Intermittent Fasting

Both leave me irritable and unobservant.

When I avoid coffee I'm doing it on purpose. And then there's addiction vs bodily need for fuel. Myself, I don't fast on purpose. It's more a forgetting to eat and falling into a pattern. My slow but gradual weight change without really changing my diet, leads me to believe that the short fast articles I'm reading may hold some validity.

I once belonged to a religion that required a degree of fasting. Pretty much said 'fuck that' to intentional fasting once I left it.

 

Its actually very very good I find. Strangely its only recently been marketed to the mainstream. Altho instinctively, I'd always suspected it made sense.
You'd probably wanna keep up some level of protein intake on fasting days.

 

All I know is that I feel better when fasting.

 

I wouldn't call 16 hours of not eating fasting. I do that every now and then, just because I'm not hungry. When I started my job I wouldn't eat breakfast or eat lunch and just come home and have dinner, but doing that for an extended period of time made me be extremely tired.

I consider a fast a least 24 hours of not eating. I've never intentionally done any. I should try it one day and detox.

 

I wouldn't be able to do that unless I was completely alone for the entire period of time that I was not eating. And since I will pretty much never get a full 24 hours to myself ever again, it seems like that's out of the question. Too many people in my life that equate food with love and togetherness. -_- *isn't bitter*

 

I frequently do the intermittent fasting unintentionally if I skip breakfast.I would like to try. A 24 hour fast but I'm prone to low blood sugar - I've passed out several times from not eating frequently enough. I wonder if there is something I should eat the day before a fast to prevent that from happening.

 

Oh it will definitely increase my metabolism, as well as my muscle mass and overall longevity.

But the whole calories in/calories out approach is rather outdated, since some calories are utilized differently than others. Some calories are immediately used for energy, while others, like calories from sugar and refined carbs, become stored as fat. That doesn't mean that restricting caloric intake doesn't have benefits to a point. But only to a point.

The thing with intermittent fasting is that it actually burns FAT. It literally turns your body into a fat burning machine. When you eat every couple of hours, you are continuously replenishing your glycogen levels. Only after 8 hours since the last time you ate do you deplete your glycogen levels and begin burning fat. When you eat throughout the day, even if you exercise, you will not burn fat optimally.

Sure you will lose weight by regular calorie restriction, but to really burn off your remaining fat stores and tone up, intermittent fasting the only really effective way.

I should also add that I am not looking to lose weight. I am actually looking to gain weight in muscle, while reducing abdominal fat. I have already gained about 10 lbs of muscle mass in the last 2-3 months through working out and a high protein diet.

 

I used to fast every other Sunday. I've been thinking about starting that back up.

 

All the most recent findings show that eating less adds years to a person's life and they are healthier overall. It just seems like there is this huge obsession with food in Western culture, which I think is the big reason so many people are overweight, on top of what people are eating. In hunter/gatherer times, humans lived more they way they were intended, and they were not eating every couple of hours like people today in developed nations.

 

The Power of Intermittent Fasting

http://fitness.***********/sites/fitness/archive/2012/08/24/intermittent-fasting.aspx

 

I think there's enough muscle mass in this world as it is...We could do with a bit more generalised brain power though.I enjoy my food and feel the benefits from changing to a healthier diet recently.I do have to force myself to eat breakfast though - porridge/oatmeal for lowering cholesterol - as I don't usually feel hungry in the morning.I don't feel the need to fast though.

 

I am not trying to become some muscle man, which people automatically assume when you talk about wanting to gain muscle. I am just into achieving optimal health overall. But women also like a guy with some build, too.

 

I agree it's nice to have a bit of muscle to do the job,and I could certainly do with losing a good stone off my belly.I'm thinking of getting a small exercise bike for that very purpose.I can't do extended running sessions due to a hip problem - it can't take the impact.Probably like most sane people - and I use that term advisedly - I think some of these muscle guys take it a bit too far!

 

Yes, me too! I've passed out like 6 times just because I didn't eat that day, so it's probably not a good thing to try.

 

It's all about your diet leading up to the fasting. You have to work on normalizing your blood glucose and insulin levels first if hypoglycemia poses a problem. Otherwise, it's probably best to stick to the 16 hour fast. 24 hours is too much for some people.

 

http://fitness.***********/sites/fi.../fasting-effects-on-human-growth-hormone.aspx
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How would I do that? It's something that I've suffered since I was a kid and there's a lot of people in my family who suffer from Type 1 diabetes. I don't know if I actually have hypoglycemia, because everytime I've gone to the doctor after randomly passing out, while my blood sugar is low everything seems inconclusive. This is why I hate every doctor I've been to, I never get an answer for anything.

 

Eliminate grains and sugars from your diet.

As Mercola suggests: