Hi! I’ve decided to record my weight loss evolution on daily 20-23 hours fasting window, having only 1-2 large meals a day, depending on my hunger levels.
I will not have a fixed daily or weekly pattern. I will eat my first meal when I’ll feel hunger (but not later than 3 pm) and once every 2-3 days I will eat 2 meals a day, to compensate.
I will not count / limit my calories, but I usually eat around 1.000 calories / meal, so my daily intake will vary between 1.000 – 2.000 calories, with my TDEE at ~1.700 calories.
I’ve started 10 days ago, at ~73 kg (height 1.65 m) and today’s weight is ~72 kg. Lost 1 kg, but some of it may be water weight, because I was eating very salty.

I’ll update maybe once a month.

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I’ve wrote on another thread about intermittent fasting 20/4 and I will copy-paste here the information.
https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/hey-new-here-and-have-some-questions/

Q: My question is would be it be healthy for me to eat everything I’m supposed to eat in the early hours of the day. The first meal would be when I wake up around 9 or 10 am. The second would be around noon or 1. Two meals and it would be 1,200 calories total and that would be it for the day. It’s essentially not eating for 20 hours. Is it healthy or is detrimental to my health? If I go on it for awhile and then go off would it make me gain all the weight back?

A:

Question 1: Is it healthy or is detrimental to my health?

Yes, my opinion it is that is healthier to eat in a smaller window in the daytime, because intermittent fasting has many benefits, especially in the case of insulin resistance.

Some good graphical representations are in this article of Dr. Fung: Fasting Regimens – Part 6
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-regimens-part-6/
The less insulin / time dependent (1 vs 3 red zones), the better for reversing insulin resistance.

Important is that your body to be well adapted to a 4 hours eating window, so daily 20 hours fast not to be a major stress factor to your body. If it feels stressful not eating in the evening (and you’ll have problems sleeping), you could try to adapt better to a 6 hours eating window, and maybe moving the starting hour around 11-12. You’ll have to test for yourself and see how your body prefers.

In my opinion equally important is that you have some days when you eat at your TDEE level. A constant intake at 1.200 calories could lower your metabolism and cause binge eating episodes and weight gain, and you want to avoid this.

I’ve also read that when-the-eating-hours-are is important for weight loss. If you have your eating window in the daytime you are losing more weight than having it in the evening. And the cause is that insulin release is greater in the evening, at identical meals.

This study I think it says it all: the study compared the effect of eating a large breakfast versus a large dinner: both groups ate 1.400 calories, BF group lose 8.7 kg, D group lose 3.6 kg. So yes, the time of your eating window is essential for weight loss.

“So what this study did was to randomly assign two groups of overweight women to eating a large breakfast (BF group) or a large dinner (D group). Both ate 1400 calories/day, and the macronutrient composition of each diet was matched – only the timing of the largest meal was changed. While both groups lost weight, the BF group was clearly superior for both weight loss and waist size (important measure of visceral fat) by almost 2.5 times (-8.7 kg vs -3.6 kg).”

Extras from Dr. Fung’s article: Circadian Rhythms – Fasting
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/circadian-rhytms-fasting-17/

And here is the link for the whole study: High caloric intake at breakfast vs. dinner differentially influences weight loss of overweight and obese women.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20460/epdf

Another 2 studies I found in this article in The Washington Post: Why eating late at night may be particularly bad for you and your diet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-eating-late-at-night-may-be-particularly-bad-for-you-and-your-diet/2015/08/24/ad8b85ac-2583-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html

Extras:
“Two recent studies have shed new light on the potential impact of timing. In a study of 420 overweight or obese people published in 2013, those who ate their major meal after 3 p.m. lost less weight during a 20-week weight-loss program than those who ate that main meal before 3 p.m. — even when the amount they ate, slept and exercised was the same.

“This is the first study to show that eating later in the day . . . makes people lose less weight, and lose it slower,” even when the amount people ate, slept and exercised was the same, says the study’s lead author, Marta Garaulet, a professor of physiology at the University of Murcia in Spain. “It shows that eating late impairs the success of weight-loss therapy.” In the 2013 study, the early eaters lost 22 pounds, the late eaters only 17.

In a subsequent small study of healthy women published this year, Garaulet and her team showed that when participants ate lunch after 4:30 p.m., they burned fewer calories while resting and digesting their food than they did when they ate at 1 p.m. — even though the calories consumed and level of activity was the same.

What’s more, when the participants ate late, they couldn’t metabolize, or burn off, carbohydrates as well as when they ate earlier. They also had decreased glucose tolerance, which can lead to diabetes. (The two-week study did not track whether the women gained or lost weight.)”

Direct links to the studies:
1. Timing of food intake predicts weight loss effectiveness.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3756673/

2. Meal timing affects glucose tolerance, substrate oxidation and circadian-related variables: A randomized, crossover trial.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25311083

Question 2: If I go on it for awhile and then go off would it make me gain all the weight back?

The answer is: yes, could be, if your weight gain was initially caused by insulin resistance. Here is Dr. Fung’s answer to a similar question:
http://www.dietdoctor.com/permanent-effect-intermittent-fasting-insulin-resistance

Q: How permanent is the effect of IF on the insulin resistance? After you lower the insulin resistance through a regimen of fasting, is it sustainable or you have to do it for life?
A: It is not permanent. It’s like taking a bath. You can’t do it once and expect to be clean forever.

I’ve also read about a study (sadly I did not saved the source) where eating the TDEE calories in 12+ hours leads to weight gain, but eating them in ~6 hours (don’t remember exactly), the weight was maintained. And the reason is that as long the insulin levels are high (each time after eating something, no matter what), the body is in storing-fat-mode, and the fat burning is blocked.
Like in this graph, the green zones vs blue ones: How Insulin Works – Hormonal Obesity VII
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-works-hormonal-obesity-vii/

You could also regain weight (due to binge eating) if you did not listened to your body (hunger) and forced a daily max 1.200 calories intake, having daily a large calorie deficit, instead of a cyclical pattern, with days at your TDEE level.

I hope my message answers all your questions about IF 20/4. Good luck!

PS: On a separate note I want to address the LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) solution for insulin resistance that seems for many to be the only choice, dietary speaking.

Here is the “Power: Fasting vs Low Carb” article from Dr. Fung’s blog:https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/power-comparison-fasting-vs-low-carb-fasting-26/
Extras: “Looking at total area under the curve, you can see that carb free diet can reduce insulin by roughly 50% but you can go another 50% by fasting.”

My opinion is that some persons can improve their insulin sensitivity (but not to 100%) having 2 options:
1. LCHF in a (x) hours eating window (let’s say 3 meals a day in 12 hours eating window)
2. Moderate Carb diet (with fruits and safe starches, maybe some beans etc – around 100-150 grams of carbs / day) but in a much-smaller-than-(x) eating window, to benefit from the insulin-lowering-effect of fasting daily for a much longer period. (let’s say 2 meals a day in a 4 hours eating window, and fasting for 20 hours).

So I think it’s important to look at the “total area under the curve”, how Dr. Fung says, but for the whole day, 24 hours, not necessarily at every meal / every hour of the day. Again, this is just my own point of view, which could also be wrong, but I think it has his merits to be tested, if someone just can not stick to a very low carb diet.

Yes, LCHF + fasting have together a greater effect on insulin resistance, but my opinion (which I do not wish to debate) is that strict LCHF it is not a healthy choice on long term. Details in the extras below, plus the risk of binge eating associated with any form of long term restrictive eating (psychological factors).

Extras: Chris Kresser and Tom Naughton in a review of Perfect Health Diet, Paul Jaminet.
http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2014/04/28/safe-starches-and-the-perfect-health-diet/

“In the cyberspace crowd of health-oriented blogs and Facebook groups, I noticed more and more people saying they developed problems on a strict very-low-carb diet – low thyroid function, cold hands and feet, high fasting glucose, dry eyes, etc. – which went away when they added some “safe starches” back into their diets as prescribed in the Perfect Health Diet.
….

That peak health range is the amount of glucose our bodies require on a daily basis — somewhere in the range of 100 to 150 grams. It’s this chapter of the book that started all the hubbub over “safe starches.” Yes, your body will convert protein into glucose – even if it has to raid the protein stored in your muscles to do so – but the Jaminets argue that forcing your body to meet its daily glucose requirement through gluconeogenesis can eventually cause the health problems Chris Kresser described seeing in some of his patients: slow thyroid, dry eyes, cold hands and feet, low energy, weight-loss stalls, etc.
…

I see a fair number of patients in my practice struggling with symptoms like hair loss, cold hands and feet, plateaued weight loss, low energy and mood imbalances after following a VLC diet for several months. In many cases they adopted this approach to lose weight, which was successful – at least to a certain point. However, others were not overweight to begin with and simply chose to eat VLC because they got the impression that “carbs are bad”, even for people without metabolic problems. I believe many of these issues are related to the decrease in thyroid hormone levels seen on VLC diets.

In cases where there is no significant metabolic damage, when I have these folks increase their carbohydrate intake (with starch like tubers and white rice, and fruit) to closer to 150g a day, they almost always feel better. Their hair loss stops, their body temperature increases and their mood and energy improves.

For people that are overweight and are insulin/leptin resistant, it’s a bit trickier. In some cases increasing carbohydrate intake moderately, to approximately 100g per day, actually re-starts the weight loss again. In other cases, any increase in carbohydrate intake – in any form – will cause weight gain and other unpleasant symptoms. A different approach is required for these patients.

As always, there’s no simple answer and no one-size-fits-all approach. If I could leave your readers with one point, that would be it.”

Hi simcoeluv. And thanks!

Yes and No. 🙂 In my opinion intermittent fasting is not a simply “reduced calorie diet”. I like this “Caloric Reduction vs Fasting” article of Dr. Fung.
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/caloric-reduction-vs-fasting-part-9/

Caloric Reduction: “As you reduce calories, appetite goes up, and TEE goes down. You reduce Calories In, but Calories Out goes down, too. This is failure guaranteed 100%.”

Fasting: “As we recently detailed in the fasting series, the hormonal changes that happen in IF are completely different. In contrast to CR, during fasting, appetite goes down and TEE goes up. The body is trying to lose weight and helping you along. The main point is that it addresses the long term problem of insulin resistance. Glucose and insulin go down and stay down.
During caloric reduction alone, you do not get any of the beneficial hormonal adaptations of fasting.”

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I will try to have a somehow intuitive approach in deciding when I’ll eat only one meal and when I’ll eat 2. I will listen to my hunger, and not force a caloric deficit. I want this to be a way of eating for the rest of my life, and not just a “diet” until I reach my goal.

Anyway, this is my experiment. I’m curios how it will go!

Good luck to you too!

Thank you for the link.

Dr. Fung gives another study as example:
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/the-cruel-hoax-of-the-low-fat-diet-calories-part-ix/

Extras:
“Low-fat dietary pattern and weight change over 7 years: the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial

This was a massive, expensive and ambitious National Institute for Health study published in 2006. It also set the bar for awesomeness. Close to 50,000 women were recruited for this randomized controlled trial. This is the absolute gold standard in experimental medicine, and this study is probably one of the most important studies of its kind.

There was an average follow up of 7.5 years. 19,541 women were randomized to the study diet. These women had a series of education sessions to reduce fat to 20% of daily calories, increase vegetables and fruit to 5 servings/day, and grains to 6 servings/day.

There were 18 session in the first 12 months, group activities, individual interviews with reflective listening, targetted message campaigns and personalized feedback.

Fat as a percentage of calories reduced from 38.8% to 29.8%. Carbohydrates increased from 44.5% to 52.7% since whole grains were encouraged. It was emphasized that the main goal was to reduce fat as a percentage of calories and not weight loss per se.

Exercise was also encouraged. As you can see, the women increased their daily physical activity increased from 10 METs/wk to 11.4 METs/wk. MET is simply a measure of physical activity. In other words physical activity increased 14% over baseline over those 7.5 years.

The Eat Less, Move More group starts out great with an average of more than 2kg over the first year. By the second year, the weight starts to be regained and by the end of the study, it is clear that there is no significant difference between the two groups.

Reducing calories by 361 calories/day every day for 7 1/2 years and increasing exercise by 14% did not result in any more weight loss than doing nothing.

You might think that these women replaced some of their fat with muscle. Unfortunately, there was also no difference in their waist circumference or the Waist-Hip Ratio (WHR).

Weight loss over 7.5 years of the Eat Less, Move More strategy was not even one single kg (2.2 lbs).

What is still worse is that over 7.5 years the average waist increased from 89.0 to 90.1 cm, and the average WHR increased from 0.82 to 0.83. This indicates that not only did these women not lose weight, they were actually fatter than before.”

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I can only speak from my experience. I’ve been “on a diet” for more than 10 years, trying to go from 65 to 55 (I was young.. skinny was every girl’s dream). I’ve tried counting calories / low carb / healthy eating / exercise more / … Every time I’ve lost the weight in less than a year (at a rate of 1 kg / month), but it was impossible to maintain it, due to extreme hunger / binge eating. And guess what? A year after each diet, my new weight was always higher than before the diet. And the sad part is that in the last 18 months I just could not go under 70. I’ve tried almost every diet, but nothing works anymore. I lose max 3 kg and then bounce back to around 73 (also due to hunger and binge eating). My guess is that my problems with insulin resistance are bigger (and this can be only worse with age), so this is the reason for this fasting experiment, that may seem extreme for many. I’m just not ready to accept this 70+ weight and the many health problems that I already have, all caused by insulin resistance.

Yes, I don’t see BMR, but I see other parameters, and it can be estimated:
– caloric intake: “Total caloric intake reduced from 1788 to 1446 calories/day – a reduction of 361.4 calories/day for over 7 years.” – that means that “eating more” is excluded.
– exercise: “The women increased their daily physical activity increased from 10 METs/wk to 11.4 METs/wk. MET is simply a measure of physical activity. In other words physical activity increased 14% over baseline over those 7.5 years.”
– weight evolution: “The Eat Less, Move More group starts out great with an average of more than 2kg over the first year. By the second year, the weight starts to be regained and by the end of the study.”

BMR + Exercise = Total Caloric Intake, for maintenance.
or: BMR = Total Caloric Intake – Exercise

Total caloric intake: down by 361 calories / day
Exercise: up by 14%
BMR: down by at least 361 calories / day

Or I think you know this study about the metabolism of “The Biggest Loser” contestants. Extras: “Mr. Cahill was one of the worst off. As he regained more than 100 pounds, his metabolism slowed so much that, just to maintain his current weight of 295 pounds, he now has to eat 800 calories a day less than a typical man his size. Anything more turns to fat.”

After ‘The Biggest Loser’, Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

The Biggest Loser Diet – Explained!
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/biggest-loser-diet-explained/

__________

But I do not try to convince you of anything. If you don’t believe in slower BMR caused by a Calorie Reduction diet, and if for you CR is working great and you are happy with your results, then I’m happy for you too!
All the best to you too!

Good luck with the pattern you choosed, Lael!

I’ve found some Q&A with Dr. Fung about IF:
http://www.dietdoctor.com/intermittent-fasting-faq

Extras:
“Q: Are there significant differences in benefits from 24-hour fasting vs. multi-day fasting vs. 16:8 fasting?

A: The main difference, as you may suspect, is that shorter fasting periods are less effective and are usually done more frequently. So a 16:8 fast is often done daily, whereas a 24 hr fasting period is done 2-3 times per week. For more severe insulin resistance, I tend to prescribe longer fasting periods, whereas for maintenance I tend to prescribe shorter ones.

___

Q: The fasting protocol that fits my life style best is a fasting all day with a 4 to 5 hour eating window in the evening. I feel that I could do this daily during the work week. Is this recommended? How many days a week of IF is healthy?

A: Periods of fasting less than 24 hours (20 hours fasting, 4 hr eating) or ‘Warrior’ style fasting can be done daily. The term ‘healthy’ always depends upon what your goals are. If you are simply trying to lose weight, then fasting can be done as needed for that. There are no negative health consequences to eating only during 4 hours of the day.

___

Q: I have done 18hr, 24hr and 3 days without any real difficulties and have switched it up during the week, depending how I feel and whether I have social plans. Is it a good idea to change the fasting routine regularly, or would I be better off sticking to a 24hr regime for consistency?

A: Personally, I believe that it is much better to switch things up so that the body does not have a chance to adapt. However, sometimes this inconsistency leads to people not fasting at all, which is also bad.

So it all depends upon your ‘style’. If a regular routine works better for you for compliance reasons, then do so. However, physiologically, I think changing things up all the time works better.”

Much more FAQ in the link.

After I’ve read about this two extreme weight loss stories on potatoes-only diet, I’ve started to read more about the benefits of resistant starch.

Penn Jillette: 75 pounds in 83 days.
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/illusionist-penn-jillette-shedding-100-pounds-night-day/story?id=41063418

Andrew Taylor: 32 kg in 100 days.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3535562/Andrew-Flinders-Taylor-year-long-potato-diet-lost-32kg-starting-January.html

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How Resistant Starch Will Help to Make You Healthier and Thinner
http://chriskresser.com/how-resistant-starch-will-help-to-make-you-healthier-and-thinner/

The Definitive Guide to Resistant Starch
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-definitive-guide-to-resistant-starch/#axzz4GoEnMI5I

The Low-Fat History You Probably Never Heard
https://rawfoodsos.com/2015/10/06/in-defense-of-low-fat-a-call-for-some-evolution-of-thought-part-1/#history

The Safe Starch Debate
http://paleoleap.com/eat-your-starches-why-safe-starches-are-healthy/

Hi Anaide and thank you for your message. First of all, congratulations for the first 25 kg lost and I wish you good luck until your target weight!

I also try to eat only 23/1 from Monday to Friday (because, like you said, various meal times from one day to another stress me), and 2 meals a day (IF 20/4) on week-ends, because then I am more active. I eat my meal / meals usually until 4 pm, because I’ve read all those studies about “In response to the same meal given either early or late in the day, the insulin response was 25-50% greater in the evening.” Quote: “So what this study did was to randomly assign two groups of overweight women to eating a large breakfast (BF group) or a large dinner (D group). Both ate 1400 calories/day, and the macronutrient composition of each diet was matched – only the timing of the largest meal was changed. While both groups lost weight, the BF group was clearly superior for both weight loss and waist size (important measure of visceral fat) by almost 2.5 times (-8.7 kg vs -3.6 kg).” https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/help-21/#post-161837

I also do not count calories and try to eat 80-90% whole foods, but I do not limit my (resistant starch) carbs (but I try to limit the fruits, I was eating way too much – https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fructose-causes-insulin-resistance-hormonal-obesity-xxxii/ ). I feel very good on this eating plan of Paul Jaminet / Perfect Health Diet: Weight Loss Version: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/02/perfect-health-diet-weight-loss-version/

Quote: “This may surprise many readers, since we’re fat-friendly, but there should be no reduction in carb or protein consumption on weight loss diets. Calorie restriction should come out of fat. The Perfect Health Diet “plateau range” for carbs and protein is 600 to 1200 calories. Eating less than 600 combined carb+protein calories per day raises the specter of either protein deficiency (leading to hunger) or glucose deficiency (leading to zero-carb dangers).”

Today I also found this formula for insulin load, and I guess I can play with carbs and fiber and protein. https://optimisingnutrition.com/2016/05/02/insulin-load-the-greatest-thing-since-carb-counting/

insulin load = carbohydrates (g) – fibre (g) + 0.56 x protein (g)

But: “The other unfortunate fact is that the insulin produced in response to food is less than half of the amount of insulin that your body produces. In addition to reducing the insulin load of your diet you may also need to increase the periods between your meals. This will allow your insulin levels to decrease even more so that body fat can be accessed for fuel.”

So: at the end of the article: insulin evolution during a 72 hours fast: “mobilization of adipose tissue triglycerides increases markedly between 18 and 24 h of fasting”. And: “Of the total decline in plasma insulin, 70% occurred within the first 24 h of fasting.”

To answer your question “Do you think that this way of eating have all benefits of fasting? sustainable or at some point it will cease to work for me?”, I think yes, this way of eating / fasting, with the benefits of autophagy and decreasing “basal insulin”, can work until the BMI is in “normal” range. But, as I’ve said on another thread, it’s more complicated than “less insulin and less calories than TDEE”. https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/help-21/#post-161953

I will copy-paste here part of my message:

“So, bottom line, if the weight loss would be so simple like “just eat low carb” or “just eat less”, we would not have this obesity epidemic right now. Everyone has to fight his own battle, to find the multi-factorial solution that will work for him.

I think this article says it all: The MultiFactorial Nature of Obesity
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/multifactorial-nature-obesity-lose-weight-ii/

Quote: “Too often, our current model of obesity assumes that there is only one single true cause, and that all others are pretenders to the throne. There are endless debates about the true king. Too many calories cause obesity. No, too many carbohydrates. No, too much saturated fat. No, too much red meat. No, too much processed foods. No, too much high fat dairy. No, too much wheat. No, too much sugar. No, too much highly palatable foods. No, eating out. It goes on and on. They are all partially correct.”

And I will add to the all the above: binge eating disorders, stress / emotional eating and all other psychological factors that trigger overeating.
Or another Dr. Fung’s example: if the weight gain is caused by sleep deprivation, trying to go low carb or to count calories is futile. You always have to seek the primordial cause for the weight gain. Otherwise is just lost time and energy.”

And.. I can give as example my experiment: this last 10 days were very stressful (life happens) and because I have for many years a binge eating disorder (with compulsive eating, like you) that is triggered by stress, I’ve eaten more than my body needs and my weight is back at 73 kilos. All that I’ve manage to lose in the first weeks of my experiment, I’ve put it all back because of stress eating in the last 10 days. So the final answer to your question is “depends”. My approach to weight loss is to always try to find the cause that makes me overeat and to solve every problem, one by one. Sometimes is insulin resistance, sometimes is stress-eating (cortisol: https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/closer-look-cortisol-hormonal-obesity-xxxx/ ), sometimes is sleep deprivation ( https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/sleep-deprivation-obesity-hormonal-obesity-xxxxi/ ), sometimes is frustration after zero-junk weeks (study posted by simcoeluv: http://www.timesofisrael.com/want-to-lose-weight-make-breakfast-your-big-meal-and-have-dessert-with-it/ “Over the course of a 32-week study, participants who added dessert to their breakfast — cookies, cake, or chocolate — lost an average of 40 pounds more than a group that avoided such foods. They also kept off the pounds longer.” ) or carb-cravings after low-carb days, or opposite, junk / sugar / gluten addiction… and so on, you get the point. So if in the future it will come a time when your current way of eating will not produce weight loss, you just have to analyze all the rest of the factors that can cause overeating / plateaus / weight gain.

Hugs!

A Guide to Low-Carb Cheating
http://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/cheat

After this discussion ( https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/sugar-and-shite/ ) about physiological vs psychological causes for binge eating, ended with the mention of gluten addiction and withdrawal, I’ve started to think about my last 10-days-binge. Yes, the trigger was an stressful event, followed by me feeling very low for about 2 days, but that’s it: 2 days, not 10! So after better thinking about those days, my conclusion is that my mistake is that I binge on gluten foods, which also in my case triggers compulsive eating and gluten addiction, even without stress or other emotional storm.

So: new strategy for the next 30 days:
– if I will feel the urge to binge (due to stress or emotional “something”), I will choose non-gluten junk. My favorites: potatoes chips, ice-cream, chocolate. (Home-made stuff don’t do the trick.) But also I will continue to meditate daily, to reduce the risk to binge.

– if I will crave junk / gluten foods (my weakness is beer), I will take only 3 bites. I found this advice in this article: How to Cheat.
“So, the more candy, the more dopamine, right? In fact, quite the opposite is true. The Malthusian law of diminishing returns is applicable to candy. The first taste of a food releases the highest percentage of dopamine to the brain – sometimes as much as 70% of the total dopamine released during a meal. With every bite after, less and less dopamine is released, until that third scoop of ice cream could probably be replaced with celery pulp and you wouldn’t be getting any more of a happy kick.”
More useful tips: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cheat/#ixzz4I3X8x18w

– Saturday I’ve restarted my IF experiment. The start weight was 73.5, today was 72.2, after 2 days with under 100 grams of carbs, to lose some water. I will update after Day 50, if everything goes well (if not, sooner), because I do not want to make again an obsession over the numbers on the scale.

On a separate note, this new thread “eating himself to death” reminds me of me not being able to lower my weight to normal and solve my eating disorder and many related other health problems, despite the fact that I consider myself to be very well informed on the subject. But hey.. I’ll die before I will give up trying. 🙂
https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/eating-himself-to-death/

16 feelings that Emotional Eaters most often confuse with physical hunger.
http://innerself.com/content/healthy/weight-loss/4720-emotional-eating-vs-physical-hunger-by-doreen-virtue-phd.html

Causes of False Hunger
http://www.chuckrowtaichi.com/ch.html

Causes of Compulsive Overeating
http://eating-disorders.org.uk/information/compulsive-overeating-binge-eating-disorder/

Last week I’ve read this analysis of Ariel’s weight loss evolution ( https://github.com/arielf/weight-loss/blob/master/README.md ) and I thought that it’s a smart way to approach my experiment, by recording the factors that have an impact on my weight loss / gain. So: I’ve started to record in a xls file what was important for me, and the statistics for the first week are:

Week 1: from Friday 19 Aug till this morning, Friday 26 Aug.
– SW: 73.8 kg. CW: 71.7 kg. Lost 2.1 kg. // water weight: around 1.5 kg. // Net fat loss: around 0.6 kg.
– daily average of (estimated) grams of carbs: 120 g. Carbs sources: fruits, quinoa, corn, ice cream.
– daily average of (estimated) calories from junk (includes 2 cheat meals and the “3 bites rule” for daily cravings): 190 calories. Gluten under 25%. (Note: I do not count total calories, so I do not have a daily average for that.)
– weekly cheat meals: 2 x 500 calories (ice cream). I will try to reduce to 1 per week. Note: no gluten in large quantities / risk of compulsive eating.
– fasting: 3 days IF 23/1 (around 1.000 calories/day) and 4 days of IF 20/4 (1.300 – 2.000 calories/day).
– no binge episodes. Yet. But next weeks will be full of stress, so I hope to manage well the situation/s.

Next update: statistics after 4 weeks.

Statistics for week 2:
– weight 71.2 kg. Lost 0.5. Total lost 1.1 (fat) + 1.5 (water).
– carbs daily average (DA): 155 grams
– calories DA: 1.200
– junk calories DA: 190
– 3 cheat meals: pizza, ice cream , chocolate
– 6 days IF 23/1 and 1 no-fast day

4 weeks of experiment. I’ve had: 16 days IF 23/1, 11 days IF 20/4, 1 no-fast day.
Weight loss is irrelevant, because I’ve started with water retention and I’ll end it with more water retention. Hope at least 1 kg to be fat loss.
And hope next 4 weeks to have a higher number of one-meal-a-day days.

For the first 6 months I will fill daily my fasting pattern on this online journal.
http://dailyfastingweightloss.blogspot.de/2016/09/daily-fasting-weight-loss-journal-6-months.html

Study:

“Participants: 94 Obese, inactive females.

Group I: Very low carb dieters
1,085 calories a day.
17 grams of carbohydrates
51 grams of protein and
78 grams of fat a day.
The smallest meal was breakfast, at 290 calories. For breakfast the dieters were permitted only 7 grams of carbohydrates, such as bread, fruit, cereal and milk. Dieters could eat just 12 grams of protein, such as meat and eggs, in the morning.

Group II: Big breakfast dieters
1,240 calories a day.
58 grams of carbohydrates
93 grams of protein
46 grams of fat
Dieters ate a 610-calorie big breakfast, consisting of 58 grams of carbs, 47 grams of protein and 22 fat grams. The diet schedule for lunch was 395 calories (34, 28 and 13 grams of carbs, protein and fat, respectively); dinner was 235 calories (5, 18 and 26 grams, respectively).

The Results
The first 4 months of the 8 month study focused on weight loss, while the last 4 months focused on weight maintenance. Here were the results:

First 4 months:
Very low carb group: Average 28 lbs loss
Big Breakfast group: Average 23 lbs loss

After 8 months:
Very low carb group: Regained 18 lbs
Big Breakfast group: Lost an additional 16.5 lbs

The big breakfast group lost an average of 21% body weight, while the very low carb group lost only 4.5%.”
Source: http://www.diet-blog.com/08/big_breakfast_diet_a_diet_that_works.php

I have MANY question marks about this study (like why the words “bread, fruit, cereal and milk” are in the same ‘sentence’ with “very low carb dieters”), I do not agree with a so high intake of protein, but I’ve posted it because (if true) I find the results very interesting, specifically the long term adherence for the big-breakfast-with-carbs-group.

And my opinion is that the study conclusion (that we need a big (and with carb) breakfast to be successful long term, while keto & small breakfast will fail) is somehow false. Keto diet may be at least equally successful for 8 months, without eating breakfast, but incorporating intermittent fasting. The problem is that statistically, very few people adhere long term to a very low carb diet. I’ve remembered this very interesting article “Weight loss diet studies: we need help not hype”: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)31338-1/fulltext
And the key point for me is: “difficulties in sustaining changes to dietary choices and behaviours that affect patients’ ability to enjoy, celebrate, and socialise with food.”

Thanks for the ghrelin details.

Quote: “The low carb group could only have 7 grams of carbs. So they could have bread etc, but only a total of 7 grams.” Correct. But I think that this is a very stupid (I apologize for the sincerity) strategy to do a keto study, being exposed daily to “bread, fruit, cereal and milk”. It can be a greater insulin release only at the seeing (or worse: only at the thinking) of this type of foods. So.. it’s like shooting themselves in the foot.

Studies: Insulin levels, hunger, and food intake: an example of feedback loops in body weight regulation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3894001

– These show that high acute levels of insulin can be produced by simply seeing and thinking about food and that individuals showing this response show a greater tendency toward weight gain in a food-abundant environment.
– These experiments show that elevations in insulin produce increased hunger, heightened perceived pleasantness of sweet taste, and increased food intake.
– Finally, a study is described that considers how different insulin levels, produced by the type of food ingested, may affect subsequent food intake.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20243692