I did 5/2 for a couple years, and found it really worked. I was only trying to lose about 15 pounds but I lost them all in two months, then went to a 6/1 week and managed to keep all the weight off. I don’t think it was purely a calories thing, either, because I frequently pigged out on my non-fasting days (we get a lot of chocolates and stuff in the office… the appeal of 5/2 was that I could eat all of them that I want).
Eventually I just got a bit tired of it, and decided I don’t really care if I have a few extra pounds. I still have intermittent fast days, if there’s a weekend day when I don’t need to be anywhere and can avoid temptation relatively easily. But if there was something that I really thought I needed to lose weight for I’d absolutely go back to 5/2. It may not work for everyone but it definitely works for me.
For sure. That’s why using a heart rate monitor helps me to measure my effort. Using a kitchen scale to check how much I’m actually putting on my plate is vital. Tracking body weight regularly and being aware of how my clothes fit is also important. It’s a combination of data points and ultimately just maintaining a general awareness of quality (nothing highly processed) and quantity of what I’m putting in (food) and level of effort I’m putting out (exercise).
So yeah, an extra 15 minutes of hard cardio effort doesn’t mean I can shovel in a pizza and a pint of ice cream as an earned reward. But 5days/wk of consistent and significant effort gym days and healthy eating means that I can indulge in a modest amount of my favourite treat once or twice a week. In fact I find it’s important to reward myself from time to time.
But I agree, it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you’re burning more than you really are and eating less than you really are.
And finally, per the OP, IF’ing has been key for me in achieving weight loss goals and general health & fitness. Nothing tastes as good as thin & fit feels.
I think of it as “eating like a cat” (sustenance) versus “eating like a dog” (gorging). When I’m treating food as fuel, everything kinda clicks into place smoothly, body-wise, and it lets me focus on living life. When I’m eating for comfort or entertainment, and otherwise not keeping myself up, then life between meals is just the waiting cell I occupy until I can get back to work-release (restricted diet) and then freedom (well-adjusted lifestyle).
I think most of us have forgotten what baseline satiation is. When I’m switching gears between Dog (gorging) and Cat (sustaining), I always have to have a sort of “Okay, let’s re-draw the lines between hungry and not-full, and let’s draw a circle around bored as well” adjustment.
On the Benefits of a Healthful Nutrition and Exercise Program as Extrapolated via Research, Discussion, and Motivational Suppression Through Overanalysis by Dr. Johnathan Clay, PhD.
Seriously, I don’t want to come across as someone who hates food. I come from a long tradition of eating. I love food. Love to eat. Love to cook. Love to go out to great restaurants. Hell, I start out most days planning about what I’m going to eat that evening.
What does fasting do to blood sugar in a person that isn’t diabetic?
There are days I don’t eat. It’s usually when problems came up at work. There’s no time to eat. I often get off late at say 8 or 9. My meal choices are limited to fast food. That’s not very appealing an hour before bed. I often prefer to skip eating. Drink a couple big glasses of water and lie down. I eat a normal breakfast. I don’t gorge.
I have wondered if that’s causing blood sugar swings? Is it dangerous?
I would be very interested in hear how the test is performed, and what your results are, if you are willing to talk about it. Either here or in another thread.
For some people it causes low blood sugar, and all the symptoms that accompany that. Anxiety, irritability, insomnia. That is what the portmanteau ‘hangry’ means, hungry and angry.
I noticed this got worse as I aged. Up until my early 30s I could fast most of the day without issue, now if I do it I get low blood sugar symptoms.
Reporting back per request, I did the metabolic test today. For the at-rest test, I laid in a big bean bag chair with my nose pinched closed and breathed through a tube for about 20 minutes. Not my favorite. The cardio test was better because the mask fit over both my mouth and nose so I could breath more normally. In both cases I looked like an Engineer from the Alien franchise. She ramped up the intensity on the treadmill every few minutes or so and I was able to go well beyond the minimum heart rate she needed (She needed 150, we stopped at 187.)
The text measured oxygen intake and output to calculate calorie burn at rest as well as different cardio zones (fat burning vs carbs etc.) I learned that my basal metabolic rate is close to 2000 calories per day - quite high - and I’ve been eating too little. With my level of physical activity I’m recommended to eat 2000 calories per day. I had been eating about 1500.
My VO2 Max is pathetic (19.)
I was given a three month cardio program to follow on days when I’m not doing interval stuff, and in a few months we will retest and hopefully see improvement.
Have you ever had the anticipation of cheesecake? That’s where it’s at. The actual consumption of the cheesecake can often be anti-climactic. IMHO, of course.
Wow. Very cool. Was this expensive? Did your insurance cover any of it?
My insurance didn’t cover it, though honestly I never considered that it might. The two tests combined were $200, plus my trainer gave me a 20% discount on my next pack of sessions, so really it came out to $160.
Out of curiosity, did they verify that your heart rate stayed near your pre-test resting heart rate during that section of the test?
I could imagine that nose pinched breathing through a tube clearly not a favorite thing to be doing could be stressful and if so then such stress might result in a reading that is not true relaxed resting metabolic rate. The resulted rate would then be falsely elevated. A reasonable way to control for that possibility is by knowing your first rising in the morning heart rate and verifying that your heart rate during that portion of the test is close to that baseline throughout.
Were you sure to not exercise for at least the 12 hours before the test and to not have anything to eat or drink (especially coffee) the morning of? Was it done in the morning within a few hours of rising?
I only mention these because yes 2000 calories/day as a resting metabolic rate is indeed quite high, surprisingly high, even for a large well muscled woman. Not impossible but surprising. When a result is significantly and surprisingly different than what is reasonably expected a fault with the technique of the test must be suspected and that portion of the test is very sensitive to those matters of technique.
It was basically the same as my resting heart rate, yes, which is quite high itself: around 90bpm. It has always been that high except when I was very fit. I did not eat or ingest caffeine nor did I exercise the day before. I followed the rules and actually at first my heart rate was reading too high, so she fiddled around with it until it was accurate, and then waited for it to stay there consistently until she began.
Having never done this before, I can’t swear she didn’t screw it up, but she seemed to know what she was doing well enough.
Glad to hear that the technique seemed to be good but 90 at rest? Statistically at least that aint good. It makes for a strange hope for you. Often people hope to burn more calories at rest but in your case that high of a resting heart rate reflects a high resting metabolic rate and is also associated with a significantly increased mortality risk, especially from heart disease. Hopefully your new exercise program and increased fitness will lead to a significant decrease in your resting heart rate which is important even if that means you burn fewer calories at rest. So here’s to you burning fewer calories at rest!
Yeah, I know it’s not good. That, combined with how terrible I’ve been feeling lately, is what prompted me to seek out a personal trainer. If I can prevent an early death it will certainly be worth the cost.
I actually do like the cardio regimen I was given. It doesn’t just have endless workouts in the ‘‘fat burning’’ zone but changes things up constantly, in a prescribed order, for the purposes of improving across the board cardio fitness. Watching that V02 score and resting heart rate is, for me, a much better indicator of success than weight loss.
I’m not sure there are any hard and fast rules to dieting or fasting, since everyone is different in some way, and what might work for one person may not work for another. That’s only logical.
The only time I fast is if a) I’m told to by a doctor for a procedure (most likely) or b) I don’t feel like eating (which is not often). A normal person should be able to fast for quite a while, and by normal I mean not diabetic, terribly thin or obese, and not of advanced age, where it’s understood fasting is probably not a good idea given the abuse the average human body endures over the years by various indulgences, from alcohol, tobacco and drugs to fatty or junk food that is nutritionally worthless (which is a lot of stuff!) or high in sugar or sodium.
I became a vegetarian about a decade ago, and have no regrets at all; if anything, it forced me to get more creative about my diet. And yes, over time, I’ve adjusted to faux hot dogs, sausage, ground meat, etc., it’s all in how you use them. But that didn’t stop me from having artery blockages, which were mainly due to my previous appalling habits, but also because on both sides of my family is a long history of cardiovascular disease and premature deaths. Being predisposed to trouble like that pretty much is a time bomb waiting to go off.
In other words, if you want to maximize anything–including the benefits of fasting, which seem to be real–start young. Always good to change your ways at any time, but I really started too late, a lot of damage was already done. But the average person should be able to handle some fasting, but it’s probably something that needs monitoring, to do it erratically might do more harm than good. I’m not sure cutting out breakfast really matters, but rather the will to not overindulge or to eat total crap. I admit to being a sucker for a pastry or candy bar on occasion, but if you don’t occasionally satisfy a craving, it can overwhelm you to the point of madness or just going nuts overeating the very foods you need to avoid.
