I think it’s highly likely that Autophagy is the most important effect of fasting. Here is a good article that explains the metabolic process if you’re interested. In short, when you don’t eat, your body cleans house and recycles junk in your cells like protein aggregates and damaged mitochondria. In the ancestral environment, people didn’t eat ever waking hour so this process would presumably run pretty frequently. But now that we have food at our disposal all the time, it doesn’t happen as much unless we make deliberate dietary interventions like fasting. Autophagy also occurs during chronic calorie restriction, which may account for its observed effects on longevity in mice. However, if we can get the benefit from a type of intermittent fasting without chronic CR, then that would be a net win because CR has many known harmful side effects such as lethargy and impaired thinking.
Personally, I do the LeanGains16⁄8 fast/eat program every day. My feeding window is 12:30pm to 8:30pm and I don’t eat at all outside that window. Within the window, I eat as much generally healthy food as I want. It feels great once you’re used to it after a week or two (hormonal entrainment of meal patterns and all that), allows you to not worry about breakfast, and (hopefully) allows your body to clean up the intracellular junk better than if you don’t do it. It can be sustained indefinitely without much effort and doesn’t get in the way of anything else I want to do with my life. Just take the 80⁄20 or 90⁄10 rule to it and don’t worry about it if you need to “break” it every once in a while. If you have company come visit and they want to have an early breakfast or a late dinner, then just do it and don’t worry about it.
In my opinion, it’s by far the most sustainable and least disruptive to lifestyle of the fasting protocols and I think that frequent mini-fasts like this are probably healthier and more effective than infrequent large/intense fasts. I encourage you to look into it.
Edit: I agree with others here. Fruit juice is liquid candy. Just eat whole fruit instead, primarily berries if possible as they have the lowest sugar(fuctose) to mass ratio and are packed with anthocyanins.
This is a great recommendation. One that I will definitely try out. Actually it is close to what a friend of me seems to do instinctly.
The recommendation about fruit juice is accepted. For me personally it means little as I prepare fruit and vegetable regularly for the children and fruit juice (watered down) is rather a kind of extra.
Actually the latter may or may not fully apply to children which seem to have a much higher glucose demand:
Great! I think you’ll like it. Let me know if you have any questions on that or just want any input on your plan in general before you start it. Feel free to PM me or we can Skype if you’d like.
Actually the latter may or may not fully apply to children which seem to have a much higher glucose demand:
While that’s probably true as far as glucose is concerned, it’s the fructose that often accompanies it which is the problem. In addition to the intermediaries and metabolites of Fructose being potentially harmful (fructose is processed more similarly to alcohol than to glucose), it also has little to no effect of satiety. Someone who has a glass of juice each day typically eats the same amount of other food, resulting in a net increase in their daily calorie intake.
Old topic, but what is your stance on IF and coffee? Some people need coffee for their morning bowel movement. Ideally it would be black coffee but that is really bitter. Berkhan and Pilon agree that artificial sweeteners are probably okay, although I suspect the sweet taste in itself may create an insulin response. Berkhan wrote somewhere one teaspoon of milk is okay as it should not yet launch an insulin response. What do you think?
I used to drink coffee every day, but I don’t anymore. I just drink green tea in the mornings if I want something hot. I definitely don’t think it’s worth risking the benefits of your fast by using sugar or milk in your coffee. If I recall correctly, Berkhan’s assertion that half a teaspoon (or whatever it was) of milk wouldn’t cause a problem wasn’t really supported by any science, so I would avoid it if possible. I think his reasoning was that your body would metabolize it super quickly and then return to a fasted state, but it’s not clear if you’ll retain the benefits of a 16-hour fast that way. I suspect it would also increase food cravings during the rest of your fast. And the increase in taste of your coffee is such a minor benefit that it’s just totally not worth the risk as far as I’m concerned. There are better ways of making black coffee taste good if it’s that important to you (see below).
I agree that the sweet taste of artificial sweeteners probably does something counterproductive. Overweight soda-drinkers who switch to diet soda have been shown not to lose weight. That’s proof enough for me that they work some sort of mischief on your metabolism. All in all, it’s probably not going to really cause a noticeable difference, but I feel like they’re worth avoiding for general health reasons anyway. Starting a daily artificial sweetener habit as a part of trying to get healthier with an IF protocol seems counterproductive to me. I’d avoid them.
As I mentioned above, it’s totally possible to make great-tasting black coffee. If you want to make your coffee less bitter, you might want to invest in an Aeropress. Bitter coffee is usually a result of the water being too hot and/or in contact with the coffee grounds for too long. Those both cause too much tannic acid to leach into the coffee. The Aeropress solves that problem. Also, switch to a medium-dark or dark roast. That will let you get the all the darkness, flavor, and caffeine you want without having to use water that is so hot or without having it in contact with the grounds for too long. Doing these two things will make a world of difference. You probably won’t need sweetener if you do that. (I drink my coffee black whenever I have it and it’s delicious.)
The last thing you could look into if you really just can’t stand black coffee is just buying caffeine pills and using that in place of coffee. I’ve used caffeine pills a lot and they’re actually really convenient. The caffeine is the main component of coffee that stimulates your bowels, so it should suit that purpose as well as provide the normal energy boost.
Thanks. I used to have an Aeropress but did not notice much of a difference—but it could be I did not use it really properly, I think it prescribed hot but not too hot water, now I was too lazy to take a temperature reading and using boiling water from the kettle simply. It took me a year to convince my wife to invest into an expensive grinding espresso maker, I think if I stopped using it she would be mad :)
I am on a sweetener habit since I am 16, now I am 37 and yes overweight. It looked like a convenient way to save on calories then got used to the taste. My dad used saccharine anyway due to diabetes so it just looked like the family way to drink coffee (as my mother didn’t).
Decaf coffee also has a bowel movement effect, although 23% lower, which suggests pills would have 23% of the effect, assuming that decaf + caf pills = normal coffee, which is not certain, but probably usable as a prior.
However I found something that may still “save” me. For some reason, making a really short espresso and cutting it up up with warm tap water is far less bitter than making a long espresso. I guess because the coffee soaking for a shorter time? Anyway this seems to be the way to go with these automatic machines.
I think it’s highly likely that Autophagy is the most important effect of fasting. Here is a good article that explains the metabolic process if you’re interested. In short, when you don’t eat, your body cleans house and recycles junk in your cells like protein aggregates and damaged mitochondria. In the ancestral environment, people didn’t eat ever waking hour so this process would presumably run pretty frequently. But now that we have food at our disposal all the time, it doesn’t happen as much unless we make deliberate dietary interventions like fasting. Autophagy also occurs during chronic calorie restriction, which may account for its observed effects on longevity in mice. However, if we can get the benefit from a type of intermittent fasting without chronic CR, then that would be a net win because CR has many known harmful side effects such as lethargy and impaired thinking.
Personally, I do the LeanGains 16⁄8 fast/eat program every day. My feeding window is 12:30pm to 8:30pm and I don’t eat at all outside that window. Within the window, I eat as much generally healthy food as I want. It feels great once you’re used to it after a week or two (hormonal entrainment of meal patterns and all that), allows you to not worry about breakfast, and (hopefully) allows your body to clean up the intracellular junk better than if you don’t do it. It can be sustained indefinitely without much effort and doesn’t get in the way of anything else I want to do with my life. Just take the 80⁄20 or 90⁄10 rule to it and don’t worry about it if you need to “break” it every once in a while. If you have company come visit and they want to have an early breakfast or a late dinner, then just do it and don’t worry about it.
In my opinion, it’s by far the most sustainable and least disruptive to lifestyle of the fasting protocols and I think that frequent mini-fasts like this are probably healthier and more effective than infrequent large/intense fasts. I encourage you to look into it.
Edit: I agree with others here. Fruit juice is liquid candy. Just eat whole fruit instead, primarily berries if possible as they have the lowest sugar(fuctose) to mass ratio and are packed with anthocyanins.
This is a great recommendation. One that I will definitely try out. Actually it is close to what a friend of me seems to do instinctly.
The recommendation about fruit juice is accepted. For me personally it means little as I prepare fruit and vegetable regularly for the children and fruit juice (watered down) is rather a kind of extra.
Actually the latter may or may not fully apply to children which seem to have a much higher glucose demand:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/08/26/0036214/why-do-humans-grow-up-so-slowly-blame-the-brain
Great! I think you’ll like it. Let me know if you have any questions on that or just want any input on your plan in general before you start it. Feel free to PM me or we can Skype if you’d like.
While that’s probably true as far as glucose is concerned, it’s the fructose that often accompanies it which is the problem. In addition to the intermediaries and metabolites of Fructose being potentially harmful (fructose is processed more similarly to alcohol than to glucose), it also has little to no effect of satiety. Someone who has a glass of juice each day typically eats the same amount of other food, resulting in a net increase in their daily calorie intake.
Old topic, but what is your stance on IF and coffee? Some people need coffee for their morning bowel movement. Ideally it would be black coffee but that is really bitter. Berkhan and Pilon agree that artificial sweeteners are probably okay, although I suspect the sweet taste in itself may create an insulin response. Berkhan wrote somewhere one teaspoon of milk is okay as it should not yet launch an insulin response. What do you think?
I used to drink coffee every day, but I don’t anymore. I just drink green tea in the mornings if I want something hot. I definitely don’t think it’s worth risking the benefits of your fast by using sugar or milk in your coffee. If I recall correctly, Berkhan’s assertion that half a teaspoon (or whatever it was) of milk wouldn’t cause a problem wasn’t really supported by any science, so I would avoid it if possible. I think his reasoning was that your body would metabolize it super quickly and then return to a fasted state, but it’s not clear if you’ll retain the benefits of a 16-hour fast that way. I suspect it would also increase food cravings during the rest of your fast. And the increase in taste of your coffee is such a minor benefit that it’s just totally not worth the risk as far as I’m concerned. There are better ways of making black coffee taste good if it’s that important to you (see below).
I agree that the sweet taste of artificial sweeteners probably does something counterproductive. Overweight soda-drinkers who switch to diet soda have been shown not to lose weight. That’s proof enough for me that they work some sort of mischief on your metabolism. All in all, it’s probably not going to really cause a noticeable difference, but I feel like they’re worth avoiding for general health reasons anyway. Starting a daily artificial sweetener habit as a part of trying to get healthier with an IF protocol seems counterproductive to me. I’d avoid them.
As I mentioned above, it’s totally possible to make great-tasting black coffee. If you want to make your coffee less bitter, you might want to invest in an Aeropress. Bitter coffee is usually a result of the water being too hot and/or in contact with the coffee grounds for too long. Those both cause too much tannic acid to leach into the coffee. The Aeropress solves that problem. Also, switch to a medium-dark or dark roast. That will let you get the all the darkness, flavor, and caffeine you want without having to use water that is so hot or without having it in contact with the grounds for too long. Doing these two things will make a world of difference. You probably won’t need sweetener if you do that. (I drink my coffee black whenever I have it and it’s delicious.)
The last thing you could look into if you really just can’t stand black coffee is just buying caffeine pills and using that in place of coffee. I’ve used caffeine pills a lot and they’re actually really convenient. The caffeine is the main component of coffee that stimulates your bowels, so it should suit that purpose as well as provide the normal energy boost.
Thanks. I used to have an Aeropress but did not notice much of a difference—but it could be I did not use it really properly, I think it prescribed hot but not too hot water, now I was too lazy to take a temperature reading and using boiling water from the kettle simply. It took me a year to convince my wife to invest into an expensive grinding espresso maker, I think if I stopped using it she would be mad :)
I am on a sweetener habit since I am 16, now I am 37 and yes overweight. It looked like a convenient way to save on calories then got used to the taste. My dad used saccharine anyway due to diabetes so it just looked like the family way to drink coffee (as my mother didn’t).
Decaf coffee also has a bowel movement effect, although 23% lower, which suggests pills would have 23% of the effect, assuming that decaf + caf pills = normal coffee, which is not certain, but probably usable as a prior.
However I found something that may still “save” me. For some reason, making a really short espresso and cutting it up up with warm tap water is far less bitter than making a long espresso. I guess because the coffee soaking for a shorter time? Anyway this seems to be the way to go with these automatic machines.