Can anyone share their experiences with intermittent fasting?

[Clabber Girl]

I am interested in starting a weekly fasting schedule 8 hours eating window/16 hours fasting for 3 times a week. Mon / Wed / Friday would be my preferred days. Sometimes I feel bloated and tired, has fasting helped anyone with this?

I would love to hear your experiences or tips!

Edited September 20, 2022 by Clabber Girl

[Arthogaan]

For some it's great for some it's not. I use it when I want to lose some weight. Which is also right now. You need to experiment with eating windows to suit your unique body.

I was forcing myself to eat 14-20 as I thought that would be the best, but I never felt that great on it.
When I started listening more to my body now I eat 9:30 - 17 and feel really good. 
Additional advantage is that you have empty stomach both in the morning and in the evening so good for yoga and meditation.

[Michael569]

18 hours ago, Clabber Girl said:

Sometimes I feel bloated and tired,

fasting is rarely the cure to long-term bloating. With severe restrictions, that fatigue may become even more profound and causes of bloating could be many or few, usually related to microbiome balance, the nutritional composition of your food, stress, heavy use of antibiotics in the past, long-term low fibre diet being replaced for high fibre diet etc. 

Still, worth experimentation just caution is always advised to not restrict your calories severely and for too long as it may impact the menstrual cycle, mood and sleep. 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Michael569

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-09-20 at 2:52 AM, Clabber Girl said:

I am interested in starting a weekly fasting schedule 8 hours eating window/16 hours fasting for 3 times a week. Mon / Wed / Friday would be my preferred days. Sometimes I feel bloated and tired, has fasting helped anyone with this?

I would love to hear your experiences or tips!

I’ve struggled with bloating and thus other things like tiredness since a young age. About two years ago I started intermittent fasting everyday 16:8 and I’ve never went back. It has made an improvement definitely. Especially because I can be so bloated that I wake up in the morning bloated, so eating breakfast just makes it worse. Also waiting a significant amount of time between meals helps me. I’m also trying to solve this bloating thing as obviously there’s something wrong 

[The0Self]

It’s a potentially very effective weight-loss or calorie-restriction technique, especially if you’re not a breakfast person. That’s about it.

For bloating, you might want to try increasing potassium intake — lightly salted and buttered potatoes, or tomatoes, or maybe even tomato purée, or pure KCl (must be taken with food otherwise it can affect the heart).

And of course apple cider vinegar.

Edited October 23, 2022 by The0Self

[Asayake]

36 minutes ago, The0Self said:

It’s a potentially very effective weight-loss or calorie-restriction technique, especially if you’re not a breakfast person. That’s about it.

For bloating, you might want to try increasing potassium intake — lightly salted and buttered potatoes, or tomatoes, or maybe even tomato purée, or pure KCl (must be taken with food otherwise it can affect the heart).

And of course apple cider vinegar.

Apple cider vinegar seems to help me a lot with my heart burn. But it makes me feel like I'm on some sort of stimulant and makes it very hard to sleep. Any idea what could be causing that?

I used to intermittent fast a lot because I didn't eat breakfast and I've never been fat but I've never been that muscular either. I think I've been eating low calories for a big part of my life. But in recent years I've developed an annoying heart burn that seems to be worse when I do it because then I end up being hungrier at the later part of the day, resulting in big meals close to bed time, which seems to be a recipe for heartburn for me.

[The0Self]

2 hours ago, Asayake said:

Apple cider vinegar seems to help me a lot with my heart burn. But it makes me feel like I'm on some sort of stimulant and makes it very hard to sleep. Any idea what could be causing that?

I have seen a noticeable trend’s worth of purely anecdotal evidence that potassium consumed without food/calories can negatively impact sleep. Interesting.

(pretty sure ACV has potassium)

It could also perhaps be increased T3 production, which would likely be a very good thing. For those with extensive (and maverick) nutritional-physiological knowledge, it is both sought-after and difficult to increase the T3/T4 ratio — a very good driver of mental well-being — one way to prevent its opposite is to ensure that you consume well over 125g of carbohydrates (not including fiber, of course; “net carbs”) every day (not very hard to do if you’re not doing keto, which IMO is generally ill-advised anyway).

Maybe don’t take it too late in the day?

Edited October 23, 2022 by The0Self

[Asayake]

1 hour ago, The0Self said:

I have seen a noticeable trend’s worth of purely anecdotal evidence that potassium consumed without food/calories can negatively impact sleep. Interesting.

(pretty sure ACV has potassium)

It could also perhaps be increased T3 production, which would likely be a very good thing. For those with extensive (and maverick) nutritional-physiological knowledge, it is both sought-after and difficult to increase the T3/T4 ratio — a very good driver of mental well-being — one way to prevent its opposite is to ensure that you consume well over 125g of carbohydrates (not including fiber, of course; “net carbs”) every day (not very hard to do if you’re not doing keto, which IMO is generally ill-advised anyway).

Maybe don’t take it too late in the day?

When I googled it said ACV has some potassium yet other sources also that it decreases potassium levels, weird. 

I'm not doing keto. It might be true that it increases my T3, I did get a lot of energy to the point of almost overworking myself when I was taking it. I was dilluting 1tbsp in half a glass of water and taking 3 times per day, 2 before my main meals and 1 before bedtime. Sadly the dose before bedtime seemed to be the one that really helped my heartburn. I would notice it because I would have no heartburn when trying to sleep as well as I wouldn't have a bad taste in my mouth when waking up. But when I only took ACV earlier in the day, I still got heartburn at bedtime.

However, my heartburn seems to have be slightly better after doing ACV for a few days eventhough I'm not currently doing it. So I may try another round next week and see if just taking it earlier in the day still has a net benefit on my heartburn in the long run.

Another interesting thing is my muscle twitching issue, that has been improved but is still remaining. I tried magnesium for 2 days but had a very strong reaction to it. However, I think ACV as well as Electrolyte powder I tried as a remedy might have been making my twitching worse. But I'm not sure about that yet, I will make a longer status update about that in the relevant thread tomorrow.

[King Merk]

I did pretty strict 18:6 IF for about 3 years and felt great on it. I often combine the ketogenic diet with it as the two go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Now days I just skip breakfast 5-6 days per week and naturally eat within a 8ish hour window. That’s what my body like the most.

I’ve found the degree of bloating I experience has more to do with the actual types of food I eat and less to do with the time window of my eating.

However if you’re bloated due to overeating then IF will likely help with that 

[flowboy]

On 20/09/2022 at 2:52 AM, Clabber Girl said:

I am interested in starting a weekly fasting schedule 8 hours eating window/16 hours fasting for 3 times a week. Mon / Wed / Friday would be my preferred days. Sometimes I feel bloated and tired, has fasting helped anyone with this?

I would love to hear your experiences or tips!

Yes, fasting can help with feeling bloated or tired.

But also, if you are feeling bloated and tired, you are probably eating some ingredients that you aren't digesting very well.

Have you taken a look at Leo's video on how to shop for healthy food? It's still the gold standard in my opinion.

Keep in mind that what ingredients digest well and which ones your body doesn't like, is not static - it's dynamic.

If you are under emotional stress that you are ignoring, your gut will be more sensitive and reject more ingredients than if you are emotionally taking care and holding space for yourself well.

 

My experience with intermittent fasting was that it gave me a boost in energy and taught me to deal with hunger, something which lasted ever since.

My dad's experience is more spectacular though - he had diabetes type 2, was on Metformin medication, and he was always very intolerant to not eating every few hours. Then he started IF - now he doesn't have diabetes anymore and doesn't need the medication. Also he looks healthier.

[The0Self]

I still do it these days without even thinking about it. It just works well for me because I'm never that hungry in the morning. But if you're doing a 16+ hour fast every day, it's probably prudent that you consume like 100mg of sodium in the morning or you might feel a little off from low electrolytes or get a little woozy from low blood pressure.

But one of the easiest ways to crash your T3 levels is to forgo carbs for long periods, and T3 levels are highly associated with how good your mood is... so this likely is not the best way to eat unless you either just happen to naturally gravitate toward it, or have a hard time staying at a low body weight. I've been about 10% bf no matter what for a decade, so I'm not doing it specifically to lose weight myself -- though I have successfully used IF to get shredded in the past just for fun.

Edited October 24, 2022 by The0Self

[PenguinPablo]

Yes. 16-18 hour fast I feel amazing. Even more energy. Eating on the contrary makes me feel lethargic and dull.

[Waves]

@The0Self Do you still manage to fuel your weightlifting training with a reduced eating window? Whenever I tried IF I was struggling to eat more than twice, and the fact that I was eating mostly plant-based probably didn't help with reaching at least 100g of protein. 

[The0Self]

@Waves Yeah it wasn’t really a problem. Often I’d do modified IF — 40g protein with no fat or carbs, upon waking. The rest was IF though.

[museumoftrees]

I've done fasting for 20 hours per day everyday for almost a year and half. At first it might feel hard but it can become really easy if you stick to it. It has tons of positive benefits, both mental (neurogenesis, mental clarity, increased discipline) and physical (weight loss, increased muscle mass, etc). You can read more about those online. Fasting is great if you are already doing things like strength training, healthy eating, reading, meditating, working on a business and so forth.

If you are doing fasting you might watch YouTube videos and many of them advice you to drink black coffee during your fasting window : don't. Black coffee will really hurt your gut especially if you don't have any food in you.

The only con I would say is that it can be tricky to come back to a normal eating schedule after that. But upon figuring out that you can eat a whatever moment, you might never need to recover your eating schedule.

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, museumoftrees said:

At first it might feel hard but it can become really easy if you stick to it.

The main reason I did it was because it was easier and more convenient than a traditional eating schedule. If it’s not easy for an individual, I would not recommend it for that individual.

[museumoftrees]

23 hours ago, The0Self said:

The main reason I did it was because it was easier and more convenient than a traditional eating schedule. If it’s not easy for an individual, I would not recommend it for that individual.

Most people won't feel like restricting themselves from eating for longer periods of time ''easier''. However, they are health benefits that come with this discipline. Benefits shouldn't always come easy. But hey, do whatever is easy for you

[The0Self]

3 hours ago, museumoftrees said:

Most people won't feel like restricting themselves from eating for longer periods of time ''easier''. However, they are health benefits that come with this discipline. Benefits shouldn't always come easy. But hey, do whatever is easy for you

There's no evidence for any physiological health benefits -- there have been tons of studies -- besides those associated with calorie restriction, of course (and it can be great for that). But for me, eating less is easier, not harder.

There might be psychological benefits though. But in general it's healthier to eat throughout the day if you are at a healthy body weight anyway and have no need for implementing calorie restriction tricks.

[Clabber Girl]

I have been avoiding drinking and planning on doing IF 4-5 days a week for the rest of this year. It has been easy not drinking but I think IF for that many days a week will be challenging for me.

I am 154 lbs and 5'6 so not fat but not very thin either, I guess my motivation for losing a few lbs would be more confident in my body and be able to run more, climb better... What would the health benefits be of losing 10 lbs if you're not already fat/overweight?

[inFlow]

@Clabber Girl Try fasting for a whole on sunday and stop eating shit food. When I occasionally consume some junk food I feel so sick the day after that I fast for the whole day.