/Fasting/ General

I'm starting fasting this week. My goal is 2-3 times a week.

I've fasted once before and I liked it. 210 lbs 5'11 here, and I want to drop down to 180 lbs.

On days I'm not fasting, I'm going to try to only have one meal a day. Worried about my energy levels though..

Once your body gets acclimated you'll have plenty of energy, approximately ~2000 calories of it. Just take it easy until you know what you can do, drink lots of water and some salt water throughout the day. A cup of black coffee is always nice for a boost of energy and has been shown to boost autophagy.

Don't get yourself down if you can't make longer fasts at first, every hour you fast is great for your body!

Thinking about trying my first EF, how long would you say a good time is for a beginner? granted im in school right now and dont want to be completely out of focus for a long time with finals coming up.

You don't need to push yourself too hard. Really it depends on how many fats are in your diet already. If you are already eating a lot of fats then your body will switch to eating stored fat much easier.

So you can start by switching your diet to high fats, or you can start by eating once or twice a day in an 8 hour window or something similar. The main concern is compliance to the lifestyle and ultimately success with it.

You will have headaches and be a cranky fucker at first, again depending on your original diet. I would recommend easing into it like recommended above and really pushing yourself on the weekends especially since finals are coming up.

>black coffee
I assume black tea is OK?

>I'm craving the right foods
>beef
>eggs
>milk
sure you are, buddy

dumb vegan

smarter than you

Yep, from what I've read tea is absolutely fine. Just stay away from artificial sweeteners, sugars, and any calories. Minimal calories is fine, say 10-20 per cup, but it will cause an insulinogenic effect which is what we're trying to get away from.

If it helps you stick to the fast then god speeds.

I'm a poor fag so I do the best with what I can. Looking for work at the moment.

not with that b12 deficiency you aren't

If counting calories doesn't matter, can I eat a lot of protein and healthy fats (let's say about 3000 kcal a day) in 8 hour window and avoid carbs and still lose body fat? My maintenance calorie intake is about 2500kcal.

I'm resistance training 4 times a week and I want to avoid muscle loss.

Low tier bait

there's cheaper per calorie and not as health-detrimental foods out there than what you mentioned. it's a poor excuse.
>implying I don't supplement b12

Don't worry about muscle loss. Read this for some confidence in what I'm about to tell you:
intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-and-muscle-mass-fasting-part-14/

The HGH released will maintain your muscle mass and bone density. The body will harvest protein from itself using autophagy and reallocate those nutrients. If you do an IF, say eat one meal a day and fast until the next day, you can get all your amino acids there.

The body will go for fat stores first on a fast. That is what it is there for. People have this notion that the body will go into "starvation mode" and eat its own muscle and shut down the brain, that doesn't happen.

Say you are a caveman and you haven't eaten in a day or two. The body shuts down. You die and we aren't here to write about it today. The body is smarter than that. Instead, the body digs into its fat stores, powers you up, bolsters brain power, and gives you plenty of energy so that you can get out there and hunt a woolly mammoth.

Exercising will also minimize muscle and bone density loss. Just drink a lot of water and salt water.

If there are any lurkers we could use a bump

I think you should keep on going with these threads. I was doing IF a couple of years ago with really good success. I spent all day yesterday reading your post and the articles in it and now I'm shooting for a 7 day EF. I'm right now on hour 30.

The more I read about autophagy, the more interested I am with it. Literally turning the clock back on your body. Eliminating plaque in your arteries and everything.

I've done a number on my body over the last 3 years due to stress from work, and I'm finally motivated to get back to where I was. Thanks for this.

So what exactly happens to your body when you're fasting 16:8? During the fasted state, yoru body basically eats at the fat reserves instead of glucose in your body?

What's the difference between eating 2k calories throughout the day and eating 2k calories within the 8 hour eating window?

Please explain..

insulin manipulation is the purpose of IF.

imo 16:8 is pretty useless. it's borderline normal eating. if you want effective results you need to have an eating window of a few hours

Give me a minute buddy I'll explain the whole theory, it involves insulin.

Thank you, man.

The problem with eating throughout the day is that you are always in a feeding state and your body never has a chance to go into its fast stores.

As you eat, insulin is released. After a while your cells will build up an insulin resistance. You will therefore need to eat more food, and more insulinogenic foods (refined carbs like sugars) to get enough insulin. This is the vicious cycle that leads to diabesity (diabetes and obesity).

By eating within a set window you are minimizing your insulin levels. You will balance your insulin tolerance to a more healthy level and won't need as much insulin anymore to get the same effect.

I've explained this much better in the past, I hope this helps, though.

Pretty poor showing. You are thinking about the body like an all or nothing mechanism. If you eat throughout the day and eat under TDEE, guess what, your body will use the nutrients from the food you digest AND use fat stores. Using IF as a tool to lower hunger and focus meals is fine, but it isn't a miracle

that comic hit me right in the feels

Ship you guys still drink water and eat a breakfast?

If you eat throughout the day under your TDEE your body will lower its metabolism to compensate. This is what causes the yo-yo effect.

You cannot pull fat out of storage while insulin is present.

>Ship
Meant to say "do"

That's completely up to you. Water is mandatory, but if you want to eat breakfast that would be a version of IF. If that is your only meal it would be a 1:23 variation. That is 1 hour eating : 23 hours fasting.

And this is the moron you guys take advice from ITT, LOL

By the way! I am also fascinated with autophagy but I can't seem to find any good real information on it. I did find one study where coffee increased the effects of autophagy in mice, though:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24769862

If you find any good studies and post them here I would greatly appreciate it.

why is herbert the pervert in this comic?

So are you saying that if i eat the same amount of carbs throughout the day vs in my feasting window, I will inevitably burn more fat since I am raising my insulin sensitivity?

On my 50th hour feeling good so far
Went to the gym today and lifted my usual amount without any issue

If you don't want to give up the carbs at least try to stay away from refined carbs. Things like sugars, cereals, bread, they are terribly insulinogenic. Try to go for the whole grains and fruits.

That being said if you eat those carbs in your feeding window and fast until the next time you eat then yes, you will be much better off as you are giving your body more time to balance its insulin resistance since there is less hormonal stimulation.

You are only craving those carbs because you have the insulin resistance. You will find that once you start lowering that resistance you will not crave those carbs as much. However, it may be easier to turn down the carbs but you will have to make the conscious decision to switch your diet to healthier foods like sat fats, proteins, and whole grains, vegetables and fruits.

If i were to eat at subway, which bread would you recommend?

Good shit, my dude. Thanks for the bump.

Honestly, I have no idea, I'm sorry. All I know is that bread's are sometimes dyed to make them look like whole grains. I would research which breads at subway are actually made from whole wheat and are not refined. If there are any. Sorry.

>artificial sweeteners
They're actually okay (some of them anyway). Stevia's the best, but pretty goddamn expensive - 1 250g tub is like £5 (1kg of sugar is £1).

ruled.me/ketogenic-diet-food-list/

(Ctrl+f sweetener, there's a whole section to it)

Hmm, I'll give it a read. To my understanding artificial sweeteners can be insulinogenic even though they have 0 calories. They also will cause you to crave more food, but I'll take a gander at your link.

eat a salad

What's the ideal feeding/fasting ratio? Or, to put it another way, at what point does the body kick into fat-eating mode?

Can you eat more than one meal (say you're doing 20/4) in a for hour period and still benefit or does everything have to be one meal?

sugar-and-sweetener-guide.com/glycemic-index-for-sweeteners.html

0 glycemic index.

>What's the ideal feeding/fasting ratio?
0:24 lol. But if you want to eat 1:23 is great as well. If you are doing a 4:20 then yeah you can eat your meals however you like in those 4 hours. This is where counting calories comes into play, eat as little as you think you can handle. Also stay away from calories in your fasting state.

Yeah, that sounds great. That would be my main concern is depleting your glycogen stores without actually getting any food in your body. This would cause you to get hungry as fuck to replace the glucose. But if they have a low glycemic index I don't see any reason why you couldn't use them sparingly, that is if there isn't any other effects on the hormones that should also be considered. Thanks for the read, I'll definitely look more into it.

Hey i'm new to this so i have a couple of questions regarding fasting that might seem simple or stupid but i just want to confirm some things

1.Is it a good idea to fast while bulking? from what i understood from reading the OP is that it helps burn fat but does it affect muscle gain while eating over the TDEE during a bulk?

2.Let's say im doing a 20:4 does that mean every day i designate 4 hours where i eat all the calories i need and the other 20 only include water/tea/coffe?

3.what type of xx:y do you recommend during a bulk (if fasting is applicable to bulking anyway) and what do you recommend during a cut?

Thanks in advance.

Oh and lastly does 24:0 mean you don't eat at all for the entire day or does it mean that you only eat once a day?

173 x 95kg, I lift three times a week and I'm beginning keto (2000kcal daily), should I try fasting as well? How do I make it work with my keto regiment?

Is there a version without the anti semitism? Not that the Gems aren't behind this, but I want to show this to people and still have their respect.

Well I'm not familiar with keto but I should be able to help. Are you trying to lose weight, whats your bmi?

Give me a min.

I did a 20/4 on keto and lost about 20 pounds over 6 weeks.

Saw a thread yesterday am currebtly about 16 hours in since the last time ive eaten. Cant decide if i want to go all the way to tomorrow morning or want to eat now. As a point of reference its been about 9 hours since i woke up

Sorry, I'm new to this. Is the saying "your body can only absorb x amount of protein in one sitting" bullshit?

Because if I want to do intermittent fasting, that would mean I would have to eat about 1900 calories in one meal pretty much. If I were to eat 1900 calories in one meal, would my body absorb all those proteins, or would 50% of it go to waste?

30% bodyfat, 31kg/m^2 BMI.
Keeping in mind I'm pretty new to this and I don't know how dieting works, my worries are not much about keto but rather how calories counting factor in fasting. According to the calculators I should take 2k cal per day (25% deficit), if I fast do I take the same amount or does it have to be smaller due to eating all my intake in the span of a few hours?
Good to know, thanks for sharing. Is 20/4 good for a beginner?

1. I'm not really comfortable with the variants that consider gaining muscle mass. I'm losing weight and that is my focus. I would not be the best person to ask. But yes, in theory, as long as you are consuming higher than your TDEE in those 4 hours you will gain muscle mass.

2. Yep you nailed it.

3. Again, this really isn't my specialty. I will know much more in a week or so when I start researching this myself to gain mass. Sorry.

Nope, I found this a long time ago when I was a /b/ degenerate.

The beautiful thing about losing weight on IF is that you can eat as little as you can handle and the rest of your TDEE will be fulfilled by body fat. Counting calories isn't quite as important but should still be considered.

So yeah, you're also eating a lot of fats so you will acclimate to the IF very nicely. As long as you understand the feeding and fasting windows and what you're doing in them you are good to go, my dude.

>Oh and lastly does 24:0 mean you don't eat at all for the entire day or does it mean that you only eat once a day?

Forgot to answer this. I was only joking, its not a real thing. 24:0 in my eyes just means fasting and not eating, lol. Might as well be an EF.

Thanks man. So when starting out I should just focus on eating as much as I can and my body fat will just take care of the remaining cal intake?

Tips regarding feeding and fasting windows/general beginner stuff? I'm gonna check the sites on the OP in the meantime

>eat as little as you think you can handle
But what about meeting your macro levels? If you're aiming for 170g protein that's 700 calories just for that (4 calories/g). Obviously that's not taking into account fats and carbs.

Am I supposed to do my workout before, after or during my feeding period?

>eating as much as I can
Well eat below your TDEE so that you know you are going to lose weight. Lets say your maintenance is 2500 you should aim for around 1250 or so, whatever you are comfortable with.

Choose a ratio; 4:20, 6:18, 8:16. In your feeding window is when you consume all of your calories. In your fasting window you don't have any calories but you can have things like coffee, water and tea. Some people like stevia, I'm not going to recommend it but if it helps you stay on your regiment we can make sacrifices.

It doesn't matter when your feeding time is during the day. Could be in the morning or at night, doesn't matter.

I know most sources sat breastfeeding women shouldn't IF, but would 14:10 really be that bad? Trying to recomp but fat loss has been slow

For losing weight they're not as important. You just want to stay away from refined carbs and processed meats. Gaining muscle mass I would assume you want lots of protein and sat fats. Other than fruits, carbs don't really do anything for you, they're not essential.

Thanks for your time,will mess with fasting a bit and see how it affects my bulk.

I was reading on yesterday's thread on optimizing your fasted workout and eating right after and it's effects on hgh and igf ... do you have a link to an article on that or more information?

I am not a doctor so you should take my advice with a grain of salt and research this for yourself, that said:

I would go 12:12. 14:10 won't do much for you. And I'm comfortable with recommending this because in the early 1900's and 1950's this is how everyone ate. They would all get together at 6-7pm, have dinner and fast until they broke their fast at *break-fast*. Thats almost 13 hours of fasting.

You should have no problem but please research it some.

Awesome and NP. Let us know how it goes and what you find out.

Its called the Warrior Diet, I'll look for a link.

Yeah I mean eating between 9 am and 7 pm is a pretty normal schedule but not eating in the evening is surprisingly hard while bf and I'm always worried about fucking up my milk supply. Thanks for the input

No problem, best of luck.

Thanks, I appreciate it!

Can your body absorb most nutrients when eating 1900 calories in one meal?

I don't see any reason why not. Fiber slows down the digestive process so you might want to take a fiber supplement or eat some fruits higher in fiber. That will make the food pass slower and allow more time for absorption.

It takes about 12 hours to go into fasting mode. Optimal amount is up to you and your goals. IMO you should start with 16:8

To be honest I have no idea how those guys eat all their TDEE in one meal, sounds impossible unless you're eating refined carbs, and those are terrible for your insulin levels. Maybe a necessary trade-off? Probably not.

How far into fasting triggers HGH release? 12 hours?

So you guys are literally eating nothing for weeks at a time? Or am I completely misunderstanding what is going on here?

I don't know.

No one posts pics or stats. No one has reported their long term progress. No one has even shown results.

It's all people talking about their fasting plans without actually having done anything.

"fasting mode" would be when the glycogen stores are depleted and the body goes for fat storage, form my understanding that is around 6 hours.

Here is a good article on it.
intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-and-growth-hormone-physiology-part-3/

IIRC it says around 24 hours, usually in the morning it spikes.

Some of us are. Usually around 3-6 days. I just ended a 5 day fast. Most of us are doing an IF variation that allows you to still eat and fast.

Yeah its very poorly documented. I'm sorry. You have to take a leap of faith but all the science can be fact checked. I know for me personally my 5 day fast was one of the best things I've ever done. But that is anecdotal. It also depends heavily on what your goals are, these threads are geared for weight loss as that is my priority. I will have a before and after pic in a week or so and it will be fucking glorious.

No. Most of us are simply not eating for most of the day.

Say you go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 7, that's 8 hours. Then, we don't eat (we can drink water and black tea/coffee - it's not an Islamic fast) for x hours, say another 10 hours.

That's 18 hours without food. For the remaining 6 hours until bedtime, we can eat as normal. This is Intermittent Fasting (IF). Fasting goes hand in hand with cutting for obvious reasons, but you can even bulk as long as you're at a surplus, and fasting has its own benefits for bulking like higher levels of test/HGH.

Some people might not eat for a whole day or multiple days. That's an Extended Fast.

In both cases, we cycle on and off. This is up to the user. 1 day on/one day off; 2 days on/1 day off; 2/2; 3/1; etc.

Had my last meal at 7pm tonight, gonna start IF tomorrow I'll do an 8/16, I'm gonna lift tomorrow at around mid day, does this mean I should eat between 11 am and 7pm then nothing till the following day?

Yep, that will do just fine. You could even do 3pm-11pm or something like that. You can put your 8 hour feeding window where ever you like.

Why aren't there any serious studies?
Why is this so obscure?
Why are people only citing that intensive dietary management and Jason Fung stuff?
I need complex endocrinology studies and explanations. Proof of how much muscle is wasted during fasting compared to normal cut.
Why is muscle spared during fasting? there still is cell damage that needs repair, especially if you're still lifting. The protein has to come from somewhere.

Not here to shill for the nonbeliever, i just want scientific proof and help.
I'm at 18-20% bf, i wish to use fasting to melt most of my fat off and retain the little muscle i do have.

Read about cinnamon and insulin resistance. It's been proven 1g of cinnamon per day lowers serum insulin by 18-35%. Too lazy to link you up, friend.

There are lots of mouse studies. There are no human studies because it's mostly a longevity thing that has to be done for a long period, and when you work out the equivalent calorie restriction for a human it's starvation low which means less interest. There is meant to be some unpublished rearch involved in trade secrets/patents but it's unpublished so eh.

Will do.

There aren't a lot of studies because there isn't a lot of monetary interest in fasting. You can't make money telling people not to eat and you can't sell pills to healthy people. Its a sad truth. I mean you can sell a book on fasting but that's a pittance to the cash the hospitals, pharmaceuticals and food industries are making off of fat people.

There are studies, and I hear you. My main source is Dr. Fung because he's the only one going against the grain. Almost all the professionals in his field are prescribing insulin and feeding the problem. He's a Renaissance man and I will never apologize for respecting him as much as I do.

I will try to find more studies for you, I only have an under-graduate understanding of human physiology, but every now and then a nutritionist or dietician will check me on my information. I have revised my understanding plenty of times from various academic anons input.

I really fucking hate being between Scylla and Charybdis of fat. If i lose all my fat i'll look like one of those Ausschwitz faggots, if i gain more muscle and fat i'll have an even bigger ass, gut and tits. I NEED A FAST WAY OUT. Fasting was my last hope of melting 20kg of fat in 3 weeks and losing only 1.5kg of muscle. Fuck my fucking everything.

Gonna go off myself while bombing a mosque.

This is a much more in depth explanation of why fasting is so therapeutic. It is a 6 part, 7 hour watch, but it covers 50+ studies that he cites and uses to explain his angle. I have watched them all in their entirety two times over.

Short version
youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk

Part 1 of the 6 part series on the Aetiology of Obesity.

youtube.com/watch?v=YpllomiDMX0

There are some explanations that HGH increases during fasting but it's not to keep you from wasting away it's because it acts opposite to insulin. It raises bloodsugar as opposed to insulin that lowers it. Not sure about the muscle sparing effect.

I too have SOME endocrinology understanding, but it's very limited as i studied it 2 years ago and it dealt mostly with pathology(dwarfism, hypo/hyperthyroidism, gigantism, testis/ovary pathology, adrenal pathology and such) and not how to manipulate your body to lose weight and get shredded...

HGH definitely plays a role in muscle mass and bone density maintenance, as well as acting antagonistically to insulin. I will try to find the studies we were discussing yesterday.

Today i found a study about how much muscle is lost during fasting compared to a normal cut. The conclusion was a fast loses more muscle, but still not enough not to justify doing it.
A normal cut would lose 0.7kg in 3 months while losing some weight.
While a cut would lose 1.5kg in 27 days while losing about twice the fat in 3 times less time.
But after i posted that study, some anons pointed out the study was done on obese motherfuckers who didn't lift and had other lean body mass compared to the people here.
I'm kinda stuck, because both sides have their arguments.
I like how Superfung argues that losing muscle would be counterproductive to the primitive man as he would not have the strength needed to get food if everytime he fasted due to circumstances he lost a lot of weight.

Please gather all studies whenever you can and everytime you find this thread post them. Ask other anons to do this too, maybe we can find more and more stuff and actually have conclusive independent proof on this subject.

Who else binge eats every Saturday then fasts on Sunday? Working out great on my cut. I eat 6,000+ calories then make up for it with the fast the next day.

Here is an article for the meantime:
dietdoctor.com/fasting-and-growth-hormone

>This has enormous implications for athletes. This is called ‘training in the fasted state’. Increased nor-adrenalin from fasting will pump you up to train harder. At the same time, the elevated HGH stimulated by fasting should increase muscle mass and make recovery from a workout easier and faster.

>Some protein is catabolized for gluconeogenesis, but the increase in HGH maintains lean mass during fasting.

And if you have a deficiency in HGH:
>HGH deficiency in adults leads to higher levels of body fat, lower lean body mass (sarcopenia) and decreased bone mass (osteopenia).

Its fairly well known. I'll try to find the studies, though.