Merged Intermittent Fasting -- Good Idea or Not?

bruto said:
One aspect of this might be that uncooked oats, if they're good to start with, are rather tasty and satisfying, whereas cooked oats are...well, they're just a bowl of oatmeal.
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Perhaps the better quality oats are reserved for muesli.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of most boxed oats regardless if its instant or regular but a local grocery store sells steel-cut oats bulk style. People can just buy however much they want and I find it pretty tasty.


ETA: I just saw a few websites that said that muesli is often soaked and/or eaten with yogurt. That would change the way it tastes.
 
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Kaylee said:
Perhaps the better quality oats are reserved for muesli.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of most boxed oats regardless if its instant or regular but a local grocery store sells steel-cut oats bulk style. People can just buy however much they want and I find it pretty tasty.


ETA: I just saw a few websites that said that muesli is often soaked and/or eaten with yogurt. That would change the way it tastes.
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My wife likes quick oats (must be quick if eaten completely raw) with yogurt and a little cinnamon for flavor. It makes a nice substantial snack. The ones we get are organic, and yes, there's a difference between these and what you get in the box.

Long ago I worked at a place that got Government surplus food, and surprisingly, their quick oats were quite good. I ate tons of USDA quick oats raw with milk and sugar, but must confess that I liked them with a bit more brown sugar than the health-conscious would now consider prudent.
 
bruto said:
My wife likes quick oats (must be quick if eaten completely raw) with yogurt and a little cinnamon for flavor. It makes a nice substantial snack. The ones we get are organic, and yes, there's a difference between these and what you get in the box.

Long ago I worked at a place that got Government surplus food, and surprisingly, their quick oats were quite good. I ate tons of USDA quick oats raw with milk and sugar, but must confess that I liked them with a bit more brown sugar than the health-conscious would now consider prudent.
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Both ways sound tasty. :)
 
Learning from the mistakes of last week, less fruit, more veggies, more protein so:

Brunch will be:

- Portabella mushroom (<30 calories)
- Small egg poached (< 80 calories)

Dinner will be :

- Small salmon steak (200 calories)
- Steamed veggies (broccoli, green beans, asparagus - 50 calories)

Which leaves some headroom (250 calories) for a dressingless salad, some fruit and cups of tea.
 
EHocking said:
Wine. Always create calorie headroom for wine.
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One of the reasons for the 5:2 diet is that it gives me 2 days a week where I don't drink. I'd rather spend any additional calories on more food.

In any case, yesterday went so much better. Whether it was just because of more protein or whether it was also that it was the second time I've done it, it was much more bearable and today I'm not feeling anything like as wiped out.

Seems like I hit the 600 calorie target pretty well yesterday:

Brunch:
- 75g of mushroom - 18 calories
- 1 small egg - 80 calories
- 100g carrot - 42 calories
TOTAL: 140 Calories

Dinner:
- 100g salmon - 200 calories
- 100g green beans - 35 calories
- 100g broccoli - 35 calories
- 100g lettuce - 15 calories
- 50g cucumber - 6 calories
- 1 small tomato - 20 calories
- 100g peppers - 35 calories
TOTAL: 350 calories

Sundry:
1/2 pint skimmed milk (in tea/coffee) - 80 calories
 
There must be something else about the fasting diet because quite frankly I don't believe the weight loss I've experienced. I've now done three fasting days and I reckon the number of calories I have missed out on is 6,000 tops. I have around 500-600 calories on a fast day and maybe 2,500 calories on a non-fast day so let's call it a 2,000 calorie decrease on a fast day.

Based on this I'd have expected to lose around 2 lbs across the last 2 weeks, maybe with another pound because I've been keeping an eye on what I've been eating and drinking a lot less beer.

Instead I've lost 6lbs (182lbs to 176lbs) which indicates to me that despite my efforts to drink plenty of water, there's a significant dehydration effect which doesn't bode well for future weight loss and/or when/if I shift to 6:1 and I rehydrate.

The NHS is guarded on the effectiveness of the 5:2 diet and intermittent fasting in general. It's more through a lack of evidence rather than there being an abundance of evidence to the contrary:

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/01January/Pages/Does-the-5-2-intermittent-fasting-diet-work.aspx

That said, yesterday was more bearable. I was still hungry but dinner (a 350 calorie bean chilli) really kept the wolves at bay until morning and was very satisfying.
 
The Don said:
There must be something else about the fasting diet because quite frankly I don't believe the weight loss I've experienced. I've now done three fasting days and I reckon the number of calories I have missed out on is 6,000 tops. I have around 500-600 calories on a fast day and maybe 2,500 calories on a non-fast day so let's call it a 2,000 calorie decrease on a fast day.

Based on this I'd have expected to lose around 2 lbs across the last 2 weeks, maybe with another pound because I've been keeping an eye on what I've been eating and drinking a lot less beer.

Instead I've lost 6lbs (182lbs to 176lbs) which indicates to me that despite my efforts to drink plenty of water, there's a significant dehydration effect which doesn't bode well for future weight loss and/or when/if I shift to 6:1 and I rehydrate.

The NHS is guarded on the effectiveness of the 5:2 diet and intermittent fasting in general. It's more through a lack of evidence rather than there being an abundance of evidence to the contrary:

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/01January/Pages/Does-the-5-2-intermittent-fasting-diet-work.aspx

That said, yesterday was more bearable. I was still hungry but dinner (a 350 calorie bean chilli) really kept the wolves at bay until morning and was very satisfying.
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There is no significant dehydration effect, otherwise you would be ill, tucked up in crisp NHS sheets on an IV.

There is however, a mild initial water loss effect, especially if you are strict with the carb portion of the diet. Losing glycogen stores in turn loses the water it is stored with. I always knew it as one part glycogen to 2 parts water, but a quick 'oogle shows anything up to 3 to 4 parts water.

So, averaging 300-400g of glycogen storage which needs to be burned through in order for the body to truly burn fat, may produce that 300g, plus the multiple in water weight. Hence the confounding initial weight loss.

You are also making efforts to drink plenty water. Trust me, your hydration is fine........but refilling those glycogen stores is a pretty big rebound!

Mal.
 
Another report.

Fasting days are a lot more bearable than they were but I'm fortunate that I work from home and so if I have an energy dip or an attack of hunger induced fractiousness then no-one else has to suffer the consequences. I'm not sure that I'd be comfortable with a string of client meetings or a long run on a fasting day. Fast days leave me feeling cold and hungry and often a little spaced out.

On the other hand, there's no doubt that it's effective from a weight loss perspective. 4 weeks and 8 fast days into the process and I've lost around 4kg (9 lbs) and my clothes are noticeably baggier. I'll probably shift to 6:1 when I get to 75kg (165 lbs), anything below that weight and I'll look painfully thin (I'm 1.88m (6'2")).
 
There's a thread about intermittent fasting (it's other name) in the Science Forum.

Some of the posters claim that they are getting good results.

The thread is pretty much on topic except for a few pages in the middle when one poster started claiming that he fasted for many days in a row, or something similar to that. I don't have the patience to look up his posts. You might want to skip over them.
 
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I had a quick peruse of the site, but couldn't see the science part. I might have missed it, though.

For the moment, I would regard it as Yet Another Fad Diet, until there was a bit more evidence and a bit less anecdote. There's nothing on that site that I haven't seen claimed in any number of other diets in the past 30 years, so to some extent it's tainted by association... at least in my eyes.

ETA - I note that some "are getting good results". Heard that before, too - Paleo, Atkins, Lemon, whatever. A year later, it's a different story. Sustainability is key.
 
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Kaylee said:
There's a thread about intermittent fasting (it's other name) in the Science Forum.

Some of the posters claim that they are getting good results.

The thread is pretty much on topic except for a few pages in the middle when one poster started claiming that he fasted for many days in a row, or something similar to that. I don't have the patience to look up his posts. You might want to skip over them.
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Ah, thanks for that. I couldn't find a Fast Diet thread. I'll ask this to be merged.
 
After being told by my cardiologist that I'm a fat pig and need to lose about 25 lbs to help me manage my BP, I started the 5:2. I have to say, it's pretty amazing how well it's working for me. I started on 9/12, and have since lost about 9 lbs, + or - 1.5. On the second fast day, I had crazy food cravings, but haven't been bothered by them since. Like has been said upthread, what hunger pangs there are are infrequent and fleeting, and are more than balanced by the increased energy and spring in my step on fast days. I haven't measured cholesterol and IGH1, but based on the weight loss and the sense of well-being that it seems to produce, I'll be sticking with this habit for a while.
 
Few questions come to my mind and need to be awnsered at first:-

1. Whether overall fasting is common practice on living under natural environment?

2. Whether specific fasting is common practice on living under natural environment?

3. Whether our intakes are normal in nature?

4. Whether fasting is needed to repay for our mistakes in eating or just it is needed naturally?

5. How overall and specific fasting can benefit to us i.e. science of fasting?

I have seen other species opting fasting on some sickness.
 
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