mrsmole's Journal, 08 Sep 14

When I was doing well last spring I had started 8/16 IF and loved it. Ate breakfast at 10 AM and finished dinner by 6 PM. I just "learned" not to be hungry during the hours I wasn't scheduled to eat. BTW - started back on it today. Can't wait to get rid of this spare tire.  

I almost never eat before 11, and eat dinner 6-7. That's been working for me. 

I've been doing some sort of IF for about 3 years now. I didn't even realize I was doing it because I just got into the habit of delaying my first meal of the day to give my digestive system a much needed rest and more time to heal from the onslaught of food allergies/sensitivities I was experiencing and was only eating during a 4-hour window. It really helped me a lot! There's also an interesting documentary on the benefits of fasting that aired on PBS called, "Eat, Fast and Live Longer" from Dr. Michael Moseley, which also discusses the neuroprotective and cancer-fighting properties of fasting. You should be able to find it online if you're interested.  

So now we have renamed "skipping a meal" and are calling it "intermittent fasting"..... Is that like how we now call a second mortgage a home equity loan, and used car is a previously titled automobile? Years have gone by with every doctor on the planet telling us to not skip meals. Now we call it "intermittent fasting" and suddenly it's okay. I know a lot of people down in the hood who fast more than intermittently. A lot of them live under bridges in discarded appliance boxes too, but they "intermittently fast" every day until someone going past tosses them some food. I think we need to rename exercise as "supplemental energy expenditure" just to see if it gets more people who are interested in being in on the latest trend to get off their asses and take a walk after their 4000 calorie dinner. Man, this obsession with getting a lower number on a scale.... See if your doctor will amputate one of your legs! You can lose like 30 pounds in a day that way! HEALTH, people, NOT weight! HEALTH! Slowly and safely lose those pounds. 

IF isn't about "skipping a meal". I consume the same amount of food as I would if I ate breakfast, but instead, I eat all of my food in a condensed period of time. Actually, there is serious science to now support many HEALTHY reasons to engage in various forms of fasting. The way I eat has very little to do with the scale and has everything about managing chronic disease. I have reversed and completely eliminated a serious and potentially life-threatening auto-immune disease with the way I eat. Weight loss is not my primary goal. Please take a look at the mounting scientific evidence before you suggest people aren't acting responsibly in regards their health. The doctor's advice about never skipping breakfast is outdated. It's important to stay abreast of the current body of research if you want to dish out advice to others. Until someone can speak about the details of studies which have illustrated IF's proven neuroprotective benefits, its up-regulation of neuroprotective proteins, its ability to regulate IGF-1 and IF's effect on tumor suppression, and its ability to accelerate digestive system healing, they shouldn't be so quick to judge.  

Eddie, relax. It's a good thing you and I are good friends or I'm sure that not everyone would understand your angry rants the way I do. :) Yes, things get renamed all the time, and sometimes, it's even a good thing! Remember what we used to call black folks in America? (Yes, I call them blacks, not African Americans since some blacks are from Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean, not Africa, so there). My point is: it's okay to call stuff whatever. A rose by any other name and all that. And yeah, it used to be bad to skip meals, and it may still be for hypoglycemics. Eggs used to be good, then bad, then good again. No one knows anything and things change everyday which is why I do what WORKS FOR ME and to hell with popular opinion and what the medical experts say since they change their minds every 5 minutes. As for the obsession (and sure, let's just got ahead and call it MY OBSESSION) with getting a lower number on the scale...it's friggin IMPORTANT!!! I MUST no longer weigh 200 pounds or I'm going to DIE! Sorry to yell, but can we please look at the reality of what my poor little heart has to haul around every day? I'm not a 130 woman bitching about losing that "last 5 pounds", okay? I'm still considered outright obese for my 5'5" height. Some of us still have to obsess about the blessed scale, and rightly so. If not, we'd be dead. Some of us are obsessed with food and it's our drug of choice. Do I need to talk about addiction? I hope not, because I won't do it here in a comment on my own Journal entry. People will change if and when they are ready. I'm ready. I'm more than halfway there. I want to live more than I want to eat carbs at the moment. That could change, but not today. That's it. Peace out. 

My husband found great success with IF. He only ate between 12pm-7pm, stuffed himself full with healthy choices, chose to drink only water (and a little morning coffee), and lost 30 pounds in just a few months. He was full, energized, and still eating a balanced, healthy diet.  

"Years have gone by with every doctor on the planet telling us to not skip meals." Years have gone by with every doctor on the planet telling us to use trans fats and avoid real fats (oops, then that changed!). Argument from authority just doesn't cut it for those into nutrition who've seen the major mistakes doctors and "experts" have so graciously provided us little people. 

LOL right on Eddie! 

Just depends on what works for you. 

Not hard at all, example say your window of eating is from 9AM to 5 PM then no more solid foods until 9AM the next day, but you can have coffee and tea during those off eating hours. You will have fasted 16 hours. the whole idea is if you aren't hungry, don't eat.  

I go a little over for a 16:8 fast. I eat a banana between 9 &9:30 in the morning and finish eating by 6PM. Then it's water thru the evening and tea in the morning. It works for me. You have to find what works for you. Good luck! . 

C, that is not fasting to me. That is just discipline of not eating outside of 3 meal times per day. When I say fasting I mean people who go a week with only water. You have nay idea the havoc a fast of 5pm to 9am would cause in a diabetic? They may not wake up from their sleep with blood sugars in the 40s. Intermittent fasting as described by people here is nothing more than not snacking. Time for me to have my Strategically Administered Fructose Intervention. Or I used to call it, before everything needed to be official and have stupid, meaningless names, a piece of fruit so my sugars are high enough to sustain me during my 10:30-11:45 workout. Oh, how I love them. Cabin Fever is now SAD. Airheads now had ADD. Moodiness is now Bipolar Disorder.... Shell shock became battle fatigue which became combat stress reaction which became PTSD... nothing changed except some pop psychologist decided to give it a hip name. Hey, feel free to "intermittently fast". I will continue to not eat between meals..... The idea was ALWAYS "if you aren't hungry, don't eat". Do we need a pop culture name "for common sense in your eating habits" for it to be effective? Like most things, my last word on it is ........whatever. 

Re: SAD. For me, not cabin fever, I'm out and going a lot, go to work 5 days a week. I'm the one who brought it up. I'm however very geared to a natural circadian rhythm. In the winter I want to sleep from dusk to dawn. Society including my job says that is not an option. My body and my brain rebels. Since I cannot follow the more primitive but natural sleep pattern I have no energy, I want to hibernate and do nothing. It's created by modern living not meshing with our biological heritage. Someone decided to give it a name. Since we are stuck inside in our jobs whenever the sun is out it also contributes to lower vitamin D levels which makes the body's reaction worse. I also didn't get the intermittent fasting, I thought it was eating every other day or on some other schedule. Definitely wouldn't work at all for diabetics who have to keep blood sugar levels fairly constant, nor would the 16 hour no food schedule. I can't figure out how people do that schedule because I leave for work @6:15 and am not home until sometime between 4:30 and 6:30. I would never have dinner. I guess it works for many, it wouldn't work for me. Bipolar used to be called manic-depressive.  

Whole food, the point is that "SAD" has been there since time began. Did we REALLY need to name it? Was it so some big pharma executive could sell more pills? Bipolar used to be manic depressive is correct. Before that it was just called "moody". Someone once asked if I was moody. My reply was "No. Moody means you are nice part of the time. I am mean." 

PS to Wholefood: You are inside doing your job when the sun is shining in the summer too. And in my case, when I still worked, asleep by 7pm in the recliner.... LOL!! 

Right but I'm outside after work and most weekend days nearly all day. I even drive with my sun roof open unless it's raining or really cold out. Sometimes I'll have the sun roof open with the heat on high just for the sunshine and fresh air. My ac in my car doesn't work. I'm one of those people with a tan and I don't tan or lay in the sun, I do things outside. I shouldn't have a tan, I'll probably end up with skin cancer. In the winter I go to work in the dark and by the time I get home it's dark or getting dark, most people do that in the winter. Sun salutations are my only yoga positions. LOL. Winter in Missouri makes me tired and I dread it every year.  

Eddie, I don't think you are mean. Oh yeah it's strange how things get named that never had one before. Maybe they are trying sell more pills. Don't know. I take my vitamin d in the winter though. It does help me.  

Good for you on the weight loss, MrsMole!  

Congratulations on the weight loss. It's a worthwhile exercise trying to understand our bodies and how they work, then figuring out, through trial and error, what works best. Each one of us is completely different, no one diet fits all! Don't forget that mealtimes is a recent invention, created during the industrial revolution when we started going to work each day. Previously we ate when we found a berry bush, or managed to kill for meat. Plus during the winter months we went for days without eating, resulting in our bodies becoming ketogenic to save our lives. Wondering Mrsmole if your protein count is high, I've just discovered we've got our own setting point re protein? Only a suggestion. Personally I aim for less than 10% carbs, and more than 70% fat each day, putting the figures through the calculator on http://www.flexibleketogenic.com helps me to attain the perfect 2 where I should be in deep ketosis. You're obviously doing great, so do what you think best.