Intermittent Fasting

[pharmaboy]

The problem I had with the documentary was the contol measures were not there. In the mice studies it was. Which showned strong evidence for degenerative and aging diseases so that's a big plus.
However the other stuff were just observational with no cotrolled test, they have not isolated fasting or low caloric intake. The issue with this is that the compare the disease rates to average people who eat a average American diet. Yet the fastin diet changes the types of foods too, they eat lots of fruit and veggies and good stuff. A healthy diet alone has been shown to help reduce many of the issues the show talked about. So they really need to isolate it.

I agree the low calorie versus 2 day fasting is up in the air, its early days of course

Also IGF-1 is a major contributed to muscle gain and anobolic states, hence why most these guys were skinny, what about people who are overly physical? All these guys seemed to be desk jobbers With little heavy lifting. Reducing igf-1 I don't think can stop certain cancer growths but it can slow them down. (Just from what I understand but I may be wrong).

The documentary was good but it wasn't really controlled like it should have been.

Never the less the two studies in mice that are controlled were pretty amazing.

You've got to remember these things are done for TV, the tests and whatever they do are just to reinforce the trial results for the average Joe - this happens all the time, when you see a tv show do 5 people on this versus 5 people on that, and you think to yourself, what a load of crap - anything could cause those changes, including chance - BUT, if you look into it, the proper study was behind it all, and they were just making video to entertain people and demonstrate the trial results simply for numpties (ie 95% of the population)

The other thing is, skinny is good. Muscle bound people are about aesthetics, not longevity. The world is full of ex power sportsmen who have put on loads of weight when they stop competing. Still going at 85 with all your marbles - that is the test of longevity.

Nothing communicates where gym junkies are coming from better than the colour of their skin - when was the last time you saw a real whitey flexing their shit? Always tanned to the max

 

[driftking]

Yeah I know it's meant for tv but was a little disappointed to not even really hear any ounce of the science behind some of them. Not talking gym junkies but what about athletes, they are lean but significantly muscular.
There's some trade off with been super lean not just aesthetics but performance and how you live, havif more strength tends to help keep you active into later ages.

They can still make it for tv but Include good evidence. They just sort of made it look appealing without explaining why. (They explained a few but not most). You can easily make a show that is in layman terms but include the basic conclusion of results for some explanation. If you have any links to studies on controlled diets that would be awesome.

 

[Slowman]

Eat, fast, live longer.

Its a Horizon documentary and will be on SBS1 on Monday.

It gives some interesting food for thought......pun intended.

If you're impatient, I think it's on YouTube or just google it.

Very interesting documentary.

Eat fast live longer is on abc1 now.

So far I have one issue. They said " the people with restricted caloie intake lives longer than the average person and the American diet" though the calorie restriction people are not eat the average diet they are eating healthy fruits and veg so the "restriction" isn't isolated so unless it does this later in the program it's a little well irrelevant .

There are plenty of examples, and I believe it is more than just anecdotal. Okinawans have the longest average lifespan 81.6 males and 86 for women. They practice hara hachi bu (only eat to 80% satisfaction), correlation or cause? Could be the water on their island, but they have been studying this particular population since 1970. I think they might be able to make some sound scientific conclusions by now.

I watched the SBS documentary last night and it was very interesting. The fasting thing really does work according to the research they presented. The findings were evidence based and a real revelation to be honest. Don't quote me one it but I think on the fasting days the cal limit was around 600. That would be a very tough target.

I have my own philosophy in relation to cal intake and food in general. I work on an 80/20 rule. I try to eat healthily 80% of the time and allow myself 20% for sweets etc.

I love coming home form an epic ride and swinging by the golden arches to smash a McFlurry....

Yes the "fasting days" were 600

Yeah I know it's meant for tv but was a little disappointed to not even really hear any ounce of the science behind some of them. Not talking gym junkies but what about athletes, they are lean but significantly muscular.
There's some trade off with been super lean not just aesthetics but performance and how you live, havif more strength tends to help keep you active into later ages.

They can still make it for tv but Include good evidence. They just sort of made it look appealing without explaining why. (They explained a few but not most). You can easily make a show that is in layman terms but include the basic conclusion of results for some explanation. If you have any links to studies on controlled diets that would be awesome.

While they didn't go into the science they gave you the names of the doctors conducting the studies and the research and their institutions, if you seriously want the science you've got all you need to go find their published papers.

Believe me the science behind this is not simple. The chemical reactions involved in the Krebbs Cycle which explain the process of fuel supply to working muscles via the blood supply is complicated enough (for me at least as I'm neither a chemist nor biologist). Presenting such detail would bog the programme down into very dry viewing. I think it was well done and raised the awareness of something that just might be very good for all of us.

The idea of course was to give a single case (the presenter) to replicate the effects from the research by following a procedure that is known to cause them, and the presenter did that. He lost weight, body fat, reduced IGF, bad cholesterol, and insulin levels, so cause and effect was reproduced. No one was trying to say because of this single case you should believe this.

 

[driftking]

Oh I know, I wasn't talking that in depth like explaining the krebbs cycle. But at least tell us the parameters in which the result came from. I mean by the they compared non comparable diets, they didn't explain the basic method under which the result came from.
A simple "the study done by "John smith" included 2000 individuals on controlled diets, the intermediate fasting showed results abc.

Just something that makes the results plausible, they are telling us all these benefits but we can't be sure that's the reason because fasting was not isolated and there was no mention if any tests that did so.
The mice tests were the only ones so they are the only ones we can take away from the program as certain.

I'll watch the program again and get the names of the scientist conducting the research and have a closer look.

Even his example isn't any evidence he ate a normal diet and then went to eating healthy foods.
Healthy foods tends to naturally lower calories so unless he kept track of them and maintained the same caloric input he probably dropped weight purely because he ate less.
More so moving to healthy foods have obvious benefits on blood levels that he got tested.
There was no control isolating fasting.

Also there needs to be a long term study where fasting or not the participants eat the same calories over a week. Therefore those who fast will eat slightly more on off days. This will isolate fasting and take out calories changes. They need to be on like diets both fasting on healthy diet and fasting on they typical unhealthy American diet. With controls not fasting obviously.

Again calories burnt needs to be regulated because that effects weight and blood numbers. I say calories burnt because everyone's metabolism is different and that changes exercise time and activity which can give big variances.

I believe IF has benefits and I do believe the claims in the story however they need to be controlled tested.
As I gave the Example above they don't need to go into lots of detail but a short run down of the study control measures would be good.

 

[pharmaboy]

Also there needs to be a long term study where fasting or not the participants eat the same calories over a week. Therefore those who fast will eat slightly more on off days. This will isolate fasting and take out calories changes. They need to be on like diets both fasting on healthy diet and fasting on they typical unhealthy American diet. With controls not fasting obviously.

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You've missed some vital stuff there drift. The whole point of fasting is that the following day you do not eat one day plus yesterday s shortfall , there was a discussion about exactly that in the program. The real world takes care of the diet differentials because of numbers in a study and matched between groups by baseline for things that might make a difference , eg education, baseline serum cholesterol, BMD, age etc.

Your views on healthy diets are projecting onto what you want to hear I suspect. If part of a study said I had to eat a healthy diet according to someone else, I would not be enrolled thx very much, but if it was fast for a day or not, no problems . If you want to test something like diet, you change ones thing, then make it applicable to the real world, not a Rosemary Stanton world where everyone should just do as she tells us......,,

 

[driftking]

You've missed some vital stuff there drift. The whole point of fasting is that the following day you do not eat one day plus yesterday s shortfall , there was a discussion about exactly that in the program. The real world takes care of the diet differentials because of numbers in a study and matched between groups by baseline for things that might make a difference , eg education, baseline serum cholesterol, BMD, age etc.

Your views on healthy diets are projecting onto what you want to hear I suspect. If part of a study said I had to eat a healthy diet according to someone else, I would not be enrolled thx very much, but if it was fast for a day or not, no problems . If you want to test something like diet, you change ones thing, then make it applicable to the real world, not a Rosemary Stanton world where everyone should just do as she tells us......,,

By keeping calories the same ie having higher Intakes on the eating days we are isolating the fasting principal, if the point is to reduce the calories than why not just eat less everyday and skip the fast?
There are other things at play here that the body does during a fast so by eating the same caloric diet with fasts we should still have the same benefits.hence it needs to be tested.

IF cant directly claim weight loss if its not IF causing the weight lose but in fact it is a secondary effect of lower calorie intake.

The point is to prove that it's IF causing the adaptions, once IF is isolated you can work it into real world.
Also controlled diets as I said I would include an American unhealthy typical diet. You would also include controls in where by eating was not sanctioned on the non fast days.
Right now the study has lots of changes, you could elequally say we'll when they start eating healthy all these adaptions happen. What's to say it is IF causing the adaptions.
If needs to be isolated than applied to real world subjects.

Look it obviously works whether it is IF or not so its not a issue of "if" it works but its a matter if why.
I'd like to see the evidence that points to IF, right now we have a combination of many factors all known to improve the adaptions claimed.

As I said I believe IF claims but from a scienc standpoint I'd like to see the evidence.
Seeing cultures and finding correlations are important but they tend to then lead to studies of isolation to find out the cause.

"if you want to test something like diet you change one thing" - that my point, they don't just change to fasting they changed the whole diet from normal diets to a different diet all together with different foods,

 

[Slowman]

...
Just something that makes the results plausible, they are telling us all these benefits but we can't be sure that's the reason because fasting was not isolated and there was no mention if any tests that did so.
The mice tests were the only ones so they are the only ones we can take away from the program as certain.

I'll watch the program again and get the names of the scientist conducting the research and have a closer look...

My guess is that by engaging with leading researchers at these reputable institutions - their qualifications would make the thesis credible. The problem is that detailed science just doesn't come across the TV medium as interesting. People just hear "blah blah blah...blah blah blah" and switch. The detailed science is much better left for publishing in a reputable research journal where it can be read, studied and critiqued at a pace that such a medium allows. TV needs to move along at a certain pace and getting into such details bogs the natural pace down and it becomes mind numbingly boring. You have all this visual space/bandwidth just idling while we get into the science orally. IMHO wrong time and place.

By keeping calories the same ie having higher Intakes on the eating days we are isolating the fasting principal, if the point is to reduce the calories than why not just eat less everyday and skip the fast?

The brief the presenter set out was to find something he could easily do and stick to it and achieve a healthier longer life. His bloods before and after tend to show this along with some weight loss which he did not specifically set out to do. He looked at calorie restriction diets and found them too hard, so then he started looking at fasting, even did a 4 day fast, alternate day fasting (ADF) and intermittent fasting (IF). He found IF 2/5 the easiest to adhere to. IMHO the balance was about right...there could have been other details dropped like the brain scans of mice and substituted with other details to keep the balance. Though, I think that was very a very interesting finding and worth keeping in myself. I'm going to starve myself so I can say stuff about this that is more smarter. :smile:

 

[gassyndrome]

Mark Mosley, the presenter of the show has a book about the exact diet he used on Amazon. Gets good reviews - might be interesting for a read. The show was a little superficial but then it is tv....

 

[si618]

Works for me!

Bit of a grave dig...not sure how many other folks are doing intermittent fasting, but if you are like me, i.e. have high blood pressure, genetically predisposed to heart issues, and are overweight, then I'd recommend giving it a crack.

After doing the 16/8 fast 6 days a week for the last 3 months, this morning for the first time that I can remember, my blood pressure was under 120/80...the little marker was in the green! Actually 118/75 with a resting pulse of 58 bpm. Also lost 7 kg so far, now ~77 down from 85, with another 5 or 6 to go.

The documentary mentioned early in this thread is also worth a watch. The best thing is I don't think I will have too much trouble sticking to this, which is great because even though I ride about 150 km most weeks, I really enjoy my food and wine, and the only other time I was ever a healthy weight was when backpacking around Europe, existing mostly on a diet of nutella and bread sticks, or when partying all weekend in the 90's :dance:

 

[mtb101]

good work mate, you must have noticed a huge boost in bike performance dropping those kgs.?

the challenge in the long term will be to see how you can sustain it, friend couldn't after dropping 10kgs, we are just surrounded with so much junk, high fat foods etc.

once you drop the kgs you then need a diet/lifestyle that can allow you to maintain your sport, work-life etc and keep your weight in check and stay healthy - more of a challenge than people think as just minimizing high fat processed foods aren't going to work in longer term.

 

[johnny]

I do a version that I hear very little about - I do fasting each day meaning I dont eat until after midday. I will eat my last food around 10pm the night before and won't eat until after 12 giving me about 14 hours witout food. I get pretty hungry around 10:30 each day but hold out, which also gets easier as time goes on.

It doesn't have any massive benefits or major differences but my weight is much easier to control as I'm a naturally big guy. I do, however start the day with a flat white coffee with no sugar. That probably means I'm cheating a bit as I'm sure the sugars in the milk stop some of the hunger as well.

Contrary to Breakfast being the most important meal of the day, I function in terms of working and exercising just fine without breakfast.