I generally eat pretty healthy and exercise regularly. I try to keep to more of a paleo diet although its always tough around the holidays. I decided to try intermittent fasting and have heard good things and I've dropped 10 lbs in just over a week. They say 18/6 is ideal but Ive been doing more of a 17/7 ( Ill eat lunch around 12:30 PM and Dinner around 7:00-7:30) and I skip breakfast. Anybody else have results with this?
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I wouldn't really go crazy with the fasting. If it works for you, great, if not try switching it up or spacing your meals out to 5x per day in much smaller portions.
I wouldn't really go crazy with the fasting. If it works for you, great, if not try switching it up or spacing your meals out to 5x per day in much smaller portions.
Thanks for responding. Im enjoying this more because I basically eat two more bigger meals and I actually feel full. Not eating breakfast doesn't bother me. I can drink black coffee during the fasting period so 2-3 cups in the morning to get me to lunch is really all I need. During the eating period between meals Ill eat apples and even a smoothie after the gym. Ive been also drinking a gallon of water every day with some ACV in it and Ive been meal prepping all my meals for the week on Sunday. So far its been a breeze and the weight is literally falling off.
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with any aggressive change. I did something similar to that back when I was able to workout more, definitely saw changes but I didn't think it was necessary (the gym portion was far more important). Skipping breakfast or not depends on when you workout. I used to workout either first thing in the morning or during lunch so having next to no energy for that is counterproductive. If you workout after work than this is probably more doable/desirable.
I wouldn't really go crazy with the fasting. If it works for you, great, if not try switching it up or spacing your meals out to 5x per day in much smaller portions.
Thanks for responding. Im enjoying this more because I basically eat two more bigger meals and I actually feel full. Not eating breakfast doesn't bother me. I can drink black coffee during the fasting period so 2-3 cups in the morning to get me to lunch is really all I need. During the eating period between meals Ill eat apples and even a smoothie after the gym. Ive been also drinking a gallon of water every day with some ACV in it and Ive been meal prepping all my meals for the week on Sunday. So far its been a breeze and the weight is literally falling off.
I tried the gallon of water thing once. Pissed all night. Lack of sleep wasn't worth it.
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In comment 13348419 UConn4523 said:
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with any aggressive change. I did something similar to that back when I was able to workout more, definitely saw changes but I didn't think it was necessary (the gym portion was far more important). Skipping breakfast or not depends on when you workout. I used to workout either first thing in the morning or during lunch so having next to no energy for that is counterproductive. If you workout after work than this is probably more doable/desirable.
I wouldn't really go crazy with the fasting. If it works for you, great, if not try switching it up or spacing your meals out to 5x per day in much smaller portions.
Thanks for responding. Im enjoying this more because I basically eat two more bigger meals and I actually feel full. Not eating breakfast doesn't bother me. I can drink black coffee during the fasting period so 2-3 cups in the morning to get me to lunch is really all I need. During the eating period between meals Ill eat apples and even a smoothie after the gym. Ive been also drinking a gallon of water every day with some ACV in it and Ive been meal prepping all my meals for the week on Sunday. So far its been a breeze and the weight is literally falling off.
I tried the gallon of water thing once. Pissed all night. Lack of sleep wasn't worth it.
For me, I piss all day. The gallon is gone by the time I get home from the gym at 7 PM so by the time I go to bed Im already good.
I have much more going on now between a kid and a house, and sharing 1 car so the gym isn't in the cards. Once we are consistently over 40 degrees i'll start running and biking again, and will start a new eating regimen along with it.
Like you I find that coffee is really all I need in the morning unless I work out at 6am like I used to.
The other advice is switching out your gym routine every month or two. Your body will adapt so keeping it surprised, for lack of a better term, will keep that shock going. Something as simple as alternating running outside from running on a treadmill will use different muscles.
I still can't seem to shed the weight.
That's the old adage and it's true if your strictly just restricting calories but with IF your basically putting your body into a mini-Ketosis almost every day. Your body runs out of sugar/glucose and it HAS to burn fat for about a 4-5 hour period before you break your fast again so this is a little different IMO.
Ive heard about HGH levels spiking. Id like to try working out on a fast but I dont know how to do it with my work schedule. I cant skip breakfast and lunch and I only workout after work. Might be able to try it on a Saturday or something though.
Back when I used to get summer Fridays I'd drop my wife off at work and then head to this 1,800 acre park about 20 minutes north of her office. I used to strap on the heart rate monitor, and power walk up and down the trails for 2 straight hours with no stops. I'd maintain a 150ish heart rate, 4-4.5 mph pace, and burn 1,500 calories across roughly 8-9 miles. Legs would be jello after but it was awesome. Wish I had the time to do it even once per week.
For morning workouts I'll just change my start/end times for the window. i.e. 10-6 window.
My strength is on point and I'm not super ripped but definitely in the range I want to be.
I still like to do all compound lifts and later in the day for optimal strength. I'll do 30 minutes of HIIT or just straight jogging every other day 3x per week. (I love morning workouts but I'm definitely stronger later in the day).
The concept of I.F. is actually pretty logical. I always thought I was carb sensitive (and I am - especially with glutenous grains) so when I was doing 6 smaller meals a day I had to cut my carbs/fats way down in order to lean out. And I was always bloated. I tried food combining back in the day which actually worked well for me as well, but I have always had a sensitive digestive system. With I.F. you are giving your digestive system a rest for a good amount of time, so my gut feels great (regardless of what I eat) and I leaned right up within a few weeks of starting it. On top of that cutting carbs always had a negative effect on my guitar playing. Now I don't have any issues with my fingers... lol.
I started to see I.F. pop up a bit within the last few years, and it made sense to me because when I was at my leanest was during my wrestling days... granted we were workout maniacs for wrestling but I always used fasting at that time.
If you are looking for another sort of change to make to improve shape - I'd look into ice baths. There's some really interesting stuff out there for what they can do for your body.
So you'd basically just have water and coffee/tea in the morning (no sugar although I do use a little 2% milk - I'm only racist when it comes to coffee)
and then eat your meals from 12pm through 7pm. You cannot eat between 7pm and 12pm the next day. It's really easy.
I want to look into the intermittent fasting. Does anyone know of any success in getting their body in ketosis? Joe Rogan (UFC, comedian) talks about it on his podcasts alot.
Also, I have fitbit which I use to track my runs. At lunch I have been going on walks. When I track my exercise, the Fitbit reads that my running puts my heart in cardio mode and my walking in Fat Buring mode. It doesn't make sense as I would think jogging and running requires more effort.
Thanks Johnny - I agree and I always thought that as well but I am usually in my best shape when I am running regularly. I am sure that my diet is also dictating my fat percentage.
Thanks Johnny - I agree and I always thought that as well but I am usually in my best shape when I am running regularly. I am sure that my diet is also dictating my fat percentage.
Yep I hear ya, and that's a conundrum, cardio or fat burn? lol. I enjoy running but I seem to get a good balance between the two from HIIT. If I run for long periods of time I seem to lose muscle more than fat. So I started a quasi-HIIT cardio day where I brisk walk for 2 minutes and then run for 2 minutes. Seems to be a good mix for me right now... maybe give that (or some variation a try).
Yeah, that's supposed to be the point... I just don't want new people reading this to think "Oh, I can eat whatever and how much as I want as long as it's in my eating window". No... you can't wuff down an entire Pizza and then go have a steak for dinner as long as you fasted for 17 hours. lol.
It definitely has given me a boost. I eat pretty healthy and exercise but I hit a plateau. I'm 6 foot and have a pretty athletic frame. I sit behind a desk most of the day and my weight had been stuck around 210-215 lbs. I run a 5k/10K almost every single month and do all sorts of things but the weight wasn't going down like it used to. 180 lbs would be really skinny for me (10%body fat) and 195 lbs would be "good" IMO. I've cut carbs, cut calories, ect... but every time Id lose a few lbs it would creep right back up. I tried this and I'm instantly down to like 203 LBs in a little over a week and its still falling off every day. I'm a believer.
Im going to try to get it to 18/6 soon. The longer you fast the better the results. Some guys are really extreme and even do 20/4!
I lost about 65 lbs 5 years ago, and in those 5 years its all slowly come back due to life, work, stress, laziness, etc.
I've been trying to go back to the routine that lost me the weight but it's making me more tired, sore, and hungry than I've ever felt. Maybe IF will help and also give me a boost.
Drink a ton of water. I bring an entire gallon of water to work and literally chug it in the morning. It actually keeps me kind of full.
Drink a ton of water. I bring an entire gallon of water to work and literally chug it in the morning. It actually keeps me kind of full.
How hangry do you get some days?
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over the fasting period. I think anything over 30 calories will break the fast so mixers for your coffee/tea or even stupid things like gum could screw you up. Its really important for your body to completely run out of sugar in your system and start burning fat.
Drink a ton of water. I bring an entire gallon of water to work and literally chug it in the morning. It actually keeps me kind of full.
How hangry do you get some days?
I've really been good man. Coffee is a crutch, the gallon water with the ACV helps, also carbonated soda water will artificially fill you up. When lunch hits I'm really not ravenous and I make a pretty good meal (usually some protein like Salmon, a Turkey burger, or chicken, with a ton of veggies and like half a sweet potato) I pre-make all my meals Sunday night (takes about an hour). They are all about 700-ish calories. When I come home from the gym I have another meal ready to go. It's super easy and takes the thinking out of it. I think it would be much harder if I was wondering what to do for lunch/dinner every day with the diet in mind.
lol nice
Z I have read that after 18 you start to get catabolic. I am digging the 16 for now. I am (very) short but have a powerlifter build. I love eating this way, so easy. I highly recommend it.
It spurred me to do some more googling on the topic, and I'm giving this a whirl starting today.
Step 1: coffee is black....
It spurred me to do some more googling on the topic, and I'm giving this a whirl starting today.
Step 1: coffee is black....
I started when the thread popped up , just to see how hard it was. It's very doable. Especially if you already drink your coffee black.
I found myself drinking a lot more coffee before lunch.
That's not how I took it.
Yes on the black coffee but odds are if you're doing this your goal is health..So "anything" is probably counter productive.
If you consider your diet as a given (whether you eat immaculate paleo clean or you eat junk), this method of eating is believed to be more conducive to weight loss / burning fat than the traditional morning/noon/night 3 meals a day.
Pairing it with a paleo diet (for instance) is going to yield better results than pizza and beer, needless to say.
Is it true that there is something that can be concluded from your DNA, hair sample, saliva, etc? Has anyone ever tried it? I am not dropping 2K on something that I believe I have a handle on. I respect the opinion of this board and was curious if anyone has experience with this.
No-go
Black coffee, tea, water, seltzer, etc. as close to zero calories as possible, and definitely not more than 30-40 calories.
I can't drink black coffee, I do add a about 3 TBSP of 2% milk. Hasn't stopped me from burning fat off. Maybe it would be faster burning, but i'm good with how it's going. To be fair I only am wanting to drop maybe 2-5 % of my current bodyfat just to see my abs. So far so good.
My typical weekday looks like this, roughly 4 meals and about 1900 calories:
Before noon - two-three cups of coffee with small amount of milk.
12pm - 2-3 eggs with veggies and Ezekiel toast with flax or coconut oil.
2-2:30pm - Whey protein, 2 TBSP of nut butter, banana mixed into a shake.
4-5 PM - Raw almonds or pistachios with pea protein powder shake.
6-8 PM some type of animal protein, Baked regular or sweet potato, veggies. I'll have a cup of berries right before 8pm.
Rinse and repeat. I do the same thing on weekends.... however I will allow myself a beer or two, and some more leeway with junk at one meal (i.e. ice cream).
Working for me.
Long term, it's a matter of selecting a long term eating regimen that is healthy and sustainable balanced with movement (aka exercise) that is sustainable. Everything else, IMO, is a fad/yo-yo diet. This isn't knocking the idea, but really almost every diet has one basic principle: lower calorie intake. Some people claim that low, sustained eating makes your body avoid storing energy. This diet seems to imply dosing your body once a day and then fasting is the way to go. which way to go is a matter of debatable minor efficiency percentage. it's all about calories in vs calories burned overall. so if eating once a day allows you to keep the calories under control, go for it. there is nothing magical about when you eat that is going to make a big difference. It's all about controlling what you eat. When you eat it is all about what works for you.
For you maybe, but it's not... lol. I have been weight/power lifting, etc etc. for over 30 years. I was a certified personal trainer in and after college. I ahve tried pretty much every diet and fitness fad under the sun. At this point, at the very least I have discovered that I know more about my body than anyone else. My basal metabolic rate coupled with my lifestyle and fitness regimen supports between 1800-2200 calories effectively. It's basically what I take in for the most part, all of the time and maintains me at about 170-175 lbs (and I'm short... under 5'5" lol). I'm short but carry a lot of muscle. I was running at about 15% body fat before I started the intermittent fasting. I'm at about 12% right now.