The FastDay Forum

[wildmissus]

@Ssure, thank you for all that.

If fasting was having an adverse reaction then why some people and not others.

Perhaps some of us haven't fully accepted this way of life/eating, ie. that we have to fast 'properly' 2 or 3 times a week and be vigilant for the rest of the week and probably for the rest of our lives and of course this is why when people stop conventional diets they end up putting all the weight back on.

Speaking for myself my NEAT is at the lowest it has ever been. When I come home from work I have trouble getting myself off the sofa to go and do anything. Is that because it is winter or because I've already lost a pile of weight, probably both. When I eat I am rarely physically hungry but there is some other force that is making me eat - I am a constant craver. My attitude is 'stuff it, I will be good tomorrow'. It has been a few years since I've had bloods done but at that point I wasn't pre diabetic and although I have suffered night sweats for the last 6 years I'm not peri-menopausal. I accept that the 'extras' that I am eating are causing a hormonal change which causes me to desire the wrong foods, catch 22.

Scientific studies would have been interesting on religious fasters however I guess the problem was that the fasting was done for spiritual reasons and not to lose weight and in generations gone by being 'fat' was a sign of prosperity.

@Sassy1,

In the past I maintained by mentally counting up my calories every blessed day. I had done a long stint of logging food intake, so I had a very good idea of what was in the portions I was eating. In the past, I hadn't been able to lose because I wasn't as obsessive about portion size.

But the problem is that doing this year in and year out gets wearing, and what seems to have happened is that switching to a diet where I had days where I didn't have to count or worry opened the flood gates. It was so unexpectedly wonderful, that now the thought of having to get back to being so obsessively controlled seems like just too much. It is a huge psychological issue, but the length of time I was able to eat normally (7 long months) makes it that much more awful to not be able to eat that way any more.

And as I say, the most disturbing part is that I am still fasting at 500 cal twice a week, and logging intake with my food scale so I am really hitting the targets, and seeing the weight go up.

I don't think it is the winter because I have lived in my current home for 12 years and I live in rural New England where as miserable as this current winter is, ALL winters are pretty miserable. And cold. And much, much too long. Two years ago we had over five feet of snow on our lawn this time of year and there was still snow cover in mid April. I was not having food issues. So if weather would be at fault I would have had this problem before.

I also lost and maintained my 17% of body weight right after menopause, so I can't buy the hormone issue--except that as I posted, losing that tummy fat seems to have dropped my estrogen levels a bit more, which may be part of what is going on here. My doctor slightly raised my supplemental estrogen, which isn't having much impact. But it is possible that the problem is that loss of subcutaneous fat triggering some kind of preservation response.

Women's bodies do seem to want to be fat after menopause, and no one really knows if it is because it is protective to store estrogen in those fat tissues. Our culture does not make us comfortable with the "motherly" or "matronly" body type that past generations assumed we should have at this age. I'm certainly not comfortable with it! I'm used to not being fat and I enjoy the way my body feels when I'm thin.

I did the limited carb thing yesterday and came in around 80 g with some chocolate (valentines gift from Sweetie) one piece of whole kernal mixed grain toast, some hummus and a small orange. I didn't feel too oppressed, but it will take some adjusting. I have moved away from eating fatty foods as I have raised carbs and don't particularly like eating them any more.

Today we will probably go eat a very rich Greek Pizza which will be all I will eat for the rest of the day. I don't eat more than one section worth of crust. The rest is just the delicious cheese and sauce. Then tomorrow, back to fasting.

I'll see how the 4 days of Low Carb a week works. If it stops the weight gain, I'll be happy. If not, then I will have to stop fasting and go back to eating moderate LC (110 g max) all the time which is how I maintained for years before, but I will also have to keep calories under 1600 every single day. That is the level that works for me when my carbs are controlled.

Right, I'm in danger of either embarrassing myself here or getting out of my depth. Anyhow I'm just going to put it out there and see if those who are expert in this area can add colour. If nothing else, I could do with the help for an essay I'm writing.

I'm in the middle of researching the human microbiome as part of my nutrition studies. I had not been looking at the topic with regard to weight management, but I took a quick diversion to see if I could find any studies on this and on fasting, specifically to better understand if and how the microbiome might play a metabolic role.

For others reading, and wondering what the hell a microbiome is, at a basic level, it is an eco-system of micro-organisms and consists of 20 million unique microbial genes in an average human. If our microbes outnumber human cells 10:1, then it needs to be healthy. Some studies say it behaves almost as another organ of the body even though it exists on many different sites of the body and there are differences in microbes on body sites depending upon what it is exposed to. The diversity of the human genome compared to the human microbiome is immense in genomic variation. Whilst we are genetically 99.9% identical to one another, there can be a 80 to 90% variation in terms of our microbiome. Some go as far to say that it is quite possibly an extension of our genome. So we are more different than we think we are!

So with specific regard to the gut microbiome I did find a a couple of studies on animals and fasting and its impact on the microbiome but I could not find any human studies apart from in gastric band patients, but they are not truly fasted, just eating less. They did find differences in the microbiome after fasting, but the results were different across the species concluding that fasting does alter the gut microbiota in some way.

I then looked at the microbiome in regard to obsesity. I think I had already read on these forums that there was a link between obesity, inflammation, gut microbiota and insulin resistance , but I had not read anything more about it's impact on energy metabolism in a broader sense. In one experiment, they implanted normal mice with a bacterial strain from obese mice and hey presto - they got fat.

I then looked at the microbiome with regard to aging. The relative proportions of two major classes of bacteria; firmicutes to bacteroidetes, do differ with age, with the young having a higher proportion of firmicutes. Interestingly in one of the obsesity studies, those who were obese also had higher levels of firmicutes, resulting in the the formation of increased amounts of metabolic endotoxins. I don't know what to draw from that - probably nothing even though they seem dominant. However in one study where mice were fed a high fat diet and got obese, their firmicutes levels did rise along with proteobacteria and a subsequent decrease in bacteriodetes. This somewhat surprised me, especially given our interest in low carb, high fat diets.

Taking a very giant leap, I was contemplating that if fasting does change the microbiome (and we don't know for sure how it works in humans), by altering the ratio of certain bacteria over time it may have unknown implications on our health and weight. For example, depending on whether your gut is healthy or not to start with, there could be a situation where some 'bad' flora could become opportunistic over time, ie a period of prolonged fasting and hence stymie further weight loss.

Anyhow, it perhaps raises the idea that if you can manipulate the gut microbiome, there is possibly a way forward in helping with weight management. but given we are all so very different, the solutions are likely to differ from individual to individual.

I'd love to get some perspectives on this. I have found the whole area fascinating and whilst it might not solve this particular issue, I'm keen to build on my knowledge.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25319042
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0099996
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23159341
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3757651/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4290626/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2770164/

@peebles I'm very sorry to hear things are conspiring against you. To be fasting, keeping within TDEE and gaining must be so frustrating and immensely upsetting. Like others I too have watched the thread develop but I have no experience or answers that I think could be of help at this point. This is my first weight loss experience in life, so far no big medical problems, PMT was light, menopause passed in the night and I did not join 52 till post menopause. A very different experience to many forum members. One might feel mine is a simplistic picture to the journey of others and from what I have leant this last year I think on balance this is very true. Therefore I tend to stand back from the well informed and rich discussions but I do read them all. I do care, I 'm rooting for you all big time and often want to send a positive shout out but to be honest I'm often not sure how to - as you are rightly looking for the answers that are ahead of my understanding and life experience. That said I have learnt so much from this forum and I'll be forever grateful for people's honesty. Here I am being honest.
This makes me wonder how many have left the forum quietly under similar circumstances or different ones.
Wishing you well this week.

@rawkaren, If you look up what is in the "high fat diet" used in rodent research you will see it is also a very high carb diet made up of very artificial nutrients very different from what the rodents eat in the wild. So the negative effects attributed to the diet could easily be attributed to the HFCS that it is full of.

The biota is interesting. There was a study recently about someone of normal weight who had a fecal transplant to cure c. diff. which apparently made her become obese.

This has become an almost faddy/fashionable area of research. Unfortunately, short of getting a fecal transpant there doesn't seem to be any way to significantly alter that microbiome. The idea that you can change it with probiotics appears to be something cooked up by the supplement sellers. There is no evidence that the supplements help, probably because it is a microbiome and there are so many different microorganisms involved that are specifically adapted to certain kinds of bowel. So taking a supposedly "good" probiotic might be like releasing a few parakeets into the New England forest and expecting them to outcompete the chicadees.

Getting interesting @RawKaren funny we don't talk much about gut bacteria here, good point you have brought up. I read some research years ago by theses professors in Western Australia doing Alzheimer's research, they said good gut bacteria was hugely important. The more I read on gut bacteria the more I found that it pointed to disease or health. From that day onwards I have taken probiotics, Inner Health+ to be precise, I found the cheaper ones a waste of money. I swear by IH+.

I also want to readdress the role of the mind. The mind is what makes people lift cars off trapped children, it is a very powerful part of our body. I remember when people started saying they got 'hungry' when they ate. I just couldn't fathom this. When I dug deeper it appeared that when people ate, they didn't unleash this mysterious hunger monster, rather the obsessive, craving, mind, monster. What I'm trying to say is that whilst there are physiological things that make weight loss difficult, I believe the mind plays the bigger part.

I also think that fasting 2 days a week and eating whatever you want 5 days isn't a way to lose weight for a lot of people. You either do 3x500 and eat what you want (without going overboard) 4 days a week, or u do 2x500 and watch calories the other 5 days. The other thing I've decided that seems to be a good thing, is 2 meals a day plus a snack. I think we have overfed ourselves for years thru tradition.

Oh and eat lots of veggies! Low calorie, filling, nutritious, delicious, what's not to love? I sometimes wonder if we went back to eating the way I grew up, good breakfast, meat (yeah not me I'm a vego) and 3 veg, would we be having all this obesity. Maybe getting back to basics?

I know this is disjointed, I'm pasting thoughts together on the train, but maybe some of it will be helpful to someone.

The one thing I can tell you is that when I first started fasting I was more 'naturally' strict on non fast days... Also, I feel like I spend every waking moment thinking about food, what I can do to lose weight but then self sabotaging.

Just a quick post @wildmissus to say that this is me too!

The one thing I can tell you is that when I first started fasting I was more 'naturally' strict on non fast days... Also, I feel like I spend every waking moment thinking about food, what I can do to lose weight but then self sabotaging.

Just a quick post @wildmissus to say that this is me too!

And me too! @peebles it seems you have been fasting a similar amount of time as me, and I am also struggling to maintain, have been on a slippery slope since christmas and regaining despite doing two fasts a week.

[carorees]

Not sure if this is relevant to anyone here but this article about 'the dark side of IF' as it were may strike a chord with some: http://www.niashanks.com/intermittent-f ... -it-wrong/

Not sure if this is relevant to anyone here but this article about 'the dark side of IF' as it were may strike a chord with some: http://www.niashanks.com/intermittent-f ... -it-wrong/

I think I read this ages ago- but today it did indeed strike a chord with me. I am not struggling to maintain- but I can no longer fast in the 5:2 way, life has got in the way big style- and stress and fasting just don't mix. However reading through the article I realise that I am managing to maintain because I have adopted the first fasting time scale of 12-16 hours 5-7 days a week. It is a way of eating that has evolved for me through practising 5:2 for many months and it seems to suit my body pretty well. I count myself extremely lucky.
I don't eat breakfast and occasionally skip lunch. I eat smaller portions but still eat carbs, cake chocolate and other indulgences.
Fingers crossed I seem to have found what works for me.
So why have I posted when I'm not really struggling- because I think it is important to listen to your body and make sure your head is in the right place for the style of weight loss you choose
I have found what works for me and somewhere there is something that will work for you which you find sustainable. The difficult bit is identifying what it is. Nobody can do that for you-unfortunately. But I am almost 69, if I've finally managed to find a method that works for me-then you can too.

[carorees]

@rawkaren a blog about the microbiome you might find interesting (if you weren't aware of it before of course): http://humanfoodproject.com/please-pass-microbes/

@carorees, Thanks to the link about the "Dark side" article.

I guess what I am wondering now is whether there is an anyone participating in this IF community who has successfully used an "exit strategy" that wouldn't end up with me packing on all the weight I lost and more once I stop fasting, given that I am already gaining while fasting.

I know you've mentioned the window approach, but it isn't a good fit for our family lifestyle or my personality. What I really need to do is to find a way of maintaining that segues back into a reasonable, mindful eating way with occasionaly weekly treats, which is what I usually ate when dieting in the past.

Dear @peebles
Wishing you a very happy 1st fastiversary today 23rd February. Is it really snowing fat in North America Thanks for keeping the forum real, informative and true.
Come on spring ... we need you
Hoping spring and summer provides some answers and rest bite for you peebles.
Lizbean

The one thing I can tell you is that when I first started fasting I was more 'naturally' strict on non fast days... Also, I feel like I spend every waking moment thinking about food, what I can do to lose weight but then self sabotaging.

Just a quick post @wildmissus to say that this is me too!

I have often wondered why there is not a thread to sign up for TDEE days as many say they struggle on their non fast days, rather than fast day. Just a thought. Good idea or bad idea?

The one thing I can tell you is that when I first started fasting I was more 'naturally' strict on non fast days... Also, I feel like I spend every waking moment thinking about food, what I can do to lose weight but then self sabotaging.

Just a quick post @wildmissus to say that this is me too!

And me too! @peebles it seems you have been fasting a similar amount of time as me, and I am also struggling to maintain, have been on a slippery slope since christmas and regaining despite doing two fasts a week.

me four!

@Lizbean, I think we tried that for awhile (I think it was @cblasz who started it), but not enough people were involved. Maybe it could be a weekly non-fast day support thread or something...