AIBU to think Intermittent Fasting is a gimmick?

[NeedToChangeName]

I know a few people who swear by Intermittent Fasting and make a big deal of only eating between 12 noon and 8pm

To me, this just sounds like (1) skip breakfast and (2) no snacks after dinner

AIBU?

And I used to not be hungry after running so would wait for hours thinking it was a good thing. But after doing lots of reading around the subject (Dr Stacey Simms is good in this area). I try and force smoothie or a protein shake or something down me as soon as I get back from a run then I’ll eat more later when I’m hungry.

Actually you are being unreasonable. I lost 2 stone in a little less than 3 months by doing intermittent fasting. This was last year and I've managed to keep all the weight off just by not snacking and having pudding just every other day instead of every day. It improved my digestive system loads and I swear my PCOS got better.

I'm sure you could lose weight a million different ways though, and if you do it with the mentality that you can just stuff your face with whatever you like during your eating window just because you are coming out of a fast you won't achieve anything. Best case scenario it actually improves your metabolism and your health overall, and worst case scenario it's just a very simple way of reducing your calorie intake. Whichever of those two is actually the case, if you do it you'll lose weight.

I lost 2 stone in a little less than 3 months by doing intermittent fasting.

Well fucking done.

I'm defo kicking IF back off next week. The beach bod WILL be mine (even if it's December before I get an inkling of it).

I've been doing this on and off for the last 3 years and have managed to lose 7 stone. So it has worked for me! I've mainly done 18/6 or even 20/4,which has meant only eating between 4pm and 10pm,or 6pm and 10pm.

Do it! It's a bit uncomfortable for the first week or so, and then your stomach adapts. You can do it!

Is it just herbal tea or black/tea coffee until you officially break fast?

This is the sticking point for me. I have unsweetened almond milk in my tea as it doesn’t cause me glucose spikes but I can’t face it black and my first morning cuppa is one of the happiest points in my day.

I highly recommend checking out Cynthia Thurlow with regards to IF and its particular benefits for women. It was stumbling across a TED talk she gave on YouTube, whilst searching for info on perimenopause, that made me aware of IF in the first place.

There are other videos of hers on YouTube that are worth checking out too, and she has her own website and podcast which doesn't just focus on IF but wider health issues for women.

For years now I've only ate one meal a day, usually early afternoon, I don't do it as any kind of faddy diet and certainly not for "intermittent fasting" it's just a routine I seem to have got in to, mainly because I never feel hungry in the morning and if I eat a meal any later than about 5pm I end up feeling sickly all through the night and into the next day.

Oh I did struggle with this, I always have sugar in my coffee. What I did was cut back the amount of sugar a bit every day, and I ended up with a wee bit of vanilla sweetener on black ice coffee instead.
So for the first few weeks I wasn't properly fasting but was losing weight all the same. I realised though when I managed to cut all the sugar out that I wasn't all that hungry and could wait much better until 13:00 or even 14:00. I suppose I wasn't getting my blood sugar spiked and it helped.
The main thing is to get started, even if you aren't doing it "properly". The results will get you much more motivated than any amount of research on how to do it by the book.

Surely unsweetened almond milk is fine. It barely has any calories at all.

@Welliehead it's not about the calories, it's about triggering an insulin response in the body which effectively ends your fasted state as the aim is to have insulin levels low in order to fat burn..

I think what most people are describing here is TIme Restricted Eating (TRE), rather than Intermittent Fasting.

They are both effective weight loss strategies because they generally lead to fewer calories being consumed in total. Research shows that 16:8 fasting in itself does not lead to superior weight loss compared to a diet matched for calories.

What defines IF as opposed to TRE?

I was curious, so looked it up:

People who practice time-restricted eating typically eat during an 8- to 12-hour daytime window and fast during the remaining 12 to 16 hours. Unlike intermittent fasting, which involves caloric restriction, time-restricted eating permits a person to eat as much as they want during the eating window.

Essentially (and simplistically) eating fewer calories than you need will result in weight loss. If people find it easier to do that by adopting a named eating plan or treating it like a project (TRE, fasting, SW) then that's fine, but I do think people can over-complicate things, or get hung up on it.

@Cornflakesaredabomb

Time Restricted Eating is limited your eating to a set window - day, between 8am and noon, or between 10am and 6pm, which seems to be a popular choice.

Intermittent Fasting is about eating a restricted diet on a number of set days per week, and eating normally on other days. For example, on the 5:2 diet, you eat a very low calorie diet for 2 days (usually between 500 and 800 calories, depending which version you follow), and eat normally on the other days.

Some people do a bit of a hybrid approach with elements of both. Nutrition research treats the two patterns separately and it isn’t clear, for example, that what is true for TRE will necessitate be true for IF (and vice-versa).

Nice! I did this too but with a different eating plan (every 3 hrs even to bedtime if I wanted but much less and much better good than before, along with some exercise).

As a PP said it's great because it trains your body not to feel hungry. People often ask me incredulously how I can go until 3 or 4pm without eating, but I'm just used to it and I don't think about food. It's quite freeing actually.

It's not a gimmick, but it is just as simple as you state...some people like to make it there's a real science behind it and they've only just thought it up but it's really very simply cutting out a few meals.

So why does black coffee not trigger an insulin response? There's no sugar in unsweetened almond milk. It's less sweet than cows milk.

Yes you are BU... That's exactly what intermittent fasting is 😂

Something to do with coffee being a bitter taste...? means it doesn't set off the cephalic phase insulin response. Also it has no nutrients to speak of.

Almond milk, like anything else that essentially contains a nutritional content, will set off an insulin response (if only a relatively small one). I would also say it tastes food-like, even if it's not sweet - your body knows there's something coming in that needs digesting.

I don't think it's as simple as you hit 24 hours and 'bam' autophagy starts happening...

I'm pretty sure I've read that autophagy happens at some level in everyone, even if they only fast for 10-12 hours overnight - but the longer you fast, the more that process ramps up.

It doesn't need a fancy name. I've eaten like this for years because it's compatible with my work. No lunch break and I hate rushing a sandwich down my neck at top speed so would much rather eat when I get home and can enjoy it in a relaxed environment.
Holidays, family gatherings and meals out with friends are a nightmare as they throw a spanner in the works as I'm always being nagged to eat breakfast, lunch etc. I wish people weren't so critical of other people's food circumstances.

I've started this week with a 12-8pm eating window. Much easier to do while it has been so hot in the daytime anyway as I don't have as much appetite in this heat. I am having one single cup of tea with a splash of milk in when I wake up - couldn't function without it!

That's pretty much my regular eating pattern. I'd never considered that I do IF.