I've been IF'ing for just over 6 months now after finding Mike Eades original Blog entry fascinating. I was apprehensive at first because I got hungry three times a day too, like clockwork. I suppose it shouldn't really have been much of a surprise to find that this habitual 'clockwork' hunger has little to do with real hunger. It is basically habit. After three weeks I found my lifelong morbid fear of being hungry had been replaced by a realization that gradually ramping up the length of the fast I'd (and everyone else too) been doing from bedtime to waking, was actually pretty easy. I made the fast longer by about 20 - 25 minutes every day. At the end of a month I was alternating between a 16 and 20 hr fast, a regime I'm still doing now.

My energy levels, already excellent after four years of VLC, were immediately better and continued to improve, plateauing at the level I enjoy now after the first month. I never had to low carb for bodyfat loss, it was more the health benefits that appealed to me. But after six months of IF'ing I've noticed that the small 48 yr old's love handles I just assumed were typical for a fit bloke my age have all but disappeared. I think the idea that long daily fasts cause human metabolism to slow down is basically nonsense. I think if you restrict calories long term you inevitably slow your metabolism. Heck, our resident CRonie, Matt, positively likes the idea of slowing his metabolism down. But daily long fasts are far too short a time to have any effect on metabolic rate. And particularly if you make the eating window low carb, I can't imagine a better way to encourage bodyfat burning.


There's heaps of well designed and executed research on the health benefits of IF. None of it , however, is on LC IF'ing. So I'm pretty excited to be an LC IF guinea pig. The results so far, are nothing short of astonishing. The writer of the originally posted article, Greg Battaglia, is a regular contributor to the 'Performance Menu' and 'Crossfit' forums, both of which (particularly the former) have a pretty low carb bias. Many of the members of both these communities are now long term IF'ers. They are also body composition zealots. And the greatest muscle growth benefits seem to accrue when they do their (very strenuous) resistance workouts towards the end of the fast.

I'm certainly no gym junkie, but even my very moderate amount of resistance training has produced far more muscle composition improvements during IF than previously on just low carb.

As another regular Performance Menu member put it in one of his recent posts, IF produces health and fitness (including bodyfat percentage) improvements 'across the board'.

I suppose we should'nt be surprised that notions like 'fasting will slow your metabolism and fatburning down' turn out to be wrong. Most of the members of this forum are living proof that plenty of other tired old notions of health and nutrition are due for a big overhaul.

Of course, all the health benefits in the world wouldn't amount to much in my opinion if the dietary approach was difficult to stick to. But I find it remarkably easy. I suppose I should admit that I've always found sticking to low carb easy too. I've never once felt even remotely tempted to 'cheat'. Why would I? So many equally delicious low carb alternatives to choose from . But I was really apprehensive when I started low carb IF that the hunger factor would bring me unstuck really quickly.

Fortunately, I found very quickly that the getting my body accustomed to less frequent eating was not very difficult, and came with a raft of incentive immediate benefits. And I quickly discovered that I'd started to actually enjoy the 'not eating' time too. Coupled with the other stuff, more energy, mental clarity etc, it has become an amazing feeling of freedom from food. 20 hrs is not that long anyway. I mean, your'e asleep for 8 hrs of it anyway . Which leaves 12 hrs holiday from food. Scary at first. But like most monsters, all in the mind.

Hmmm. I am thinking I may want to try this. I already do a 24 hour fast once a week; however, I usually start my fast day with breakfast then don't eat again until breakfast the next day.

I've always heard that ideally you shouldn't eat a big meal before sleeping. I get home around 5:30, and often don't eat until 6:30 or later. Many times I feel like I'm still digesting when I go to bed at 10. Is this unhealthy?

I tried fasting from dinner to dinner once but I didn't like it as well as my breakfast to breakfast. For one thing, I didn't get that nice whoosh on the scale the next day. But I guess if I were going to do IF, dinner is the meal I'd want to eat since I've got to cook for the family anyway.

Hmmm, I just inadvertently did my first fast. 20 hours. I feel fine, except for a little off-balance feeling. I think I could do this more often, say like once per week or so.

I have lots of energy, I feel "clean," and I can breathe clearly. I think the responses here have been right on target, there is a preconcieved fear of going without food, and it is very powerful. Genetic makeup?

I've recently read two books - the Rosedale Diet and Mastering Leptin by Richards - that talk about the importance of not being in the state of digesting food while sleeping, and they both say avoid food for three hours before sleep. Sounds like you're generally within that rule of thumb, for what it's worth (both books are instructive about the function of leptin, but I don't know enough to judge if the advice is good or not).

Pauleo, can you be more specific? I've gotten into the habit of eating right before bed, sometimes within minutes of going to bed. I'm not really concerned about weight issues, as I've always maintained a steady weight all of my adult life. But if there are concerns I should know about, I appreciate you sharing them. Thanks.

I find the thought of IF appealing and may try it soon.

Sure thing. As I said, I don't have enough knowledge to have an informed opinion, but I can paraphrase. Both books are primarily about weight loss, but both also say that the principles apply generally for good health.

Leptin is a hormone that is tied to a lot of bodily functions but high on the list is communication between stored body fat and the brain, and that is connected to the brain turning hunger signals on and off. On the specific point about not eating in the three hours before bedtime, Richards has more detail and says that during the day most of the energy being used by the body is from sugars and fat in the blood stream that came from ingested food. Wait three hours and most of the sugar in the blood stream is being produced by the liver, not from the last meal. Wait nine hours and the fats in the blood stream are coming from stored fat, not from the last meal. So if you have your last meal at say 6pm, then by 3am you are starting to burn stored fat. And by 6-7am or whenever you get up, you have had several hours of burning stored fat.

In contrast, if you eat late in the evening, you spend the night burning sugars and fats from the last food, and never get to the stored fat burning. And the authors say it's bad to be in that mode all night, and never get to the stored fat burning mode. The Richards book has hundreds of references to published papers which maybe support his argument.

I always find Ron Rosedale's ideas about human metabolism very thought provoking. It was his 'The metabolic effects of Insulin' address to a diabetes gabfest in 2002 that first got me interested in low carbing. But on this issue of eating right before sleeping I think he is gravely mistaken.

All wild omnivores and carnivores eat a huge meal, once a day, usually at the end of the day, although the customary time of eating, often depends on when the kill is made or when the family/tribe/ kinship group gather to eat with their huntings/gatherings in the case of paleolithic hominids; and then they sleep - for many hours. Herbivores eat non stop anyway. Which is a pretty clear indication to me that humans are definitely not obligate herbivores .

To me, this makes perfect sense on a metabolic level. Rest/sleep time is the perfect opportunity for tissue/glandular/hormonal repair and maintenance. The gene expression stimulated by the days activity - say a strenuous hunt or fight - really have a chance to do the work they were designed for, say building muscle, while actual energy production, necessitated by movement, isn't happening.

Anyone who tries IF will very quickly discover that going to bed hungry is all but impossible. It just feels wrong. Whereas going to sleep with a full belly feels like the most natural thing in the world.

And on the 'fat/glucose burning rom the last meal ' issue that Pauleo mentioned, I think it's a bit of a furphy. Whatever and whenever you eat, that food intake is going to supply energy needs for several hours anyway. If it's a low carb meal then the fat and carbohydrate will tend not to be stored (the glucagon/insulin nexus). Sure that ingested energy will put a stop to bodyfat burning, but it's going do that whenever the meal is consumed. And then when you wake and begin a day long fast after sleeping on a big meal, what do you think is going to be used for energy all day long? You guessed it - bodyfat .

kneebrace, that's an interesting way of thinking. Doesn't the metabolism slow down with eating less frequently though? And how can you eat all the needed calories of a day in one meal? Wouldn't it be uncomfortable and stuffing?

I actually almost went without eating any dinner tonight because I wasn't hungry at all, which isn't usually like me. I guess I must have eaten enough at breakfast and lunch though, though I decided to eat a little just in case I get hungry at night. So, how do you go about during the day without eating anything? Is this socially possible? I mean, most people eat three meals a day. It's very intriguing.

Also, is this IF meant to be done for life? Can one exercise while on it? And why is is so much better than eating three meals a day?

And if one is supplementing with vitamin D, A, magnesium, and calcium, is it advisable to eat with this, as I understand these vitamins and minerals in natural form are best absorbed when the body has enough supply of fat.

Thanks Pauleo. Something to think about. Now kneebrace, if I understand you right, you're saying that we should eat right before we go to bed? That would contradict what Pauleo was paraphasing. I guess I'll do a little more research on this one to see what works for me.

So Rosedale is arguing that people on regularly spaced meals during the day should not eat late, so that they get to the fasting state in the early hours. And you are saying that having a big pre-sleep meal and then going through the start of the next day with no food will lead to a fasting state. From that point of view, both approaches have the same effect but are on different cycles. Rosedale's approach looks a bit like a way to get people to a fasting state with the least noticeable change to western eating routine. Maybe that's a justification for it, although it's going beyond anything in the book.

I agree with you. So I suppose that would make the 'fasting state' you referred to the bees' knees for fat burning. I think it's a pity Rosedale's emphasis on there being something particularly signifigant about actually sleeping on a full stomach rather than stressing the main point that getting in some kind of long (ie at least 11 hrs) fast is important for optimal fatburning.
That is, it's the fasting state that's important, not wether you're asleep during it ( or for some fraction of it ).

This all makes sense from an intuitive point of view. I mean if you are eating regular small meals, wether low or high carb (although of course low carb will be better) your metabolism never really gets a chance to really get accustomed to serious bodyfat burning. You might be in deep ketosis, but it will be dietary fat that's being used to produce ketones, not bodyfat.

If you end the fast with a high carb meal, then you'll tend to store the fat and carbs as fat, so that when the following days fast swings around into bodyfat burning (which it must) you've already got new stored fat to burn anyway, so it will just take that much longer to get around to burning the excess fat you were aiming at losing originally. But if you end the fast with low carb food, not much of it (however large the meal) will get stored as fat, so the next fast's fatburning will be mostly old bodyfat.

Well you do naturally tend to eat less. But if you've got bodyfat to lose isn't that a good thing? The important thing is to get adequate protein and some dietary fat to enable fat soluble vitamins to be absorbed, including of course, sufficient EFA's. If the protein you need for your particular frame size and activity level is prepared in some delicious dish, believe me, you'll have no trouble consuming it in one meal. For most of the time I've been IF'ing I've been using this Warrior Diet approach. But most of the published research about the health/longevity benefits of IF has been with alternating 24 hrs of fasting with a shorter normal overnight fast (the one we all do without even really being aware we're intermittently fasting) and the following waking hours eating normal meals. I must admit I was really apprehensive about doing such a long regular fast, albeit only every second day. Which is why I stuck with a low carb Warrior style fasting approach. But for the last two weeks I've been doing the 24/ 24 breakdown after reading another regular poster on the 'Performance Menu' forum saying how much he preferred it, and I must say I think it's probably the most sustainable long term. Alternating a day of 'normal' meals, with one of only one short meal at the end of the day is really a piece of (low carb ) cake. I'm curious where you got the idea that fasting slows down your metabolic rate. Maybe when the free amino acid pool is exhausted after about 48 hrs and/or you had no bodyfat left to burn - ie. you really were starving, your metabolism would slow down, but over the fasting periods we're talking about it won't.



Capo, don't ever let other people's narrow mindedness dictate your own behaviour, either dietarily or otherwise. Anyone who gets offended because you just aren't hungry just doesn't deserve your company. I always join whoever I'm with for normal meals, I just don't eat. I find I do tend to do more of the talking .



I suppose that depends on how long you want your (vibrant) life to be. About the exercise thing, as I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, the 'Performance Menu' members who do this all do their very strenuous resistance workouts towards the end of the fast - ie in a fully fasted state. All report splendid energy, power, strength and endurance gains. IF really is an extraordinary means to get the human body burning bodyfat, growing muscle, and minimizing oxidative damage.

To answer your third question I really think your best bet is to read Mike Eades IF blog entry. He explains the science of IF far better than I can. But to cut a long story short, it's what we evolved to do.



I agree that it's much more cost effective to take the supplements that better absorbed in the presence of food with food. But I do take carnitine, creatine and a basic electrolyte mix with whatever calorie free drink I'm using to keep hydrated during a fast.

I'm trying the 24 hour fast. It seems logical that this is the best way to lose fat, but I was a little worried about having low blood cholesterol, and all the other negative effects people have contradicted Whoa with, such as "self-castration" and low testosterone/estrogen levels.

I'm at least going to try IF for two weeks, and see if there are any positive effects. It's easy doing with a low carb, high fat meal before bed because you don't get hungry until late the next day.

I think when my vitamin D and calcium supplements arrive next week, I'll take vitamin D, Magnesium, and Calcium during the day and the vitamin A from the CLO at night with my meal. I hope this is the right way to take supplements with doing IF.

EDIT: Thanks for replying to my questions kneebrace. I'm in the process of reading the IF blog from Nancy's links. Although Vitamin A and D are fat soluble vitamins, I have read that vitamin D is better absorbed by the body if taken in several smaller doses rather than one large dose. I would think, if your body is burning fat (body fat) for energy anyway, it would also use this stored fat to metabolize the vitamin D, and the calcium and magnesium go along with the vitamin D to help repair the body. I'm only taking the vitamin A CLO with dinner because it has calories and is mostly PUFAs, so I don't want to take that alone. It needs some saturated fats and monounsaturated fats to balance it out, which I get form the rest of my dinner.

And so far, I'm noticing I'm not tired at all, and I'm even very alert after fasting all night and this morning. I bet I can hold off until 6 tonight and eat dinner before 7.

Okay, for my first day of intentionally starving myself so I could binge on a humongous dinner tonight, I have to say that I was alert all day, up until the past hour or so, and my stomach was rumbling a lot, so I ate a piece of cheese and a couple brazil nuts. And I have a headache now. I hope after my body gets used to the IF during the day and eating a big meal at night that I will not have headaches. I think this is a good way of eating, and hopefully it's not putting my body into starvation mode so I conserve more fat, because that would kind of be redundant. Logically, I would think that by fasting when you're awake and doing more calorie-demanding jobs, your body is more likely to burn stored fat for energy. I wonder if it eventually levels off or if you can be underweight eating this way. Not like I'm close to being underweight. I'd have to lose 15 pounds or more to be underweight.

So with this WOE, is it basically calorie restriction, but with eating high fat, low carbs? I have to admit I feel much more alert and my age. I hate being relaxed all the time TBH, because I don't feel 18..maybe that's part of why you see 40 year old CRON-people acting like they're 20. I mean, they seriously act young, and look young.