Fasting

I actually bought a book about it a while ago. I do find the whole subject (fasting) very interesting. Have not tried it for myself yet though. I need to lose around 20-30 pounds, and its a struggle, no question.

I've lost a lot of weight - several times in my life - and it all comes down to one single thing:

Motivation.

I've used a wide variety of "methods" - and the only thing that has worked consistently is motivation.

I don't doubt that some approaches, like Keto (eliminating carbs to force fat burning) or fasting can work better for some people, but - in reality - there's just no way around the whole calorie concept.

I mean, throughout my life - I've seen people in amazing shape and people who're fat and out of shape.

It's only in the past 10 years or so that all these "miracle" methods seem to have become so widespread and popular. One wonders how weight loss was even possible back in the day

Darth Tagnan said:

I've lost a lot of weight - several times in my life - and it all comes down to one single thing:

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As always nature is more complex and beautiful than scientists or laymen initially think.

Several studies have found that diet-induced weight loss is associated with hormone changes that, together, promote weight regain.

Following weight loss, leptin levels decrease profoundly. Other hormonal changes include increases in circulating ghrelin, GIP and pancreatic polypeptide and reductions in PYY and CCK. Almost all of these changes favour regaining lost weight, by increasing hunger, reducing satiety and improving the capacity to store fat. These hormonal changes seem to be present for at least one year after weight loss, leading to a persistent increase in hunger.

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The quote is taken from the article Chemical messengers: how hormones make us feel hungry and full but you can find numerous recent articles when using ‘fat’, ‘hormones’, ‘signal’ and ‘intestines’.

The yoyo effect is real. Also, what is doable for you can be very hard for an obese person thanks to these hormones. It is easy when one gets a good/early signal you are full but an obese simply does not get that signal that early, if s/he gets it at all; their body is telling them, keeps on telling them, they are hungry.

If it was just a matter of motivation I think that in this world where being slim is commended, where being thin is the norm, and where obese people are quite often being seen as dumb and lazy, the biggest people would be the best in losing weight.

Darth Tagnan said:

I've lost a lot of weight - several times in my life - and it all comes down to one single thing:

Motivation.

I've used a wide variety of "methods" - and the only thing that has worked consistently is motivation.

I don't doubt that some approaches, like Keto (eliminating carbs to force fat burning) or fasting can work better for some people, but - in reality - there's just no way around the whole calorie concept.

I mean, throughout my life - I've seen people in amazing shape and people who're fat and out of shape.

It's only in the past 10 years or so that all these "miracle" methods seem to have become so widespread and popular. One wonders how weight loss was even possible back in the day

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Well, I don't know about the rest of the world ,but the US has never been fatter. Last I read 2/3 of the population are overweight.

Also, people have never been more interested in quick and easy. People come up with these "miracle diets" to make money and prey on those that don't want to put in the work or just don't know how.

The problem with diets is they are typically unsustainable. Going on a diet for 3-6 months to lose weight is not a bad idea. The problem is people finish their diet and regress back to their old eating habits that got them overweight in the first place.

I've seen a lot of family and friends start diets. Some finish and hit their goal weight, Others quit in the middle and some don't even really get started.

In almost every instance though they see the diet as almost a punishment and they cant weight to finish and get back to eating whatever they want again. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that that will put them right back to where they started or even worse.

Anyway, as you said in an earlier post. Losing weight is easy in formula, burn more than you consume and you'll lose weight. It's much harder in execution and staying motivated. Nothing wrong with a diet to lose a targeted amount of weight but it needs to be followed up with lifestyle changes to eating habits if people want to sustain the weight loss.


sorry , was just going to do a quick reply to the end of your post but got on a roll. I'm sure your aware of everything I typed.

Darth Tagnan said:

Essentially, it's the same old thing. They come up with new approaches to health and food every few months or years.

If you want to lose weight, it's still the same old inevitable truth: Consume fewer calories than you burn.

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Sure, but this isn't only about weight loss, this is also beneficial for regeneration of new cells (and flushing out bad / old ones).

For pure weight loss it's quite easy to just start counting calories (sucks in the beginning but once you've learned how much calories this and that is it's much less of a hassle).

I don't believe in diets either btw.. it's just too boring, at least for me. It's boring to do fasting perhaps but so far i find it's a better approach, the days i'm fasting i can just forget about eating all together and it can be quite nice really. The only thing which can suck is of course is the social part of eating.

Darth Tagnan said:

I've lost a lot of weight - several times in my life - and it all comes down to one single thing:

Motivation.

I've used a wide variety of "methods" - and the only thing that has worked consistently is motivation.

I don't doubt that some approaches, like Keto (eliminating carbs to force fat burning) or fasting can work better for some people, but - in reality - there's just no way around the whole calorie concept.

I mean, throughout my life - I've seen people in amazing shape and people who're fat and out of shape.

It's only in the past 10 years or so that all these "miracle" methods seem to have become so widespread and popular. One wonders how weight loss was even possible back in the day

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I'm sure it is easy for some people. And to them it might simply just be calories and motivation. Unfortunately, the calories method is only part of the equation. Giving someone who is lactose intolerant, 2000 calories worth of milk is going to have a different effect on them than 2000 calories of bread. And along the same idea, giving someone who is diabetic or even just insulin resistant (which goes un-diagnosed in many) means that giving them 2000 calories of bread is going to have a much different effect on them than 2000 calories of avocados and eggs. Someone who produces more insulin on a different diet, can actually gain weight, even when consuming less calories.

The thermodynamics idea quoted often behind CICO is that matter cannot be created or destroyed in a closed system. But the body is an open system, subject to apoptosis and metabolic heat losses and changes. Furthermore, the body doesn't have an on/off switch, and energy is hormone regulated. The more you reduce your calories, the more efficient your body become at using those calories. The massive Women's initiative even shows this. 50,000 women decided to reduce their calorie intake and increase their energy expenditure. It worked at first, but then the weight just came back over time:



The "back to old habits" excuse likes to be used, but even over the years, calories/energy expenditure were decrease/increased.

Motivation and Calories are absolutely part of the equation, but there's so many other things at play:

Insulin resistance
Diet's effect on the body
Amounts of daily feeding
Food sensitivities
Body metabolism
Illness and disease
Food quality
Fitness ability (not just exercise, but the body's ability to recover too)
Age
Sex
Genetics
Mental health
Cortisol levels
Environment
HGH levels
Other endocrine and harmonal issues
Etc…

As for the miracle methods in the past 10 years, the diet/fitness "miracles" have been pushed even before the 80s. And one of the biggest problems, is doctors are telling people that they're just eating too much, and if they're not losing weight, there's something wrong with them, not with the doctor's advice. Yet North America has a failure rate of something crazy like 98% through calorie reduction and exercise. This is while being one of the top continents when it comes total physical exercise.

My personal opinion (which I understand is not the same as a peer reviewed study, and that correlation is often NOT causation), is that the amount of refined foods, combined with the "professional recommendations" to stuff our faces from the moment we wake up, to the moment before we get in bed has a big contribution to it. I mean, come on, just a "healthy" cereal, whole grain muffin, and orange juice for breakfast is over 40 GRAMS of sugar. Are the experts really saying that that's what a healthy breakfast should have been for our bodies over the last few thousands years? That even though we were doing fine with obesity issues, that cheerios, propyl glycol "blueberry" muffins, and "fresh / not from concentrate" pasteurized-to-the-point-that-it's-orange-sugar-water juice is really what is considered a healthy breakfast from the "experts"?

What's even worse is after the low-fat craze started, things tasted crappy so sugar got added to everything. Unless it's on the outside perimeter of the store, try and find something at a grocery store, packaged or canned, that doesn't have one of these listed:

Agave nectar
Barbados sugar
Barley malt
Barley malt syrup
Beet sugar
Brown sugar
Buttered syrup
Cane juice
Cane juice crystals
Cane sugar
Caramel
Carob syrup
Castor sugar
Coconut palm sugar
Coconut sugar
Confectioner’s sugar
Corn sweetener
Corn syrup
Corn syrup solids
Date sugar
Dehydrated cane juice
Demerara sugar
Dextrin
Dextrose
Evaporated cane juice
Free-flowing brown sugars
Fructose
Fruit juice
Fruit juice concentrate
Glucose
Glucose solids
Golden sugar
Golden syrup
Grape sugar
HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup)
Honey
Icing sugar
Invert sugar
Malt syrup
Maltodextrin
Maltol
Maltose
Mannose
Maple syrup
Molasses
Muscovado
Palm sugar
Panocha
Powdered sugar
Raw sugar
Refiner’s syrup
Rice syrup
Saccharose
Sorghum syrup
Sucrose
Sugar (granulated)
Sweet sorghum
Syrup
Treacle
Turbinado sugar
Yellow sugar

Over 60 names, that basically only mean "refined sugars". It's fucking insane.

In the end, I believe humanity tried to play God because we thought we could do food better. Then we all tried to pretend we didn't break anything, and the food was fine, and that over the last century we just became bad fat people. And now people are starting to slowly realize, that there was a good reason we had been eating and doing food a certain way for thousands of years.

Darth Tagnan said:

I've lost a lot of weight - several times in my life - and it all comes down to one single thing:

Motivation.

I've used a wide variety of "methods" - and the only thing that has worked consistently is motivation.

I don't doubt that some approaches, like Keto (eliminating carbs to force fat burning) or fasting can work better for some people, but - in reality - there's just no way around the whole calorie concept.

I mean, throughout my life - I've seen people in amazing shape and people who're fat and out of shape.

It's only in the past 10 years or so that all these "miracle" methods seem to have become so widespread and popular. One wonders how weight loss was even possible back in the day

Click to expand...

I don't know about other people but I am fairly certain my main issue has been motivation and over eating. I tend to gain weight during periods where I am feeling down due to some sort of of personal issue etc. Food act as some sort of comfort mechanism and then I put no the weight.

So far with this method I lose around 1.2 kg / week. It's pretty decent i think + the other benefits (cell renewal, saving money, saves time to not eat, tons of energy the days i'm fasting). Really noticing the days i'm eating that i require much less to feel full.

I also like that i'm way more comfortable with not eating, it's not a huge deal or a struggle.

What can suck is the social aspect of eating.

I've never fasted on a specific regimen like this, but I have tried cutting back calories (lost 20 pounds in the last 6 months). And I do fast for religious reasons once a month.

One thing I've been wondering about fasting though is why do I sweat so much when I fast? I Googled it a couple of times and it seems like a bunch of hippy gurus say that it's my body purging toxins from my body. OK, well, I'm not going to say that's not happening, but I would like to read an actual study on the subject.

Nathaniel3W said:

I've never fasted on a specific regimen like this, but I have tried cutting back calories (lost 20 pounds in the last 6 months). And I do fast for religious reasons once a month.

One thing I've been wondering about fasting though is why do I sweat so much when I fast? I Googled it a couple of times and it seems like a bunch of hippy gurus say that it's my body purging toxins from my body. OK, well, I'm not going to say that's not happening, but I would like to read an actual study on the subject.

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Hard to say the exact cause, as a few things are happening during an intermittent fast. I'm assuming you're doing a two meal fast, first Sunday of the month?

- Doing a 24 hours fast could put you in Ketosis (using ketones converted from fat stores, instead of glucose from liver stores), because you've depleted your liver glycogen stores. Each gram of glycogen requires a few grams of water. So naturally, if you shed the stored calories in your liver, you shed the water needed as well, and quite quickly (This is where those fad juicing diets that promise 15 pounds lost in a week come from. Ketosis is a valid weight loss tool, but it's a long term commitment). Not only are you going to urinate more, but you will sweat it out too

- Fasting increases HGH (Human Growth Hormone) and cortisol levels. Bodybuilders are using IF often for the HGH benefits. Fasting puts stress on the body (but in an arguable good way), similar to exercise. I can only assume this would be a combined factor for increased perspiration. Meditation has been shown to decrease cortisol levels. It's probably one (of the many reasons) why religions teach to combine fasting with prayer/meditation.

- Fasting gives your endocrine system a break. Eating stimulates a pancreatic insulin response. So it doesn't matter if you eat 3 low calorie, or 3 high calorie meals, as you'll still get 3 large insulin spikes (depending what macro-nutrient type you're eating). When you fast, your body gets a longer break from that insulin response (this is also one, of the many reasons, why a good sleep is a huge factor in overall health). This in turn makes your body more insulin sensitive. This is part of what regulates our metabolism. If you're insulin resistant, continued fasting will increase the sensitivity, which in turn increases metabolism, and increased metabolism means macro-nutrients are being burned off at a higher rate through heat energy. A byproduct of that, would be what I assume to be sweat.

Thanks for the info Caddy. Yes, you apparently know which church I attend. And those explanations of yours made a lot more sense to me than the "purging poisons" explanations I've read before.

Tried to fast a couple of times all it did was make me cranky and unbearable to others. In the end I eat more food, and it just put on a few pounds instead.:lol:

I will never try again but the rest of my family who are roman catholic will.

Mentioning your Roman Catholic family all fasting reminds me of all the Muslims who fast around here. (I live in Egypt now.) Fasting during Ramadan is interesting.

So nobody eats or drinks from sunrise to sunset. When Ramadan is in the summer, that can be brutal. You see guys walking around with cold wet towels tied onto their heads. And no one wants to be out doing anything anyway (and they were all out partying and not fasting the night before), so for a whole month everyone just sleeps all afternoon, and every store keeps special late-night Ramadan hours.

At sunset, everyone breaks their fast with dates and water bottles that they hand out to each other on the street. Then they all go home, eat a huge feast, and party all night. Then they sleep through most of the next day, which minimizes the difficulty of fasting.

During a month of "fasting," everyone has a tendency to gain a lot of weight.

I can understand it has a place among religious beliefs, fasting makes you feel very - in lack of better words - "pure".

It's interesting how the body/brain adapts to fasting. The first few times it's like its just screaming "Where the fuck is my FIX, it's been hours now!!!!". Quite annoying, but that stage passes. It's been quite the eye opener of how eating is (partially) very much just an addiction.

Today i'm doing 48h for the first time (36h into it now).

vurt said:

I can understand it has a place among religious beliefs, fasting makes you feel very - in lack of better words - "pure".

It's interesting how the body/brain adapts to fasting. The first few times it's like its just screaming "Where the fuck is my FIX, it's been hours now!!!!". Quite annoying, but that stage passes. It's been quite the eye opener of how eating is (partially) very much just an addiction.

Today i'm doing 48h for the first time (36h into it now).

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It's amazing how society easily falls apart once lack of food is threatened. People tend to become less "humane" give in to their base desires. I think fasting and meditation has been taught in religion for thousands of years as a way to exercise self control, and understand the value of sacrifice. Ironically, I find it fascinating how hunger actually goes away after a few days of an extended fast, whereas most would think it would just continually get worse. Ghrelin is an interesting hormone.

I try and do an extended fast once a year. For myself, a 1 week fast tends to be spot where I see the best benefit, which anything longer being just diminishing returns. And gives me a good excuse to cook some tasty electrolyte bone broth. But most of the time, intermittent with the occasional 36/48 hour fast, is probably more than enough for those looking to get benefits.

Caddy said:

It's amazing how society easily falls apart once lack of food is threatened. People tend to become less "humane" give in to their base desires. I think fasting and meditation has been taught in religion for thousands of years as a way to exercise self control, and understand the value of sacrifice. Ironically, I find it fascinating how hunger actually goes away after a few days of an extended fast, whereas most would think it would just continually get worse. Ghrelin is an interesting hormone.

I try and do an extended fast once a year. For myself, a 1 week fast tends to be spot where I see the best benefit, which anything longer being just diminishing returns. And gives me a good excuse to cook some tasty electrolyte bone broth. But most of the time, intermittent with the occasional 36/48 hour fast, is probably more than enough for those looking to get benefits.

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Yes it's very fascinating, i never thought this would be something for me to be honest, but i'm really into it now, i love it.

I just ended a 72h fast and it went extremely well. The hunger was completely gone late on day 2 for me and it wasn't particularly bad on day 1 or early on day 2 either. I felt really clear headed and with tons of energy, i had a spike at one point where it felt like i had drunken like 2 cups of strong coffee. I've not been working out but i've been taking rather long walks (up to 1h) and it has felt great too.

I'm gonna do 5 days sometime, probably soon, gonna eat really healthy before it.

What does suck is the whole social aspect, it's hard to get other people to accept it, they're just freaked out (especially the parents who are the kind of people who thinks you'll die if you skip breakfast lol).

Speaking of break fast, bonebroth is something i should look into when breaking the fast.

Recent article published in Obesity: “Effects of Intermittent Versus Continuous Energy Intakes on Insulin Sensitivity and Metabolic Risk in Women with Overweight”

When prescribed at matched energy restriction, IF reduced weight and fat mass and improved total and low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol more than DR. IF prescribed in energy balance did not improve health compared with other groups, despite modest weight loss.
[…]
A total of 88 women enrolled in the study.

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IF = intermittent fasting
DR = dietary restriction

Or you can read the article in [iScience Daily[/i] about this study: “Intermittent fasting could improve obese women's health”

Research carried out at the University of Adelaide shows that obese women lost more weight and improved their health by fasting intermittently while following a strictly controlled diet.
[…]
decreased markers for heart disease
[…]
Participants who fasted intermittently ate breakfast and then refrained from eating for 24 hours followed by 24 hours of eating. The following day they fasted again.
[…]
The most successful participants lost approximately 0.5 to 1 kg per week for each week of the study
[…]
New trials now being undertaken will examine the effectiveness of long-term fasting on both men and women.

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I don't think it is practical to fast continuously over a number of days without eating - this is from the point of view of having enough energy to work, carry out home responsibilities .. etc. I have tried fasting two days a week for over a number years from morning to sunset (with a good meal the day before) and it has been comfortable and regulated my eating over the whole week.

I find that I ran out of energy if I fasted continuous days (even if not full day) to do anything that is useful.

You should get more energy, that's my experience from being in Ketosis, not less. Not sure yet how it is above 72h for me personally. The upped dopamin and noradrenaline release is very noticeable. I'm probably noticing the growth hormone release too (e.g tend to get more horny when i fast heh).

We are experts of storing fat for later use, starvation or fasting is the normal state we should be in. Eating is just a special luxury that we should have once in a while. It's really only in the last 100 or something years that we've been able to eat 3 times every day so it's very new to us.. thus we get sick from it, or even die of it, due to diseases we get from e.g obesity. It can also lead to cancer because of the toxins we put into ourselves every day.

The improvements i'm experiencing are great, especially for mood and creativity.

@vurt;, this has nothing to do with your topic but I just wanted to say that you did excellent work on Kenshi's flora, fauna and foliage. Really nicely done. I mentioned you in a question to the developer on the terrain design in an interview I did for RPGCodex, not released yet. Your plants and trees really bring some areas to life and look beautiful, and I think that engine in general is beautiful, despite being ancient and only running on one core. The max view distances for example are vast. Great work man!