OK, sorry, I'm not the most photogenic guy in the world and my daughter says I should dye my hair :)But I'm almost 56 years old now and I'm working on losing some weight. I've managed to lose 8 pounds the last 5 weeks and I'd like to lose another 15 to 20 pounds. I'm trying the 16/8 approach where you fast for 16 hours and eat during an 8-hour period. Effectively, I'm cutting out my lightest meal of the day for reduction of about 500 to 800 calories each day. It may actually be healthier to eat during a shorter period with a longer fast because it forces the body to burn fat towards the end of the fasting period and should help to stabilize blood sugar levels for a longer time. Most people eat during a 12 to 16 hour period and fast for only 8 to 12 hours, mainly while sleeping.
I eat a fairly low carbohydrate diet, with about 50-60 percent of calories from fat and only about 20-30 percent from carbs. I try to minimize sugar and polyunsaturated fat - among the worst additives in the modern diet. The fat in my diet is mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat from pastured and wild animal foods. These are the healthiest fats that our ancestors have eaten for many thousands of years. The extra fat in my diet helps to curb hunger so I don't get very hungry during the 16 hour fasting period.
With my new routine, on workdays, I start breakfast at about 6:15 am and finish lunch at about 12:30 pm, which is actually a 6.25 hour eating period. On weekends and holidays, I push breakfast to around Noon to 1:00 pm and then finish dinner by 7:00 pm for about a 6 to 7 hour eating period. So, I'm really doing closer to a 17/7 or even an 18/6 regime. I've been very pleased with the results so far and highly recommend this approach to those of you who want to lose some weight.
To lose weight, you have to establish a calorie deficit - where your body is burning more calories than it receives from the food you eat. If your metabolism is in a steady state, that means increasing your exercise and/or reducing the number of calories you ingest. About three and a half years ago my weight had reached nearly 245 pounds while trying to do a low fat diet, where I had been gaining weight instead of losing weight. I switched to a low carb diet and decided to increase my exercise by walking 2 miles every day to try and lose weight. Most people burn about 70 to 100 calories per mile, whether you walk or jog that mile. That comes out to no more than 200 calories per day for a 2 mile walk. It takes net deficit of about 3,500 calories to lose a pound of weight. That means I should have lost about 2 pounds per month and I did actually lose about 10 pounds in about 6 months - but I gained most of it back that fall and winter by cheating too much and indulging in too many sweets over the holidays. It wasn't until I broke my sugar addiction and maintained a consistent low carb diet early the next year that my weight dropped significantly. I lost about 20 pounds in about 3 months doing a rigorous low carb diet with no cheating, thanks to dropping sugar as well as aspartame and sucralose. My weight loss then slowed and over the next 6 months I only lost about 10 additional pounds. My weight loss ended at that point and I started gaining weight very slowly. I gained almost 10 pounds over the next year and a half. I guess I like to eat too much. I did manage to lose about 2 pounds during the month prior to starting the 16/8 regime. My weight today is back down to 213 pounds, which is the lowest that I reached a little less than two years ago. My goal is to drop to at least 200 pounds, and I might keep going to 195 pounds, which is what I weighed at age 40. I will update this post when I reach my goal.
For those of you who want to lose weight - try the 16/8 along with a low carb, low sugar, and low polyunsaturated fat diet. Good luck!
Update November 11, 2008
After about four months now, I've lost 18 pounds and I'm down to 203 pounds! I plan to keep going for at least another 10 pounds.
Further Reading
Fast Way to Better Health by Dr. Michael Eades
Protein Power verses Intermittent Fasting by Dr. Michael Eades
5 comments:
www.theiflife.com
Why focus on a forced calorie deficit? The body's metabolism should naturally to be able to put those extra calories to good use (if there's a factor telling the person he/she is hungry all the time). For example - most obese people have very little protection in their organs - everything they're eating is not getting used to build muscle or help organs, but being stored as fat because of the effect their diet has on their various hormones.
After reading Schwarzbein's books - it makes a lot of sense what she suggests. Calories are only controlled by how fast the thyroid can work. Going too low will only make it want to slow down more, and those hormones want to get more out of whack. The theory of get healthy first, then loose weight is one I really respect from her.
I see you link to her site; how do you feel about her reasoning?
Matt Stone's the very first person who I read about, though, who talked about it, so I got to give all the credit I can out :) www.180degreehealth.com
and here, more specifically:
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2009/01/bellati-karate.html
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2008/12/fump-day-18.html
Chloe,
As I mentioned in the post, changing macro nutrient emphasis from low fat to low carb alone was enough for me lose weight initially, once I got serious about the low carb and ditched sugar and artificial sweeteners. However, that approach didn't lower my weight as much as I wanted. That's why I decided to try the intermittent fasting approach and found it worked quite well for me in conjunction with a fairly low carb diet. My weight has stabilized and since November 2008 has been bouncing around between 201 and 204 pounds (202 this morning). I'm still doing the 18/6 IF on weekdays, but not weekends, hoping to slowly lose about 5 or 10 more pounds this year. I like the 18/6 approach and have not found it difficult.
Many people use various forms of intermittent fasting for a variety of reasons, not just weight loss. Some say that it helps the body to cleanse and purge and provides mental clarity. I can't say that I have noticed anything like that, but I do like not having to fix dinner on weeknights :)
I haven't read Dr. Schwarzbein's books, but from what I have seen on her web site, she has a very good approach that will help anyone who is overweight and/or diabetic or pre-diabetic. I don't agree with her acceptance of soy and pasteurized dairy - I avoid them. I prefer raw dairy. But these are not issues that are directly related to weight loss and diabetes.
By getting more exercise, my resting metabolism has definitely slowed, as indicated by my resting heart rate. About four years ago, my resting heart rate was often in the 80-90 beat per minute range. Now it is typically around 55-60 bpm. Slower metabolism is associated with longevity and that is my goal at age 56 :)
I see; but Schwarzbein's reasoning is that the metabolism shouldn't be slow from misbalanced hormones, as this is often the reason, she finds, and that you will use up biochemicals faster if such a stress is put on the body - or eventually, it will want to put all the calories eaten into fat storage because the body will believe to be starving with a low metabolism. I am aware that it's debatable whether fasting has effects short term or not, or even fasting on fruits and vegetables - but long term, limiting calories or doing constant fasts seems like it can really have an effect on the body.
All I've heard of is calorie restriction - and how that supposedly has merit. But Ray Peat noted a study here:
"The carcinogenic properties of the polyunsaturated fats have been known for more than 50 years, as has the principle of extending the life span by restricted feeding. More recently several studies have demonstrated that the long lived species contain fewer highly unsaturated fats than the short lived species. Restriction of calories prevents the lipids in the brain, heart, and liver from becoming more unsaturated with aging. (Lee, et al., 1999; Laganiere, et al., 1993; Tacconi, et al., 1991; R. Patzelt-Wenczler, 1981.)"
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/vitamin-e.shtml
The solution is simply keep these lipids from becoming unsaturated - which can then form radicals inside the body. Peat's take on this is to limit polyunsaturated fats in the diet [as a side note, these are examples of various courses to take but to arrive at similar conclusions]. He has very good arguments against them (www.raypeat.com). Playing in with Schwarzbein (who's overall opinion I agree with - not always the food choices such as soy - but her overall outlook is great, and her overall conclusion - balancing the hormones through diet), who has another approach, and that is - keep the hormones in balance so that they will work as long as they are supposed to. Basically, there is more then one approach to achieving things like this.
How those calories get put to use, I think, can dictate not the speed, but how efficient the body is at putting them to better use. There is astounding scientific information behind everything which can make more things make sense - rather then just assuming one category of foods causes weight gain, such as carbohydrates; or things that need to be counted, such as calories. There are real world examples of this, such as people who consume a large variety of plant matter and carbs as diet - such as the Kitava (in which 3/4 of them smoke). Ray Peat's argument against polyunsaturated fats could fit into their situation, being that they're intake is very low, and that you're body can make saturated fats out of carbohydrates (it being the desired fat).
Schwarzbein's approach is targeted mainly at type II diabetics. As you know, these are people who generally have serious hormone and thyroid problems. Most of these people are also well overweight. If you want to lose weight rapidly, you certainly don't want to slow down an already slow metabolism. So her approach makes sense in this context.
However, for people who are not overweight, slowing down resting metabolism is ideal for longevity. Exercise and intermittent fasting both help to achieve this goal from what I've read. Of course, we want healthy longevity and I think exercise and IF also are beneficial in that regard. Living longer in poor health with lots of drugs is not my ideal for longevity :)
I definitely believe in minimizing dietary polyunsaturated fat. My goal is to stay under 4% of calories as PUFA long-term. On a high fat diet, that can be a little tricky. I tend to favor ruminant meat and dairy over pork and chicken because of the much lower PUFA. I covered this in Fat Follies.
I also try to minimize the amount of fructose in my diet. I eat a little fruit, mainly for vitamin C, but that's about all the fructose I get now. I avoid all foods with any kind of added sucrose or fructose (like table sugar, honey, or HFCS). I don't believe starchy carbs that digest into glucose are a problem for people who are not overweight and not diabetic, as long as they otherwise get good nutrition and don't have problems with food chemicals like lectins in grains or solamine in potatoes. Many starchy foods need to be prepared properly for optimal nutrition.
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