I’ve had great success with the intermittent fast diet in lowering my cholesterol, experiencing a improvement that vastly outpaced improving my diet.
After a January physical, I learned that I was in overall good health, except that my cholesterol was dangerously high – 269 overall, and 196 LDL – the bad kind. I’m 32, male, 6’4″ and weighed 212 pounds. There’s a good chance I’m gentically predisposed to high cholesterol.
For eight weeks, between January and March, I improved my diet substantially, eating oatmeal most mornings, increasing my vegetable and fiber intake, and limiting my intake of high cholesterol foods like cheeses, red meat, and eggs. I continued to exercise as I had before, weightlifttng twice a week and running once every two weeks. This dietary change lowered my LDL cholesterol by 20 points (about 2.5 points per week), and I lost six pounds (0.75 pounds per week). Not bad, but the LDL at 175 was still way too high.
I began intermittent fasting in early April after seeing Eat, Fast and Live Longer on PBS in America. My doctor agreed to let me try IM and continue to eat healthy for another six weeks, but said that if I didn’t bring down my LDL substantially, he would want to put me on a statin. I continued my exercise regime for four weeks, but for the last two weeks, I switched exercise regimes to a high-intensity circuit training program twice a week.
After six weeks of 5:2 intermittent fasting wherein I would eat a 500-600 calorie breakfast on fast days and then not eat for 24 hours (11 total fasting days – I skipped one day while traveling), I lowered my LDL cholesterol by an additional 51 points to 124 (about 8.5 points per week) and I lost an additional ten pounds (1.6 lbs per week). During these six weeks, I continued to eat oatmeal and sought out high fiber options, but I did not avoid high-cholesterol foods as vigilantly as I had between January and March.
I was thrilled to learn how effective intermittent fasting was compared with dietary changes alone. In my diet-only plan, reducing my LDL at 2.5 points per week would have taken over nine months to get my levels below the recommended 100, and I doubt whether I would have had the willpower to maintain the diet for that length of time.
Once I added IF, and actually liberalized my diet, throwing a few cheeseburgers and BBQ into the mix with the healthy stuff, the results were much better. At an 8.5 point per week LDL reduction, I’ll be close to my target in about a month! I’m managing the fasting days well, learning how my body will feel, and comforting myself with the little orphan Annie maxim that the food’ll be there to-morrow.
I now weigh 196, shooting for 190, and have cut my LDL cholesterol by 72 points, or 36% of my January level, with 70% of that reduction atributable to IF.
To sum up:
Eating right = 0.75 pound weight loss and 2.5 point LDL reduction per week
Eating rightish + 5:2 intermittent fasting: = 1.6 pound weight loss and 8.5 point LDL reduction per week
Count me as an evangelist for IF!
2:34 pm
23 May 13