Intermittent Fasting

usctrojancpa

Well-known member
So about a month ago I found out that my dad was pre-diabetic and put on medication.  It got me to do a little self reflecting and making the decision that it's time I lose some weight and get healthier.  So I started doing a lot of research and learned about intermittent fasting.  I watched dozens of videos on the subject, including from a handful of doctors who showed studies that it works (my favorite below).  I learned that it wasn't eating fat that made you fat, but eating too much carbs.  And it's insulin that makes you fat so the goal is to reduce the amount of insulin that your body produces. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFJ5Sv5ifes

Anyhow, in conjunction with the intermittent fasting I also started by dropping liquid sugar/carbs by not drinking anymore juice, gaterade, and vitaminwater as well as dropping sweets like ice cream and chocolate.  Then I started reducing my starchy carbs like pasta, potato, rice, and bread.  I used to get like 4-5 times a day and started eating only 3 times a day within an 8 hour window after Memorial Day.  The first week was hard as I had huge hunger pains, had small headaches, and huge cravings for sweets.  After the first week, all those basically went away and I narrowed down the eating window to 6 hours.  A few weeks ago I started only eating 2 meals a day within a 4-6 hour window and this past weekend even did a 24 hour fast.  I've already dropped about 6 lbs but more importantly my clothes are looser fitting and I've been sleeping much better.  I'm really liking the results and have gotten used to this new way of eating. 

Anyone else doing intermittent fasting? 
 
USCTrojanCPA said:
So about a month ago I found out that my dad was pre-diabetic and put on medication.  It got me to do a little self reflecting and making the decision that it's time I lose some weight and get healthier.  So I started doing a lot of research and learned about intermittent fasting.  I watched dozens of videos on the subject, including from a handful of doctors who showed studies that it works (my favorite below).  I learned that it wasn't eating fat that made you fat, but eating too much carbs.  And it's insulin that makes you fat so the goal is to reduce the amount of insulin that your body produces. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFJ5Sv5ifes

Anyhow, in conjunction with the intermittent fasting I also started by dropping liquid sugar/carbs by not drinking anymore juice, gaterade, and vitaminwater as well as dropping sweets like ice cream and chocolate.  Then I started reducing my starchy carbs like pasta, potato, rice, and bread.  I used to get like 4-5 times a day and started eating only 3 times a day within an 8 hour window after Memorial Day.  The first week was hard as I had huge hunger pains, had small headaches, and huge cravings for sweets.  After the first week, all those basically went away and I narrowed down the eating window to 6 hours.  A few weeks ago I started only eating 2 meals a day within a 4-6 hour window and this past weekend even did a 24 hour fast.  I've already dropped about 6 lbs but more importantly my clothes are looser fitting and I've been sleeping much better.  I'm really liking the results and have gotten used to this new way of eating. 

Anyone else doing intermittent fasting?

So you'll be handing out carrot sticks instead of TI treats at your next open house?
 
Haha  Haven't had an open house since I've reduced my carbs.  :p  That being said, the sweet treats will be there for the TI folks but I just won't have one.  >:D
 
My current routine, which adopts some elements of intermittent fasting:

Unless I'm out with friends, I stop eating after 8pm. Only drinking water or occasional tea. I sleep around 11pm.

I wake up around 7am and only drink plain coffee or water. My first meal is around 11am. It's my biggest meal of the day - protein, carbs, veggies - sometimes I splurge and have a burger, pizza (or other junk). I'll eat dinner around 6pm...try to eat no carbs.

I ease up on the weekends but this works well for me Mon-Fri. I mix in High Intensity Interval Workouts (orange theory fitness) throughout the week. I've seen good results - down about 12 lbs in the beginning of the year and it really doesn't feel like a huge effort.
 
IF is really nothing more than basically skipping your bfast..... 

Eating too many carbs & insulin does not make you fat. When you gain weight, the energy you are consuming (i.e. calories) is greater than the energy your body is producing/burning in a given period.  When you lose weight, it's simply just the opposite. 

The 3 macro-nutrients are; proteins, fats & carbs.  Proteins and fats are essential to life.  Carbs are non-essential. That does NOT mean carbs are "bad". For someone such as an endurance athlete (i.e. runner/cyclists) carbs are pretty darn important.
Protein and carbs contain each 4 calories p/gram.  Fats have 9 calories p/gram. 

Example - your body burns 2,500 calories in one day, if you eat 2,000 calories that day, that is a caloric deficit of 500 calories.  To lose 1lb of pure fat, you need to achieve a caloric deficit of approx 3,500 calories. 3,500 calories ='s  approx 1lb of fat.  Say for one week you did a 500 deficit each day.  At the end of the week you'd lose 1lb of fat. Say for example a twinkie has 130 calories in it.  You could theoretically eat strictly 16 twinkies for the entire day and still lose fat based on the 2,500/2,000 numbers.  Is that the healthiest & most optimal way to do it? No of course not, but I'm just trying to make an extreme point.



 
USCTrojanCPA said:
Anyone else doing intermittent fasting? 

I'm trying this new thing called: Eating when you're hungry. Crazy concept, I know.

I'm trying to wait for my stomach to start growling. Then I eat. I started this recently after coming to terms with the fact that I often eat when I'm not actually hungry. I'll eat because it looks good or because I think I'll be hungry soon or because it's "time to eat". Through the lips and to the hips. That has done me no favors. Now I'm trying to let my body tell me when it's time to eat.
 
Martin, I'm worried about you starving yourself until you have headaches and going 24 hours without a thing to eat. Seems extreme. I give it two weeks until you're crying over a box of waffles in the garage like me.
 
I used to tell myself in-n-out protein style was good, but then you eat it with the bun and its 10 times better.
 
PrettyInGray said:
It's great that you are adjusting your lifestyle and it's better to start early than later. Pre-diabetic runs in my family too so my parents taught me to stay active growing up. I've adjusted my diet for about 7 years now by cutting out carbs completely after 5pm during the week. I may cheat a bit on the weekend, but I feel great when I don't have the extra starch sitting in my stomach.

Have you tried drinking hot water with lemon after a meal or first thing in the morning? I heard it helps detox and I think it works especially after a heavy meal.

I do have lemon in my water when I can but I like drinking cold water.  I do have 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar with cold water before bed and I'll probably do it in the morning too
 
sell4u said:
IF is really nothing more than basically skipping your bfast..... 

Eating too many carbs & insulin does not make you fat. When you gain weight, the energy you are consuming (i.e. calories) is greater than the energy your body is producing/burning in a given period.  When you lose weight, it's simply just the opposite. 

The 3 macro-nutrients are; proteins, fats & carbs.  Proteins and fats are essential to life.  Carbs are non-essential. That does NOT mean carbs are "bad". For someone such as an endurance athlete (i.e. runner/cyclists) carbs are pretty darn important.
Protein and carbs contain each 4 calories p/gram.  Fats have 9 calories p/gram. 

Example - your body burns 2,500 calories in one day, if you eat 2,000 calories that day, that is a caloric deficit of 500 calories.  To lose 1lb of pure fat, you need to achieve a caloric deficit of approx 3,500 calories. 3,500 calories ='s  approx 1lb of fat.  Say for one week you did a 500 deficit each day.  At the end of the week you'd lose 1lb of fat. Say for example a twinkie has 130 calories in it.  You could theoretically eat strictly 16 twinkies for the entire day and still lose fat based on the 2,500/2,000 numbers.  Is that the healthiest & most optimal way to do it? No of course not, but I'm just trying to make an extreme point.

I think there's a little bit more to it than that.  I think the big thing about eating in a smaller window is to get your body into ketosis (burning fat) because it has burned through all of the glucose and glycogen.  Fructose is the worst of the sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup.  I think refined carbs are probably the worst but of course it's almost impossible to fully eliminate them from my diet as I'm not a big veggie eater.  Most days I only eat twice a day and do it with a 4-5 hour window but some days I do eat 3 times but within about 6 hours and have even down a 24 hour fast when I had a huge meal (all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ).
 
SoCal said:
Martin, I'm worried about you starving yourself until you have headaches and going 24 hours without a thing to eat. Seems extreme. I give it two weeks until you're crying over a box of waffles in the garage like me.

Don't worry, I'm not torturing myself...after the first week I don't even feel hungry after not eating for 18-20 hours. 
 
aquabliss said:
I used to tell myself in-n-out protein style was good, but then you eat it with the bun and its 10 times better.

Agreed and why I've eaten the burger with only the top of the bun along with the fries and an iced tea.
 
USCTrojanCPA said:
sell4u said:
IF is really nothing more than basically skipping your bfast..... 

Eating too many carbs & insulin does not make you fat. When you gain weight, the energy you are consuming (i.e. calories) is greater than the energy your body is producing/burning in a given period.  When you lose weight, it's simply just the opposite. 

The 3 macro-nutrients are; proteins, fats & carbs.  Proteins and fats are essential to life.  Carbs are non-essential. That does NOT mean carbs are "bad". For someone such as an endurance athlete (i.e. runner/cyclists) carbs are pretty darn important.
Protein and carbs contain each 4 calories p/gram.  Fats have 9 calories p/gram. 

Example - your body burns 2,500 calories in one day, if you eat 2,000 calories that day, that is a caloric deficit of 500 calories.  To lose 1lb of pure fat, you need to achieve a caloric deficit of approx 3,500 calories. 3,500 calories ='s  approx 1lb of fat.  Say for one week you did a 500 deficit each day.  At the end of the week you'd lose 1lb of fat. Say for example a twinkie has 130 calories in it.  You could theoretically eat strictly 16 twinkies for the entire day and still lose fat based on the 2,500/2,000 numbers.  Is that the healthiest & most optimal way to do it? No of course not, but I'm just trying to make an extreme point.

I think there's a little bit more to it than that.  I think the big thing about eating in a smaller window is to get your body into ketosis (burning fat) because it has burned through all of the glucose and glycogen.  Fructose is the worst of the sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup.  I think refined carbs are probably the worst but of course it's almost impossible to fully eliminate them from my diet as I'm not a big veggie eater.  Most days I only eat twice a day and do it with a 4-5 hour window but some days I do eat 3 times but within about 6 hours and have even down a 24 hour fast when I had a huge meal (all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ).

There absolutely is not anything more to it than what I said.  The exception being the elite 1% of athletes/bodybuilders who are not on this form. 

The advantage (for those looking to lose weight) eating in a small window is you get to cram more food during the smaller window.  This tends to have an effect of making people feel more full.  More full = less eating.  Less eating = less calories = and look what happens?weight comes off. 

The average American or an overweight individual will not even come close to burning through their entire glycogen stores, not should they even be focused on entering ketosis.  They should be focusing on being consistent with their caloric intake, whether they want to gain weight, maintain weight, or lose weight.  I can?t stress that last sentence enough.

For weight loss purposes, there is no ?worse? type of food.  Again, it all comes down to energy in vs energy out. 

If IF?ing works for you, by all means, continue with it.  Just know it?s not the ?end all be all?. 

The reason why you are losing weight is because you are eating in a caloric deficit, and not for any other reason. 
 
sell4u said:
USCTrojanCPA said:
sell4u said:
IF is really nothing more than basically skipping your bfast..... 

Eating too many carbs & insulin does not make you fat. When you gain weight, the energy you are consuming (i.e. calories) is greater than the energy your body is producing/burning in a given period.  When you lose weight, it's simply just the opposite. 

The 3 macro-nutrients are; proteins, fats & carbs.  Proteins and fats are essential to life.  Carbs are non-essential. That does NOT mean carbs are "bad". For someone such as an endurance athlete (i.e. runner/cyclists) carbs are pretty darn important.
Protein and carbs contain each 4 calories p/gram.  Fats have 9 calories p/gram. 

Example - your body burns 2,500 calories in one day, if you eat 2,000 calories that day, that is a caloric deficit of 500 calories.  To lose 1lb of pure fat, you need to achieve a caloric deficit of approx 3,500 calories. 3,500 calories ='s  approx 1lb of fat.  Say for one week you did a 500 deficit each day.  At the end of the week you'd lose 1lb of fat. Say for example a twinkie has 130 calories in it.  You could theoretically eat strictly 16 twinkies for the entire day and still lose fat based on the 2,500/2,000 numbers.  Is that the healthiest & most optimal way to do it? No of course not, but I'm just trying to make an extreme point.

I think there's a little bit more to it than that.  I think the big thing about eating in a smaller window is to get your body into ketosis (burning fat) because it has burned through all of the glucose and glycogen.  Fructose is the worst of the sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup.  I think refined carbs are probably the worst but of course it's almost impossible to fully eliminate them from my diet as I'm not a big veggie eater.  Most days I only eat twice a day and do it with a 4-5 hour window but some days I do eat 3 times but within about 6 hours and have even down a 24 hour fast when I had a huge meal (all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ).

There absolutely is not anything more to it than what I said.  The exception being the elite 1% of athletes/bodybuilders who are not on this form. 

The advantage (for those looking to lose weight) eating in a small window is you get to cram more food during the smaller window.  This tends to have an effect of making people feel more full.  More full = less eating.  Less eating = less calories = and look what happens?weight comes off. 

The average American or an overweight individual will not even come close to burning through their entire glycogen stores, not should they even be focused on entering ketosis.  They should be focusing on being consistent with their caloric intake, whether they want to gain weight, maintain weight, or lose weight.  I can?t stress that last sentence enough.

For weight loss purposes, there is no ?worse? type of food.  Again, it all comes down to energy in vs energy out. 

If IF?ing works for you, by all means, continue with it.  Just know it?s not the ?end all be all?. 

The reason why you are losing weight is because you are eating in a caloric deficit, and not for any other reason. 

I don't agree with you, especially with all calories being the same.  There has been a study that showed that people on the Atkins diet (low carb) lost more weight than the other diets which were higher carb diets as well as studies that showed that caloric restriction diets don't work in the long term.  Carbs spike your insult more and the more insult your body produces the more insulin resistant that your cell becomes which causes your body to produce more insulin.  The more insulin that is produced the more likely that your body will begin to store food as fat.  Trust me, I'm not limiting my calories during my feasting windows....I have less bigger meals in a smaller time window and eat things like nuts and almond butter in that window to fill me up.  I think cutting my carbs is probably the primary driver of me losing weight/fat following by the doing IF which makes my cells more insulin sensitive (i.e. less insulin needed to be produced).  I've watched several youtube videos of doctors who have showed studies that caloric reduction does nothing but drop your metabolism and only set you up for failure as you will remain the weight after you go back to eating the same amount of calories as you did before.  That's not to say that if you get 3,000-4,000+ calories a day that you won't gain a lot of weight because you will unless you are doing some serious training, but my point is that I'm definitely eating 2,000+ calories a day and still losing weight like yesterday I went to get Korean BBQ with a client and I chowed down long tons of different meats.  What's interesting is that my desire for sweets has almost gone away...I had cake at a friend's party and man it was so sweet that it almost burned going down my throat.  The tough thing for me to fully pick are starches....bread, rice, and potato....but I have cut back on them probably by about 70-80% of what I used to eat.  I do agree that IF and/or low carb is not for everyone but I'm happy that it continues to work for me. 
 
Trojan,

Losing weight is similar to Personal Finance. Eating is like spending money and working out is like earning money. If you spend 3000 calories a day and continue to earn 800 calories a day, overtime you are going to go broke. If you continue to spend 800 calories and earn 3000 calories every day, eventually you will start to feel rich physically.

It is a compound effect that needs intense focus like anything. It took me 15 months to naturally burn and lose 40 lbs going from a waist size of 35 down to 30 comfortably. It feels good donating all my clothes to salvation Army knowing I will never get back to that weight again for the rest of my life.
 
Find your body frame and healthy weight range for your height. Write that number down on your journal and work at it like setting any goal for your business, investments, and financial area. Look at the number everyday while you are tread mill or taking a jog in the morning. Starving your yourself is not the way to get there as you eventually gain the weight back and it is unhealthy. You will also have to find an exercise activity that you enjoyed as a teenager. For me, it is playing tennis and swimming. When I play tennis, I melt away the fat while at the same time having fun. Playing tennis also allows me be mentally focused and reduces my stress level which is needed in the full time profession you and I are in.

Couple of the diet changes I made were the following... I don't eat as much white rice like I used to. I started to incorporate more oatmeal and fish to my diet rather than red meat and junk food. Veggies, fruits. and Frozen blueberries started to become my favorite snacks. and yes, drink a lot of water / tea and reduce the intake of sugar drinks like coke, Gatorade, etc. Just like you can make decisions to feed yourself either junk vs health food, we should also be conscious of what we feed our minds. Thoughts of fear, worry, doubt, and anger are destructive thoughts, we should continue to feed our minds with positive thoughts of hope, peace, joy, and happiness.

Trojan.. If I can do it.. you certainly can do it too with 15 months of intense focus on your health.
 
Working out is a side hustle trying to patch up dollars driving for uber.

Eating and general activity level is the whole ____ing game.


Most people's work outs don't burn off the calories in a vending machine cookie, let alone the excess calories in a dinner out.

I don't consider a pickup basketball game working out, going for a bike or surfing either, that's general activity level.  Much as if your job is sitting in front of a computer all day or doing landscape work, it's your general daily calorie burn.

I know many of you younger people don't want to believe me on it.  But if you're 'working out' and 'exercising' to stay in front of the fork, you're going to lose the fight.  You don't believe me, that's okay.  Believe your own eyes, go look up your ten favorite pro-athletes ten years after retirement.
 
Calories in vs. Calories out.

If you want to lose weight, eat under the calories using your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).  If you want to gain weight do the opposite.

Just remember, you'll never out-exercise your diet. 
 
Homer_Simpson said:
Calories in vs. Calories out.

If you want to lose weight, eat under the calories using your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).  If you want to gain weight do the opposite.

Just remember, you'll never out-exercise your diet. 

Sorry Homer, that's what a lot of people think but doctors do not agree that it's about "calories in vs calories out" as different calories are metabolized different (guess I've been watching too many youtube videos).  For example, calories from sugar/starches, fructose, fiber, protein, and fats are metabolized differently by your body and cause different increases to your insulin levels.  Insulin is the primary hormone that increases fat storage so the less insulin your body produces the less energy/fat storage your body will you.  Eats less carbs and IF reduces your insulin levels which increases your body's use of fat as an energy source via ketones instead of glucose.  Reducing calories will result in your body's metabolism rate decreasing as your body adjusts to less calories.  That being said, if you eat like a pig even with low carbs you'll gain weight.  I've pasted a few videos on the subject of calories in vs calories out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRSeyCZwEUI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwE4D8Xe8JA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxwRxzKapH8
 
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