Are you fasting in conjunction with The No S Diet?

[Kathleen]

After almost of year of no weight loss, I realized that I was eating to satiety at every meal and never felt hungry. Except for the problem of no weight loss, it was a great way to live. I lost nearly all of the panic I've experienced around food for more than three decades.

Just in the last several weeks, I have settled on following the Catholic tradition of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. My fasts are the No S rules of no sweets and no snacks plus a less black and white guideline of minimal eating. What this means is that, on normal days, I put on my plate as much as I think I could eat. On Fast Days, I put on my plate what I know is less than I think I could eat.

In reviewing other posts, I see that others are combining fasts with The No S Diet, and I'd love to have a general discussion about how it's going.

Kathleen

[LoriLifts]

Hi Kathleen,

I'm going to preface my comments by saying THIS IS WHAT WORKS FOR ME. Intermittent fasting is a hot topic, people seem to either love it or hate it. I love it. My husband hates it.

I mostly follow Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat method. I eat until 6:30 pm, then fast for 24 hours until 6:30 pm the next day. If I combine vanilla S with fasting, I lose weight, even if I'm a semi idiot on S days. If I do my fasts and don't stick to vanilla S, I tend to maintain my weight.

I'm a big fan of combining No S with fasting. They both have minimal rules and if done properly, yield results. I've lost about 15 pounds using both plans. After a few months of maintaining, I'm ready to lose the remaining 10 extra pounds. My plan is to once again use No S with Eat Stop Eat.

That's my 2 cents. I'll be really interested in reading other people's comments.

Lori

PS...A good book about someone who lost alot of weight with intermittent fasting is called "Ultra Fat to Ultra Fit by Noah Walton. This guy transformed from a 340 lb couch potato to an ironman triathelete!

[Kathleen]

I just ordered the book from the library, and I think I'll try this type of fasting. It seems a steep price to pay $40 for a download that is 90 pages. Could you give me an idea of what's in the book Eat Stop Eat? Thanks!

[oolala53]

Fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays is a Catholic tradition? Actually, it's only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. And it's only two small meals and one moderate one that constitutes the fast. Not sure what they think is supposed to happen on the other days of the year.

I'm thinking of adding in one 24-hour fast a week. I'll be watching.

[connorcream]

Yes Wed & Fri fasting isa Catholic tradition in some of the various Rites and Communities. Roman Catholic Novus Ordo is only one of the many ways to go.

[Graham]

I have just this week done one fasting day. It is really too soon to give an overview - but after 5 weeks of near 100% No S compliance and my weight having been roughly static for the past 3 weeks I seemed to need more than No S.

On my fast I lost 3 1/2 lbs in 21 hours. I re-gained 1 3/4lbs in the following 3 days and am already planning my next fast. It wasn't easy - but then, neither would cutting the size of every meal be easy for me, so it's a question of which is the more tolerable privation.

Time will tell if it is a good approach for me, and I too will be interested to hear how others are doing on it. It seems some people, perhaps some types of people, can't shed weight on standard No S, whereas others can.

Graham

[Kathleen]

The Catholic Church now has only two Fast Days per year, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I was looking back to medieval times when there were two Fast Days per week. The reason why I did that is that I read a book by Kelly Brownell, head of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. In the book Food Fight, he claims that obesity is an environmental problem and not a problem of individual will power. I speculated that maybe it was a problem of individual philosophy, and since then I've started to think it's how we think of hunger as a crises. I started to read about how people ate in years prior to 1900, and that's why I investigated medieval Cathoilc traditions regarding fasting. I decided fasting could be a way for me to learn that hunger is not a painful, tragic, unbearable condition, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I will fast. That's why I created this thread -- to gather ideas on how to fast.

There's a book I have that says the best fast is on bread and water. The current tradition in Catholicism is three meals that add up to the amount in two. I'm casting about for ideas on other ways to fast. From my years of dieting, I seem to have developed an instant, uncontrollable reaction of binge eating to any sort of portion control. I think I may try having my definition of fasting be to have dinner only on Fast Days, but I wanted to see what other people are doing regarding fasting.

Kathleen

[paprad]

Many cultures here in India have periodic fasting as part of the routine. These are typically for religious purposes - almost like a penance, or as a kind of offering for marital bliss. So they are not so popular among the modern and the young, but a large number still do these. I have known those who did a weekly fast which would be typically on Mondays - which means no meals from Sunday night till Tuesday morning - but often fruit and milk is considered okay. Others do a fast once a year for a religious occasion, where nothing at all is eaten - the conservative ones avoid even water - till the moon is sighted, so thats around 7 pm. That would be a 24 hour fast, typically, given that the last meal would've been the previous night. I don't know if these result in any weight loss though. I suspect the celebratory meals that end the religious fasts are fairly calorific and so make up the deficit in no time.

[oolala53]

Kathleen, out of curiosity, when you say that for a year, you ate meals and weren't hungry, you mean you ate enough at meals that you were not hungry for the next meal?

[Kathleen]

oolala53,
Yes. When I select what I'm going to eat for a meal, I select what I am confident is enough to eat so that I'm not hungry by the next meal. Over the past several months, I've started to realize that I don't really know how much is enough. I only know that what I'm eating is enough. That's why I think fasting would be important for me. If I don't eat breakfast or lunch two days per week, I'll learn when I get hungry that day.
Kathleen

[oolala53]

I think that's a good plan. One of the things recommended in The Beck diet book is to skip breakfast and lunch on one day just to experience the difference between cravings, urges, and real hunger. And to learn that hunger is tolerable. I consider that to be a very important part of the No S plan. I think it is very natural to be hungry for about an hour before meals, although I've been hungry for longer than that. Some days it is more irritating, but most of the time, it feels fine. Some days, I've had to go longer than expected between meals and it's not that bad. Somehow, it feels different than the hunger generated from traditional dieting, which makes it feel imposed because it seems like it is because I was not allowed to eat enough at the last meal. Also, I feel so glad that I have learned to wait without it being an emergency. It feels very adult!

When advertised diets say "NO hunger!" I think, then why would I eat? And how much can I enjoy eating? If I never get hungry, I'm missing out. I think your enjoyment of meals will increase even more when you start eating a bit less and getting hungry for that next meal.

[OT]

Kathleen,

You said "What this means is that, on normal days, I put on my plate as much as I think I could eat. On Fast Days, I put on my plate what I know is less than I think I could eat."

I am a bit confused as to how that's fasting?The definition of fasting is abstaining from food isn't it?

Anyways, yeah I have been combining No S with Eat Stop Eat very successfully for nearly 6 months-fasting really is amazing for fat loss.The added benefit is that after several months of fasting I find that I no longer get even remotely hungry between meals on non fasting days. If I do,I find it really easy to ignore the mild hunger sensations. Going for 6-7 hours without food is nothing when you have trained your body to do a 24 hr fast.

[Kathleen]

OT,
Fasting has all sorts of meanings, and the reason why I created this thread was because I was trying to figure out what would work best for me. I think I'm going to try no eating until dinner on Wednesdays and Fridays, which oolala53 just said was a recommendation in The Beck Diet and which is close to what is recommended by Eat Stop EAt. I think that the value in fasting is in learning to tolerate hunger. Why have I become panicked at the slightest sense of hunger? I think it's because I accepted the cultural assumption that hunger is unbearable.
Kathleen

[oolala53]

Just to clarify, in the Beck book, not eating all day is recommended only once, before the person starts on an official diet. Then the dieter can refer back to that experience as a touchstone. It is not recommended as a weekly routine.

[sheepish]

Coming from a Hindu background, like paprad, I'm familiar with fasting. There are various types of fasts that I grew up with and did for religious reasons:

Just fruit and potatoes
Just one meal
Just fruit
Just liquids (but not things like soup, just standard drinks)
Just water

I always enjoyed fasting, I enjoyed the feeling of control and I always found it particularly easy to concentrate.

I have been thinking about doing it again in conjunction with No S and have done a couple of just one meal fasts - technically, these are 24 hour fasts as I don't eat after dinner the previous day but I don't really think of them like that - the first one was awful, completely unlike what it was like for me when I was a teenager, I was in a horrible mood all day, constantly upset and on the verge of tears, but the second one was fine and much more like it was for me before.

I think I'll probably do one a week - which is quite common amongst devout Hindus (though I'm an atheist now!) and perfectly sustainable - as I'm a short woman who doesn't do that much exercise and feel I need a bit more than No S to lose weight. No S is very important in this though as it means that you don't fall into the trap of overeating on the day following your fast because you feel you "deserve it".

[Kathleen]

I find it quite interesting that fasting is an important part of a lot of religions. Is there something about human nature that religions have recognized and science has not?
Kathleen

[~reneew]

Kathleen, I know we've "talked" about this before, but the book called the diet alternative discusses this in detail. She talks about how in Biblical times, they ate in the morning and the evening, with occasional fasting. Even Jesus did. She also discusses how if you are tough or really need to loose a lot that one meal a day is good. Since I read that I've tried it off oand on. That's seems to be the only time that I really loose weight... and it goes fast! I usually do the one meal a day on M-W-F because I take regular S days on Saturday and Sunday, so Mondays are a kind of get back into it, Wed. is a church day for me too, and Friday I think is good just because the weekend is almost here, and 3 days seems to be a good balance. If I do Mon. through Fri. I really loose fast and up to 10 a week, but sometimes rebound on the weekends. If I do M-W-F one meal only, I seem to do great! The trick for me is to get going. At times I go way off the deep end with absolutely no thought as to what I'm eating (like every Christmas season) and it takes a while to get back into the not snacking. I think the reason that I have a hard time getting started on the M-W-F one meal , T-TH N day, and Weekend S days is that most people think that it's not going to work. For me it helps me break the addiction toward food. It helps me gain the control. Keep us updated! I'm really interested in what you try since we seem to try the same things... I've been thinking about doing that strictly in June, but did it some last week and want to try this week, but I started the vanilla team thing for May and feel like a traitor if I stray from vanilla.

[reinhard]

I find it quite interesting that fasting is an important part of a lot of religions.

I do too!

Keep us posted. If it goes well for you maybe I'll need to add a little halo icon for F-days on the habitcal.

My fasting is currently limited to one day a year at Yom Kippur, and I know I eat enough at break the fast to more than make up for it. But I do think I get something out of the practice, even if it's not fewer calories.

The wikkipedia article on the subject is interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting

Reinhard

[OT]

Just wanted to share my personal experience with fasting-firstly I should say that I don't fast for religious reasons so I will not touch upon that aspect of it.

When I first started with intermittent fasting (Eat Stop Eat 24 hr fasts with zero calories consumed during the fasting period), I made the mistake of overdoing it-I was doing three 24hr fasts per week-Mon,Wed,Fri.I was basically becoming too obsessed with it-the whole point of Brad Pilon's approach is that fasting is meant to fit into your life as opposed to one making their life revolve around fasting.

I also semi-abandoned No S at the time-I still wasn't snacking or eating sweets(I don't eat sugar/artificial sweeteners at all now,not even S days) but I started having seconds with dinner which turned into thirds etc and before I knew it my huge evening meals were pretty much cancelling out the calorie deficit created during the 24hr fast prior to that meal!I am only a 5'5 130lb female but it really is unbelievable how many calories I can put away in one sitting if I allow myself to,and I am not talking junk food-I can easily eat 3000 calories worth of chicken,vegetables,nuts and dried fruit in one go!Crazy!

Anyway,this is why combining ESE with strict N days works for me now-I now do two 24hr fasts per week(usually on Mon and Thurs,but I keep it flexible provided the fasts are on non consecutive N Days), and I break the fast with a normal one plate dinner-and I don't eat again until breakfast. I am seeing amazing results-my body fat is now down to 14%,and as much as I love No S for changing my attitude to food and helping me develop good eating habits, I simply would not have got these results without combining No S with Eat Stop Eat.

My S Days are still a little bit out of control-I tend to have massive feasts on yummy dinner/BBQ leftovers at 3 am(mmm chicken!) when I get home from a night out! I am working on it though!

Just my experience with it all!

[oolala53]

I've read a lot of Brad Pilon's work on the net. I haven't paid for the download just because it annoys me so much that these downloads are so expensive. However, he does say that research shows that people don't slow their metabolisms and all that from fasting. My question is why are there so many heavy people who try to diet that way, skipping breakfast, maybe having a yogurt for lunch and then end up scarfing all evening? It just sounds like the pattern of bingers. I think sometimes I'd like to try it one day a week but I don't want to while my S days are still wild. I guess I also imagine that if my S days were more reasonable, my weight would start coming down. I ate light yesterday just because I was so uncomfortable from Saturday and I've felt that way today, too, so I've gone easy on the starches. I don't know why it continues to be so important to me to eat so much sugar on the weekends, but when I think of just eating regular meals with a dessert, it sounds like deprivatin. However, i just don't want to end up in an even worse crazy pattern fasting and have S days than I would be trying to diet traditionally. I thought the notion was to achieve a degree of normalcy. I guess some of you are saying fasting is normal in some cultures. I know the Nepales i saw in the mountains were up working very early with just tea until around 10 a.m. I don't know how many meals they fit in before they went to sleep.

Anyway, I'm going to follow along here.

[dmarie710]

I've been doing ESE fasts not for 41/2 years. I really love it. Even though I'm not strictly following NoS it still has ingrained itself in me enough that I really only have 3 meals/day with 1 plate, but not always. I think both approaches really compliment each other, especially for smaller woman.

[sheepish]

When I first started with intermittent fasting (Eat Stop Eat 24 hr fasts with zero calories consumed during the fasting period), I made the mistake of overdoing it-I was doing three 24hr fasts per week-Mon,Wed,Fri.I was basically becoming too obsessed with it-the whole point of Brad Pilon's approach is that fasting is meant to fit into your life as opposed to one making their life revolve around fasting.

Yes, I think you do have to be careful with fasting. I remember becoming a bit obsessed with it and my eating becoming quite disordered as a teenager because I became a bit addicted to the feeling of control that you get from fasting. Certainly in Hindu culture, it's considered quite normal to do a fast once a week, twice a week is considered impressive but any more than twice a week and people start commenting on it not being healthy for you. Personally, I would - having had a bit of an issue with this in the past - look to limiting myself to one full-on no food at all fast once a week or two one meal a day fasts at the most.

[kccc]

Sheepish, I'm quite fascinated with your description of fasting as a part of your culture. Thanks for sharing that.

I particularly like the boundaries that you outline. (The potential for fasting becoming extreme scares me, to be frank - I've known someone with anorexia.)

The religious aspects are also intriguing. I had always though of Christian fasting as an outdated medieval tradition that was "a way to extend limited food supplies" more than anything, but the extent to which it's practiced across religions is making me look at it in a new light.

[Kathleen]

Double post.

[Kathleen]

reneww,
Our library system doesn't have that book, but I do see it on Amazon. I think I'll try reading other books on fasting from the library. There is something to this, but I have no idea what it is. I think it may be the traditional idea of detachment. Detachment sounds like a good objective when you've been obsessed with food.

________________________

Reinhard,
Writing seems to help me sort things out. I feel spooked by investigating fasting, and I'm not sure why. It's as if fasting is the necessary next step in my normalizing my eating. The No S Diet sure has been a godsend for me, but something is missing because I eat so much at every meal that I'm never hungry. It may sound bizarre, but with my previous diets, I was obese and I always felt hungry! Maybe combining The No S Diet with fasting will allow for a rhythm of satiety and hunger.

___________________________________

oolala53,
I have been of the mindset that fasting is somewhat outdated and unnecessary, and that attitude was fostered by the very limited fasting now practiced in the Catholic Church. We have two Fast Days per year, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Frankly, people don't take it very seriously.

I had just a terrible time practicing that limited fasting. I couldn't make it through one day of fasting. In fact, I was happy to excuse myself for eight straight years of being pregnant and nursing. It occurred to me that there was something wrong that I had such difficulty with fasting. What was it?

It was easy to see that my practice of dieting by having lots of little amounts of food throughout the day might make it difficult for me to go hours and hours without food. It's not just me. It's the recommended way to maintain a lower weight.

I now look at the current culture and the need not just to have snacks but to have snacks that are both healthy and balanced. I see articles like this all the time. I just read this today in Teen Vogue: "The best snacks contain a combo of complex carbohydrates and protein, which provide both long-lasting energy and a feeling of satiety...(Quick tip: Bag up a nutritious nosh the night before, so that you'll be more likely to grab it and go the next day). "

There seems to be a cultural blind spot in the idea of mini meals. What is the opposite of planning for and creating several mini meals throughout the day? The opposite is fewer times eating and eating to satiety at those meals.

My father has a great expression: "If something isn't working, try something else: anything else." Portion control didn't work for me. Lots of eating occasions throughout the day didn't work for me. I'm trying the opposite, and the opposite is a practice that has been promoted by many of the world's religions.

I've been floundering around with what it means to fast, and I am going to try the Eat Stop Eat approach of no calories for 24 hours for the first time on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see the impact on me. What I have found in giving up snacks is I don't think about food between meals. What will it mean for me to give up a breakfast and a lunch on two non-consecutive days? I don't know! I'm hoping it gives me more confidence that I won't starve if a meal is delayed.

Kathleen

[wosnes]

I've read that there's some speculation that part of the reason Greeks are so healthy is not only because of what they eat, but that there's so much fasting in the Greek Orthodox religion.

[OT]

Just to clarify-with the ESE approach you DO eat one meal per day still-you have your dinner at say 6pm,then consume zero calories over the next 24hrs,i.e. your next meal is your dinner at 6pm the following day. So you still eat a meal every day. Of course you can always skip dinner the following day and do a 30-36 hr fast but Brad doesn't recommend it. For social reasons mainly.

Personally I often find that I am not even hungry after a 24 hr fast and that I could easily extend the fast to 30-36 hrs,however this doesn't really fit in with my lifestyle as I have dinner with my family every night.

I think the biggest benefit of fasting is that you realise that there is more to life than food-i hated fasting at first because my life revolved around food and I couldn't stand the thought of not having lunch at work with my colleagues or my lovely porridge for breakfast. I think a lot of the time we just eat out of boredom,because out lives aren't exciting enough unless all our socialising revolves around food/restaurants. Fasting certainly helps overcome that mentality.

[Kathleen]

I just looked up information on Greek Orthodox fasting, and it was fascinating! There were two things that were most intriguing:
1. Fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays is until evening, when an evening meal is eaten. This is like Eat Stop Eat. I read that those who do not keep the fast can be excommunicated. That really shows the importance of fasting!
2. Fasting is forbidden on Saturdays and Sundays except for Holy Saturday (the day before Easter) when there is a fast. What amazes me about conventional diets is that there is never ever a Feast. This restriction seems like the restriction of S Days -- the idea behind S Days is that it is a Feast Day.

While I am myself a practicing Catholic, this idea of fasting certainly seems to be part of many religions. We've seen mention on this thread of Hinduism, Greek Orthodox, Jewish, and Catholic practices. I think there's something here that is from human nature and is recognized by the world's religions but completely missed by science. Stepping back from food for a time gives a perspective that is warped by the idea of lots of meals throughout the day.

By fasting, I suspect, we learn that we can manage without food for a time, and so we have food security in the knowledge of that. When I was trying to eat only after a stomach growl, there was a lot of food insecurity: what if I couldn't get to food right away? The kids still laugh about how we were driving, I said my stomach growled, and my husband said, "Stop the car! Emergency! We must find food!" He was kidding. It was very funny. He was making a point that turned out to be very true. Fasting, I think, will extend the food security that I now feel by knowing I can manage just fine without snacking.

Kathleen

[OT]

Kathleen,

Just to reassure you-once your body is used to fasting, you will barely feel that growling in your stomach type of hunger!If you do,it will only last a few minutes.Most of the time I find that I just feel kind of empty and light when I am fasting,it's quite a nice feeling actually.

It did take my body several months to adapt though and there were some serious hunger pangs initially. You just have to stick with it though.Fasting really is easy-the most difficult part is to break the psychological attachment to food and to accept that now and again you will just have to to a break from eating. Changing your mentality is far more difficult than dealing with the physical discomfort.

That's all fasting is really,taking a break from eating now and again-don't think of it as suffering/deprivation and you will actually learn to enjoy it!

[Kathleen]

OT,
You would not believe how difficult it was to give up snacking! I did absolutely nothing for two weeks. I am suspecting that starting up fasting is like giving up snacking and may even be easier because I've already broken a psychologican chain of belly-gazing. Aristotle discusses people whose god is their belly, and the tone is quite disdainful. Sadly, I have been one of them, and I think that fasting will cure me of belly worship.
Kathleen

[OT]

Kathleen,

Yes you are right-it's all about breaking the emotional bond we have with food. It's amazing how much more you can do with your life when you are not obsessing over what/when your next meal will be!Don't get me wrong,I love food-I believe it's one of life's pleasures which we have been blessed with. But you have to eat to live,not live to eat.

I think a lot of us eat out of boredom and to fill some emotional gap in our lives.It's probably very little to do with real hunger.When I have a really busy day,either at work or socialising with friends on weekends I find myself barely thinking about food. But now and again I have a dull day at work and I actually find myself counting down the minutes to lunch! Sad isn't it!

[Kathleen]

OT --

I know you gave a history of fasting and No S, but I'd be curious about how long it took you to get to this point. When did you start No S? fasting?

Tomorrow is my first Fast Day. I think I'll do fine. After all, I actually forgot to eat both breakfast and lunch one day last year. I was busy and had gotten used to not thinking much about food. It will be interesting to observe the non-physical changes in me. To be honest, I stalled at a 20 pound weight loss with No S and am still obese, but I am much freer of food food obsession.

Kathy

[vmelo]

I think the biggest benefit of fasting is that you realise that there is more to life than food-i hated fasting at first because my life revolved around food and I couldn't stand the thought of not having lunch at work with my colleagues or my lovely porridge for breakfast. I think a lot of the time we just eat out of boredom,because out lives aren't exciting enough unless all our socialising revolves around food/restaurants. Fasting certainly helps overcome that mentality.

Your comments really got my attention. I teach, and I've already started summer vacation. I have PLENTY of work to do in the house, and today, I did plenty. I'm a morning person, so I had accomplished quite a bit by 11:30. I still have plenty to do, but who wants to do housework all day? So, what did I do? I started looking around the kitchen for something to eat (and I found something, by the way ). It's as if I am a workaholic during the semester, so when I don't have the usual amount of work, I tend to gravitate toward food to fight the boredom and/or as a quick source of pleasure. I need to find other ways to relax. I'm attracted to the idea of eating fewer times per day because I just want to stop thinking about food. Maybe knowing that I can only eat once or twice a day will do the trick. I might try it.

[LoriLifts]

Good luck Kathleen!

Remember that fasting gets easier the longer you stick with it.

I agree 100% with OT's posts ( you're a good writer OT).

I've been doing intermittent fasting for about a year. My stomach growls for about 3 minutes at 11:15 am. That's about it. Sometimes it doesn't rumble at all.

I also know that around 3 pm I'll have "brain" hunger. I want to bite into something but am not experiencing physical hunger. I know that I need to distract myself until it's time to break my fast.

It's kind of nice to not think about what you're going to eat for 24 hours.

[Kathleen]

I'm nervous! I told the older two kids what I was doing, and they both were confident I wouldn't last through the day tomorrow. We'll see. Meanwhile, that scale is due to be delivered by June 2. I'm nervous about that, too!
Kathleen

[paprad]

Kathleen, your thread prompted me to do an orgy of googling on Eat Stop Eat, and I decided to give 24 hour fasting a try. My family was quite disapproving - the theories against fasting are so widely spread - but I assured my husband that I was at home all day and if I felt dizzy or something, I wouldn't be stubborn and I'll cave in. I had dinner on Monday at 8 and then fasted till Tue 8. It wasn't awful at all. I had no dizziness, no headaches. I didn't have a growling tummy - in fact, ironically, I have had actually loud growling in my snacking days - but I felt a sense of emptiness and something missing at different points in the day. The smells of food were tougher to take - I mentally drooled when I saw my kid eating lunch and the smell of eggs frying for an evening snack almost undid me. But I focused on staying busy, ate many cups of light tea (no milk/cream/sugar), and had plenty of water. My worst point was aroun 4 pm - my usual snacking nemesis time - but once that past, I was fairly okay. I was pretty hungry by 8 but I tried hard to stick to NoS principles - I think I overate slightly but not too much. I plan to do NoS for the rest of the week and if I feel upto it, do another 24 hour fast on Friday. Brad Pilon doesn't recommend more than twice a week anyway. If twice a week is too painful, I plan to try it once a week at least.

One of the outcomes is supposed to be a detachment from food. I can't say I felt that yesterday. I had mild fantasies about cucumber slices - when my evil twin told me it would be perfectly okay to eat cukes since they are practically calorie-free, but I had to resist that. I didn't think about food all day but the emptiness told me it would take a long time before true detachment came in. On the plus side, it made even small meals sound attractive so perhaps it will make me less prone to gorging. I read on the net that what can sabotage this approach is gorging on the non-fast days - so I plan to be careful and stick to NoS on those days.

My googling threw up the following links

http://idaimakaya.com/HandbookofIntermi ... sting.aspx
(has some links to people who have eaten just one meal a day for years, including Cliff Richard and world-class athletes)

There's a free ebook available on providing an email at this site
http://www.theiflife.com/
I can't say I found this ebook very illuminating - all the theory in this is out there on the net - but for what it's worth, it summarises the principles and evangelizes the idea.

When I read Brad Pilon's theories, I found he goes on an on about how this is a very easy diet to follow - I am not so sure about that - it asks those of us who are used to many meals a day to completely skip eating for hours. That's not any easier to get used to than any of the other diets around. However, I guess he has a point that there is no ostracizing of food groups, no timing issues, no counting calories and suchlike. He does recommend resistance training for best effect.

I was a bit conflicted about whether I should try this out, being such a newbie on NoS itself - but I was so drawn to the concept I thought I would give it a try and see if I can make it part of the habits. If I find it is sabotaging NoS - meaning I eat too much on non fast days from some sense of compensating or reward - then I will give up the fasting and do only NoS.

I must say, though, I felt incredibly pleased with myself for having made it - that itself was a good feeling. I wonder if food deprivation leads to a psychological high - like an endorphin high - then I can understand the fasting junkes I read about while googling the topic.

[Graham]

I think there's something here that is from human nature and is recognized by the world's religions but completely missed by science.

Great thread Kathleen - but I'm intrigued, you've made this remark twice about science missing it - yet as Paprad shows, for example, from her illuminating research on the net, there is plenty of research out there about fasting, so what is it that "science" isn't doing to your satisfaction?

I was very struck reading the reference to Cliff Richard eating only one meal a day - his legendary youthfulness, without benefit of surgery, is perhaps now explained? I feel so annoyed - how come no-one ever drew that little fact to MY attention before? I'd've tried it YEARS ago!

I've now completed a second one-day fast, it was easier than the first. I can't think of any good reason not to fast on a regular basis: it isn't just about weight-loss after all, the many diverse health benefits, supported by research, make a compelling case don't you think?

One thing my brief experience confirms - fasting is less hassle than restricting portions at every meal for me. Hunger tapers off after a while, so I feel no more hunger on a fasting day than I do when I'm eating 3 meals, if each contains noticeably less than I want to eat.

And, yes, IF is unexpectedly easier to handle emotionally as well. How I will combine this with No S is the next challenge. Yesterday was my first definite failure day in nearly a month -

[paprad]

I feel no more hunger on a fasting day than I do when I'm eating 3 meals, if each contains noticeably less than I want to eat.

That's true - I feel hungry today, am on vanilla NoS and I find myself needing to exert more control on myself than I did yesterday while fasting. I felt empty yesterday and I did notice meal times - but I found it easier to keep away from all food than I do keeping away from just some.

Graham - regarding the other links in that post - I was struck by how the two athletes mentioend could keep up such a high level of performance with just one meal a day - so much for the myth of muscle loss with fasting - clearly if you exercise, you keep muscle. I read somewhere that Human Growth Hormone was banned in competitive sports - so I wonder if fasting, which is said to boost HGH is actually improving athletic performance.

[Kathleen]

Graham,

To your point, the science I am referencing is the science of weight management. I'm no scientist. I was an English major in college, have worked as a business analyst, and am now a stay at home Mom. With the kids in school, I've had time to do a lot of research on weight management, and the idea of intermittent fasting has not come up in what I've read.

In nearly all diets, the main idea is "portion control." That idea of constantly having to restrict how much you eat (ie. points for Weight Watchers) leads to food obsession, at least in my opinion.

I'm stuck at an unacceptable weight so that is why I'm trying intermittent fasting in addition to No S. I cannot seem to practice portion control in any way, shape or form. There are just too many years of doing exactly that in my past, and my body revolts immediately.

Kathleen


___________________

Paprad,

Your experience is very encouraging to me! It's now not quite 6:30 AM, and I'm about to get the kids up. We won't have dinner until about 6:45 PM, after we get home from swim team practice. I'm having green tea right now, and that's all I plan to have other than water. We'll see if I make it!

Kathleen

[oolala53]

WARNING: I MAY SOUND CONTRARIAN, BUT NOT MEANT TO BE! I HOPE TO ENGENDER DISCUSSION ONLY, AS I FIND THIS ONE OF THE SANEST BOARDS I'VE ENCOUNTERED!

Dare I imply that some of the failures and greater hunger and such are actually somehow connected to the fasting? I'm not saying it's wrong to do, as I'm considering it, but if there's one thing I learned here at No S was to observe what actually happens. I thought I couldn't skip snacks, but I've learned it's possible. It could be that people have to be at a certain stage-emotionally? physcially? I don't know what- before certain regimes will benefit. I tried low carbing it for two days and ended up eating 6 cookies at the end of the 2nd day- very unusual for me, looking at the last 5 months, to fail. I still overeat on S days, but I've had only 6 failures and both of them were after changing what I had been doing on N days.

Back in my yoga days, I knew many fasters. Everyone knew the fast itself was less of a challenge than the days following it, and many of them were naturally thin people. Fat people have been choosing to fast for short periods on their own, or variations of it, for a long time, if my reading on the boards at a weight loss site is any indication, and many of them are there because it failed to help them make the changes they needed to long term, and often worse eating followed.

As i said, I'm very interested in this and don't condemn anyone for trying and using it. I'd like to think of it as one more tool for later use so I'm trying to take advantage of the sanity here to examine it. I've always interpreted religious use of it as a way to purposely make people suffer in sympathy with trials of a revered one, to downplay the importance of the body rather than the spirit, and to engender greater gratitude for the gift of food. I'm very willing for it to have other advantages as well.

[OT]

Kathleen,

Hope your fast goes well today. If you do struggle the first few times just try to stick with it, it gets so much easier!

I have been following No S on and off for about a year and a half. I was never overweight-I lost about 10lbs with No S which took me from 145 to 135lbs.I have been combining No S with 2 x24hr intermittent fasts a week Eat Stop Eat style for the past 6 months or so and I am now down to 130lbs (I am a 5"5 female).ESE really pushed me out of the maintenance zone I was in with No S.

I would say it took my body and my mind a good 4 months to adapt to fasting. By adaptation I mean:

-Learning to deal with hunger-it hardly bothers me now.It's such an insignificant feeling-if I do get a bit of growling in my stomach I just think "so what?!" and it goes away after a few minutes. I am sure the mild discomfort we call hunger is nothing compared to the hunger people in developing countries feel after years of malnutrition. We are so priviliged to be able to eat what/when we want.Unfortunately that abundance has become our curse as well!

-Accepting that fasting is a lifestyle change-I have made a commitment that every week I will take one or two 24hr brakes from eating. For the rest of my life. During those times food becomes irrelevant.It's a time to get on with things that are more important than food. Spending time with my family,socialising,being more productive at work etc. This change in attitude is what helps break psychological attachment to food. And I am still not quite there yet. If I am fasting on a day when I happen to have very little to do, boredom makes me think about food. I just try to keep myself busy.

- Adapting to working out/exercising in a fasted state. I work out a lot-gym,sports,running,weight training etc and I have the best workouts when I am fasting.I did a 2 hr bike ride 18 hrs into my fast the other week.I felt great. So much for pre/post workout snacks/energy drinks etc! I can't believe people are so deluded that they think they will pass out unless they eat every 2 hrs to keep their energy levels up! In fact if I am feeling a bit weak/light headed on a fasting day nothing works better than a 5 minute burst of physical activity. My energy levels are great on fasting days but it did take some time to adapt to that as well.

[paprad]

Kathleen, All the very best - I am sure you will find the experience a rewarding one. I told myself that even if I didn't last out, the sensations I would feel and my response to these would both yield learning about my body and they did. I plan to give it another go on Friday.

OT, thanks for sharing your experience. A lot of sites talk of working out when fasting but I didn't dare yesterday. I wanted to see how my body was in resting + fasting. I think I'll try exercising and fasting after I get a little more used to it.

[paprad]

I've always interpreted religious use of it as a way to purposely make people suffer in sympathy with trials of a revered one, to downplay the importance of the body rather than the spirit, and to engender greater gratitude for the gift of food. I'm very willing for it to have other advantages as well.

I don't know about other religions but many of those I know who fast religiously tend to do it as a kind of offering for a boon received or to be received or as a penance, They revere the process pretty much as they would walk barefoot on a pilgrimage - the suffering is part of the journey. I think their religiousness helps them to cope with the fast as well.

[kccc]

... but if there's one thing I learned here at No S was to observe what actually happens. ...

Back in my yoga days, I knew many fasters. Everyone knew the fast itself was less of a challenge than the days following it, and many of them were naturally thin people. Fat people have been choosing to fast for short periods on their own, or variations of it, for a long time, if my reading on the boards at a weight loss site is any indication, and many of them are there because it failed to help them make the changes they needed to long term, and often worse eating followed.

Oolala, I think that's a pretty sane post. One of the reasons I'm wary about fasting is that the ESE version looks too much like my worst days when I was trying (and failing) to diet - eat nothing all day, then (over)eating at dinner. Of course, I was eating well beyond dinner in those days as well! Maybe with No-S to limit the "rebound" it would work, but the prior pattern I fell into is so similar that... well, I'm just wary.

I have another memory from my 20's, of having the flu and, as I was getting better, being excited about the weight I'd lost. I hadn't eaten much, and didn't want to. The feeling of control was amazing, and I wanted to extend it. After a bit, a part of me recognized that "this isn't healthy" and I broke the fast (and gained most of the weight back immediately)... but the experience makes me understand how people DO get addicted to fasting, just as they do to food.

I have always felt that I barely escaped the worst of the eating disorders in my youth... and skirted by most of them just enough to see the allure.

Like you - I'm not trying to be a wet blanket, just to widen the conversation. I see that this could work for some people, particularly in terms of learning that "hunger won't kill you." And I'm heartened by the boundaries that both religions and ESE impose that limit extreme behavior - I agree with Reinhard that "moderation" is a key component of any sustainable/healthy life choice.

[sheepish]

I've always interpreted religious use of it as a way to purposely make people suffer in sympathy with trials of a revered one, to downplay the importance of the body rather than the spirit, and to engender greater gratitude for the gift of food. I'm very willing for it to have other advantages as well.

I don't know about other religions but many of those I know who fast religiously tend to do it as a kind of offering for a boon received or to be received or as a penance, They revere the process pretty much as they would walk barefoot on a pilgrimage - the suffering is part of the journey. I think their religiousness helps them to cope with the fast as well.

In my culture (Gujarati Hindu) it's also done in remembrance - if you're family, at the funeral there's a moment where you all silently promise something, to break a bad habit, to donate to charity and/or to fast. I like the tradition so I follow it even though I'm atheist now.

[OT]

One of the reasons I'm wary about fasting is that the ESE version looks too much like my worst days when I was trying (and failing) to diet - eat nothing all day, then (over)eating at dinner. Of course, I was eating well beyond dinner in those days as well!

KCCC-ESE simply wont work if you binge after your fast.Which is why Brad Pilon promotes "responsible eating" on non fasting days. This is why ESE and No S work so well together-after a fast is finished, I just have my normal N Day dinner-one plate,no more, and no eating again until breakfast the next day. Believe me,I could easily put away 3000 calories in one dinner and cancel out the calorie deficit of the fast-fortunately No S doesn't allow that! Which is why ordinary people who skip breakfast and lunch and then pig out at night are the ones most likely to be overweight-they think depriving themselves during the day gives them an unconditional permission to binge in the evenings!

[Kathleen]

OT,
Thanks for the description of your experience, which encourages me to go ahead with this! If trying to eat as soon as I experienced hunger produced a constant state of panic in me, what will be the impact of my deciding not to eat from one dinner to the next? We'll see...

________________________

KCCC,
My disordered eating has had an incredibly bad impact on my life. Although I am still obese, I am glad I've been following No S because it cured me of the food obession I had. It has seemed to me that fasting is an extension of No S rather than a replacement for it. I thought I could experience hunger and learn how much I need to eat if I just gave up snacks, but I never feel hunger. Ever. I always eat so much at a meal that I'm not hungry even by the next meal. Any sort of portion control inevitably leads to a binge. Fasting is my substitute for portion control.
It's my way to experience hunger so that I learn how much I really need ot eat.


____________
oolala53,
Healthy skepticism is healthy! I don't know what is going to happen. If I continue to follow No S, I think I'll be sane but still obese. If I had to choose between thin/obsessed with food and obese/sane, I'd choose obesity. If fasting triggers a return to food obsession, I'm not continuing! What I think could happen is that fasting extends the lack of food obession as I learn that I can in fact function quite well without food even for 24 hours. BUT we'll see... And my experience may not be the same as anyone else's. This may work for me, or it may not, but it's worth a shot.


Kathleen

[OT]

Kathleen, All the very best - I am sure you will find the experience a rewarding one. I told myself that even if I didn't last out, the sensations I would feel and my response to these would both yield learning about my body and they did. I plan to give it another go on Friday.

OT, thanks for sharing your experience. A lot of sites talk of working out when fasting but I didn't dare yesterday. I wanted to see how my body was in resting + fasting. I think I'll try exercising and fasting after I get a little more used to it.

Paprad,

You are right-do a few fasts first,get used to how your body feels and then gradually introduce exercise on fasting days. Start out with a brisk walk or something. You will be amazed how great you will feel!

I love exercising in a fasted state.From personal experience, I think the key is to keep the activity duration to under 30-45mins if it's intense/anaerobic in nature,i.e.if you are doing hard running/interval training/weights -your muscle glucogen levels will get depleted pretty quickly.

On the other hand longer duration aerobic/low intensity activity such as walking/slow jogging/leisurely cycling is fine when you are fasting as you are more likely to use your fat stores to release the energy for these type of activities. Unless you are running a marathon and have very low body fat levels of course!

[kccc]

KCCC-ESE simply wont work if you binge after your fast.Which is why Brad Pilon promotes "responsible eating" on non fasting days. This is why ESE and No S work so well together-after a fast is finished, I just have my normal N Day dinner-one plate,no more, and no eating again until breakfast the next day. Believe me,I could easily put away 3000 calories in one dinner and cancel out the calorie deficit of the fast-fortunately No S doesn't allow that! Which is why ordinary people who skip breakfast and lunch and then pig out at night are the ones most likely to be overweight-they think depriving themselves during the day gives them an unconditional permission to binge in the evenings!

Yes, I do see that the No-S can work with ESE, and the result would look very different from the "skip br/lunch then pig out" cycle. I'm just aware that an attempt could throw me back into that old pattern (and maybe others as well). I see that as the danger on one hand, and over-fasting (being the control freak that I am) on the other. The "Scylla and Charybdis" of fasting!

But as long as ESE was approached with awareness of those extreme possibilities and a determination to remain "moderate" overall, it could work well. As I said, I like the moderation that seems "built into" both ESE and the religous approaches, that keeps one from going overboard in either direction.

[kccc]

@Kathleen - "Learning about hunger" sounds like a very good goal. I hope this process works for you!! Maybe this experience will allow you to be calmer about portion control in everyday life.

Watching with interest...

[Kathleen]

KCCC - You describe perfectly my concern about fasting. I don't want to be thrown back into food obsession.
Kathleen

[Graham]

Dare I imply that some of the failures and greater hunger and such are actually somehow connected to the fasting?

In my own case I'm sure that's right, I wanted more than usual on the day after my fast. I assumed my body was not only maintaining itself but re-stocking the depleted glycogen stores as quickly as possible, creating a greater than usual appetite.

Add that to lunch being soup and salad - couldn't fit it all on one plate but thought it wasn't an excessive or unhealthy choice, just a technical "fail" - but that opened the door to the pancakes with sugar and lemon I ate later in the evening.

I felt conflicted - I quite like sticking to rules and being "good" - but once I've failed, or especially if I feel in some sense that the rules failed me - then I break out.

I'm not too worried just now about combining ESE with 100% compliance on No S. I don't have the sort of history of dieting and bingeing that some here have had to contend with.

I can see that for many No S is a refuge from diet madness of all sorts but it wasn't for that that I came to No S. It was mentioned favourably by another member of a board which focuses on the use of Isometric exercises, it was his success story that led me here.

My No S experience has been rewarding, especially encountering the No S community - but it hasn't given me the same weight-loss results as the chap I read about. The IF strategy seems a good one for me to explore, yet I can see that might not be true for everybody.

And an afterthought: I have long thought the reasons people do fasts, especially long ones, were either for physical regeneration/detoxification OR to experience altered states of consciousness, getting closer to Reality by loosing the limiting bonds of corporeal existence.

[LoriLifts]

This thread is why I love the No S community.

We can share different opinions without fear of hostile or negative comments. We've got alot of eloquent and open minded folks that live in No S town.

Lori

PS...Regarding overeating after a fasting day. There was a study done on alternate day fasting with mice. After withholding food for 24 hours, the mice could eat as much as they wanted. On average, the mice ate 180% of their normal food consumption. Even at 180%, they were still at a calorie reduction of 20% for the 2 days.

[Kathleen]

Update on my first try at a 24 hour fast:
I lasted from 6:30 PM until 2, at which point I got up off the bed and ate. I think that I had too strong a habit of eating three meals per day to be able to skip two meals in a row. Something is very positive about fasting, and I'm going to try to build it as a habit in my life. I'm starting with skipping breakfast only on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Kathleen

[Graham]

I've read a lot of Brad Pilon's work on the net. he does say that research shows that people don't slow their metabolisms and all that from fasting. My question is why are there so many heavy people who try to diet that way, skipping breakfast, maybe having a yogurt for lunch and then end up scarfing all evening? It just sounds like the pattern of bingers.

I think ZERO calories might be the difference. On ESE, because you have no food at all your metabolism switches into a different mode and hunger recedes. If, on the other hand, you have even "tiny" snacks (pot of yoghourt for lunch for example, or milk or sugar in your drinks during the day) then you keep the Insulin coming and the appetite raging, which provokes binging. That is my guess at what makes ESE different - zero calories with no exceptions while you are fasting.

[OT]

I've read a lot of Brad Pilon's work on the net. he does say that research shows that people don't slow their metabolisms and all that from fasting. My question is why are there so many heavy people who try to diet that way, skipping breakfast, maybe having a yogurt for lunch and then end up scarfing all evening? It just sounds like the pattern of bingers.

I think ZERO calories might be the difference. On ESE, because you have no food at all your metabolism switches into a different mode and hunger recedes. If, on the other hand, you have even "tiny" snacks (pot of yoghourt for lunch for example, or milk or sugar in your drinks during the day) then you keep the Insulin coming and the appetite raging, which provokes binging. That is my guess at what makes ESE different - zero calories with no exceptions while you are fasting.

Graham,

I think you are spot on there! Even a tiny bit of milk in my coffee on a fasting day sets my hunger off! Whilst if I have zero calories the hunger just subsides and becomes pretty insignificant. I guess your body just accepts that you won't be consuming any calories and stops rebelling against it!

[paprad]

That is my guess at what makes ESE different - zero calories with no exceptions while you are fasting.

Yes, I think so too. Which is why I was reluctant to give into my fantasy of low-carb cucumber meal when I was fasting. The theory says somewhere that the fat burning kicks into action only ater 18 hours - so I suppose any food eaten during the fast, even if only a small bit, will not allow this to happen.

[paprad]

For those interested, here are a couple more links

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/20 ... ng-part-1/

and

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/20 ... ng-part-2/

This 2 part article begins discussing benefits of IF enthusiastically and then flipflops and concludes that

It’s looking like the intermittent fast is another of those ideas in science that looks good in animal studies then not so good in human studies, proving once again that rats and mice aren’t simply furry little humans. And it appears – for humans, at least – that the intermittent fast is indeed beginning to look like the reality of a late-night gimmicky infomercial: long on promises, short on delivery. I suspect that it is also a cautionary tale about the applicability of caloric restriction studies to humans

[OT]

Just an update-I am experimenting with a 36 hr fast today.I know it's not really recommended in ESE but I often find that after a 24hr fast I don't actually want to eat dinner,so I decided to take advantage of that and extend the fast until breakfast the following day.

If this works well for me I will just do one 36 hr fast per week rather than two 24hr fasts. I know not having dinner can interfere with one's social life but I am hoping that this will be balanced out by the fact that I would only be fasting once a week,which would give me even more flexibility.

So anyway, I went out for a lovely Tapas dinner last night and had my last bite of food around 9pm. It's 11am now, and I am fasting as normal. I am planning on doing a quick gym session after work tonight as per usual and I also have football practice in the evening which usually keeps my mind off food. I won't get home till about 10pm so I will go straight to bed and have breakfast at 5.30am as per usual.

I will let you know how it goes for me!

[Kathleen]

paprad,
Thanks for the links! I think there is something to this, but I don't yet know what. I am reminded of when my now 10th grade daughter got a D+ as a midquarter grade in math when she was in 5th grade. She was really upset. Ever since then, I've worked on having our kids understand the value of resiliency. It seems to me that intermittent fasting teaches resiliency.
Kathleen

[Graham]

This 2 part article begins discussing benefits of IF enthusiastically and then flipflops and concludes that

It’s looking like the intermittent fast is another of those ideas in science that looks good in animal studies then not so good in human studies, proving once again that rats and mice aren’t simply furry little humans. And it appears – for humans, at least – that the intermittent fast is indeed beginning to look like the reality of a late-night gimmicky infomercial: long on promises, short on delivery. I suspect that it is also a cautionary tale about the applicability of caloric restriction studies to humans

Interesting - certainly has to be weighed in the balance along with other, more positive takes on IF.

The one thing I was struck by in both the studies referred to is that both of them maintained the same caloric intake even on a one-meal-a-day regime. I understand that other regular followers of such a system - Bert Herring who devised Fast5 for example - find that they naturally reduce their overall calorie consumption when they only eat within a limited eating window, so I'm wondering what made these experimental subjects behave differently, and if that has some bearing on the negative findings

So many things occur to me to wonder about the attitude of the subjects and the researchers - IF is potentially very damaging to many vested interests who wouldn't be averse to funding research to discourage it.

And, as Oolala53 says, in the end, you monitor what happens when you carry out your own experiments, very much in the No S tradition. This article seems to suggest that IF just won't work - and, so far as I can tell, there are plenty of people on this board who can attest that it does.

[paprad]

.....IF is potentially very damaging to many vested interests who wouldn't be averse to funding research to discourage it.

True, Pilon says somewhere that if you do a meta-analysis of all research studies and check who's funding what - you get a healthy skepticism of the findings.

[paprad]

OT - one doubt I had re Eat Stop Eat. It's basically a 24 hour fast, as I figure it - you can determine the start and stop time based on convenience. Does it also mean that on the "eat" days, you eat less meals? One one blog, I think that of Eades', it says you can eat dinner on one day and Breakfast-Lunch on the other day.
Meaning
Day 1 - Breakfast, Lunch. Eat till 6, but no dinner
Day 2- No Breakfast, No lunch. Yes Dinner.

Is that what you did? Or did you have ALL 3 meals on the eat day and then go without food for 24 hours. And is there any difference anyway - meaning, does it work because of the 24 hour fast, or does it require caloric restriction even on the eat days?

I think I did a google-overload, now I read so much I am getting confused with all the different theories.

[OT]

OT - one doubt I had re Eat Stop Eat. It's basically a 24 hour fast, as I figure it - you can determine the start and stop time based on convenience. Does it also mean that on the "eat" days, you eat less meals? One one blog, I think that of Eades', it says you can eat dinner on one day and Breakfast-Lunch on the other day.
Meaning
Day 1 - Breakfast, Lunch. Eat till 6, but no dinner
Day 2- No Breakfast, No lunch. Yes Dinner.

Is that what you did? Or did you have ALL 3 meals on the eat day and then go without food for 24 hours. And is there any difference anyway - meaning, does it work because of the 24 hour fast, or does it require caloric restriction even on the eat days?

I think I did a google-overload, now I read so much I am getting confused with all the different theories.

Yep I think you are over-analysing it Paprad!It doesn't matter what meals you eat-as long as there is a 24 hour period when you consume zero calories. That period begins once you have consumed the last bite of food of whichever meal it was you were eating and the period finishes as soon as you consume the first bite of food of whichever meal you are having 24 hrs later. Since on No S you only eat breakfast,lunch and dinner with no snacks in between you would always fast either from breakfast till breakfast,lunch till lunch or dinner till dinner, so you eat BOTH of those meals on BOTH days. This would prob be a 22-23 hours fast if you eat your meals at exactly the same time every day since you are going from the END of one meal to the BEGINNING of the next meal and you will prob take about an hour eating. This is what I do for one 24hr fasting cycle:

Day 1 Eat breakfast 5.30am,eat lunch 12pm,start eating dinner at 7pm.Finish dinner 8pm.No more calories consumed after 8pm.
Day 2 No breakfast,no lunch. Start eating dinner at 7pm as usual-fast broken after 23 hrs.

The above is an ESE type fast.However I have been experimenting with extending the fast to 33-36 hrs which looks like this:

Day 1 Eat breakfast 5.30am,eat lunch 12pm,start eating dinner at 7pm.Finish dinner 8pm.No more calories consumed after 8pm.
Day 2 No breakfast,no lunch,no dinner.Zero calories consumed all day.
Day 3 Eat breakfast 5.30 am. Fast broken after 33.5 hours.

I tried this second approach recently and it has worked amazingly well-I will report on this in another post!

[paprad]

Thanks OT. Look forward to hearing how your 36 hour fast worked out

[OT]

My 36 hr fast went great!Well it was more like 34 hours actually.

Usually I find that the last 2-3 hrs of a 24 hour fast are the most difficult-I can't seem to stop thinking about dinner which makes me hungry! But yesterday was different-there was something about knowing that I wasn't going to eat ALL day that resulted in a total psychological detachment from food. I was not remotely hungry all day and even when I went to bed about 27hrs into the fast.I was feeling very awake and energetic at 11pm and that was after a 2hr gym workout as well!

Now the downside-I couldn't sleep because of all this energy I had! Kept waking up during the night.I am hoping in time my body will adjust to that though.I finally woke up around 5am,bit earlier than normal. Felt quite hungry by then and was definitely ready for breakfast.Had my usual optimised oatmeal and a few slices of chicken around 5.30am then hit the gym before work. Had a really good workout .Feeling pretty good now but not much different to how I normally feel after a fast.It was pretty easy really!

I am def going to switch to just one 36 hr fast a week (dinner until breakfast 36 hrs later) instead of two 24hr fasts.Just need to find a way of fitting it into my life since it means skipping dinner once a week which my family will frown upon!

[paprad]

I did my second 24 hour fast - and OT is right, the last 2 hours were the worst, I was practically drooling just visualizing my dinner.

I read this interview : http://avidityfitness.net/2008/01/12/in ... n-berkhan/

This is a routine which recommends a daily fast and a smaller eating window - interestingly he recommends a different range for women :

Men can do 16 hours quite easily, not so with women; for them, 14 hours is the sweet spot.

It occured to me that 14 hours is not a big deal really. If I have dinner by 7:30 pm, I'd have fasted 14 hours by 9:30 the next day - and I wouldn't have counted that as fasting in the first place - so can this really work? It wouldn't be too difficult to skip breakfasts each day and eat only between lunch at say, 1pm and dinner at 7 - I could do that for a fairly longish period, but what about the "brekker is important" principle? is that also a myth then?

It occurs to me that this would not be very different from the old adage of eating dinner really early. For those who do that (and can eat breakfast a little later), there would be automatic fasting of 15 hours then.

[OT]

Paprad,

I think ultimately if you are going to adopt intermittent fasting in the long term you need to experiment and find something that works for you personally. If you are not a breakfast eater anyway and 24 hr fasts are too long for you and/or don't fit in with your lifestyle then go ahead and do the 14-16 hr daily fasts instead.

I think in terms of calorie deficit created, two 14 hr fasts would be more or less equivalent to a 24 hr fast (assuming your lunch isn't twice as big as usual after a fast!).BUT....

Fasting has other benefits besides being an easy way to create a calorie deficit.And I am not even talking about the numerous health benefits.Or the fact that real fat burning occurs about 18 hrs into the fast.I am talking about changing your attitude to food and helping you break that psychological bond which we all have with food. And I firmly believe that this can only be achieved by incorporating longer fasting periods into your lifestyle.For me personally,even 24 hrs wasn't enough. Even after 4 months of incorporating 2 x 24 hr fasts per week into my lifestyle I knew I still wasn't free from food obsession.When I finished my last bite of food before a fast I pretty much started a countdown to when I could eat again,24hrs later.I realised that this was not the right mentality-one's life should not revolve around food like that!

It wasn't until recently,when I started experimenting with 30-36hr fasts that I began to psychologically detach myself from food.I had dinner an hour ago and I will now be fasting for about 34 hours until breakfast on friday morning.I know that I won't be eating AT ALL tomorrow and you know what?I am not bothered!I am actually looking forward to it.The freedom from food and the great energy levels!I think I am finally beginning to see food for what it is-fuel for your body and a great pleasure of course,but not a fixation or something I should obsess over. There is simply more to life than food. It just took a few 36 hr fasts to completely transform my outlook on things.

Now I am not saying that fasting is not beneficial unless you do it for longer than 30 hrs-I am sure everyone's experience will be different.It's just something to ponder.I hope you find something that works for you-fasting has certainly changed my life!

[wosnes]

but what about the "brekker is important" principle? is that also a myth then?

I've never found breakfast to be an important meal. It's considered the least important meal in some other areas of the world (throughout the Mediterranean, for example).

I've found that the more substantial my breakfast is, the more likely I am to want to overeat and/or snack the rest of the day. I'm much better off not eating breakfast or eating something very light.

I've briefly considered that the "breakfast is the most important meal" was created by those who stand to benefit from us buying and eating more breakfast type foods! I'm probably wrong about that, but I've certainly considered it!

[paprad]

Paprad,
It wasn't until recently,when I started experimenting with 30-36hr fasts that I began to psychologically detach myself from food.

OT, thanks - your experiences are inspiring. I am definitely far from detachment - but interestingly, I found that my brief fasting experience has helped me at least show myself that I can stay away from food for fairly long periods. I did get that empty "i need sustenance, NOW" feeling around 2 pm yesterday, some 19 hours into the fast - perhaps it was the "fat burn" happening that caused the effect? Or maybe that's too maginative and fat burn doesn't create any such sensation! When I started NoS I was worried about how to stay away from snacks - and in the old days (= last month!) I would have had a post dinner snack, a breakfast, a mid morning snack and a lunch by 2 pm. So at least this has shown me that I am not as dependant on food as I thought I was. I am a far cry from being able to workout during a fast though - I felt tired and not peppy, so maybe it will take a few more fasts to get used to the sensation.

[paprad]

.. found that the more substantial my breakfast is, the more likely I am to want to overeat and/or snack the rest of the day. I'm much better off not eating breakfast or eating something very light.

That's true for me as well. Also when I peer into the dim and distant past when I was very slim and energetic, I recall that I would bounce into the day with just a coffee and nothing to eat because "eating so early made me feel sick" - how and when that segued into a heavy breakfast, I have no idea - I think it was after marriage when I stopped eating as my body felt I should,and began a more regular meals routine.

[Graham]

but what about the "brekker is important" principle? is that also a myth then?

I've never found breakfast to be an important meal. It's considered the least important meal in some other areas of the world (throughout the Mediterranean, for example).

I've found that the more substantial my breakfast is, the more likely I am to want to overeat and/or snack the rest of the day. I'm much better off not eating breakfast or eating something very light.

I wonder if this might be yet another of those male/female differences? I ask that as my experience is at least sometimes the direct opposite. I feel a substantial breakfast sets me up for the day, and takes the pressure off lunch and dinner.

I once made the mistake of skimping on breakfast and found sticking to No S rules for lunch and dinner was very difficult, and even after eating I still felt hungry.

Isn't it also true that, if you eat a substantial evening meal, you won't have had enough time to work up a decent appetite by breakfast time? I've certainly read the recommendation to reduce the evening meal if you want to enjoy breakfast.

[paprad]

Isn't it also true that, if you eat a substantial evening meal, you won't have had enough time to work up a decent appetite by breakfast time? I've certainly read the recommendation to reduce the evening meal if you want to enjoy breakfast.

Yes, the "eat like a pauper" thing. also the advice to eat dinner early - I thought there were studies showing that timing of food made no difference to fat/weight, but the logic of intermittent fasting would argue that it does matter if a long enough break between meals can be engineered. I mean, a really early dinner and a latish breakfast, would allow a 14 hour fast between meals which is supposed to work - though as OT pointed out, fat burn is supposed to kick in only after 18 hours. I guess, as OT suggests, we try our own little experiments and see what works for each of us.

<deleted question on how many meals are okay on NoS - R has answered it elsewhere>

[OT]

What I have learnt from intermittent fasting is that hunger means absolutely nothing-it's a very primitive instinct and you can't use it as a guide to tell you when and how much you should eat. You daily calorie needs are determined by your BMR and activity levels-so if you need 2000 calories a day,it doesn't matter if you consume those calories in 2 meals or 10 meals or whether you eat breakfast or not.

So if I need 2000 calories per day and I know I am purposely skipping breakfast and lunch in order to create say a 1200 calorie deficit then I know I should eat about 800 calories at dinner in order to create that deficit over 24 hrs.I wouldnt eat a 2000 calorie dinner because I am extra hungry after a fast,even though I know I COULD definitely eat that much if I allowed myself to. You just can't let hunger dictate how much you should be eating-know what your goals are and your body will learn to adapt to whatever you want it to adapt to!

[Graham]

What I have learnt from intermittent fasting is that hunger means absolutely nothing-it's a very primitive instinct and you can't use it as a guide to tell you when and how much you should eat. You daily calorie needs are determined by your BMR and activity levels-so if you need 2000 calories a day,it doesn't matter if you consume those calories in 2 meals or 10 meals or whether you eat breakfast or not.

I think having breakfast may increase BMR in some people, hence the feeling of greater appetite.

Long studies of lab rats (and I know we aren't lab rats) indicate that, providing their food is relatively plain yet adequately nutritious, rats don't have an obesity problem. They regulate their own intake, by their sense of hunger presumably, encountering no obesity problems till they are switched to the "cafeteria" diet - higher in fatty and sweet items - only then do they gain excess weight.

From this one might conclude that their hunger wasn't faulty so much as not designed to cope with the kind of food items it was confronted with.

Is there any reason in principle why the same should not apply to humans? There was a study I read many years ago about spontaneous food choices in children, demonstrating they could voluntarily select a balanced diet - provided they hadn't been consuming sugar. Sugar consumption seemed to disrupt the ability to choose food by instinct.

The reality for most affluent adults is that we probably have corrupted instincts, and certainly regularly encounter foods so appetising that we are tempted to eat beyond our maintenance needs:hence the need for No S, IF or other strategies to deal with the excess.

[BrightAngel]

What I have learnt from intermittent fasting is that hunger means absolutely nothing
-it's a very primitive instinct and you can't use it as a guide to tell you when and how much you should eat.

You can't let hunger dictate how much you should be eating
-know what your goals are
and your body will learn to adapt to whatever you want it to adapt to!

I have also learned this for myself,
and I agree with the quoted statement.

[wosnes]

I wonder if this might be yet another of those male/female differences?

Not according to my ex-husband's behavior. He was even less likely to eat breakfast than I was. Black coffee only for him.

I think all the studies are pretty much poppycock.

I just did some research on typical breakfasts around the world. They vary quite a bit, but over 50% have just coffee and bread. What I found interesting is that nowadays the populations who eat more substantial breakfasts are also those struggling with weight and also health.

In Europe and the Mediterranean the standard breakfast is, and has been for centuries, some form of coffee (or tea) and bread. That bread can be closer to a pastry or a whole grain bread. This started in the Middle Ages, probably with influence from the Church. Little to no breakfast, a substantial lunch and small dinner.

One writer from Greece said that breakfast was typically coffee, coffee, and more coffee. Later in the morning some bread or pastry might be consumed. He'd been to the US and couldn't get used to the huge breakfasts here.

A writer from Italy said this:

An Italian breakfast is frugal: It usually consists of coffee or coffee and milk with a Cornetto (or if you are eating it at home cookies) Over and over, they tell me in the U.S. that this type of breakfast is unhealthy and that you should eat a decent sized energy breakfast to start out your day.

This has some truth in it. Maybe seventy years ago when people would go working the fields, right after breakfast a nutritious breakfast was vital. Nowadays, if we go sit down in an office for a continuous eight hours, we may think twice about letting all the fat from that energy breakfast get comfortable around our waist. The goal is to limit our calorie intake.

In the United States, I have witness people consuming potatoes with tomato sauce or eggs and steak for breakfast. A high fat breakfast is different than a high energy breakfast. Fat makes your body slow down, takes longer to digest, and fogs the mind. Grains give high energy without all the fat and mind fogging. Each of us uses a certain quantity of calories to stay alive, to regulate body temperature, and to assist in involuntary movements essential for living: like breathing). If we take in more calories than are burned throughout the day, these calories transform themselves into fat.

From what I can tell from the reading I've done over the years, seventy years ago the typical breakfast was still coffee and bread.

I feel best with little to no breakfast --"lighter" and more energetic. Occasionally my stomach will growl or I'll feel a little nauseated. What I've found is that the feeling passes and I feel fine. If I eat, especially a more substantial breakfast, I feel worse plus I want to eat all day.

[sheepish]

Regarding breakfast, my anecdotal experience is that people roughly divide into two categories - those who eat less across the course of the day if they eat breakfast and find that it "sets them up for the day" and those who eat more if they eat breakfast and find that breakfast just wakes up their appetite. Generally, I think the former type of person is more likely to be able to lose weight through exercise and the latter type needs to adjust their diet as well as/instead of exercise to do so. To some extent, also, I think it correlates to being a morning person/not being a morning person - morning people liking breakfast more.

[wosnes]

To some extent, also, I think it correlates to being a morning person/not being a morning person - morning people liking breakfast more.

I'm definitely a non-breakfast eating morning person. Even though I don't work any longer, I'm always up at 6 and often earlier.

[kccc]

Regarding breakfast, my anecdotal experience is that people roughly divide into two categories - those who eat less across the course of the day if they eat breakfast and find that it "sets them up for the day" and those who eat more if they eat breakfast and find that breakfast just wakes up their appetite. Generally, I think the former type of person is more likely to be able to lose weight through exercise and the latter type needs to adjust their diet as well as/instead of exercise to do so. To some extent, also, I think it correlates to being a morning person/not being a morning person - morning people liking breakfast more.

Hmm...I'm a morning person and a breakfast eater. So, you may be right. I agree that there tend to be two groups with respect to breakfast.

But sometimes I wonder if it's just what you train your body to do. I eat dinner around 6-7PM, and stay up until 10-11, then get up at 6AM. By the time I hit my breakfast time (8:30), I am SO ready for it! but it's been about 12 hours since I've eaten solid food by then. (I do have coffee with milk earlier.)

[OT]

I love breakfast-I have my oatmeal every morning except on the mornings I am fasting of course.
When I am fasting I usually have my last meal in the evening and then I don't eat at all the following day-I hardly feel any hunger during the day because my body has now adapted to it. I do this once or twice a week.
On a normal day when I am not fasting I have my beefed up optimised oatmeal for breakfast at 5am before my gym workout at 6am. Before I discovered intermittent fasting, I had exactly the same routine and consumed the same breakfast as I do now but I always used to get hungry about 3 hours after breakfast.However now that my body is used to going 30-36 hours without food this is no longer a problem.If I have breakfast at 5am on a non fasting day I usually dont feel any hunger until lunch which is usually at 12pm.This just shows that hunger means nothing-my breakfast is still the same as it was before I started doing intermittent fasting.And I have always worked out in the mornings and had breakfast at 5am.However,now that my body has been conditioned to go without food for long periods of time I have no problem with hunger between meals.I eat when it's time to eat-I am in control of my body and any mild signals of hunger I may get when it's NOT a designated time to eat simply get ignored.No problems.

[Kathleen]

OT --
I think that the result of intermittent fasting may well be that you don't worry so much about a delayed meal. On Saturday, we were camping, I had forgotten to defrost the chili I had made prior to leaving, and my husband was grumpy when dinner was served at 7:30 PM. It didn't affect me at all. I am going to try one 24 hour fast on Fridays for a time to see what happens. It was great to read your post because you are saying from experience what I am speculating with only two days of fasting behind me.
Kathleen

[paprad]

I think that the result of intermittent fasting may well be that you don't worry so much about a delayed meal.

Yes, i also felt that way. I had a longish break today between brekker and lunch and usually I would've had massive pangs - I did feel hungry but having done without food for 24 hours earlier this week, I felt quite okay about the extra couple of hours it would take before I could get to food.

[blue]

I just started exploring fasting. Im very interested in the health benifits and possible skin cleaing. I haven't quite made 24 hours but made 20 hours and my skin actually looked a wee bit better.(rashes/acne ect...)Im going to do one on sat night6pm to sunday night730pm. Im afraid to do them while i work because I need my memory for my job. Ive heard some people think clearer. That would be nice.

[Graham]

I wonder if this might be yet another of those male/female differences?

Not according to my ex-husband's behavior. He was even less likely to eat breakfast than I was. Black coffee only for him.

OK, one good example to negate my theory. I wonder - was your husband a smoker, and are you? I ask as smoking is one of many variables that affects when and how we experience the need for food

I think all the studies are pretty much poppycock..

I was a bit puzzled by this - was it to address my mention of studies in an earlier post? It sounds a touch defensive and I am certainly not intending to attack you or your views - only to say that for some people, me and other men I know, breakfast is important to us, and I really don't see why you have a problem with me saying so.

As for the studies on diet and nutrition - the biggest problem with it in the UK is poor media reporting. Thoughtful but narrowly focused work gets turned by journalists into sweeping generalisations for easy public consumption, distorting what has been found and making the science appear nonsensical and contradictory - but blame the media for that, not the studies themselves.

And then there's the "typical breakfast" - I talked to the first two foreigners I could lay my hands on - one German, one Pakistani - both said big breakfasts were the norm in their countries. I note the specific examples you cite are from Southern Europe - and I'm wondering how much the warmer climate plays a part in what and when they choose to eat (and the relative rarity of air-conditioning)

So we could hit each other over the head with anecdotes all day long, but surely the point is we aren't all the same, and that doesn't need justifying does it?

Regards, Graham

[Cassie]

I just read through this whole thread & I find it interesting. I've never myself thought of fasting as an option. I suppose I'm too attached to my 3-meals-a-day mentality... it slightly panicks me (but also intrigues me) to think that it would be possible to go for a whole day without eating. I wonder why I panic at the idea...perhaps it's because I think it'll inevitably lead to binging. Perhaps I can try (as an experiment) skipping one meal to see how that goes?

Having said that. My partner who is a very thin man & never ever had issues with weight, does, completely naturally, skip meals, and this is on a regular basis. He is not a breakfast eater, has nothing until lunch time at which point he'll usually just have bread & yoghurt. Sometimes he completely skips lunch too. And then he has his one regular, big meal of the day (dinner). I don't believe in anecdotes & that's not why I'm writing about him. Just to show that for some people fasting is a completely normal part of their day, without even having a theory about it / putting much thought into it. He's certainly not obsessed about mealtimes, what to eat etc, whereas I am always thinking 'what will I cook/eat at next meal'. I suppose fasting might help in trying to cut down the food obsession? I just wonder whether potentially it could increase it, though...

[paprad]

I must add that my 2 rounds of 24 hour fasting and nearly a month of NoS (admittedly, with many reds, but also many greens) has done nothign to shake my weight - sigh. I read that fasting would help bring down at least 1/2 pound of fat loss per week - and I was careful not to binge in my post-fast period. Sigh, sigh. Need to be more patient, I guess.

[Graham]

2 rounds of 24 hour fasting and nearly a month of NoS (admittedly, with many reds, but also many greens) has done nothign to shake my weight - sigh. I was careful not to binge in my post-fast period.

Paprad, this sounds very unfortunate: I'm very intrigued by what you say. Did you lose weight following the fast but then put it back on, or are you saying you didn't lose any weight during the fast? Did your level of physical activity remain the same? I find it hard to understand how no weight was lost.

[paprad]

Paprad, this sounds very unfortunate: I'm very intrigued by what you say. Did you lose weight following the fast but then put it back on, or are you saying you didn't lose any weight during the fast? Did your level of physical activity remain the same? I find it hard to understand how no weight was lost.

I didn't do much workout during the fast days - I didn't feel energetic, but my weekly level of exercise has actually gone up slightly during the last month. I didn't weigh myself just after the fast because I was told most of it would be water-loss anyway, so I did a weekly weigh in - it was completely flat. My husband says I have this extraordinarly efficient body which adapts seamlessly to less food - that's the metabolic thermostat theory that I was hoping to bust with the fasting.

[vmelo]

For the past week or so, I've been doing a modified version of No-S in which I eat only two meals a day---brunch (or lunch) and dinner. Oddly enough, I'm finding this easier to do than eating three meals a day. I think these are the reasons:

1) While I never could stick to intuitive eating for more than a few days, on my couple of attempts at it, I noticed that I truly get hungry twice a day. So, I'm using that knowledge now to plan to eat only twice a day. I noticed that on the first couple of days, I was hungry for breakfast, but on day three or so, I wasn't. I firmly believe that we can train our bodies so that if we eat three times a day, we get hungry three times a day. If we eat twice a day, our body eventually adjusts to getting hungry twice a day. (I realize extreme situations will nullify this theory).

2) I LIKE the feeling of hunger I feel before I eat. It makes the food taste better

3) Even if I feel as I COULD gorge, I get full more quickly, so I haven't been gorging at mealtime. When I started this, I gave myself permission to eat bigger meals. That was something to look forward to. After a couple of days, though, I found myself basically having normal-sized meals because I got full faster. Prior to this week, my hunger signals were nonexistent because I was usually never really hungry when I ate, so I just kept eating something because it tasted good. But by eating two meals a day, I'm more in tune with the feeling of hunger & fullness and can more easily recognize the latter.

For this weekend, I decided to follow the no-S principle of being a bit looser with my eating. I haven't gorged at all, though. As a matter of fact, although I've eaten sweets, I haven't snacked, and I have realized that I enjoy my meals so much more when I don't snack.

So, I'll see how it goes, but I'm really excited about this modification to No.S. I am SO burnt out on any sort of regimented eating, but this seems so easy to me.

[Cassie]

Just want to make a note- and correct me if I'm wrong- that combining fasting with NoS is not recommended for the first stages of NoS. I just have in mind KKCC's wonderful sticky post about the phases of NoS. I myself am still struggling with establishing N days (after a year doing NoS...don't ask ) so I'm very very reluctant to even think of adjusting things as radically as adding fasts.

[OT]

Just want to make a note- and correct me if I'm wrong- that combining fasting with NoS is not recommended for the first stages of NoS. I just have in mind KKCC's wonderful sticky post about the phases of NoS. I myself am still struggling with establishing N days (after a year doing NoS...don't ask ) so I'm very very reluctant to even think of adjusting things as radically as adding fasts.

Absolutely. I know I advocate intermittent fasting,however it is essential to establish good basic eating habits before implementing fasting into your lifestyle. Fasting simply won't work if someone continues to binge eat and exercise no portion control whatsoever on non fasting days. This is why intermittent fasting works so well when COMBINED with No S.

[OT]

Paprad, this sounds very unfortunate: I'm very intrigued by what you say. Did you lose weight following the fast but then put it back on, or are you saying you didn't lose any weight during the fast? Did your level of physical activity remain the same? I find it hard to understand how no weight was lost.

I didn't do much workout during the fast days - I didn't feel energetic, but my weekly level of exercise has actually gone up slightly during the last month. I didn't weigh myself just after the fast because I was told most of it would be water-loss anyway, so I did a weekly weigh in - it was completely flat. My husband says I have this extraordinarly efficient body which adapts seamlessly to less food - that's the metabolic thermostat theory that I was hoping to bust with the fasting.

Paprad,

Don't give up-you will lose weight eventually. Focus on other benefits of fasting-freedom from food addiction, getting in touch with your body's signals, mental clarity,learning to deal with hunger between meals etc.Plus numerous other health benefits which I am sure you have already read up on.

As for exercise-I find that I have my best workouts in a fasted state,usually about 20 hrs into a fast. If I feel a bit lethargic during the day a burst of exercise does wonders to boost my energy. It's just a case of getting over the first few minutes usually-once you get past that you will feel great! It's just a case of getting over a mental block I think.

As an experiment, try doing 5 mins of moderate intensity bodyweight exercises like push ups and squat thrusts on a fasting day when you feel the MOST tired. If you do start to feel dizzy or whatever you can always stop!

[paprad]

Don't give up..

As an experiment, try doing 5 mins of moderate intensity bodyweight exercises like push ups and squat thrusts on a fasting day when you feel the MOST tired. If you do start to feel dizzy or whatever you can always stop!

OT - thanks so much for your words of encouragement. I am mildly disappointed at not losing weight (the rational voice at the back of me head tells me it would be unreasonable to expect magic so quickly) - and I do plan to give it a go this week. I am not sure if I have the will to do 2 fasts this week but maybe I can give it a go. As you suggested, I will try doing some mild strength training during the fast : a question here - do you feel your workouts during a fasted state have a different effect on the body? I mean, does fasting-workout result in greater fat burning?

[OT]

Why don’t you just ease into it and stick to one fast per week for the time being? Sounds like you are having a hard time doing it twice a week-just make sure you don’t overdo it and give up completely! Please stick with it, you will learn to love it. Fasting shouldn’t feel like a punishment-I actually look forward to my fasting days.I love the energy I have,the mental clarity and feeling totally in control of my body.

With regard to the effectiveness of the short bursts of exercise when you feel tired-I am not talking about a proper exercise session here,just a quick bit of activity to give you an energy boost when you need it, 2-5 min, that’s all it takes. It’s not so much the strength training via push ups etc that gives you this energy boost-the brief burst of exercise just has to be intense enough to raise your heart rate quite a bit. Something to get the blood flowing when you feel lethargic. It can be just jumping on the spot. Do this a few times throughout the day when you are fasting and you will feel great, I promise!

With regard to your normal workouts- I am not sure what does and doesn’t result in greater fat burning to be honest. I know I certainly have more energy and generally feel lighter when I workout in a fasted state. I tend to do short duration, high intensity workouts-interval training, sprints, bodyweight circuits with plyometrics, dumbbell supersets/circuits etc. I don’t do any endurance type activities (i.e. any cardio type activity lasting longer than 20mins). This approach has worked very well for me.

The theory is that when you workout in a fasted state you will burn a higher proportion of calories from fat because your glucogen levels will already be depleted to some extent so your body will switch to burning fat quicker. However I think this depends on many other factors such as exercise intensity, type of exercise (aerobic or anaerobic), exercise duration etc. And of course, the individual. I think in the end it just comes down to calories in vs calories out-what matters is the total number of calories you burn during a workout. Having said that, don’t forget that you are using fasting to create the calorie deficit in your diet-your workouts should focus on building muscle and general fitness so don’t worry about the number of calories you burn during a workout! Dieting is for fat loss and workouts are for building muscle,fitness and a nice physique!

[paprad]

OT, once again, much thanks. I really appreciate your taking the trouble to share your experiences and your understanding of the fasting system.

So far I have done only one fast a week, so, yes, I do plan to ease into it. I didn't find the 24 hour fast awful, but neither was it a breeze, so that's why I doubt I'd be able to transition to 2 fasts a week, even though I suspect I will see some results only then. Re exercise during fasting - thanks for the tips, I will give it a shot this week - I think it's more psychological, the barrier in my mind on those days - almost as if I deserve to take it easy and my body shouldn't get taxed any more, heh!

[OT]

You are most welcome Paprad-I am glad you find my two cents helpful!

Practicing fasting IS amazing, on SO many levels-unfortunately there is a period of adaptation which varies from person to person and can be very uncomfortable-everyone's experience will be different. You can't fast(no pun intended!) forward this process,you just have to persevere I am afraid. But it will be worth it in the end and it DOES get so much easier.It's taken me about 6 months to get to the stage where I actually enjoy fasting and even look forward to it. You will get there too I am sure. Just be patient and don't overdo it. Best of luck-if you ever need any advice just ask! I am determined to convert everyone (and I am not getting any royalties off Brad Pilon and co,I promise!)

[paprad]

OT - from what I read, intermittent fasting could either be the 24 hour (or 36 hour) fasts that you do - or alternately, there could be a compressed eating window in which one fasts for say 18 hours and eats meals within 6 hours - I figure there are pros and cons for both types - what drew you to the first type? I guess, for me, it would be easier to go without food for one day, than change my eating habits for all days.

[OT]

I started out with 16-18 hr fasts 3-5 times a week actually,just to get used to going without food for a long period of time.I would basically just have dinner,then skip breakfast and then have lunch most days of the week. I just found this to be too restrictive and regimented. I don't believe fasting is intermittent if it's done daily as in Fast 5 or leangains.But I appreciate that this approach works for some people.And it might be a good way to adapt to fasting gradually.

I think fasting 16-18 hrs a day is a bit of a wasted effort to be honest-it actually starts to get easier after 18 hrs!Possibly because you switch to burning fat around that sort of time. In fact,I find that the most difficult part of the fast is trying to stop thinking about food after dinner and not being able to have my tea with milk that evening! And if I do get hunger pangs during the fast they normally occur about 12-15 hrs into the fast.So By the time I get to 24 hrs the hunger has completely disappeared and food is the last thing on my mind.So I decided to take advantage of that and extend the fasts to 36ish hrs.

[sbimka]

That's true - I feel hungry today, am on vanilla NoS and I find myself needing to exert more control on myself than I did yesterday while fasting. I felt empty yesterday and I did notice meal times - but I found it easier to keep away from all food than I do keeping away from just some.

Something unrelated that may help shed some insight. 12 years ago I quit smoking cigarettes. It was on my first try. Because I was so nervous about it, I decided to do a trial month whereby I would reduce my smoking to 1 cigarette every 2 hours. I wanted to see how I would do and how my body would react. After that trial, I would go cold turkey! I did exactly that. What was interesting is that reducing my smoking to once every 2 hours was much more difficult than quitting all together. I would look forward to that cigarette like clockwork...I constantly thought about the next one. My life revolved around that 2 hour cycle. When I quit cold turkey, I felt liberated from that 2 hour cycle. Yes I thought about smoking and the answer was always NO, and I would move on. The thinking about that cigarette became less and less often.

How does this relate to food and dieting? There's a similar feel to it. For me it seems related to the addictive feeling I have about food just like my addiction to cigarettes. I am constantly tied to it. I may shorten the leash but the leash is there. I am new to No S and I am hoping that over time I will learn to relax that leash so that I can let go and trust myself. 12 years and I am not afraid of cigarettes. Its still a NO. I think it will take me a long time to feel freer around food without feeling addictive. At AA meetings which I went to for another addiction, they say once an addict, always an addict. It is who you are. Personally I feel that this is true. Not good, not bad just who I am. A recognition.