Intermittent Fasting Diet.

symo

Like a lot of road cyclists I have lost a lot of weight. However I am reaching a plateau point in my weight loss. I have just been reading some info on intermittent fasting diets where the diet is restricted to 600 calories twice a week. I need to speak to the missus about reducing my portion sizes a couple of days a week in the evening. I also intend to pop over to Boots to get my fat measured (if possible around Fleet, Camberley, Frimley).

Has anyone else tried this and maintained the weight loss. The idea with getting my fat measured is I can make sure that hopefully it is my body fat that gets reduced.

Other than that I will continue with my riding as normal.

LegendLust

DON"T restrict your calories. You'll end up in all sorts of trouble.

You need to be looking at and researching about fat metabolism - basically changing your body so that it becomes a fat burning machine. If you do this right you won't have to restrict your calorific intake drastically but you will shed the fat.

Forget about 'weight' loss and think more about 'fat' loss. You don't want to be losing muscle mass, unless you have a massive muscly upper body! Get some scales that measure fat % and muscle mass. Although they're not 100% accurate at least you can see if you are losing fat and maintaining/increasing muscle mass.

Herbsman

As you have posted this in the amateur race forum can I safely assume that you're a racing cyclist? IMO taking such drastic measures would be suicide.

How long have you been making an effort to lose weight? What measures have you actually taken to lose weight so far? Why do you want to lose more weight? Do you actually need to?

What is your current diet like? Have you tried improving the quality of your diet rather than reducing the amount of energy you're consuming?

GiantMike

I can't say if it's a good idea or not but.....

The theory is that the body does not make up for the unconsumed calories on the 2 fasting (low intake) days over the other 5 days.

If weight is determined by a balalnce of intake to output, I can't see why reducing intake by 1500 cals a day is any different to increasing calorie use (from a weight loss perspective).

DavidJB

I find logging all my food intake and exercise on apps like myfitnesspal are the best way to lose weight. You're far less likely to go off the rails if you know you have to log it in an app! I lost 5lb in 3 weeks just logging my food (and cutting the crap) But you need to be careful too few kcals and you'll bonk hard on training rides.

I'd say for me 2300-2500 good kcals a day leads to about a lb a week loss without affecting my training.

jibberjim

IF for extending life works in a minority of rat and mice strains (lab rats and mice are different families that react differently to a lot of things and not in the most "natural"). It's never been shown to work in primates or mammals.

If you're over eating, then like anything that helps you to reduce your calories will help you lose weight.

If you're training hard, the lack of readily available nutrients post training on the fasting days will likely harm recovery from those efforts.

Trev The Rev

An interesting one this.

Fasting goes against what one would instinctively think was a sensible logical approach. However I doubt evolution designed man to suffer any harm from going a day or two without food and I would assume man was also not designed to be dependent on being fed as regularly as modern man.

Most predators tend to hunt when hungry, eat until sated, rest, then wait until hungry before hunting again. It is entirely possible that man was designed to behave in the same way. It may well be beneficial to allow hormone levels etc to return to base from time to time by fasting.

However, modern man, with his tendency to be dependent on a continual supply of refined carbohydrate may well suffer emotionally, if not physically, from going without a regular 'fix'.

I think it important to ensure the fast comes after being sated. Fasting after a hard training session would seem to me to be at least less than optimal.

Perhaps more research needed here.

Herbsman

Man was not 'designed'.

Trev The Rev

Herbsman wrote:

Man was not 'designed'.

The present design evolved.

jibberjim

Trev The Rev wrote:

Herbsman wrote:

Man was not 'designed'.

The present design evolved.

From a group of farmers who achieved massive external pressure in times of failed harvests. So the most recent evolutionary pressures selected for farmers who survived crop failure, so the relevance of their ancestors diets when they may or may not have hunted is pretty irrelevant.

Trev The Rev

jibberjim wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

Herbsman wrote:

Man was not 'designed'.

The present design evolved.

From a group of farmers who achieved massive external pressure in times of failed harvests. So the most recent evolutionary pressures selected for farmers who survived crop failure, so the relevance of their ancestors diets when they may or may not have hunted is pretty irrelevant.

I think that in terms of human evolution the switch to a predominantly carbohydrate diet is extremely recent and the switch to a predominantly highly processed refined carbohydrate diet even more recent.

jibberjim

Trev The Rev wrote:

I think that in terms of human evolution the switch to a predominantly carbohydrate diet is extremely recent and the switch to a predominantly highly processed refined carbohydrate diet even more recent.

What's the relevance? Yes lactase Persistence (for example) is extremely recent, yet it's near universal in lots of northern european populations, it doesn't change the fact that it's there. Rapid changes in evolution are entirely possible, particularly at times of strong enviromental pressure.

Trev The Rev

jibberjim wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

I think that in terms of human evolution the switch to a predominantly carbohydrate diet is extremely recent and the switch to a predominantly highly processed refined carbohydrate diet even more recent.

What's the relevance? Yes lactase Persistence (for example) is extremely recent, yet it's near universal in lots of northern european populations, it doesn't change the fact that it's there. Rapid changes in evolution are entirely possible, particularly at times of strong enviromental pressure.

I'm merely considering whether or not intermittent fasting is a good idea or not. I'm undecided. Environmental pressure does stimulate evolution and a mutant gene which proves beneficial will flourish - humans are probably a very good example - hair loss, large brains, speech etc etc. But is a diet where refined starch, sugar etc is so predominant, a good thing for modern man?

LegendLust

Trev The Rev wrote:

jibberjim wrote:

Trev The Rev wrote:

I think that in terms of human evolution the switch to a predominantly carbohydrate diet is extremely recent and the switch to a predominantly highly processed refined carbohydrate diet even more recent.

What's the relevance? Yes lactase Persistence (for example) is extremely recent, yet it's near universal in lots of northern european populations, it doesn't change the fact that it's there. Rapid changes in evolution are entirely possible, particularly at times of strong enviromental pressure.

I'm merely considering whether or not intermittent fasting is a good idea or not. I'm undecided. Environmental pressure does stimulate evolution and a mutant gene which proves beneficial will flourish - humans are probably a very good example - hair loss, large brains, speech etc etc. But is a diet where refined starch, sugar etc is so predominant, a good thing for modern man?

No it's not. Just ask the NHS about the amount they're spending on 'bariatric' treatment. Last time I went to the hospital (about a month ago) all the seats in the waiting room were oversize. You could have got two of me side by side in them

DavidJB

Anyway these fasting diets are for gym mums that do 15 minutes on the treadmill then invade costa coffee with the other gym mums in a 4x4 convoy. They are not for serious athletes.

Fursty Ferret

There was an article on this in the Sunday Times magazine. Dr David Mosely, the chap who appears on BBC2 occasionally checking out these sorts of ideas (did a recent very interesting test of the High Intensity workout theory) has been on the IF diet for some time now. Lost a stone in weight over two months, as well as about 25% bodyfat.

As I understand it, the best way to do it is to spend most of the fasting days alseep. In the sense that rather than seeing your fast day as lasting from one morning to the following morning (thus having to massively restrict your intake over the course of breakfast, lunch and dinner for the day) you start fasting after a big healthy lunch. You simply have a very small dinner in calorific terms, the same for breakfast the next morning and then you eat lunch as you always would and carry on as normal. Do this twice a week. For someone like me who would train a max of 5 days out of 7, this seems eminently feasible.

meesterbond

To give the missus a bit of support, we've both just started this IF diet... I'd like to lose another 10 pounds or so, so thought what the hell...

It's fast day number 1 today and I can report that I'm f*&^%g hungry.

Herbsman

Don't fast. Ride fast.

noste500

Fursty Ferret wrote:

There was an article on this in the Sunday Times magazine. Dr David Mosely, the chap who appears on BBC2 occasionally checking out these sorts of ideas (did a recent very interesting test of the High Intensity workout theory) has been on the IF diet for some time now. Lost a stone in weight over two months, as well as about 25% bodyfat.

As I understand it, the best way to do it is to spend most of the fasting days alseep. In the sense that rather than seeing your fast day as lasting from one morning to the following morning (thus having to massively restrict your intake over the course of breakfast, lunch and dinner for the day) you start fasting after a big healthy lunch. You simply have a very small dinner in calorific terms, the same for breakfast the next morning and then you eat lunch as you always would and carry on as normal. Do this twice a week. For someone like me who would train a max of 5 days out of 7, this seems eminently feasible.

The chap on telly did a documentary on IF , very interesting and informative.

TakeTurns

Riding in zone 2 for long periods of time would help to burn the fat. If that's something you haven't yet tried.

symo

OK well thanks for the replies everyone. As I said this is something that I am looking at and still undecided upon. Unlike some of you my work precludes me being able to finish on time or being able to schedule training rides in the evenings, so my long rides once a weekend and whatever turbo sessions I can get in at 0600 (usually twice a week).

As for long slow zone 2 rides, I simply do not have that time (smack upside the head to whomever says make time; sure and not doing my job or spending time with my wife is an option too).

I am still doing a lot of reading around on the IF thing and training, also contacted a number of nutritionists via some uni contacts I have for their opinions. Currently I am reading that there is a number of don't do it types of advise, mainly based on the fact that no-one has done this diet for significant periods. What I would suggest is that boxers have been using similar diet/training strategies to get to weight for a number of years. I know that the two sports have minimal crossover in terms of endurance but it is worth bearing in mind.

Like I said; I am still reading around on the subject.

jibberjim

symo wrote:

Currently I am reading that there is a number of don't do it types of advise, mainly based on the fact that no-one has done this diet for significant periods.

Fasting regularly has a huge history, most of the worlds major religions do it at various times, and the studies on all of those generally show an improvement in metabolic health (of course most people have metabolic disorders from over-eating so it doesn't really say you'll get better if you're already healthy.) but certainly no harm from doing it.

If you want to lose weight and can't train more, then you'll need to eat less, IF may help with that, but don't expect anything else.

SBezza

How long are you turbo sessions at 6am, if they are only about 1 hour long, I doubt you will see many downsides at all.

You will get different advice from different nutritionists no doubt, and will not really gleen any reliable info I would suspect. If you have plataeued then as jibberjim says you need to eat less food, or perhaps eat differently to what you currently do. IF will probably help there, but it will still mean being strict on the non IF days, as you might well be inclined to eat more, or more of the crap stuff and hence it will make no difference.

LegendLust

SBezza wrote:

How long are you turbo sessions at 6am, if they are only about 1 hour long, I doubt you will see many downsides at all.

You will get different advice from different nutritionists no doubt, and will not really gleen any reliable info I would suspect. If you have plataeued then as jibberjim says you need to eat less food, or perhaps eat differently to what you currently do. IF will probably help there, but it will still mean being strict on the non IF days, as you might well be inclined to eat more, or more of the crap stuff and hence it will make no difference.

Don't eat less food. Eat less carbs especially on the days you don't train, and eat the majority of the carbs on other days straight after you've trained. Don't cut down on protein and make sure you get plenty of fats in your diet as well.

Herbsman

I accidentally lost 10 pounds recently, after trying to eat a bit more protein regularly, not consciously cutting down on carbs but obviously I was eating less as a result of the increased protein intake.

Could be coincidence though

SBezza

LegendLust wrote:

SBezza wrote:

How long are you turbo sessions at 6am, if they are only about 1 hour long, I doubt you will see many downsides at all.

You will get different advice from different nutritionists no doubt, and will not really gleen any reliable info I would suspect. If you have plataeued then as jibberjim says you need to eat less food, or perhaps eat differently to what you currently do. IF will probably help there, but it will still mean being strict on the non IF days, as you might well be inclined to eat more, or more of the crap stuff and hence it will make no difference.

Don't eat less food. Eat less carbs especially on the days you don't train, and eat the majority of the carbs on other days straight after you've trained. Don't cut down on protein and make sure you get plenty of fats in your diet as well.

Well yes, hence why I also said perhaps eat differently , but still might needs to actually cut down on calories as well but as I don't know the current consumption and usage it is difficult to say exactly what the OP has to do.

symo

I do track my diet on myfitnesspal (before it was in a little diary).
Calories with commuting and the twice weekly sessions about even, I am cautious of dipping below 1500 cals on a daily basis. I also rarely eat processed foods (the wife is an excellent cook), even down to my sandwich at work being a homemade roll.

Perhaps I will have to remove the calories in a lighter manner on a daily basis.

prawny

I've tried IF based on the Lean Gains method and it works for me. I'm one of the people who don't deal well with breakfast, if I eat when I wake up I'm hungry all day and I don't deal well with being hungry. Basincally I have breakfast around 12-1pm dinner at normal time and snesible snacks, keeping to a normal (1500kcals net) calorie intake

I found it very good for reducing fat, preserving muscle mass and not making me tired or ravenous. I can only assume that the long(er) periods of fasting make your body better at using the fat up. However that could be tosh and it just works better for me because I can stick to it.

I'm don't race though, so YMMV but I've got no slower on the bike because of it, even though I do almost all of my training during the fasted phase.

LegendLust

symo wrote:

I do track my diet on myfitnesspal (before it was in a little diary).
Calories with commuting and the twice weekly sessions about even, I am cautious of dipping below 1500 cals on a daily basis. I also rarely eat processed foods (the wife is an excellent cook), even down to my sandwich at work being a homemade roll.

Perhaps I will have to remove the calories in a lighter manner on a daily basis.

Have a read of this http://blog.metaboliceffect.com/2012/03 ... c-formula/

DavidJB

All these fancy methods people use...at the end of the day its simple...

if kcals in < kcals out then weight loss.

I loose weight by training, cutting out all crap and portion control. When I eat something I always go for the lightest choices possible. Lets not forget that cutting weight too fast will hurt your cycling.

prawny

The above is true, but it depends how strong your willpower is. Food is my vice, I don't smoke drink or do drugs and I am very hard to choose the lightest option. For me sustainable diets need a gimmick to keep me focused, part of the good thing about IF is that because you're eating for les of the day, you're more full while you are eating.