Cinque. As you say, interesting. I knew that my bugs liked a variety of veg and that leafy greens were good, but the reason why is always useful. Popeye was ahead of the game.

I also favour the question “who funded this research?’

Thank you for the New York Times article, Minka. Excellent article!

Exercise before breakfast burnt more fat, and improved insulin response, compared to same exercise after breakfast:

https://www.goodfood.com.au/good-health/new-research-reveals-the-best-time-to-exercise-to-burn-more-fat-20191020-h1j09p

Cinque, Thanks for that – tardy response from me because I am 1500 miles away from home and I have to go searching for wifi.

Lindsosa. I first encountered 5:2 in one of my wife’s magazines. As a bloke I immediately dismissed it as the latest girly fad. At the time my daughter had breast cancer (now fine) so I was researching that and found that 5:2 was being advocated as both a preventative and aid to recovery. I started 5:2, lost a lot of weight and when I subsequently had colon cancer myself I sailed through the surgery and am also fine. I know I am a small sample and I am a lot bigger that a rat, but it works for me!

Good luck next week. (My mate , who is a surgeon, would object to that – he says that his skill is more important than luck.)

Rule number 1 of posting. If you knock it together without thought, it gets posted. If you craft it carefully it gets lost. Here we go again:

Cinque. To go back a couple of posts to your “how do you tell if you are dehydrated?”. Take a blood test. On Friday I had a routine test. The friendly and efficient vampire who takes my blood two or three times a year had to stick me three times before she got any. The test was at 10am and two mugs of tea and one of coffee had not brought my fluid levels up. Apparently their diuretic properties may even have reduced them.

I saw that there is less sugar in many canned drinks in this country. I am actually more worried about the zero sugar drinks consumed by the younger members of the family. There is increasing evidence that the artificial sweeteners, although themselves not harmful, deceive the body into expecting sugar and releasing insulin when there is no sugar to process. If this happens too often the body can become permanently confused.

Dydask. Interesting. We seem to have been ahead of the game when we started intermittent fasting. There are new papers, articles and TV shows about the value of this approach almost daily. Unfortunately it has not led to a lessoning of the new weird diets that are also on offer, or to the number of people who tell me that intermittent fasting must be unhealthy and I should eat breakfast because “it is the most important meal of the day”. That piece of breakfast cereal marketing seems to have embedded itself in the national brain.

Dykask. Interesting YouTube. After a few years of 5:2, limited time frame eating and the occasional zero calorie fast I didn’t need convincing, but it was presented well. The only thing I would have liked to see added is the need to care for the gut biome.

I cannot claim to be an expert on sweetened drinks. Being British and old, they just were not around when I was a kid so I never got into the habit. I don’t use sugar in tea or coffee so I find most canned drinks unpleasant no matter what they are sweetened with. What worries me is the unquestioning belief that the artificial sweeteners are healthier.

That pretty much confirms my belief that if I haven’t made it from scratch I shouldn’t be eating it. I make exceptions for a couple of pubs and restaurants where I trust the kitchen. My home problem areas are the use of soy sauce, chorizo and bacon, all of which are much down from my former consumption. I make my own bread, originally to get something with flavour but now to control what is in it. There I cheat, I make a batch about once a week, let it cool, slice it and freeze it.

Until a few years ago I ran a lot and the need to stay hydrated was known. Then we lost a few marathon runners who had taken on too much water whilst running. There was much debate at the time about what was the correct amount. I don’t think they ever worked that out, although the general consensus was that too little was the more dangerous

That is the problem. I find it easy not to drink. I find it difficult to stop at one.

This article says it’s the largest study on fasting that has ever been done in the world:

The largest scientific study on the effects of Buchinger therapeutic fasting carried out to date has now been published. It was conducted at Buchinger Wilhelmi, a well-established fasting clinic, by a team led by Dr. Françoise Wilhelmi de Toledo in cooperation with Prof. Andreas Michalsen from Charité University Hospital in Berlin and with the support of many of our guests and patients. The study collected and evaluated data from 1,422 subjects (41 % male, 59 % female), who completed the Buchinger Wilhelmi fasting programme over a period of 5, 10, 15 or 20 days in 2016. Under the title “Safety, health improvement and well-being during a 4 to 21-day fasting period in an observational study including 1422 subjects”, the study shows that Buchinger therapeutic fasting is safe and therapeutically effective. It also promotes emotional and physical well-being. The results of the study were published online on January 2, 2019 in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE.

The study provided detailed evidence that:

– Fasting mobilizes the energy stored in the fatty tissue of the human body. The metabolism switches from glucose to fat and ketone consumption, causing many beneficial effects. The metabolic change was documented in the study by the permanent presence of ketone bodies in the urine.
– Fasting leads to significant weight loss, a reduced abdominal circumference, and lower cholesterol and blood lipid levels.
– Fasting also normalized blood pressure and improved diabetes parameters such as blood sugar and HbA1c, thus improving many factors that contribute to a healthy cardiovascular system.
– Furthermore, in 84 % of cases, serious health conditions such as arthritis, type 2 diabetes as well as fatty liver and hypercholesterolemia, high blood pressure and fatigue improved through fasting.
– 93 % of the subjects did not feel hungry during fasting, which contributed to their emotional and physical well-being.
– Medically supervised fasting had only very few side-effects, which could be treated easily and without interruptions to fasting. In individual cases, subjects experienced restless sleep, headaches, tiredness or lumbar spine complaints during the first three days.

In summary, this particular fasting programme has been shown to be a safe and well-tolerated approach to prevent age-related illnesses and treat chronic metabolic disorders, including weight issues. The Buchinger Wilhelmi fasting programme evolved from the traditional Buchinger fasting cure. It involves a daily intake of organic fruit juice and soup averaging 200-250 calories, accompanied by physical activity in an environment that promotes calmness and mindfulness. It combines fasting with integrative medicine and a variety of incentives for personal development and empowerment.

Françoise Wilhelmi de Toledo, Franziska Grundler, Audrey Bergouignan, Stefan Drinda, Andreas Michalsen: “Safety, health improvement and well-being during a 4 to 21-day fasting period in an observational study including 1422 subjects.” PLOS ONE, January 2, 2019

https://www.buchinger-wilhelmi.com/en/worlds-largest-fasting-study/

Might be interesting as well:

Another study on the effects of fasting on the FLI(Fatty Liver Index) in summary:

The pathological accumulation of fat in the liver and is a major cause of a worldwide increase in chronic liver disease and can lead to cirrhosis. Periodic fasting over 8.5 days on average lowers the fatty liver index (FLI), a risk parameter for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. A fatty liver significantly promotes the development of type 2 diabetes and is exacerbated by overeating and lack of exercise.
A study entitled “Effects of Periodic Fasting on Fatty Liver Index – A Prospective Observational Study” published in the journal Nutrients in October surveyed 697 people who fasted at the Clinic Buchinger Wilhelmi on Lake Constance. Among the participants were 38 subjects with type 2 diabetes. At the beginning of the study, a fatty liver was diagnosed in 264 cases: the FLI was ≥ 60, indicating the presence of a fatty liver; 160 were at the permitted limit.

Found here:
https://www.buchinger-wilhelmi.com/en/wissenschaft/

That was interesting. I have never fasted that long – the graphs suggest weeks although the summary indicates 8.5 days works. My usual is two to three days of a more rigorous fast than theirs. It would be interesting to know if successive shorter complete fasts can have the same effect as the sustained low-cal regime.