137 replies to this topic

[lucid]

I have been wondering how many people here are doing IF. I have decided to do IF for the following reasons:
1. The evidence points towards IF resulting in comparable LE gains to CR.
2. One is able to keep ones normal body weight (and muscle mass) while on IF while not being able to do so on a comparable (30%) CR diet.
3. Its a lot cheaper and more effective than taking resveratrol.

The schedule that I have adopted is an approxiately 30-34 hour fast twice a week. I don't eat from when I go to bed the until the next next morning.

Right now I am doing a reasonably strict water fast; when I start getting a mild headache towards the end of the fast before I go to bed, I drink about 10 oz of low sodium V8 (60 calories) and take my dailly sups (40 calories).

So anyone else doing this? Things are going pretty good, but any advice?

[edward]

After my over a month long low to almost zero carbohydrate ketogenic diet experiment chronicled here http://www.imminst.o...ets-t20768.html
I officially determined that my time would be better spent doing IF and that I would hopefully get some of the benefits I saw from low carb ketogenic (more of an ability to have sustained energy and blood sugar levels, decreased insulin resistance and reduction in afternoon fatigue) coupled with the life extending benefits of CR, but not have to end up emaciated.

So I have been doing IF this past week. My schedule is Fasting starting at X pm Day 1 till X pm of Day 2, then eating X pm of Day 2 till X pm of Day 3 then repeat. Workouts are scheduled in the middle of eat periods so as to have the most energy benefits.

So far so good, the first fast day was hard (just like my previous fasting experience of one a week or once every two weeks) but it is getting easier. I think it will end up being relatively painless as one's body will adapt.

I am wondering about the whole supplementation issue when fasting. I am experimenting with taking only medications, energy/brain and hormone related substances while fasting and then taking my full array of supps when eating (since many of these offset the negative effects of eating). Definitely this will be cheaper, but I am still trying to tweak the schedule etc. of what to take to maximize performance when not eating so that I can still work and study well.

Anyways, ill write more later. Thanks for starting this topic lucid as we have a whole section related to CR but just a smattering of threads on IF which in my opinion seems to be the better choice for male individuals who want to maintain or increase muscle mass, sports and work performance.

Healthnutty, if you are out there give us your thoughts on your IF program, mentioned when you discussed your discontinuing of t-res.

btw the only other good IF thread is http://www.imminst.o...ing-t17762.html maybe these can be merged as I like the idea of an "IF Club"

[Live Forever]

I am back to doing it now. I had been doing it for awhile, then I scaled back to 2 days of fasting a week, now I am back to the every other day thing. It really doesn't seem that hard to maintain to me.

[lucid]

After my over a month long low to almost zero carbohydrate ketogenic diet experiment chronicled here http://www.imminst.o...ets-t20768.html
I officially determined that my time would be better spent doing IF and that I would hopefully get some of the benefits I saw from low carb ketogenic (more of an ability to have sustained energy and blood sugar levels, decreased insulin resistance and reduction in afternoon fatigue) coupled with the life extending benefits of CR, but not have to end up emaciated.

So I have been doing IF this past week. My schedule is Fasting starting at X pm Day 1 till X pm of Day 2, then eating X pm of Day 2 till X pm of Day 3 then repeat. Workouts are scheduled in the middle of eat periods so as to have the most energy benefits.

So far so good, the first fast day was hard (just like my previous fasting experience of one a week or once every two weeks) but it is getting easier. I think it will end up being relatively painless as one's body will adapt.

I am wondering about the whole supplementation issue when fasting. I am experimenting with taking only medications, energy/brain and hormone related substances while fasting and then taking my full array of supps when eating (since many of these offset the negative effects of eating). Definitely this will be cheaper, but I am still trying to tweak the schedule etc. of what to take to maximize performance when not eating so that I can still work and study well.

Anyways, ill write more later. Thanks for starting this topic lucid as we have a whole section related to CR but just a smattering of threads on IF which in my opinion seems to be the better choice for male individuals who want to maintain or increase muscle mass, sports and work performance.

Healthnutty, if you are out there give us your thoughts on your IF program, mentioned when you discussed your discontinuing of t-res.

btw the only other good IF thread is http://www.imminst.o...ing-t17762.html maybe these can be merged as I like the idea of an "IF Club"

As far as sups, I take a multivitamin and some omega 3's plus zinc D3, and magnesium. I have stopped taking T-Resv.

Since there isn't much conclusive in the way of human studies on IF. I am going to take reasonably careful records of my weight and muscle diameters. I will also have my blood work done in a couple months and am going to continue monitoring my blood pressure.

Great to hear you guys are doing it too.

One thing I have been wondering about has been whether or not to take a bit of protien during the day when I fast to prevent muscle loss. While it sounds like this would work, apparently it doesn't:

Composition of weight lost during short-term weight reduction.
Metabolic responses of obese subjects to starvation and low-calorie
ketogenic and nonketogenic diets.Yang MU, Van Itallie TB.

The effects of starvation, an 800-kcal mixed diet and an 800-kcal
ketogenic (low carbohydrate-high fat) diet on the composition of
weight lost were determined in each of six obese subjects during
three 10-day periods.The energy-nitrogen balance method was used to
quantify the three measurable components of weight loss; protein,
fat, and water. On the 800-kcal ketogenic diet, subjects lost (mean
+/- SE) 466.6 +/-51.3 g/day; on the isocaloric mixed diet, which
provided carbohydrate and fat in conventional proportions, they lost
277.9+/- 32.1 g/day. Composition of weight lost (percentage) during
the ketogenic diet was water 61.2, fat 35.0, protein 3.8. During the
mixed diet, composition of loss was water 37.1, fat 59.5, protein
3.4...

PMID: 956398 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
PMCID: PMC333231

Protein sparing during treatment of obesity: ketogenic versus
nonketogenic very low calorie diet.Vazquez JA, Adibi SA.
Department of Medicine, Montefiore University Hospital, Pittsburgh,
PA 15213.

Although it is generally agreed that both ketogenic and nonketogenic
very low calorie diets promote weight reduction, there is no
consensus on a preference of one diet over the other in regard to
protein sparing. In the present study, we compared the effects of
isocaloric (600 kcal/d) and isonitrogenous (8 g nitrogen/d) ketogenic
(low carbohydrate) and nonketogenic diets on parameters of protein
and amino acid metabolism, in 16 morbidly obese women maintained on
these diets for 4 weeks while confined to a metabolic ward.
Cumulative urinary nitrogen excretion (g/4 wk) was significantly (P
less than .01) greater (248 +/- 6 v 207 +/- 12, mean +/- SEM, n = 8),
and cumulative nitrogen balance significantly (P less than .02) more
negative (-50.4 +/- 4.4 v -18.8 +/- 5.7), during treatment with the
ketogenic than with the nonketogenic diet. Plasma leucine
concentration (mumol/L) was significantly higher (P less than .05)
during treatment with the ketogenic than with the nonketogenic diet
at day 14 (210 +/- 17 v 150 +/- 8), but not at day 28 (174 +/- 9 v
148 +/- 8). Whole-body rates of leucine oxidation (mmol/h) were
significantly higher (P less than .05) during treatment with the
ketogenic than with the nonketogenic diet at day 14 (1.29 +/- 0.20 v
0.92 +/- 0.10) and at day 28 (1.00 +/- 0.16 v 0.75 +/- 0.10).
Conversely, proteolysis, as measured by leucine turnover rate and
urinary excretion of 3-methylhistidine, was not significantly
different between the diets.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

PMID: 1556948 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

3.
Metabolic effects of substituting carbohydrate for protein in a low-
calorie diet: a prolonged study in obese patients.Yang MU, Barbosa-
Saldivar JL, Pi-Sunyer FX, Van Itallie TB.

Obese individuals maintained for 64 days on either of two low-calorie
diets (600-800 kcal/day), consisting of protein alone or protein plus
carbohydrate, varied widely in the extent of their cumulative
nitrogen deficits. Rates of weight loss showed little correlation
with rates of nitrogen loss after the first 28 days of the study. The
low-calorie diet consisting entirely of protein increased blood beta-
hydroxybutyrate concentrations far more than did a diet consisting of
equal parts of protein and carbohydrate. The diet which consisted
almost entirely of protein did not spare body protein better or
induce a greater rate of weight loss than did the mixture of protein
and carbohydrate.

PMID: 7275460 [PubMed - indexed for MEDL

[Athanasios]

I'm in on it, but I doubt it will affect max lifespan. I do think it will put me in better health til my 50-60s where I plan on a full CR diet. Right now I am doing a 12PM to 12PM every other day where sometimes I cheat at 8AM in the morning, thus making it 20 hours at times. So far, 4 months, my systolic BP and heart rate have dropped by 10 points, and I have stayed the same weight but am leaner. I have yet to compare blood results, however.

[Shepard]

I'm in on it, but I doubt it will affect max lifespan.

Pretty much my stance on the issue, too.

[porthose]

well ive been on the warrior diet since mid 2003 albeit modified. i certainly don't over eat at night and i have combined the paleolithic diet with the warrior diet. so i pretty much fast all day apart from a handful of pistacios, almonds and macadamias and a little fruit around 'lunch' time.

i feel great and have slimmed down with a quality training regimen and quality supplements at an age of 41yrs.

all in all, best thing ive ever done.

[rhodan]

Doing IF for a couple of months now.

I do 24h fast. On the day I fast I only eat once for dinner (so the fast is from the dinner of the previous day). I chose dinner because it is compatible with my family life : skipping breakfast is easy, the only drawback is skipping lunch with my colleagues at work. At first I did it 3x/week : monday, wednesday and friday. Again weekends are not fasted (family life and on WE I have more control on the quality of foods).

For the moment, the main effect is weight-loss, which is OK as it is one of the purpose of my IF diet (I have a few kilos to let go). I recently reduced to 2x/week (monday, friday) as I want to slow down the weight-loss, which is faster than I want (I think even reducing it to just 1x/week if necessary). I also cleaned up my diet by reducing high-carb foods, replacing them with fats : avocado, nuts, ... I am not sure of my ketosis state, maybe I will buy some test strips to know.

The first week of fasting was not so hard : I feel hunger, some weakness but nothing terrible (no headaches, lightheadness, ...). The following weeks were easier (hunger-wise). I control my hunger by drinking cold green tea with mint. Recently, the hunger physical feeling is a bit back (?) but I feel mentally stronger (than at the deginning) and have no difficulty handling it. Sometimes I find that my heartrate slows a bit (50-55) while at work (I have a seated job) but I do not feel weak, I sometimes do a little walk or climb a few stairs and it accelerates back to a "normal" rate (60-70 as I am far from being an athlete).

My exercise capability is better (I swim 2 or 3x/week), but as I do it on non-fasted days I guess that I benefit from glycogene replenishement effect (also my conditioning is now better).

When I reach my weight goal, I will try to fast 1x/week while remaining on a "low-carb" diet. More than that (1x/week) I think I won't be able to maintain my weight as I do not want to stuff myself (bloated feeling) on non-fasted days to compensate.

[edward]

Optimal fasting schedule found in this study to be eat 2 days fast 1 day repeat (ie fast once every 3 day period) 20% life extension in male rats, 15% life extension in female rats. They tested every other day (fast once every 2 day period), 2 days eat 1 day fast (fast once every 3 day period) and eat 3 days fast 1 day (fast once every 4 day period).

http://jn.nutrition....stract/31/3/363

[edward]

well ive been on the warrior diet since mid 2003 albeit modified. i certainly don't over eat at night and i have combined the paleolithic diet with the warrior diet. so i pretty much fast all day apart from a handful of pistacios, almonds and macadamias and a little fruit around 'lunch' time.

i feel great and have slimmed down with a quality training regimen and quality supplements at an age of 41yrs.

all in all, best thing ive ever done.

The only issue I have with the warrior diet (knee jerk response as I have not done in depth reading on this nor have I tried this version of IF) is the fact that you eat and then basically go to sleep and since you are only eating once a day at least for me this would have to be a pretty big meal in order to get enough calories to sustain lean muscle mass. Extremely large meals flood your system with nutrients, glucose, fatty acids what have you and metabolically this seems like a bad situation. For me I don't think this would work. Might give it a try though for a little while just to see how I feel as I have always naturally eaten at night (or on days off/weekend) and relaxed while during the day its often go go go and very little time to eat.

[Live Forever]

Optimal fasting schedule found in this study to be eat 2 days fast 1 day repeat (ie fast once every 3 day period) 20% life extension in male rats, 15% life extension in female rats. They tested every other day (fast once every 2 day period), 2 days eat 1 day fast (fast once every 3 day period) and eat 3 days fast 1 day (fast once every 4 day period).

http://jn.nutrition....stract/31/3/363

1945? Surely there are some more recent ones than that.

[Live Forever]

I'm in on it, but I doubt it will affect max lifespan. I do think it will put me in better health til my 50-60s where I plan on a full CR diet. Right now I am doing a 12PM to 12PM every other day where sometimes I cheat at 8AM in the morning, thus making it 20 hours at times. So far, 4 months, my systolic BP and heart rate have dropped by 10 points, and I have stayed the same weight but am leaner. I have yet to compare blood results, however.

Why would you not get the benefits of CR with IF?

In research settings animals that are intermittently fasted are fed every other day, so they eat whatever they want for a day, then they are denied food for a day. Interestingly, on feeding days most of the animals eat a almost double the amount that their ad lib fed mates do. Thus the IF animals eat about the same number of calories overall that the ad lib fed animals eat, but, and this is a huge ‘but,’ the IF animals enjoy all the health advantages that the CR animals do, and, in fact, are even healthier than the CR animals.

Like caloric restriction, intermittent fasting reduces oxidative stress, makes the animals more resistant to acute stress in general, reduces blood pressure, reduces blood sugar, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces the incidence of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and improves cognitive ability. But IF does even more. Animals that are intermittently fasted greatly increase the amount of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) relative to CR animals. CR animals don’t produce much more BDNF than do ad libitum fed animals.

What’s BDNF? (The Wikipedia definition is actually pretty good)

BDNF, as its name implies, is a substance that increases the growth of new nerve cells in the brain, but it does much more than that. BDNF is neuroprotective against stress and toxic insults to the brain and is somehow–no one yet knows how, exactly–involved in the insulin sensitivity/glucose regulating mechanism. Infusing BDNF into animals increases their insulin sensitivity and makes them lose weight. Humans with greater levels of BDNF have lower levels of depression. BDNF given to depressed humans reduces their depression. And Increased levels of BDNF improves cognitive ability. In short, you want as much BDNF as you can get., and with IF you can get a lot.

http://www.proteinpo...-better-health/

The intermittent fasting group did as well as the caloric restriction group on a variety of tests but enjoyed almost as much food as the ad libitum group (by making up the difference on days when food was available). A very recent paper by Hsieh et al. 2005 (Effects of Caloric Restriction on Cell Proliferation in Several Tissues in Mice: Role of Intermittent Feeding: PubMed; Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab) reaches similar conclusions studying cell proliferation.

http://stevemount.ou...osting0002.html

"The intermittently fed mice are not calorie restricted, and yet we see changes in their physiology similar to those obtained with calorie restriction," Mattson told Science News Online.

Intermittent feeding also improved the animals' resistance to a neurotoxin that simulates Alzheimer's disease, the researchers report in the May 13 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.sciencene...030607/food.asp

We report that when C57BL/6 mice are maintained on an intermittent fasting (alternate-day fasting) dietary-restriction regimen their overall food intake is not decreased and their body weight is maintained. Nevertheless, intermittent fasting resulted in beneficial effects that met or exceeded those of caloric restriction including reduced serum glucose and insulin levels and increased resistance of neurons in the brain to excitotoxic stress. Intermittent fasting therefore has beneficial effects on glucose regulation and neuronal resistance to injury in these mice that are independent of caloric intake.

http://www.pubmedcen...gi?artid=156352


Also, http://en.wikipedia....native_approach

Edited by Live Forever, 15 April 2008 - 08:31 PM.

[Athanasios]

I'm in on it, but I doubt it will affect max lifespan.

Why would you not get the benefits of CR with IF?

The max lifespan effects have been reserved to mice that actually lost weight during the studies, or a study with an abnormal strain, or fat mice vs. IF mice, etc. There are surely benefits but max lifespan evidence is far from conclusive. If you want an in-depth study by study breakdown, dig up Michael Rae's responses to this issue on this board and others.

Added Link:
I think he has updated responses elsewhere but here is what he said in 2004:
http://www.imminst.o...amp;#entry29979

Edited by cnorwood, 15 April 2008 - 08:52 PM.

[Shepard]

Here is MR's critique:

http://www.imminst.o...amp;#entry29979

[Live Forever]

Thanks for the link, guys. Interesting read. (although on part of it he seems to be defending traditional CR just because that is what he has been doing for so long) Another interesting thing that I have found while googling around for more information on the IF version of CR is this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16529878
Which did alternate day CR on the subjects. (in other words, one day they would eat 2300 calories, and the next day 900, then 2300, and so on) Over the course of 3 years, health seemed to improve in those participating vs the control group.

I suppose I should start thinking about progressing to more of a CR diet, because I had just thought that IF was giving me most of the benefits. It just seems harder to follow than IF.

[edward]

I think MR and other die hard CRers are rather biased in their assessment of alternatives to CR. No doubt I would be too if I fashioned my life around a certain pattern of eating. As I have said many times I would love to do CR I just dont want to look like I am doing CR (anorexic, no offense to all the CRers out there but thats what you end up looking like) hence my looking at other alternatives. Now, if I was female though I might consider CR as the waif look seems very socially acceptable, but for a male especially a young to middle aged male especially one who wants to remain active in sports it just doesn't seem like an option.

Edited by edward, 19 April 2008 - 06:39 PM.

[Athanasios]

I think MR and other die hard CRers are rather biased in their assessment of alternatives to CR.

Yeah, i think the same thing to an extent; however, they do have a point on the max lifespan data. I do maintain that it is probably healthier to IF than a regular healthy diet, which is where some CRers seem to be divided on.

[Athanasios]

Another interesting thing that I have found while googling around for more information on the IF version of CR is this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16529878
Which did alternate day CR on the subjects. (in other words, one day they would eat 2300 calories, and the next day 900, then 2300, and so on) Over the course of 3 years, health seemed to improve in those participating vs the control group.

Very nice, good find. Even though it was in elderly, it does show a response with just cutting calories every other day. I imagine almost anyone can fit this into their lifestyle, even if they found IF hard.

[dsbuffa]

I having been practicing Intermittent Fasting with a hour eating window every day for about 2 months. I started with a four hour window back in February 2006 and slowly decreased it. It seemed with a 4 hour window I was eating to much to the point of being uncomfortable and that I really didn't need that amount of time to fill up with a good healthy meal.

I'm still trying to lose a little weight.... about 5 pounds a month. I have 10 pounds to go and then I will be exactly where I want to be. Not rushing it or counting calories. It is just slowly coming off. Once I hit my target weight I might have to rethink my amount of time for my window. I guess I will just have to wait and see.

[VictorBjoerk]

How effective is intermittent fasting compared to CR? Wouldn't it be possible to do cr but still keep a normal bmi through intermittent fasting.
(I'm thinking of the fasting munks who got fat due to decreased metabolic rate)

[eldar]

I would like to add a somewhat of a non-success story. I did IF for about 9 months but stopped around 3 months ago. I think I managed to somehow mess up my metabolism big time with IF. At around month 7 I started to get all kinds of weird symptoms.
While fasting, I was always feeling a bit cold, which was ok. But then, during the eating period, I would get extremely hot, and actually start sweating. On top of this, every time I ate, I got a runny nose. So this was obviously getting to the point where I thought this can't be so good, and I stopped.

The really big issue though, is that the symptoms have still not gone away after 3 months of eating normal healthy diet ( without IF). They did scale down a bit initially, but I still tend to get a runny nose while eating. Also the sweating tends to start at around 10pm, even if I don't eat anywhere near that time (I used to eat at night when doing IF). I just hope, that given enough time, the symptoms will disappear.

This is not meant to scare anyone off from doing intermittent fasting though, but rather to point out that there are possible side effects to consider.

Edited by ceth, 28 April 2008 - 11:24 AM.

[Live Forever]

Those sound similar to symptoms that people on CR get, ceth. (especially the cold part) It could also be something specific to you, or a variation in the way that you were doing your IF. (or it could be something that is wrong completely outside of your diet if the symptoms are sticking with you afterwards; You might want to see a doctor about it) Hope you get to feeling better!

Edited by Live Forever, 28 April 2008 - 04:04 PM.

[lucid]

I would like to add a somewhat of a non-success story. I did IF for about 9 months but stopped around 3 months ago. I think I managed to somehow mess up my metabolism big time with IF. At around month 7 I started to get all kinds of weird symptoms.
While fasting, I was always feeling a bit cold, which was ok. But then, during the eating period, I would get extremely hot, and actually start sweating. On top of this, every time I ate, I got a runny nose. So this was obviously getting to the point where I thought this can't be so good, and I stopped.

The really big issue though, is that the symptoms have still not gone away after 3 months of eating normal healthy diet ( without IF). They did scale down a bit initially, but I still tend to get a runny nose while eating. Also the sweating tends to start at around 10pm, even if I don't eat anywhere near that time (I used to eat at night when doing IF). I just hope, that given enough time, the symptoms will disappear.

This is not meant to scare anyone off from doing intermittent fasting though, but rather to point out that there are possible side effects to consider.

Yea, I definitely get pretty cold during the fasting part of IF.

As to the nosebleeds, could it possibly be the humidity? During the winter people get nosebleeds frequently because of humidity (this can be resolved by getting a humidifier and applying some aquaphor to the inside of your nose).

I don't have much to say about the sweating though. I imagine that the sweating is a central nervous system problem, for some reason your body has become trained to send the sweat signal. Hmmm. Sympathetic nervous system problem... Makes me think meditation or hypotherapy.

Could you give us some details?
IF schedule?
Age.
Height.
Starting weight.
Ending weight.
Present weight.

[johnblaze]

I have been contemplating a 1 day fast once a week, does anyone know if this will be healthy? I know most studies were structured as every other day or 2 on 1 off, but my lifestyle will not permit those schedules at this point. I know I will most likely see some benefit, but was looking for something more concerete. I was also planing on not taking any supplements that day, as a way of cycling those as well.

[eldar]

I would like to add a somewhat of a non-success story. I did IF for about 9 months but stopped around 3 months ago. I think I managed to somehow mess up my metabolism big time with IF. At around month 7 I started to get all kinds of weird symptoms.
While fasting, I was always feeling a bit cold, which was ok. But then, during the eating period, I would get extremely hot, and actually start sweating. On top of this, every time I ate, I got a runny nose. So this was obviously getting to the point where I thought this can't be so good, and I stopped.

The really big issue though, is that the symptoms have still not gone away after 3 months of eating normal healthy diet ( without IF). They did scale down a bit initially, but I still tend to get a runny nose while eating. Also the sweating tends to start at around 10pm, even if I don't eat anywhere near that time (I used to eat at night when doing IF). I just hope, that given enough time, the symptoms will disappear.

This is not meant to scare anyone off from doing intermittent fasting though, but rather to point out that there are possible side effects to consider.

Yea, I definitely get pretty cold during the fasting part of IF.

As to the nosebleeds, could it possibly be the humidity? During the winter people get nosebleeds frequently because of humidity (this can be resolved by getting a humidifier and applying some aquaphor to the inside of your nose).

I don't have much to say about the sweating though. I imagine that the sweating is a central nervous system problem, for some reason your body has become trained to send the sweat signal. Hmmm. Sympathetic nervous system problem... Makes me think meditation or hypotherapy.

Could you give us some details?
IF schedule?
Age.
Height.
Starting weight.
Ending weight.
Present weight.

My nose doesn't bleed. What I meant with runny nose was the kind you have with allergies, cold etc. The difference being that this isn't constant and only happens during eating. Sort of like having an allergic reaction to food (in this case, all food).

The sweating I believe to be a conditioned response to eating. That is, when eating my metabolism speeds up excessively, causing the body to heat up and start sweating. So when I was doing IF and eating at night, I would sweat because of my metabolism speeding up. Now that I have stopped IF, it seems that my body somehow still expects me to eat at night and perhaps speeds up the metabolism, causing sweating, even without consuming food. I don't really see the connection to the runny nose, but it might be caused by some similar mechanism.

I actually did a couple of different schedules. First one was 24 hours fasting followed by 24 hours of free eating. I did this for 5-6 months, and as far as I can remember didn't experience any significant issues with it.
When the problems started I was doing a 18-20 hours fast followed by 4-6 hour eating period. The eating period was between 6pm and 12pm. So there might be a connection here, but it's hard to tell whether I would have experienced the problems even if I had continued with the 24fast/24eat schedule.
I lost around 10 kilograms of weight during the first 5 months or so, but after that my weight has remained quite steady. My present weight and height are, 68kg and 176cm. And since you asked, I'm 23 years old.

[t234]

Do you guys find you get low blood sugar while fasting? If I do anything at all besides sit in a chair I will puke. All I did today was go to the grocery store and I ended up puking outside my car on my 16th hour of the fast. I drink BCAAs, but they don't help.

[dsbuffa]

Do you guys find you get low blood sugar while fasting? If I do anything at all besides sit in a chair I will puke. All I did today was go to the grocery store and I ended up puking outside my car on my 16th hour of the fast. I drink BCAAs, but they don't help.

I had trouble the first 3 months with low blood sugar in the afternoons of fasting(20/4), but after that no issues. I decided this was confirmation that fasting helping me be more efficient at burning my fat for fuel.

[Live Forever]

Do you guys find you get low blood sugar while fasting? If I do anything at all besides sit in a chair I will puke. All I did today was go to the grocery store and I ended up puking outside my car on my 16th hour of the fast. I drink BCAAs, but they don't help.

I had trouble the first 3 months with low blood sugar in the afternoons of fasting(20/4), but after that no issues. I decided this was confirmation that fasting helping me be more efficient at burning my fat for fuel.

You guys might bring up a good point about CR and IF, that it might should be stepped into gradually instead of all at once, which could be a pretty big shock to your system. I didn't seem to have any trouble with it, but I know others have. (you hear about it more with CR, but I just think that is because more people do that)

[william7]

Another interesting thing that I have found while googling around for more information on the IF version of CR is this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16529878

I'm glad you were able to find this pubmed study. I've been reading about a fungal link to cancer lately and the pubmed study says alternate day calorie restriction has observed health benefits on "infectious diseases of viral, bacterial and fungal origin ..."

I would like to hear what anybody has to say about this fungal link to cancer. I have a friend in his early 60s who has Candida albicans and I'm wondering if he's at risk for cancer. I've been telling him to fast (he's somewhat overweight) and to exercise regularly (he's suffering muscle atrophy from lack of exercise) in addition to his doctor prescribed diet.

[dsbuffa]

[/quote]
You guys might bring up a good point about CR and IF, that it might should be stepped into gradually instead of all at once, which could be a pretty big shock to your system. I didn't seem to have any trouble with it, but I know others have. (you hear about it more with CR, but I just think that is because more people do that)
[/quote]

I worried about high morning fasting glucose numbers.... in the 90 range for the first couple of months. Now fasting glucose numbers are in the 70 to 80 range. When I read articles on IF none of them seem very long term. I think it takes a lot longer time period to evaluate IF in humans. Also differences between Obese(which I was once), overweight(me too again) and healthy weight(me now... LOL) seem like they would effect the study results.

Then again I might be looking for any excuse that IF is healthy and good for me to continue IF.