Fasting - anyone do it ?

I do it every day. For about 10 hours.

I've done the odd 24-48 hour fast, but pretty much every day don't eat after 6pm and have a later breakfast, like 9am so 15 hours.  I've seen that even a 12 hour fast overnight has good benefits. I have Jason Feungs book on fasting which makes an interesting read about the benefits.

16-8 time restricted eating is probably the most common and is quite easy to stick to once you get into it. I fluctuate now, usually between 14-10 and 16-8, but I look back on some of my old eating habits and wonder wtf I was thinking. There'd be times I'd be lying in bed unable to sleep because I was so full.

Depending on current diet you might want to look at what you're eating before doing proper fasts. Good natural foods, no refined sugars, no plates full of carbs: if your diet is decent, and you start with TRE, longer fasts shouldn't be so difficult.

Have done but only related to riding. Up to 18hrs fasted by the end a longer base pace winter ride. It was more about seeing how far I could go with it than a belief in the benefits. After 2 winters with riding like this 2-4x a month for 2-3 months plus regular 1.5 - 2hr morning rides on empty I felt weaker in terms of hill or sprint strength (muscle breakdown perhaps or just lack of HI riding over those years, I'm not sure) but my ability to ride on minimal fuel seemed good. I started doing the morning rides w/o breakfast a long time ago as a way to get used to being a fat burner rather than a sugar fuelled regular bonker. I don't know if I adapted or simply learned pacing.

I still do skip breakfast and ride most weeks and I don't eat before steady rides under 3ish hours, only eating if the pace requires or I get hungry after 2hrs or so.

I skim-read some interesting articles about how exercise on empty can get the body into an autophagy state sooner than fasting alone and the health benefits of that process but I don't know enough about the detail to comment on all that.

All in all I do think fasted riding habits taught me a lot about pace and seem to have made me an efficient rider on the longer rides and tours I do. I suspect it's not a good thing to regularly push out beyond a few hours though, it's a stress rather than a benefit? Also would think that applies to general fasting w/o exercise.

I had to stop because it was making me too grumpy at work.

Since March I've been cutting out as many carbs as possible (works for me*.... 10kg down) and as part of that I seem to have basically cut down on when I eat.

A couple of days a week I'll find that I've not eaten breakfast or lunch so end up just having an evening meal!

I do have a fair amount of coffee throughout the day though so not really fasting 🙄

(* Not only lost weight but also makes my "internal functions" better which is great as I don't have a gall bladder so things are a little "different"!)

Mrs Rock and I did Michael Moseley’s 5:2 diet when we started to get a little heavier than we’d prefer.  We did lose quite a bit of weight (83kg to 74kg) but also gained an awareness of JUST HOW MUCH FOOD we were eating in our normal diet.  When you have to weigh out 30g of cereal and that is a fifth or whatever, of your daily calorie allowance, the you start to get an understanding of portion distortion.  We changed our eating habits generally as a result, with a bit more awareness of calories in/calories out.

TLDR: Yes, we lost weight on it,

I do the Tim spector 30 plant type diet, lost 10kg.  Adding fasting at 12 12, I lost another 5kg.  Binned off the fasting so back up 5kg, but carried on the plant diet, so 10kg down.

Best tip is keep a diary of weight and regime, you can track progress, or lack of.  When I lost 15kg my ribs stuck out, my friends thought I was getting ill.

Massive fad in my opinion, fasting on its own is pointless, unless you’re making money on instagram promoting it obviously. Just not eating for however many hours then still banging in 3000kcal in the rest won’t lose any weight. You’ve also got to change how much you consume too and I don’t think you’re body cares when it goes in

I’ve not seen any evidence that it works for weight loss. But evidence i mean medical trial etc. The office agreed, on i think Wednesday lunch time. Micheal did some really great stuff. But the 5:2 diet seemed to be plucked from the air

Just not eating for however many hours then still banging in 3000kcal in the rest won’t lose any weight.

I don't think 5:2 diets are based on that level of inequality. Modest fasting for two days does help to condition you to eating less generally. I've had a stab at it because Mrs Slow was doing it. A lot of the suggested fasting day recipes are very palatable and nutritious and as rockhopper 70 says makes you aware of just how much you are tucking away.

I don't have a weight issue and can't say I felt any particular benefit so I didn't continue with it. But the bottom line is, it doesn't hurt to eat less. I ate a lot less for a couple of days getting ready for the Picolax moment.

But the 5:2 diet seemed to be plucked from the air

Well not exactly. Fasting regimes have existed well before Mosley's 5:2 idea.

I'm sure I read an article recently where a study had shown that all these type of diets were doing were restricting the amount of food you consume, so you lose weight. Doesn't matter whether it's 5:2, Paleo, no carbs etc. it's the reduction in food intake that matters. Seems obvious.

Misread the thread title as "farting". Realized I don't belong here.

The farting diet is the one I'm on at the moment.

AIUI the fasting thing is not about calories, it's about making your body chew up evil cells and reduce general inflammation. Disclaimer - I am not a doctor.

I've done it from time to time. Had success on 5:2 a decade ago. The thing I notice is that fasting is hard when I'm normally consuming carbs, especially simple carbs.

If I go a month with reduced carbs, I can water only fast for 4 or 5 days. That's pretty empowering.

Wife and I both lost weight by fasting between 7pm and 1pm the following day. We eat lunch and dinner and these are low carb, so no pasta, sugary sauces, potatoes in any form, grains or bread. It's surprisingly easy to lose weight if you can stick with it but gawd is it dull and 'samey'. Omelette for lunch then meat and greens for dinner nearly every sodding day. We have a carby takeaway every Friday to stay sane.

As DrJ said it's not necessarily about weight loss. Fasting helps with inflammation, insulin issues, autophagy and giving your gut and stomach a break. That's why I've done it for longer periods and do it overnight, along with avoiding snacking, it's massively helped my IBS.

Obviously some do it for religious/spiritual reasons too.

Fasting is a fancy word for skipping breakfast. CMV

Fasting is a fancy word for skipping breakfast.

In my case time restricted eating type fasting is essentially no breakfast, indeed no food between about 8pm and 11am. Any tea/coffee in that period is black. So most of my morning rides, at least a couple of hours off road, are fasted.

I started through being too lazy for breakfast, and became more committed in the face of the “breakfast is the most important meal” crew. But the science on inflammation and gut health behind this from people like Tim Spector and  MM does sound very plausible.

Fasting is a fancy word for skipping breakfast

Jokes aside - that's a bit confusing isn't it? On the one hand you're told that breakfast is the most important meal, eat a bowl of porridge etc, and now you're told not to eat before lunchtime!

I started 16:8 ish in November. Was ~90kg, now 83ish for little discernible effort. rate has slowed down but still trending down. I’m not super strict and haven’t ever counted calories.

 you’re told that breakfast is the most important meal,

By the breakfast cereal industry.  After breakfast cereal was invented by the Americans in the late 1800s they marketed it with slogans like «the most important meal» to drive demand for something people hadn’t needed before.

Its as meaningful as « go to work on an egg » - anyone remember that in the 1969s?

As an aside I always struggled eating breakfast in the traditional sense ie first thing before leaving the house. Just couldn't do it, it felt minging.

Then when I met Madame she was the same but she never attempted to eat anything until 10am, only liquid before then.

So I started doing the same and it was a revelation, suddenly I was able to properly eat and eat loads. In fact it's made breakfast my favourite meal of the day

It also massively reduced the stress of feeling I had to eat before leaving home

AIUI the fasting thing is not about calories, it’s about making your body chew up evil cells and reduce general inflammation.

That's it, the autophagy process - some studies suggest exercise accelerates the process that begins at 24-48hrs fasted without exercise.

I'm starting on the lean meat diet, and cutting down on the carbs.

As far as im aware if you eat predominately lean meat and not carbs, the body starts burning fats for its energy, instead of sugar that you would normally get from a high carb diet.

1 1/2lb sirloin steak last night, a smaller bit tonight, and I've a good 2lb roast for tomorrow.

Some burgers after than, but i want to try to stick to natural meat and not processed. Maybe a mac/cheese or lasagna once a week just for a change.

Fasting ? ...ermm... no thanks.

Some burgers after than, but i want to try to stick to natural meat and not processed.

Then make your own.

Just a thought about Mosley's plans. Bear in mind they are not aimed at athletes - professional or amateur. If you're doing serious physical activity you need appropriate nutrition. These fasting plans are developed for Joe (and Josephine) public who through being sedentary and eating too much are overweight and possibly even diabetic (as indeed Mosley was at one time). They can help to develop a healthier relationship with food.

Last year I was restricting what I ate for most of the day and drinking fat less alcohol, but smoking lots more weed/hash. I had lost the 5-6kg I gained during three winter months in the UK.

Went back to Munich last year at the start of summer and two months of gorging on Schweinsbraten and beer saw the kilos return.

A few months of riding until about October saw me lose a few kg, but since we're in Italy it's not so easy to ignore the food and wine.

Have been fasting, trying to reduce intake, but am currently sat here overlooking Val d"Orcia with my second bottle of vino and a half way through a leg of dried wild pig.

Sound tough alpin but I suppose someone has to do it.

I try, but take great pleasure in failing*.

Its as meaningful as « go to work on an egg » – anyone remember that in the 1969s?

Must have been one hell of a year for the egg industry.

*third bottle but who's counting?

going a day a week without eating. I wonder if anyone here has done this

Rishi Sunak famously has one day a week when he doesn't eat anything and he's a ****. I don't know if that observation is scientific enough for you?

Since last year now I have been not eating breakfast and going on club road rides on an empty stomach, often not eating until 3 or 4pm. I swear that up to a point my performance riding improves when on an empty stomach.

And it definitely seems to have made me more insulin sensitive. I generally try to avoid it but if I succumb and have something sweet during the coffee stop I can now expect a sugar crash at some point on the ride back.

My problem is that I can't stop eating in the evening, right up until the moment just before I go to bed, ffs. But in the morning I have no hunger at all, and very little if any the rest of the day.

Serious question, I've never been a fan of 'breakfast', I just don't like eating before lunch time as a general thing.

I don't feel hungry in mornings unless I force myself to eat something, so technically I fast every day for a good 10-14 hours depending?

If I know it's going to be a day of exertion, then I will force something down in the morning, but otherwise my breakfast is just a cup of tea or coffee.

Not really looked into this but out of habit and due to work, Mon-Fri I don't eat anything between 21.00 and 18.30 the next day (18.30 is tea - always cooked from scratch and relatively balanced/healthy, and then maybe a habitual sugary snack at 21.00).

Do drink, but that's only one mug of decaff  in the morning and then nothing but water.

Done bugger all for weight loss...

Nah, I don’t know what I weigh, my clothes sizes haven’t changed appreciably for around thirty years, and I eat and drink what I want, when I feel like it. Moderation in everything is what I was once told, seems to work.

Its as meaningful as « go to work on an egg » – anyone remember that in the 1969s?

I don't remember it in the 1969's - does that just mean all the months in 1969?  🙂

I do however find eating a mushroom omelette for breakfast means I am less hungry and I generally have a few eggs to eat from my 4 hens.

Not really looked into this but out of habit and due to work, Mon-Fri I don’t eat anything between 21.00 and 18.30 the next day (18.30 is tea – always cooked from scratch and relatively balanced/healthy, and then maybe a habitual sugary snack at 21.00).

Why are you cramming all your fuel into your body before you go to sleep? Makes no sense at all

On days when I don’t exercise, I have breakfast at 05:00 and dinner at 18:00.  I don’t know if that’s fasting…

The bit I took away from the Michael Mosley fasting thing was that after 12 hours, our bodies produce something that helps heal us on a cellular level that is only produced when we are empty. Seems worth it for that alone.

Evidence was partly that life expectancy went up significantly during the Great Depression (7 years). It seems that being hungry can help.

That and green tea helps break down the ameloids that cause Alzheimers.

I fast at least twice a week, my barrier to this was remembering not to put milk in my morning coffee. Once I'm work my first break is 11.30 so its easy enough.

It's that, what Mughboo says, that attracted me to fasting. It described to me as the body housekeeping itself once it stops having to process food.

As a result, I do 16hr fasting intermittently - basically skip breakfast, lunch at 1230, normal dinner and if I'm hungry at 2030 I'll have my breakfast to see me through the night. Eating breakfast in the morning, especially after a big evening meal, just feels excessive now and the biggest effect is that it cuts out mid morning and late evening snacks. I lost a stone over a year and have stabilised at a weight I didn't think I'd see again.

Also feel much better exercising on a fast. It's anecdotal but it's FACT

How many hours without food is generally considered fasting?

I don’t remember it in the 1969’s – does that just mean all the months in 1969?  🙂

A stupid fat finger mistype for 1960s. 😕

Mushroom omelettes are great any time of day - you are lucky to have really fresh eggs.

As above over 12 hours you start to see the beneficial effects in blood and hormones. But even just not snacking between meals has big benefits.

Jason Fung has a YouTube channel specifically about the fasting he does with his patients and why, also a really informative book.

https://youtube.com/@drjasonfung?si=MggVgObSGOJh3ElE

If I'm in full control of what I eat and when (i.e. it's not a day when eating or drinking with others is a social thing as much as a calories in thing) I now prefere a first meal of the day at about midday and last calories about 9pm. So 15/9.

I know it's just silly nomenclature, but it helps me with "the rules" but I take the name breakfast literally - breaking my fast. So to me that meal at midday is breakfast. It helps me to remember that 2100-1200 is a fast not just no planned meals - so no grazing in the fridge, no (oat) milk in tea, that sort of thing.

I'm sure there is some science to it but for me as a habitual grazer its as much as anything about hours in the day when grazing is banned.

Big days out mean I'm happy to break my own rules - especially if the consequences are high (I'm in the mountains, at sea or in white water) - like Ernie above I think I'm now now quite sugary carbs sensitive so grabbing a sugary energy bar to get myself out of a potential bonk hole has a consequence further down the line.

Good thread this

I think I'm inadvertently doing a 15/9 or thereabouts

The sugary energy bar rescue is interesting. In the past at work I might have scoffed a club biscuit or similar at about 4pm to get me to the end of the job. Inevitably it worked but then along came the sugary crash, hero to zero. Then I swapped to having some home made flapjack in my snap tin and the difference was night and day - no crash and sustained energy

There’s so much pseudo science on show about this, including in this thread. Truth is no one really knows. It definitely can help some people lose weight (inc me) but the other proposed benefits are unproven and often massively overstated.

No randomised trials have been done. The largest observational study of fasting was presented recently at ACC but it was a massively flawed study, so much so I wouldn’t put any weight on its evidence. But the bottom line was that fasting was associated with worse health outcomes. So anyone telling you it’s proven to make you healthier is probably lying.

Re exercise, apparently fasted training has largely been debunked for race training, (at least according to GCN) having been a trend (fad?) for the last few years.

Having done 16:8 myself for a few years now, I suspect the biggest benefit is simple calorie restriction. It’s quite an easy way to eat less. Particularly in that 8pm-10pm time of day where I really “need” to eat chocolate.

Yes it's a good one if it fits in to your routine.

Definitely less bloating and inflammation in the stomach - seems to help with things like that.

And it does make losing weight easier overall for certain people. My dad went from 19-13st and has stuck to it for years.

Saves time in a morning too!

To mew doesn't matter whether it's calorie restriction or whatever if it works for you.

I do it once a week as it just breaks things up a bit and gives you a target.

Ironically I'm laying in bed having a lie in on a Sunday and I'm bloody starving

No randomised trials have been done

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00098-1/fulltext#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20an%20umbrella%20review,liver%20disease%20compared%20to%20a

Omelette for lunch then meat and greens for dinner nearly every sodding day.

May I interest you in the world of the salad?

I am trying to keep starchy carbs down (not as drastically as you) and I love my lunches! Generally have any combination of grated carrot or diced cabbage or beetroot, lettuce etc, avocado, tinned mackerel, olives, capers, things in jars (like roasted peppers or baba ganoush), nuts, seeds, various dressings. One of the highlights of my day.

You could possibly consider beans or lentils in the evening meals, as these aren't too starchy, if you've got any leeway.

I used to have a really early start, I skipped breakfast a few times but found that it screwed my lunchtime swim or run. Go for a run before eating breakfast sure as you'll be running on glycogen stored in the muscles and liver, but exercise after fasting for long enough to run down energy reserves is asking for trouble in terms of performance and risk of injury.

Yeah I was about to chuck that lancet paper in too.

I'm doing 16:8 (due to work I'm nearer 18:6)  well have done for a week. I know it's a calorie restriction but gives me a window to work in and helps me avoid snacking. Both in evening and mid morning. I did a couple of easy fasted runs as well (6km and 10km which previously would have been no breakfast but probably snacking from evening before).

I move quite a lot so this is helping with the eat less part.

There's at least one paper that compares 16:8 fasting to alternate days to restricted calorie diet and the outcomes seemed to say IF had better outcomes for insulin use and was easier than the 5:2 fasting although weight loss was similar.

For record I've gone from 71.8kg to 68.7kg in just over a week. Which seems a big step but that last reading was this morning and yesterday's meal was annoyingly small but once I'd got over that I didn't snack and I know I've got the body fat to see me through. Although it's not something I'm looking to do too often.

Sorry - yes, I should have been more specific. There are no randomised trials comparing hard outcomes - only short term surrogate markers like insulin use, blood glucose. Promising, yes. But nothing that would justify advocating behaviour change of a whole population.

But nothing that would justify advocating behaviour change of a whole population.

I think Dr J was asking opinions with the view of possibly tweaking his own behaviour not necessarily that of the whole population.

I think the responses he has received has had that in mind.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5tq3?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

More or less recently covered this.

I forgot to add, my wife has ulcerative colitis and uses fasting as a way to keep it in check. It hasn't fixed the issue but  she hasn't had a proper nasty flare up since starting fasting and this was a long time ago.

I suggested it as a way of giving her body the chance to proccess what was already in there. No idea if that is whats happening but it made sense in my head.

I used to do the 800(?) calories twice a week but...

I had to stop because it was making me too grumpy at work.

Currently don't eat after 6pm nor before 8am. Don't see this as fasting, more normal eating patterns.

Interestingly my YouTube recommendations threw up a video suggesting the  16/8 IF with the feeding 8am-2pm is better for the fasting benefits, I guess because you're eating the food when most of us need it through the day, and fasting into the evening and overnight where people tend to be less active? Anyway it was the first I've seen it that way around.

I think the 'missing breakfast' style of IF is probably easier for most though as it's easier to fit in with other family/social eating? No one cares if you don't have breakfast, but might get grumpy if you don't want to eat dinner or tea with everyone.