Summary:
Intermittent fasting helps lose weight and promotes health. However, it is not superior to conventional calorie restriction diets, scientists have found out in the largest investigation on intermittent fasting to date. The scientists conclude that there are many paths leading to a healthier weight. Everybody must find a diet plan that fits them best and then just do it!
Of course there isn't a difference between a calorific deficit with and without intermittent fasting. That's not the point at all. The point is it may be easier to adhere to than regular caloric restriction. A secondary point may be that it's overall healthier to fast.
This is certainly my experience - I've found it much easier to fast 18 hours per day (a bit less on the weekends) than to try to adhere to a caloric restriction over a full day. I think that for me it requires less willpower to have fixed start and end times for eating.
Completely missing the point. Of course calorie reduction works as long as it is followed. But people have a very strong desire to regularly eat their fill. With intermittent fasting this is part of the diet by design. With daily calorie restriction it’s impossible. Compliance with daily calorie restriction always lapses over time for this reason, so people return to their former fatness. Intermittent fasting is possible to maintain for the rest of your life, daily calorie restriction usually is not.
And this is why dietary science fails often. Because of the insistence that dieting is a matter of willpower whatever that means.
Lots of real research needs to be done on why people eat unhealthy even though logically they know it's bad for them.
And unless you're someone who's lots a significant amount of weight, changed your eating habits over a long time person and have maintained that you don't really have any standing to make such statements.
I've lost over 120 pounds (290-170) over the course of 1.5 years simply by intermittent fasting. I changed nothing about what I ate, just ate less of it.
I still get cravings. But I control myself.
I think I have plenty of standing. When I was fat, I had no willpower and ate constantly. Now, its all about controlling myself.
that's pretty amazing... I've been trying to do IF but got off it for a few weeks... I also do keto on top of that though... I've lost 65 pounds since September, but that puts me at 450, my goal is 50 more by the end of January when my 2nd child is born and to be under 400.... (first time since before I was 15 - I'm 39 now).
My highest weight was 690, I had VSG surgery, so it's a little easier once I get into keto to keep going, as long as I don't stray into sugar land I don't usually have desire for food... I can easily eat 500 calories/day when intermittent fasting and feel like that's plenty... I've also been doing Crossfit 3-4 times per week.
I like IF because I only have to prepare one meal, and forget about food the rest of the day and just worry about my workout, and my day job.
I was for a couple weeks... I had no hunger... had to add protein drinks during the day to get my protein in (at least 60g/daily). I'm trying to get back into it..lately.. I've been just trying to eat between 2/8 and not really care what I eat just try small portions and only till I'm 3/4th full.
Sunday, I started keto again though... and hopefully my appetite diminishes again... got a little lax around my birthday/thanksgiving.
Appealing to "willpower" to cut off further inquiry is basically the equivalent of saying that disease is caused by evil spirits.
Until you can explain the mechanism that causes some people to comply with a diet plan and some people to not comply with the same diet plan, or that causes a person to comply with one diet plan but not another diet plan, you don't actually understand the phenomenon.
Do they have numbers for intermittent fasting? These numbers seem very similar to other ingrained habits, and are kinda depressing. Honestly, it makes me doubt the effectiveness of willpower in general.
In addition to this, some studies have shown intermittent fasting increases muscle mass (or in some cases, has less muscle loss than other diets), focusing on weight instead of BMI (or some other measure of body fat %) is a huuuge mistake. If a person gains 10 pounds of muscle but loses only 5 pounds of fat, it could be spun as a bad thing if you only focus on weight.
This is arguably not a good idea, and feeds bad habits. If you restrict your calories for a while (say 1-6 weeks), your appetite and hunger will adjust. Once you get used to it, you might be surprised how little you need to stay full. This is healthy. People lapse because of unhealthy cultural habits to binge. IF is basically a harm reduction strategy around that. You could argue that the best idea is to abstain, and rarely overeat.
This reminds me of a study we ran at Lift/Coach.me a few years ago where we randomly assigned 12,000 people into popular diets. I was hoping we'd be able to pick a winner, but all of the diets led to weight loss and all had a result within the same margin of error (and yes, there was a control group). So basically, all the diets worked equally.
The only strong signal we got was that people who were giving up soda were the most likely to lose the most weight. The cynic in me feels like we're writing giant book-length stories that are just cover to get people to reduce their sugar intake.
As I read more of the research, I'm coming to the opinion that our framework for thinking about weight loss is wrong. We mostly talk about rules, and I think we should be talking about levers.
You want to pull the levers that cause your body to burn fat while avoiding the levers that cause your body to store fat. That's subtlely but importantly different than calories in < calories out. Your levers include fasting, going Keto, even extreme exercise (most studies against exercise stop at 60 or 90 minutes, but try doing a backpacking trip or other 5hour+ routine).
> The cynic in me feels like we're writing giant book-length stories that are just cover to get people to reduce their sugar intake.
I feel that's factual, not cynical. That's exactly what all the different weird diets that people love to make fun of do: Convince people in all sorts of ways to eat less.
All the rules and whatever of the diet have just the one goal.
We should stop evaluating diet plans based on weight loss (since they are all basically the same), and instead evaluate them based on compliance.
Or rather, evaluate people for which diet they're most likely to comply with.
One of the flaws in the personal development ecosystem is that because everyone is selling their own "one weird trick" there's no incentive to build good assessment programs.
It's not diet, but probably the only top author with a solid assessment is Gretchen Rubin and her habit tendencies. All the tendencies lead back to her advice, but at least they acknowledge that not all people are the same.
I've always suggested people find one that works for them. My father in law loves competition and numbers, so Weight Watchers lets him accumulate points. My wife hates cheat days and they don't really have the intended effect on her. She's also fine eating the same thing almost every day. A lot of the fad diets are fairly similar in that they're low-carb and reduce sugar; Atkins, South Beach, Keto, Whole30.
I can't eat legumes at the moment because I'm experiencing leaky gut symptoms and repairing my gut with L-glutamine. But I've generally experienced an association between eating foods like oatmeal/bananas/rice and weight loss.
Here is one of the more contemporary videos I've found about these things (from SelfHacked):
Also my personal belief is that excess nutrition causes disease. So you can consume much more protein/fat/cholesterol etc than the USRDA, as long as you are physically active. Being sedentary kills. My own experience is that weight training is several times more effective than cardio because it burns calories as you recover.
Also this is all hormonal. So actively lowering your cortisol by avoiding stressors and increasing your testosterone and growth hormone with nutritious food and moderate exercise is a big part of why people drop 10 pounds when traveling outside the US.
Disclaimer: I have no evidence of any of this, these are only additional data points for your own research.
>The only strong signal we got was that people who were giving up soda were the most likely to lose the most weight. The cynic in me feels like we're writing giant book-length stories that are just cover to get people to reduce their sugar intake.
I stopped drinking soda regularly at least 5 years ago since graduating college and was able to lose 20+ pounds thanks to diet and exercise. The thing is after having stopped excercising I have been able to keep the weight off compared to people my age who also don't excercise and the only difference is that they drink way more soda than me. I try to limit my sugar intake to less than 10 grams a day.
It's crazy just how much sugar modern drinks have, the only exceptions seem to be Beer and Milk and those were developed thousands of years ago.
I don't ever hear proponents of intermittent fasting talking about weight loss, but of maintaining weight and for longevity. This article doesn't speak of the touted benefits IF has on telomere length, so I'm not sure how seriously I can take it.
My experience with intermittent fasting is that it was superior if you wanted to change body composition. I used it to reduce body fat while increasing lean mass (results confirmed via DEXA scan). I suppose it's probably possible to do that without intermittent fasting but I wasn't able to do it.
Did you run a controlled study? Body builders have sworn by "precision nutrition" for years, which is basically the opposite of IF. This kind of anecdotal "evidence" is very problematic. Could be that both "worked" and your composition improved over time, due to better fitness regimen.
As others have pointed out, the weight loss of any caloric deficit diet is more or less identical. The stuff that's impressive about intermittent fasting is the other benefits we've seen in (still early!) studies. Insulin resistance, blood glucose, cholesterol, and overall metabolic profile, obesity, and diabetes risk. Most of this comes from rodent or animal studies. The precise definition of "intermittent" varies from study to study, and there are a lot of other variables going on. But it is legitimately interesting science.
But afaik no one says it's particularly better at weight loss than other kinds of caloric restriction.
Exactly! Though it sounds a bit paradoxical when written out - walking around with less weight is just one of the healthy things that happens when you lose weight.
IF when discussed usually means fasting daily. So maybe your food window is only between 4 - 8 pm. The anti-aging stuff you saw/read (if its the same that i did) was more about actual fasting where you might not eat everyday and here they did find some linkage to aging.
I am under the impression that IF usually refers to the now popular (thanks BBC) 5:2 schedule. This is the context I've most seen/read about the topic, which often includes the talk of anti-aging and autophagy.
But this is all very muddy waters since it's fad diet territory and unscientific claims abound.
I've tried IF before and was very similar to caloric restriction. Many people point out the point that a diet has to be followed and when you fall thru, you will gain the weight back all over again. Imho, IF is easier to do than conventional diets.
It definitely can be. For me, I don't get hungry until late morning, and can usually hold off until lunch. I only really feel the need to eat 400-800 cal during the day, which is around 30% of my daily needs (depending on exercise and goal number)
When I was experimenting with my Clicker Diet (shameless plug - https://clickerdiet.com/) I found it is much easier to not eat in the morning/lunch times, to stay under daily target. It is intermittent fasting per se, but the reason, I believe, it worked for me - it helped me to stay under target, not because it made me burn more fat.
The ICR group reduced their energy intake by 75%, 2 days a week. Hardly real fasting, is it? And also, ..
"Log_e relative weight change over the intervention phase was −7.1% ± 0.7% (mean ± SEM) with ICR, −5.2% ± 0.6% with CCR, and −3.3% ± 0.6% with the control regimen (Poverall < 0.001, PICR vs. CCR = 0.053)."
So the difference on average between the ICR group and the CCR group was as great as the difference between the CCR and the control group.
Seems pretty clearly superior despite not being real fasting.
This study is totally missing the point. Intermittent fasting is not about weight loss. It's about trying to mimic bodily processes that result from fasted states that have been observed to lengthen lifespan.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] threadIn other news: water is wet.
May be impossible for you. Doesn't mean it's impossible for, say, me (and it, demonstrably, isn't).
Lots of real research needs to be done on why people eat unhealthy even though logically they know it's bad for them.
And unless you're someone who's lots a significant amount of weight, changed your eating habits over a long time person and have maintained that you don't really have any standing to make such statements.
I still get cravings. But I control myself.
I think I have plenty of standing. When I was fat, I had no willpower and ate constantly. Now, its all about controlling myself.
My highest weight was 690, I had VSG surgery, so it's a little easier once I get into keto to keep going, as long as I don't stray into sugar land I don't usually have desire for food... I can easily eat 500 calories/day when intermittent fasting and feel like that's plenty... I've also been doing Crossfit 3-4 times per week.
I like IF because I only have to prepare one meal, and forget about food the rest of the day and just worry about my workout, and my day job.
Sunday, I started keto again though... and hopefully my appetite diminishes again... got a little lax around my birthday/thanksgiving.
Until you can explain the mechanism that causes some people to comply with a diet plan and some people to not comply with the same diet plan, or that causes a person to comply with one diet plan but not another diet plan, you don't actually understand the phenomenon.
The only strong signal we got was that people who were giving up soda were the most likely to lose the most weight. The cynic in me feels like we're writing giant book-length stories that are just cover to get people to reduce their sugar intake.
As I read more of the research, I'm coming to the opinion that our framework for thinking about weight loss is wrong. We mostly talk about rules, and I think we should be talking about levers.
You want to pull the levers that cause your body to burn fat while avoiding the levers that cause your body to store fat. That's subtlely but importantly different than calories in < calories out. Your levers include fasting, going Keto, even extreme exercise (most studies against exercise stop at 60 or 90 minutes, but try doing a backpacking trip or other 5hour+ routine).
I feel that's factual, not cynical. That's exactly what all the different weird diets that people love to make fun of do: Convince people in all sorts of ways to eat less.
All the rules and whatever of the diet have just the one goal.
We should stop evaluating diet plans based on weight loss (since they are all basically the same), and instead evaluate them based on compliance.
Or rather, evaluate people for which diet they're most likely to comply with.
One of the flaws in the personal development ecosystem is that because everyone is selling their own "one weird trick" there's no incentive to build good assessment programs.
It's not diet, but probably the only top author with a solid assessment is Gretchen Rubin and her habit tendencies. All the tendencies lead back to her advice, but at least they acknowledge that not all people are the same.
I've been learning about resistant starch, which is digested by gut bacteria into fat, rather than digesting into sugar directly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch
I can't eat legumes at the moment because I'm experiencing leaky gut symptoms and repairing my gut with L-glutamine. But I've generally experienced an association between eating foods like oatmeal/bananas/rice and weight loss.
Here is one of the more contemporary videos I've found about these things (from SelfHacked):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luna9RQsL1E
Also my personal belief is that excess nutrition causes disease. So you can consume much more protein/fat/cholesterol etc than the USRDA, as long as you are physically active. Being sedentary kills. My own experience is that weight training is several times more effective than cardio because it burns calories as you recover.
Also this is all hormonal. So actively lowering your cortisol by avoiding stressors and increasing your testosterone and growth hormone with nutritious food and moderate exercise is a big part of why people drop 10 pounds when traveling outside the US.
Disclaimer: I have no evidence of any of this, these are only additional data points for your own research.
Edit: based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch#Nutritional_i... I'm going to try overnight oats. Basically steel cut or rolled oats (NOT instant oatmeal - it's already cooked) soaked overnight to preserve its resistant starch content.
I stopped drinking soda regularly at least 5 years ago since graduating college and was able to lose 20+ pounds thanks to diet and exercise. The thing is after having stopped excercising I have been able to keep the weight off compared to people my age who also don't excercise and the only difference is that they drink way more soda than me. I try to limit my sugar intake to less than 10 grams a day.
It's crazy just how much sugar modern drinks have, the only exceptions seem to be Beer and Milk and those were developed thousands of years ago.
But afaik no one says it's particularly better at weight loss than other kinds of caloric restriction.
It's idiotic, the point of intermittent fasting is considered mainly effective is the theory it's easier to do.
This Strawperson crap is annoying.
They do actually seem to look at this in the DOI. They say no diff.
But it's "after a 3-mo intervention phase and a 3-mo maintenance phase"
Which doesn't seem replicable in the general population. Meh.
The study seems entirely focused on bodyfat.
But this is all very muddy waters since it's fad diet territory and unscientific claims abound.
I now eat a single meal per day, and aim for some notion of nutrient density. I'm almost never hungry, and my body composition has never been better.
"Log_e relative weight change over the intervention phase was −7.1% ± 0.7% (mean ± SEM) with ICR, −5.2% ± 0.6% with CCR, and −3.3% ± 0.6% with the control regimen (Poverall < 0.001, PICR vs. CCR = 0.053)."
So the difference on average between the ICR group and the CCR group was as great as the difference between the CCR and the control group.
Seems pretty clearly superior despite not being real fasting.