-evolved with fruit, we (as in primates) see in colour not
because god wanted us to live in some world of puppies and rainbows but so we
could eat fruit that is ripe and ready to eat. The plants, knowing that we
were evolving colour vision, kindly evolved through some process of natural
selection to produce fruit that kick in to 'eat me' colours when they are nice
'n' ripe.

With this colour coded system it is possible for plants to avoid waste. We (as
in primates) only pick the ripe fruit, the stuff that is still green is
identifiably no good to us so we leave it until it magically changes colour.

Obviously there came a time when grasslands took over and we had to leave the
trees, learn to stand up and walk on two feet (so we could see over the grass)
and find new meals to try. At this stage the cult of eating dead animals was
borne, we adapted, but not that much, our intestines are still a million miles
longer than that of a dog, we still have hands for nabbling fruit rather than
vicious claws to rip apart stray wildebeest and we can still chew, as you need
to do for fruit, in a way dogs don't do.

Much like how multi-vitamins are of dubious benefit to you, so it is with
fructose. Sugars in fruit are fine, nobody has died of diabetes due to eating
too many apples. The 'fibre' is an important part of it, you need 'fibre' if
you are to consume sucrose.

The problem with diet in America is corn. There is nothing edible about corn
grown in America today unless it has been processed by an industrial process
or another animal first. All of those corn-stuffed animals Americans eat get
killed before the corn kills them. If Americans are not careful they will be
remembered as 'the corn people' like some of those American Indian tribes that
tried and failed to build corn-based civilisations in pre-Columbian times.

~~~
vidarh
> It is worth bearing in mind that a lot of things we consider to be food
> really does not want to be food.

What they _want_ is irrelevant. As they evolved to avoid being eaten, so we
evolved to be able to obtains, eat and digest it. It's not a one-sided process
of providing us with a ready made menu.

> At this stage the cult of eating dead animals was borne

Why do you assume we did not eat animals "in the trees"? Is there any evidence
to support that? Chimps eat meat on occasion, for example, and when they do
the pack literally tears the victim apart.

And describing it as a "cult" is ridiculous. It became important because it is
an immense source of nutrients, and available in many places where surviving
on available plants/fruits was near impossible prior to the development of
extensive trade. The ability to eat and digest meat provided us with yet
another evolutionary advantage over many other animals.

> We (as in primates) only pick the ripe fruit, the stuff that is still green
> is identifiably no good to us

There's plenty of fruit that's green when it is ripe, and plenty that is a
different colour than green for a long time before it is ripe.

> we still have hands for nabbling fruit rather than vicious claws to rip
> apart stray wildebeest

Which have proved superior in providing means for killing animals? Our hands
can hold and wield weapons. Which approach to eating meat is better: Tearing
apart raw meat, or cooking it? You seem to assume that we are not well adapted
to handling our new menu entries and/or that these features somehow means
we're better adapted to fruit just because we haven't taken on the
characteristics of animals that are terribly limited in their abilities.

~~~
Xephyrous
Spot on critique. Two additions:

What about pure carnivores? Surely their food doesn't want to be food, but
carnivores do just fine.

While I agree that the amount of corn we eat is absurd, to call it inedible is
ludicrous. Raw corn on the cob is plenty edible, and sweet corn is quite
tasty, although that's admittedly not what's grown on large corn plantations.

~~~
Theodores
True, in the classic 'cheetah chasing wildebeest' scenario the the wildebeest
is not 'chemically defended' and the cat enjoys his dinner. However, we aren't
pure carnivores are we? Our taste buds are different as is our gut flora, our
saliva has enzymes in it plus we have a lengthy intestine. Sure we can eat
wildebeest - raw - but we would have to sit around all day - cat style - to
have it digest. Due to the intestine length our 'wildebeest on toast' would
start to rot inside us whereas the cat would not have that problem. Hence we
cook animals and use the word 'meat'.

98% of the corn grown in the USA is field corn, grown for its starch content.
You cannot eat this stuff and enjoy doing so. You need something tantamount to
an oil refinery to make it edible or a distillery to make it drinkable.

The corn you are thinking of - the nice sweetcorn in the supermarket - is from
a different variety, it is grown for the sugar content, not the starch
content.

Essentially field corn is a chemical feedstock, it can be used for many, many
things - which is great. However, look at those ingredient labels in the
U.S.A. and, after a while, question whether you are eating a great deal of
stuff that is not corn-derived. HFCS is obvious, 'xanthan gum' is not so
obvious.

You will enjoy this article on it:

[http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2008/11/081111-fas...](http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2008/11/081111-fast-
food-corn.html)

~~~
coryfklein
Good points and rebuttals, but I had to laugh out loud at the end because that
last sentence sounded like a command rather than a suggestion.

------
rficcaglia
Maintaining a program year after year is more important to long term health
than the immediate benefits of any diet. Most any diet studied shows a short
term benefit. Even just participating in a study (placebo effect) usually
happens short term. But few diets have notable retention rates after 2 years.

Having lost >30 lb multiple times and having regained more each cycle, the
problem (for me) is that work, stress, sleep deprivation, children, family
crises, work crises, business travel, etc. present significant obstacles to
any extreme protocols.

I tried IF for 6 months; it worked short term. But I felt so unfocused and
unstable during the fast days that it was difficult for me to maintain.

My latest effort (lost >100 lb, for over a year) has greatly simplified things
- eat lots of veggies before I eat protein or other foods for any meal. No
other restrictions, calorie counting, or biochemistry hacks. Very easy to eat
out, travel, maintain. I did not join a gym or buy equipment this time -
instead I walk to work (5 miles each way.) Also maintain sleep program - no
more evening alcohol or coffee.

~~~
brazzy
What has been working for me (I've lost 8kg in 4 months) is Weight Watchers -
not the meetings, just access to their points-rated food database via Web and
App, which makes keeping track of your points budget reasonably convenient.

The biggest advantage is that you don't have to make any fundamental changes
to your diet or habits and it's flexible enough to accommodate occasional big,
unhealthy meals - so there's not too much self control necessary to stick with
it.

It also subtly pushes you towards eating fruit and veggies because most of
those have no points and thus can be eaten at any time, as much as you want.

------
epipsychidion
It's impossible to have an actual discussion about this in a non-moderated
forum given how eager people are to talk about their personal experiences
rather than the actual content of the article. For an amusing overview of some
research on intermittent fasting (mildly NSFW) -
[http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Research](http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Research)

------
collyw
I am really interested in intermittent fasting for the health benefits, having
watched BBC's Horizon on it.

The thing is I am fairly skinny, and struggle to put on weight. Does anyone
know if I am likely to loose weight?

And are there any good site to learn about it in a fairly scientific way? I
see lots of blogs, but never sure how much is worth reading.

~~~
dualogy
I have for a time put on weight during intermittent fasting (daily 16-19h
fast) easily, simply by ingesting excess calories in the "feeding window" for
days/weeks on end. If you need 2000 a day and eat 2500-3000 a day or more
(averaged over a longer time span), fasting isn't going to reverse that fact.
Sometimes it _is_ as simple as calories-in-calories-out.. I did this on
purpose to grow some muscle, but some of the "gains" in that approach will
always be bodyfat.

------
hatu
Here's the thing I don't like about fasting - how are you supposed to work out
while you're fasting? I can't imagine going to the gym eating 500 calories a
day without passing out.

~~~
mswen
I started a Lean Gains style fasting approach in Oct 2012. My version has me
stop eating by 8PM and not eat again for about 15 to 18 hours. I work out
right before the end of my fast. I lift weights 3 days a week and run 2 days a
week. These are vigorous workouts lasting 35 to 50 minutes.

My body has adapted! Initially I couldn't lift as much nor run quite as
quickly while working out on empty, but the fat melted off nicely at about a
pound a week for the first 6 months. My weight then stabilized for about 3
months.

In the last few months I have been trying a very slow bulk while still keeping
to the schedule. Trying to eat above maintenance level and add muscle. It
seems to be working I have put back on about 7 pounds and I estimate that
about 4 of those are muscle. And, my personal bests in weight lifting have
just recently been matched.

I have to say that overall I am very pleased with the results of this style of
intermittent fasting and the ability to keep working out.

Having said all that, I am thinking that this year I would like to experiment
with some longer fasts of 24 to 36 hours. I anticipate that I will need to
significantly reduce the intensity of my workout during that kind of fast.

------
pjotr
I guess this is one of the reasons Our Lady in Medjugorje has been calling us
to fast on bread and water every Wednesday and Friday.

------
leshow
if the study didn't control total calories between groups, the improved health
markers on his tests were likely a result of lower total calories over time.
i.e. the studies probably did not match calories between groups.

------
nodata
This sounds awfully like regular crash dieting.

~~~
rosser
"Crash dieting", as commonly practiced, is to eat less until your weight goals
have been reached, and then go back to "normal". IF is hardly that; instead,
it's a controlled pattern of _regularly_ , and for _specific durations_ ,
reducing your caloric intake. Some IF practitioners use a 6:1 cycle, where
they have one fast day a week, some 5:2, and yet others 25:5, as in TFA. Some
just take a random fast day whenever they feel like it, even.

IF is much less about _weight_ than it is the other, generally scientifically
demonstrated benefits of reduced caloric intake — though it does tend to
confer some benefit in weight reduction as well.

~~~
vidarh
And some just reduce the window of food intake _within the day_. E.g.
leangains is 16 _hours_ fasted, 8 hours or less eating window.

> IF is much less about weight than it is the other, generally scientifically
> demonstrated benefits of reduced caloric intake

That depends on the type of IF. Again Leangains is not specifically about
calorie reduction, but about obtaining some of the benefit of being in a
fasted state part of the day coupled with avoiding adding body fat, which for
many who uses Leangains still means consciously adding weight.

~~~
jaiball
Agreed. The fasted state is key here, giving the body a chance not to be
processing food. After doing this for a while I can't understand the deal with
eating small meals a bunch of times a day.

------
iagomr
It also might have given cancer to Steve Jobs

~~~
khafra
Citation? I've seen a lot of studies saying intermittent fasting might not
help bodyfat loss as much as you'd hope; but no studies saying it increases
cancer risk.

