2 replies to this topic

[Noodly]

Hi all,

I've been attempting to do caloric restriction and alternate day fasting for a while.  I believe that they have additive benefits at least to some extent.

My current diet is roughly 2400 calories one day, followed by 600 the next.  There is a 24 hr fast in there -- at 8 pm on the first day I stop eating and do not eat again until 8 pm the next day, at which time I eat the day's 600 calorie meal.  Given my activity level -- I try to exercise every day for around 45 minutes, HR~160+-- and my weight (180-190 pounds) this ends up being CR at an average caloric intake of 1500 a day.

My main issue has been maintaining the 24 hour fast.  However, I've also found it difficult to avoid absolutely splurging on non-fasting days.  To counter this, I've been looking for ways to suppress my appetite.  Coffee goes some of the distance, but I've found that a nicotine patch really suppresses my hunger and keeps my energy high throughout the day.

Based on the research, http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/8614291 for example, it seems that cigarette's deleterious effects derive primarily from the delivery method and not from the nicotine itself.  So I'm not too concerned about chronically having a high level of nicotine in my bad.  What's more worrisome is whether or not the actual experience of hunger is necessary to derive benefits from ADF or CR.  The signalling in the body associated with hunger that I'm shutting off or quieting down with nicotine might be intimately connected with the stress response which causes the desired metabolic effects which lead to increased longevity.

I was wondering if anyone has done any research into this idea, and what (if any) results they found.

Thanks

[manny]

Hey I'm glad you posted this, I came up with the exact same idea. Today is the first day i took a 4mg nicotine lozenger, and hope to carry this experiment out for 3 months.

Funny enough I found Tesco finest chai tea supressed my appetite for 2 days, however I had to stop taking it because i got diarrhea from the stevia, and my sleeping pattern is sensitive to caffiene. I also couldn't figure out what was in this tea that suppressed my appetite, I thought it might be the ginger (and theres research to back this up), but I think it was a mix of everything, as ginger and lemon tea doesn't have the strong effect this chai tea did. Also I was very hyperactive, very talkative and excited with racing thorughts, so I attribute this to the caffiene.

So this is why I'm looking for an alternative, that 1 won't give me diarrhea, and 2 won't disrupt my sleep. Since nicotine has a short half life, it should be out of my system in about 4 hours, and so my last dose will be around 6pm. Also I plan on doing alternate day fasting until i get to a low body fat, then I'll just fast till 6pm and stop eating at 10pm, a 4 hour window.

Do you have an update on this? I'll try to keep people updated, but I'm not very good when it comes to keeping logs, especially if it's just initial excitement and doesn't actually work in the end.

[DR01D]

24 hour fasting is tough!

However it's easy to skip dinner and get an 18 hour fast every day.  On many days I eat breakfast and a "super" lunch (lunch + dinner in one meal).  It's easy to do and the reduced eating window is a plus for health.