Intermittent Fasting

[commanderkeen]

TBH I fast daily for about 6-8 hours. Most of you may call it sleep, but I call it IF!

That is indeed fasting but there have been studies that show an increase in HGH levels after 12-16 hours of fasting. HGH helps in the oxidation of fat, so more of HGH = more fat burning.

I think the problem is most people when they hear the term fasting think of extended water fasts that could carry on for weeks. What I'm talking, IF, is not that extreme. Sleep is about 8 hours or about half of my fast. I think it would be easier to swallow for some of you if I just stated that I'm going on an eating schedule where I eat between the 12 and 18 o'clock and never would have mentioned fasting. Or alternatively, that I don't eat anything on one day a week. Hmmpf, rant over.

[SEnSE]

That is indeed fasting but there have been studies that show an increase in HGH levels after 12-16 hours of fasting. HGH helps in the oxidation of fat, so more of HGH = more fat burning.

I think the problem is most people when they hear the term fasting think of extended water fasts that could carry on for weeks. What I'm talking, IF, is not that extreme. Sleep is about 8 hours or about half of my fast. I think it would be easier to swallow for some of you if I just stated that I'm going on an eating schedule where I eat between the 12 and 18 o'clock and never would have mentioned fasting. Or alternatively, that I don't eat anything on one day a week. Hmmpf, rant over.

The best way to naturally increase your HGH levels is through activation of the super fast twitch muscle fibers. This is best accomplished through workouts like Peak/Sprint 8, Tabata, etc.

[LegendofVogel]

Been doing leangains style IF for a week now. I have lost 7 lbs, and am down to 210 lbs with 13% bf. My goal is 10% by the end of the summer. This protocol is actually very easy. I'll add that I typically eat between 2500 and 3000 calories a day. I don't buy into the calories out versus calories in. Most of my physiology professors in school disagreed as well. To accomplish the -3500 calories a week to lose a pound a week, you have to create a 500 calorie deficit each day. Go eat 1500 calories worth of twinkies for a week and tell me how much you lose. If you are eating crappy food you have to create a very large calorie deficit to accomplish weight loss, and it will adversely affect your health as well as be hard to stick to. If you quality calories, you body will run more efficiently and the deficit will not need to be large, and some will do better eating more calories. Insulin plays a huge role. I have had a client lose as much as 40 lbs on a basic carb tapering meal plan. 60 g for breakfast, 30 g for lunch 15 g for a snack, 0 g for dinner.

[commanderkeen]

The best way to naturally increase your HGH levels is through activation of the super fast twitch muscle fibers. This is best accomplished through workouts like Peak/Sprint 8, Tabata, etc.

The studies which I was referring to concluded that HGH levels could rise by as much as 2000%, yes that is 20 times 'normal' levels, after 24 hours of fasting. This isn't too surprising as insulin and HGH don't like to coexist. So if you are eating all the time you are awake, you are raising insulin levels throughout the day and limiting HGH secretion. The surprising part is that it can get raised by so much. Yes, exercise also raises HGH, I couldn't find exact figures but if you are taking carbs right after working out, you are limiting the amount. This isn't crucial, as post workout HGH isn't much of a tell to how much lean mass gain you will achieve. Turns out, higher post workout cortisol levels are more telling toward higher lean mass gain. This was from a recent study that compared post workout levels of testosterone, HGH, IGF-1 and cortisol and the changes in body composition after some time of working out (leg workout, and I think it was 8 weeks). I've got my own opinion of why this is, but it is only that and nothing more so I won't share it unless you would like to hear it.

The reason you would want to keep your HGH levels elevated for extended periods is that it aids in recovery and also is a part of activating fat burning. Contrary to popular belief, the food you eat and more importantly the broken down carbs, proteins and fats that get into your bloodstream don't disappear if you don't eat all the time. Just make sure to eat a balanced meal preferably no more than 2-4 hours after a strenuous workout to supply your body with what it needs to recover and to get approx (a little bit less if you are trying to cut fat) the calories your body uses up during the week. Other than that, you won't starve your body by not eating.

HGH and fasting/HIIT: http://www.naturalnews.com/034704_in...tness_HGH.html
Study #2 found here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0614130946.htm

[Commander Quan]

There's been almost one-hundred years worth of metabolic controlled ward studies that prove it is - broadly speaking - all about calories.

fasting, low carb, keto, whatever, are all just diet fads.

Humans and their direct ancestors (the genous homo) have been around for 2 million years, agriculture the last 10,000 or so. If you do that math it would seam that eating grains is a fad.

Anyone that says insulin production due to a high carb intake does not have an effect adipose tissue is either uninformed or ignoring science.

[commanderkeen]

Anyone that says insulin production due to a high carb intake does not have an effect adipose tissue is either uninformed or ignoring science.

Not even that, but you are doing your best to develop insulin resistance and then you're well on your way to diabetes. Congrats. Not saying that carbs are bad altogether but if not used in moderation they are probably the worst for you out of all the macros. Considering that they are not even essential, you are really doing yourself a disservice if you are eating high-glycemic carbs by the boatload.

Again, nothing against carbs, go ahead and have vegetables, fruits, legumes, even some rice, potato, or sweet potato.

[Commander Quan]

I just ate half a bag of frozen broccoli. Vegetables should be a major component of any diet.


The calories in calories out model is based on the Law of Thermodynamics. In a perfect world it would explain how a machine runs, but my car doesn't even run according to these laws. The total energy output or my gas mileage is effected by temperature, humidity, the quality of the fuel, and a host of other things. Our bodies are not machines, we have enzymes, hormones, and chemicals that all play a major factor in how energy gets used or stored due to genetics and elemental factors.

[Judge Dredd]

Humans and their direct ancestors (the genous homo) have been around for 2 million years, agriculture the last 10,000 or so. If you do that math it would seam that eating grains is a fad.

Anyone that says insulin production due to a high carb intake does not have an effect adipose tissue is either uninformed or ignoring science.

This. And refrigerated transport has been around for how long...about 100 years?

Think about how much fruit we eat compared to how much our grandparents and great-grandparents used to eat. We have fruit all year round, especially really exotic fruits. Don't get me wrong, I love my fruits, but they are a dangerous source of carbs (fructose).

Not all calories are created equally. The body is very efficient at converting sugars to energy for use or storage. The body is not as efficient at converting protein to energy. The body can only extract about 70% of the available energy from protein v 99% (or more) from sugar.

Everything in moderation? I don't think so. Define "everything" and define "moderation". Can I have Drano, Ratsac, RoundUp?

[Argonaut]

I just ate half a bag of frozen broccoli. Vegetables should be a major component of any diet..

Dude, you should cook it first, at least thaw it out. It's "Paleo", not "Ice Age".

[Ikaponthus]

Humans and their direct ancestors (the genous homo) have been around for 2 million years, agriculture the last 10,000 or so. If you do that math it would seam that eating grains is a fad.

Anyone that says insulin production due to a high carb intake does not have an effect adipose tissue is either uninformed or ignoring science.

So say the diet gurus selling their books.

But what science exactly? Can you point me to a single reputable study that demonstrates this?

Low carb diets may have some appetite-suppressing effect that help relatively sedentary non-athletes lose a few kgs due to the inadvertent cutting of calories that accompanies removing the human body's prime energy source (i.e. carbs), but that's about the extent of it. Insulin and metabolic advantage hypotheses are pseudo-scientific nonsense, and no serious athlete or weight-trainer can function properly on a low-carb diet.

The fact that low-carb crusaders have hijacked the palaeolithic-dieting ideology is a shame, as paleo dieting is actually an interesting ideology with some merit. There's no good reason it should be low carb though. For the vast bulk of our evolutionary history, humans and pre-humans probably had a diet somewhat like a modern chimpanzee. Aside from relative blips in our history such as the last ice-age, the overwhelming evidence suggests that for the bulk of our development, humans - and our ancestors - subsisted on a diet high in fibre and carbohydrate, containing a lot of fruit, vegetables - especially root vegetables - berries, and other plant matter, as well as meat when they could get it. In fact, a huge source of our protein most probably came from insects, rodents, snails and grubs, not protein shakes. I don't see many modern hardcore paleo warriors in a rush to emulate that.

[hide][top]Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/1...sor/index.html

[commanderkeen]

So say the diet gurus selling their books.

But what science exactly? Can you point me to a single reputable study that demonstrates this?

Low carb diets may have some appetite-suppressing effect that help relatively sedentary non-athletes lose a few kgs due to the inadvertent cutting of calories that accompanies removing the human body's prime energy source (i.e. carbs), but that's about the extent of it. Insulin and metabolic advantage hypotheses are pseudo-scientific nonsense, and no serious athlete or weight-trainer can function properly on a low-carb diet.

The fact that low-carb crusaders have hijacked the palaeolithic-dieting ideology is a shame, as paleo dieting is actually an interesting ideology with some merit. There's no good reason it should be low carb though. For the vast bulk of our evolutionary history, humans and pre-humans probably had a diet somewhat like a modern chimpanzee. Aside from relative blips in our history such as the last ice-age, the overwhelming evidence suggests that for the bulk of our development, humans - and our ancestors - subsisted on a diet high in fibre and carbohydrate, containing a lot of fruit, vegetables - especially root vegetables - berries, and other plant matter, as well as meat when they could get it. In fact, a huge source of our protein most probably came from insects, rodents, snails and grubs, not protein shakes. I don't see many modern hardcore paleo warriors in a rush to emulate that.

Not eating grains and low-carb are two very different things. The fact that you get most of your carbs from grain doesn't make it low-carb not to eat them. Also, if grains weren't a fad or relatively new source of energy, why is there such a high occurrence of gluten intolerance? Same with milk, lactose intolerance is quite common. The reason is that some people (I have read some conjectures to be as high as 80% of people) don't have the DNA to produce the enzymes to break down these foods.

But I digress, as your point was purely that low-carb is bad for athletes. I agree, but you don't need to stuff your face with bread and pasta to get those carbs. I would also argue that high-carb is bad for athletes, because the human body doesn't actually need carbs for anything (all they are is easy energy) by eating a high-carb diet you are by definition sacrificing fats or protein which are essential for bodily functions.

[oakeshott]

There's no way not to sound strident on this topic so apologies in advance. The simple truth is that the history of diets is a history of doing far, far more harm than good. There is little evidence supporting the long term efficacy of any diet and the typical result of an individual participating vigorously in any of the current diet fads is an increase in weight rather than a loss. Gina Kolata, medical reporter for the NYT, did a good job debunking the nonsense around dieting in her book "Rethinking Thin".

Messing with the chemistry of our bodies through extreme manipulation of diet is a bad idea. Every new diet has "studies that show ______", but these studies are almost always poorly done or biased or incomplete. Look at the breadth of rigidly constructed, peer reviewed scientific studies over multi-decadal periods and the evidence is that diets don't work and can actually be quite dangerous.

Here's what I think we know. I could be wrong, it happened twice in the 80's and once in the late 90's, but I think I'm on pretty safe ground.

1. The body wants to be a certain shape and size. Your genes make this decision, not you. There is a range, probably around 10% in either direction, that you can safely influence.
2. The best way to "safely influence" your weight is to eat all things in moderation and be active. There are no bad foods. Just be reasonable. Get up and move. Walk, don't drive. We didn't evolve to be sedentary just as we didn't evolve to naturally restrict intake of available calories.
3. Never ever put children on diets. It's like putting a weapon in their hands. This is a much longer conversation, but the impact on brain, bone and organ development in children of restrictive diets is terrible.
4. Extreme weight gain or weight loss is nearly always the result of some disorder and NOT a lack of will or poor character. I have a lack of will because I'd rather type this note on B&B rather than go out and ride my bike a few miles this morning. This behavior means I typically carry about 10 extra pounds around and have done so for the last ten years. Someone who carries an extra 100 lbs around, however, is not doing so because they're too lazy. It is nearly always because of some medical issue.
5. Improper diets can trigger eating disorders in those genetically susceptible to this. Promoting any diet to someone with a history of ED's can be a death sentence.
6. The chemistry of the body is extremely complex and we do not yet understand the full range of interactions. Anyone who claims they do is selling something.

OP, I apologize for my rudeness. It's understood that you just want to help and your advice is meant to improve the lives and health of your fellow B&B members. Just understand that many of us have as much if not more experience in these topics and have come to a very different conclusion.

[Commander Quan]

But what science exactly? Can you point me to a single reputable study that demonstrates this?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...-7075-1-13.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37202414/Vol...idRes_2008.pdf
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1199154
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17341711
http://www.jfponline.com/Pages.asp?AID=1502
http://www.springerlink.com/content/.../fulltext.html

[commanderkeen]

There's no way not to sound strident on this topic so apologies in advance. The simple truth is that the history of diets is a history of doing far, far more harm than good. There is little evidence supporting the long term efficacy of any diet and the typical result of an individual participating vigorously in any of the current diet fads is an increase in weight rather than a loss. Gina Kolata, medical reporter for the NYT, did a good job debunking the nonsense around dieting in her book "Rethinking Thin".

Messing with the chemistry of our bodies through extreme manipulation of diet is a bad idea. Every new diet has "studies that show ______", but these studies are almost always poorly done or biased or incomplete. Look at the breadth of rigidly constructed, peer reviewed scientific studies over multi-decadal periods and the evidence is that diets don't work and can actually be quite dangerous.

Here's what I think we know. I could be wrong, it happened twice in the 80's and once in the late 90's, but I think I'm on pretty safe ground.

1. The body wants to be a certain shape and size. Your genes make this decision, not you. There is a range, probably around 10% in either direction, that you can safely influence.
2. The best way to "safely influence" your weight is to eat all things in moderation and be active. There are no bad foods. Just be reasonable. Get up and move. Walk, don't drive. We didn't evolve to be sedentary just as we didn't evolve to naturally restrict intake of available calories.
3. Never ever put children on diets. It's like putting a weapon in their hands. This is a much longer conversation, but the impact on brain, bone and organ development in children of restrictive diets is terrible.
4. Extreme weight gain or weight loss is nearly always the result of some disorder and NOT a lack of will or poor character. I have a lack of will because I'd rather type this note on B&B rather than go out and ride my bike a few miles this morning. This behavior means I typically carry about 10 extra pounds around and have done so for the last ten years. Someone who carries an extra 100 lbs around, however, is not doing so because they're too lazy. It is nearly always because of some medical issue.
5. Improper diets can trigger eating disorders in those genetically susceptible to this. Promoting any diet to someone with a history of ED's can be a death sentence.
6. The chemistry of the body is extremely complex and we do not yet understand the full range of interactions. Anyone who claims they do is selling something.

OP, I apologize for my rudeness. It's understood that you just want to help and your advice is meant to improve the lives and health of your fellow B&B members. Just understand that many of us have as much if not more experience in these topics and have come to a very different conclusion.

Thanks for the post. I actually agree with you. This thread is not about dieting though, and that is probably where the confusion is coming from. 'IF' IS NOT A DIET! I don't know if I could be any clearer. I still eat the three types of macros, I take my vitamins to ensure I get enough, I have just this week cut gluten from my diet because I think I am gluten intolerant or at least sensitive, and I (and remember, this is just me) am in a slight calorie deficit. If anything, I am eating a greater variety of food and I am somewhat conscious of what I am putting into my body.

[SEnSE]

So say the diet gurus selling their books.

But what science exactly? Can you point me to a single reputable study that demonstrates this?

Low carb diets may have some appetite-suppressing effect that help relatively sedentary non-athletes lose a few kgs due to the inadvertent cutting of calories that accompanies removing the human body's prime energy source (i.e. carbs), but that's about the extent of it. Insulin and metabolic advantage hypotheses are pseudo-scientific nonsense, and no serious athlete or weight-trainer can function properly on a low-carb diet.

The fact that low-carb crusaders have hijacked the palaeolithic-dieting ideology is a shame, as paleo dieting is actually an interesting ideology with some merit. There's no good reason it should be low carb though. For the vast bulk of our evolutionary history, humans and pre-humans probably had a diet somewhat like a modern chimpanzee. Aside from relative blips in our history such as the last ice-age, the overwhelming evidence suggests that for the bulk of our development, humans - and our ancestors - subsisted on a diet high in fibre and carbohydrate, containing a lot of fruit, vegetables - especially root vegetables - berries, and other plant matter, as well as meat when they could get it. In fact, a huge source of our protein most probably came from insects, rodents, snails and grubs, not protein shakes. I don't see many modern hardcore paleo warriors in a rush to emulate that.

[top]Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/1...sor/index.html

You completely lost me at "evolutionary" & "pre-human". /end

[Ikaponthus]

Are you saying you don't believe in evolution?

Well, whatever floats your boat. If that's the case, I'm not surprised I completely lost you.

[Ikaponthus]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...-7075-1-13.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37202414/Vol...idRes_2008.pdf
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1199154
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17341711
http://www.jfponline.com/Pages.asp?AID=1502
http://www.springerlink.com/content/.../fulltext.html

I am certainly not adverse to changing my mind given good evidence; and a couple of those studies do raise an eyebrow.

They are, however, largely out of context and or irrelevant to the proposition that low-carb diets offer any advantage in weight or fat loss when compared to iso-caloric moderate or high-carb diets.

In the one study listed above that does specify the calorie intake of the diets involved, they are all low-calorie diets, so it's no surprise that the participants lost weight. (as a side-note, that study is also flawed because they fed a significantly different amount of calories to the low-fat/low-carb groups, which would go a long way to explaining the favourable body composition results of the group that had the higher [but still deficient] calorie intake. The other group were borderline "starving"!).

In addition, I do accept that low-carbohydrate diets aid fat-loss especially in overweight and/or non-athletic individuals. The point of contention is not that a low-carb diet works for obese dieters. The point of contention is "Why does it work?". I believe this is simply because it's easier for them to eat less calories as a result of their low-carb diet, not because the low-carb diet is doing anything special to the body. This explains why studies show that obese individuals lose weight more effectively on an Atkins-type diet. It's simply easier to control their calorie intake. Just to be clear: I'm not a proponent of a low-fat diet. I'm a proponent of a low calorie diet. It's a very different thing.

There exists almost one-hundred years worth of metabolic controlled ward studies that have proven that weight-loss is most directly related to calorie deficit, not carbohydrate (or fat) deficits. A carbohydrate deficit may help some people achieve a calorie deficit, I'm not arguing that point at all.

I will look into it further, thanks for posting, but I remain sceptical for now.

Anyone that says insulin production due to a high carb intake does not have an effect adipose tissue is either uninformed or ignoring science.

Widely-consumed protein foods can in fact cause greater insulin release than some commonly eaten carbohydrate-rich staples. Notably absent from low-carber anti-insulin dissertations is the fact that 240-calorie servings of cheese, beef and fish elicit greater insulin release than isocaloric servings of pasta and porridge.

(Holt SHA, et al. An insulin index of foods: the insulin demand generated by 1000-kJ portions of common foods. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Nov, 1997; 66: 5: 1264-1276.)

[SEnSE]

Are you saying you don't believe in evolution?

Well, whatever floats your boat. If that's the case, I'm not surprised I completely lost you.

FYI, evolution is a theory, NOT a fact. Have fun with all those pre-humans! LOL

[Ikaponthus]

FYI, evolution is a theory, NOT a fact. Have fun with all those pre-humans! LOL

Just like the theory of flight and the theory of gravity that govern the flight of modern jet-liners.

Evolution is a scientific fact (as close as you can get to that anyway) and a scientific theory. The two are not mutually exclusive. Evolution has been proved in the fossil record, it has been observed in nature and observed under laboratory conditions, then re-confirmed by the most advanced genetic research into our DNA. Get used to it.

I suggest you change your avatar. Einstein would be rolling around in his grave.

[commanderkeen]

Just a little tidbit about carbs and storing adipose tissue. (This thread is about IF, and I would like to keep it that way but since IF falls under nutrition a smart discussion about the pros/cons of each macro is warranted and welcome).

If you live a sedentary lifestyle (like many of us do, especially with office jobs that can clock in at 10 hours a day or more) you are probably not using your glycogen stores much at all during the day. Glycogen is the body's fast energy stores, sugar, that is found in muscles and the liver (think of the liver as the depot and the muscles as the factories that use glycogen). If the glycogen stores are full, the body has no place to put that energy other then to store it as fat. Protein can't really be converted into fat and to get usable energy out of protein the body has to go through a process of gluconeogenesis which basically means it converts fat into glycogen with the help of protein. That process can not begin if the glycogen stores are already full or if you are eating large amounts of carbs to refill the stores. Moral of the story, fat and carbs are stored as adipose tissue much more readily then protein.