| Archive for The Magic Bus Trip Never get off the Bus! |
| ghost72 |
Thoughts on IF?I was wondering how everyone on this board felt about IF? I follow Dr.Eades blog and his latest post sort of revoked his approval for the practice. Apparently it reduces thermogenesis (subjects don't burn as many calories from this process in one meal than if they had ate the same amount of calories over several meals), and leads to a degree of loss of insulin sensitivity, impaired glucose tolerance and high blood pressure. I can't be sure what sort of diet these people were on. Eating a huge amount of carbs in one meal could certainly account for insulin resistance. But some of the low carb people on another forum reported things like blood sugar problems. Once again, they certainly aren't zero carb.I think IF was probably the lifestyle early humans lived. Food was not as close as the nearest store. At the very least you'd need some time to hunt. Plus, if you gorged yourself on meat and fat after a large kill, why would you got out and do it again the next day if you weren't hungry? I've been trying alternate day fasting and only eating eggs,beef tallow, and grassfed beef 80/20 ratio on eating days. So far I've lost three pounds (since last week). Eating everyday didn't really work for me because a little bit of food was not enough (mental hunger not physical). I'd end up eating more than I planned. It seems I can't lose weight if I don't restrict my calories (I have gained weight eating only fat although it was diary fat), the ever present problem of being a short female I guess. The only thing I fear with this regime is the dreaded starvation effect. I stay active on fast days and I do weight train so I'm hoping to offset any muscle loss or metabolism slowing (which happens on diets anyways). I know carbs predispose us to gaining fat but our bodies do retain fat so that in case of famine, we have a reserve to draw upon, right? Why not use it? |
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| jeff |
I think IF is probably a good thing. Like you said, this is no doubt the way we evolved. | ||||||||
| jem51 |
i don't think there's any question that the metabolism slows if we don't eat. so any type of fasting will cause this. the comparison to early humans just doesn't equate to 'planning' to not eat. if a hunt produced a large creature, then it could be gnawed on for a while...maybe in the form of jerky or marrow, but nevertheless, food. then, of course, there may have been days w/o any kill at all. but we probably scavenged or ate more of those little cream filled bugs on those days....or robbed nests. (remember The Poisonwood Bible and the baby bird....). of course, i hyperventilate when anyone uses the F word. i'm sure those into IF will say something entirely different. also, i don't think that most IF'ers actually fast but consume cream in coffee/tea or something that is mini meal like. fasting can be good for 'breaking the chain' or binging, etc, though. | ||||||||
| Loops |
If you want to IF, it should come naturally anyway on a low carb diet, as long as you're not restricting food in any way. Yeah I do IF but I don't DO it as in plan it - it just kind of happens. I might binge on food then won't eat for a very long time. I never saw the point in actually planning fasting - surely it is not necessary on low carb anyway? | ||||||||
| Kristelle |
Totally agree with Loops. 
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| Tracy |
I started doing the IF thing when Eades first blogged about it, and it helped get me out of the 3-meal mindset. You know, the "if you don't eat breakfast you will die" thing. Helped me get over my fear of hunger, and my habit of either bingeing or of nibbling throughout the day out of boredom.
Now, I don't think of it as "doing something", it's just the way I eat. And it's truly intermittent - I have no eating schedule, just eat when I'm hungry. It usually happens to be later on in the day. But if I wake up and I'm hungry, I eat. I do have coconut milk/cream in tea a few times throughout the day. I ditto Loops as well, I'm sure paleo folk ate when they had food, and it was...well, intermittent. Not 3 squares, but certainly not "oh, I can't eat til my window opens" either. Doing this has been really interesting though, just observing how my body feels day to day and what it wants as far as food goes. I no longer panic if I'm without food! Lots of people have seen improvements too (BP, glucose levels etc) so who knows. |
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| BawdyWench |
It may work for some people, but not for others. I, too, read with rabid interest Dr. Mike's blogs last year. It made so much sense. He even said people could eat high carb and still reap the benefits of IF.
Then I looked at DH, who appears to be in his 5th trimester. He's eaten that way for years and years. He doesn't eat breakfast, other than black coffee. He'll forgo lunch. He'll have a typical high-carb dinner (meat, potatoes, corn/peas, rolls if I make him some) and then a dessert of cookies and milk (he considers Girl Scout cookies a 2-serving container). The dinner/dessert period lasts around 2 hours. That means he's IFing 22 hours a day. I've watched as he's gained more and more weight. He's 6 feet tall and weighs around 230. On another note, I disagree that IFing is undoubtedly the way humans evolved. I've read in numerous books that "way back then," game was not nearly as scarce as it is now. Lewis and Clark, for example, apparently had to use clubs to beat away all the wildlife while treking across America. I think it was more like when Captain Cook (?) landed on the Galapagos, his crew could simply walk up to any game, pick it up, and carry it back to the base camp for food. This isn't to say they didn't "fast" or, better, go without food for lengths of time. They probably did, for all the reasons mentioned here. If you're eating good quality fat and protein, you don't need to eat all that often. |
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| Dean |
Yah, it is weird your DH does not crave food during the day, as most carb eaters do. With ZC eating, who gets "hungry"? I think if you ate nothing but raw meat and water, you'd probably not get hungry for a couple days at times. Grazing for carnivores (versus herbivores) came in with fast food and convenience stores with their unbelievable range of quick carb fixes. Like others have mentioned, I too don't "plan" IF. Some days I eat in the late afternoon, and sometimes it's late in the evening. I don't trip on it. Often, I really feel like I am forcing myself to eat, just cuz I'm worried about my metabolism hitting rock bottom without food. But, "hunger" rarely drives me to eat. |
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| Loops |
my hubby forgets to eat on a regular basis - from being too busy I think. He is stick thin and eats carbs, but no junk. He can put away a lot of low carb foods, but equally things like bread and potatoes don't bother him. However he only eats like A potato or a couple of slices of bread along with some very butter-laden eggs. He has lost all his body fat since I went low carb - it wasn't supposed to work like that - was supposed to be me. Oh well. | ||||||||
| Kim |
Here is what Cordain says about meal frequency.
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| Dave |
People who have known me for a while, know that I strongly disagreed with IF from the beginning.
I have left two forums, because of the abuse I recieved, because I disagreed with IF. Some really nasty behaviour. I've had online low carb friends who has succumbed to the 'fad'.. and spouted all the nonsense, then find it a complete disaster, causing binging and all sorts of things.
You know.... this just PISSES ME OFF!!! Seriously! If the guy who caused the IF fad, is saying it's no good - then please listen!!! What more is there to say? I definately think this is an exercise in how the 'intelligent' are fooled. Yes it all looks good on paper, you have all the theories, all the graphs etc. You plead innocence and say it's not CR, but clearly that is a major part of the attraction. It's alternating between starvation and binging. I think that will work in people who haven't had their bodies damaged by the Diet establishment.....but it will catch up to you one day. Just don't do it! Say no!! Grab a steak and some butter!!! |
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| Dean |
Dave, I'm sorry, but I have never experienced this on ZC. Eating carbs causes abnormal eating behavior, for many reasons. But, when you ditch the carbs, your appetite drops to nothing, and it is quite difficult to even eat enough food, let alone binge. It takes awhile to get to this point, though. In your experiences with this binging, how long had you stayed ZC? Cuz, I just don't have any desire to eat when going a long time doing ZC. And, I don't consider it "starving". I would seriously doubt there are many on this board, if any, who have ever truly experienced real starvation. |
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| Dave |
Hi Dean,
I've never attempted IF before. 
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| Dean |
Wait, Dave. If you've never done IF, why did you say it was alternating between starvation and binging? I don't understand. I've never heard about anyone binging on a ZC diet, while doing IF. Where is this coming from? 
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| Badger |
The guy who started the IF fad also tried to use it as an excuse to eat garbage and never actually tested to see if there were positive effects to be had from combining a quality diet with IF. He just assumed that eating a quality diest alone was good enough and that no additional benefit was necessary. |
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| Dean |
I'm confused as to who you guys are referring to. Fill me in on the dirt, please.  This dude obviously pissed Dave off in a big way! Dave is stormin' mad over this. WTF is up with all this? I mean, do we need to sic the Boot Babes on this guy? 
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| Dave |
I think Badger is talking about Mike Eades.
Mike is the one who started this fad. I really have to wonder if all the successful ones are low carbers? How low carb? The reason I came out and called it a Fad, because it was untested, and just a theory.... that everyone and his dog suddenly was doing. Suddenly 95% of the people I talked too were doing it. Just look at this board. I know ladies on other boards who have gained weight because of it, who have wrecked their bodies even more. And what has Mike done now? Totally backflipped and basically called it a flop. But what he didn't realise, is that it's because a religion, apart from him. He set the ball rolling now it's this monster of a thing. And the number one thing - You are not allowed to question and disparage it, because the adherents (More than a majority of online lowcarbers) will issue a FAT-wah on you and attack your character. It's a bloody religion now, nothing based on science. |
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| Heather L |
I say, live and let live....if I quit something just because it bothered people, then I would go back to high carb. I am not currently using IF much, as I did not feel that it was giving me much more benefit than the VLC.
I think that IF is one of those things that can work well as a tool, but there are a few people out there who become very zealous about it. I have used it, and found it helpful for some things, but I have chosen not to use it much for now. Dave- I understand that it would be very frustrating to deal with people who make IF more than it should be. I have been around some of them. (Whew) I am fine with those who choose to use it, and I don't have a problem with someone who doesn't want to. Many people seem to get along well with it. If they aren't pushy about it, would you still have a big problem with someone using IF? |
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| Badger |
This is correct. |
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| Tracy |
People got totally zealous about it at first I agree. Not so much now, but then I'm not posting much on those threads anymore bc...well I don't consider myself as doing anything "special". But with any new thing, I think ppl do tend to be all excited and up about it until it becomes every-day-ho-hum. I don't think though that it was any more a fad than, say, our experiments here in the various wards. (A friend of mine calls my major meat-eating a fad)
Main benefit though for me was that it helped me get past some food/eating issues that were lingering around, and to see on what amount of food my body was comfortable with, rather than my panicked, afraid-of-starving mind. I'd been that way since I was a kid (past life trauma, perhaps?  ) but it got worse when my dad left in my early teens - we were really poor then, and got food donated to us by friends and my school (all carbs, of course). From then on, lotsa food=safety. A spartan fridge made me anxious.
I never, ever starved when I started IFing (did binge a little at first though). I'm more chill about food and eating now than I ever have been, and it's a welcome relief. Whether IFing really does offer any health benefits remains to be seen - for now, I'm just eating when I feel like it and that, for me, is amazing enough on its own. |
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| Dean |
Yah, Tracy, I can totally relate. I can easily see how IFing could help with these things you describe. Fad or no fad, I'm really glad it's helped you. That's all that should matter.
I have only been able to get so low carb and carnivore by doing IF. If I "felt that I must" eat a lot of times during the day (especially breakfast, yuk) then I would be too anxious about this 'not having an appetite' thing, and then I'd be forcing myself to eat. So, just knowing that I don't need to eat that much, has made the transition into this WOE so much easier, since there is not the appetite one gets eating any other way. All that aside, IMO, from just a biological view, it makes so much sense about giving our bodies a break from digestion. This Winter, I have been surrounded by SO many sick people, who complain about how they "can't shake" this or that, and how they've "had it for a month". Meanwhile, I haven't had as much as a scratchy throat or anything. While I would love to attribute this to ZCarnivore eating, I tend to think the IFing that I naturally do (I don't plan it) is the real reason my immune system is so good. Dave, if you take some microbiology classes, you might think so too. |
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| Dean |
This pretty much sums it up for me, as well. If I eat ZCarnivore, I naturally lose my "appetite". Does that mean I never feel the need to eat? No. Last night I was starting to feel faint, so I ate and felt better. On a high carb or even medium carb diet, I would have been ready to kill someone. So, big difference. Even those Paleo populations that were eating aquatic life were still eating animals. When one eats animals and no carbs, they are not going to be so hungry that they are gonna go looking for a meal after just a few hours, or whatever, even if that meal is easy to get. This idea of regular meal times is unnatural, whether it's three squares or scheduled IFing. Whether pre-ag humans ate once every other day, or two or three times a day, it was more than likely not set on some schedule. I mean, nobody was jotting anything down in their appointment calendar.
Carnivores do not graze like herbivores. So, we get a break from eating, which naturally is going to allow for proteins to be used for clean up and immunity boosting. That's the benefits, IMO, to IFing. But, as Sandy (and probably Dave) said, organized, scheduled (forced) IFing is not what it should be about. If we eat our natural diet, we will naturally IF, naturally reap the benefits, and not graze like our food does. 
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| Dean |
Yah, any type of forced eating/fasting is probably not going to be a good thing. For someone with an eating disorder, or for someone who eats for emotional reasons, this could be even worse. The more one removes the unnatural foods from their diet, the easier it becomes to truly listen to their body, and know when it's time to eat. Barring that, it's a crapshoot, IMO. | ||||||||
| Just4Me |
I love the freedom of IF. I eat when I'm hungry, which generally means my "window" opens anywhere from 3 pm to 8 or 9 pm, closes when I'm not hungry anymore.
Eades's post was odd, I thought, because it didn't seem as thorough as I'm used to reading from him: it didn't address other health benefits besides weight implications, it didn't address any kind of adjustment period. It may well be the IF is not the way to lose weight. But at the same time, it may also be that IF will more conclusively show other health improvements, like the reduced inflammation markers, etc. Bert Herring (author of Fast-5) posted on his board that he ends up eating pretty much a controlled carb diet. I think that will prove to make a big difference----IF as license to eat "forbidden fruit" vs. IF in the context of what we here consider a healthy diet (notwithstanding debates about rubbish, LOL). Also, if I remember right, IF (extrapolated from CR research) works in the animals because supposedly it lowers metabolism, one of the ways that it supposedly extends lifespan. In this context, reduced thermogenesis makes sense. However, not in a weight-loss context, if that makes sense. I'm trying to lose a lot of weight, and am sad to read his post because it confirms many of my experiences with IF (e.g., feeling colder). But throwing IF out for the reasons Eades cites seems like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. PS: I'm new to this whole biology/biochemistry world, and fascinated by it. Please forgive any word misusage (I made that one up) that may have occurred. :) |
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| ~mina~ |
I thnk that slower metabolism is because eating this way is not so taxing on the body (on a cellular level etc and therefore our bodies dont have to work so hard to clean and fix up). I also think the natural calorie restriction that comes along with it (when I IF i eat maybe 1200-1400 calories and when I dont I eat 1500-1800) is 1) beneficial for the same reasons and 2) beneficial because of the lowered metabolism. lower metabolism is a good thing contrary to what we have been taught to believe. if you have a super high metabolism there is probably something wrong.. not to mention your body is screaming for help IMO. lower metabolism = longer life, that is just a fact.
I also eat 70-80% fat when I IF (as well as when I dont). this helps with satiety.. and fat is good for us all
in other words: mice fed the high fat diet didnt eat beyond what was needed
in other words: less fat storage. In studies on mice, intermittent fasting has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, disease resistance, lower heart rates and blood pressure, and better responses to stress. As another IF'er has said "I suspect that a study with direct tests of the relevant biomarkers (reduced serum glucose and insulin levels, or even elevated expression of SIRT) is possible [on humans], and will eventually be carried out, but I've decided not to wait for it". IFing is good for your cells! calorie restriction and IFing do seem to help protect the brain against some aging things that might occur (medical mumbo jumbo to follow):
and helps protect your cells:
IF goes hand in hand with ketosis which keeps your cells clean by salvaging junky cellular stuff. there's lots more, but Im sure ive bored you to tears by now. IF basically keeps us from storing fat and keeps our cells young. long story short, an IF/CR/VLC way of eating is extremely beneficial to your bod! |
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| Just4Me |
Thanks, Mina, that's very good to know!
Do you have a link for any of those quotes? TIA! :) |
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| ~mina~ |
http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:9496764 BioInfoBank
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16899414 PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubme...Panel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlusDrugs1 PubMed http://paleocyclicnutrition.wordp...a-place-for-it-in-the-paleo-diet/ interesting read re: paleo and IF (not LC friendly) http://www.springerlink.com/content/l61510rk51t01hq1 Gamma rays and IF neat stuff if you follow some of the links they have too  ,
mina |
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| ~mina~ |
in case anyone was interested in more on the 'ketosis cleans our cells" synopsis:
taken from Eades site, but the premise originally was "..published in 1970 in the journal Nature, this article was featured in [an] issue of Sage KE, an anti-aging supplement to Science, as a blast from the past in their Classic Papers section." from that paper:
http://sageke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/2002/37/cp16 EAdes goes on to say that
paper: http://www.jbc.org./cgi/content/abstract/280/27/25864 eades post http://www.proteinpower.com/drmik...ketosis/ketosis-cleans-our-cells/ theres still controversy about the whole protein/glucose thing.. but it doesnt have much to do with what we are talking about, it's just in his post. Anyways, I like to glean and pick over materials for theories that can be backed by evidence.. im sure you'll do the same 
HTH someone! im only going to get 5 hours of sleep so I suppose I should try to get my brain winding down soon!! ,
mina |
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| Dean |
Mina,
Thanks a million for this info. That is so cool to see other advantages to using ketones for fuel. Doesn't surprise me in the least. It's what we evolved using, and it's what is going to be most protective, just like the anti-inflammatory nature of saturated animal fat. It's not so much that it's anti-inflammatory, but that it is NOT inflammatory... in other words, it is meant to be there in a normal situation. Running our cells on ketones and FFAs and having animal fat in our bodies is the NORMAL way to do things, and therefore the most protective and healthy. And, thanks for the info on CR/IF. I agree, and I practice this naturally. I eat when I'm truly hungry, which is not very often on ZCarnivore. I guess I should stop worrying about slowing down my metabolism. I've heard about the health benefits of that, but still am trying to shake off the brainwashing about it not being good. That is so interesting on the triggers for cellular cleanup being dependent on ketones. So, it goes beyond simply freeing up the proteins from digestion to cause the cleanup. It appears that being keto-adapted is what causes the cells to clean up. You're so right, CR/IF/ZCarnivore all go hand in hand. Once again, this doesn't surprise me. It's simply evolution in action. Thanks again for the info.
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| Tracy |
I second the thanks! This has me seriously rethinking my off-plan eats. 
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| ~mina~ |
youre welcome
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/full/17/9/1133
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubme...bmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum hormesis: cells increase their production of cytoprotective and restorative proteins including growth factors, phase 2 and antioxidant enzymes, and protein chaperones
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubme...bmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum READ MORE ON PUBMED - THIS IS A SEARCH ON INTERMITTENT FASTING http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites...ting&cmd=search&db=pubmed ,
yesmina |
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| jem51 |
jeez, i don't want my metabolism to slow down. it has picked up in the past couple years, yay!! | ||||||||
| ~mina~ |
IF confers near perfect health..
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites...stractPlus&list_uids=16529878 |
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| ~mina~ |
IF and benefits to glucose metabolism
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/10/6216 |
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| ~mina~ |
read through it if youre interested in IF. be sure and get to the part where it starts talking about cellular 'garbage' and why the rodents they tested died without the 'normal' diseases associated with aging etc al. there's lots of goodies in this read! |
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| Dean |
Mina, rock and roll!  Thanks for all those links.
I think if one does ZC they'd have such rock steady blood sugar, they'd naturally IF, which is what many have fallen into. The carbs some eat are causing the blood sugar roller coaster that keeps them hungry. Our ancestors did not have to deal with that. Makes sense if ya try the whole thing. ZC & IF go together like the back of the Bus and Kool-Aid.  Most people who say IF does not work for them are carb eaters. So, perhaps there is a connection?
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| lex_rooker |
Just joined this forum and have a question and some observations about this topic.
First the question: What is the definition of IF? The answer to this question has never really been clear to me. Some feel that eating 3 meals per day is "normal" and missing one meal constitutes a fast. Others eat one meal per day and feel that not eating for a full 24 hour day constitutes a fast. Many years ago I was a devout follower of Sheldon, Carrington, and Bragg. They all promoted fasting as being critical to our health. Because of blindly following these gurus I did many fasts where I had nothing but water for periods of 3 days and up to 30+ days (much to my detriment). Today I wonder why I did this. The rate that we breath is driven by our biological need for oxygen. No one suggests that we should hold our breath intermittently or breath on a predetermined schedule. We are driven by thirst when our bodies require water. No one suggests that we ignore our thirst and take intermittent "dry" periods. Why do we feel differently about hunger and food? I now eat when I am hungry. If I'm not very active I'm usually hungry once a day. If I'm doing heavy physical labor, I often get hungry twice a day, and on rare occasion three times. In every case I eat until I'm satisfied. I do not consider the times between meals as "fasting". If I'm not hungry then my body doesn't require additional food, just as if I'm not thirsty my body does not require additional water. This idea of purposeful fasting (or scheduled eating) now seems rather contrived to me - an unnecessary complication that we've artificially added based on dubious studies run by over educated intellectuals. If we are eating our natural foods, then shouldn't we respect the natural forces of thirst and hunger that drive every other organism in its natural environment? Lex |
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| Dean |
 to the Bus, Lex!
Actually, our breathing is controlled by the amount of carbon dioxide that we need to get rid of. It's the concentration in our blood of CO2 that drives respiration, which is all part of cellular respiration. I totally agree about following a natural course on eating, providing we are eating the foods we were designed by nature to eat. I think IFing as a forced practice came about by many of the discoveries that Mina has been citing. It is because of abnormal eating that mitochondrial and other cellular functioning is off, and when one fasts, and starts burning ketones, all of a sudden the researchers find that this "fixes" things. When in reality, things are just returning to normal. So, yes, eat animal food, preferably raw, and you can let your body decide when it needs more. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of people doin' that. |
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| lex_rooker |
Isn't it interesting that people will gladly do something counter to a biological drive like hunger such as fasting, but consider eating their food raw like every other animal on this earth as something untenable.
Such is the power of culture and custom. Lex |
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| jem51 |
lex, i agree w you but have similar history w fasting. i am the one on this forum who hyperventilates when someone uses the 'f' word. here's another thing about the whole IF, of today. almost no one just consumes water during the 'fasting' phase. they stave off their hunger w coffee, tea w cream and non caloric drinks like diet soda. so any claimed health benefits are gone since toxins are being consumed which must be metabolized and eliminated. and, of course, they are trying to turn off the physiological need so there is nothing natural about it. | ||||||||
| ~mina~ |
please take this post in the manner it was intended. I apologize in advance if the tone is 'harsh', but it is not meant to be at all. I enjoy a good discussion as I hope everyone else here does.
absolutely right what ISNT natural is a forced sit down to clean your plate completely of the oversized portions of meat, potatoes, gravy.. drink your soda and throw in a huge slice of cheesecake for dessert. do this 3x daily. oh yeah and dont forget your snacks while you sit on your butt in front of your computer before you go to bed.
THAT is not normal. and THAT is what has messed up many people's biological signals - including hunger. most people dont even know what true hunger is. many have not even felt a hunger pang in so many years that they would think they were dying if they did (that is not an insult, it is truth). some feel hunger pangs every hour on the hour because their bodies are on a vicious roller coaster ride.we, as a society, do not know what true signals are. dont you find when you are ill that you naturally do not want to eat? surely noone thinks of that in the same terms as are being expressed?.. and yet, it is still fasting. and your body is telling you 'please dont eat. i have enough issues going on right now'. well you know, sometimes bodies are so sick.. on a daily basis sick, falling apart sick.. and the owner of that body has no idea. because they ignore/deny/cant recognize the signals. god forbid we stop eating for a day and 'ruin' our wonderful metabolism that is wreaking havoc with our cells and killing us off faster than we know. how do I know this? because I used to be one of those people. now I know what true hunger pangs are and I know when to feed them. for me, on most days, it happens to be the first 2-3 hours of waking and after that Im done. but I do have days where I eat a few times... i have even had days where I have snacked all day. I have had days where I havent eaten a single thing (*gasp*) but for the most part I intermittently fast. some days I just plain forget to eat until my body says 'hey there sweetheart, you need a snack'. It is natural, not 'contrived' (this is not to say one cannot feel hunger precisely 3x a day and be healthy, each body is different).
If you read the studies I sited, youll see nowhere do I advocate 30 day fasts. im talking about cutting calories by 20-50% through calorie cycling or IFing. in the majority of these studies, they were fed one day and not the next. the AVERAGE for the week worked out to be something like 1600 calories a day.. sounds about normal dont you think? I havent said 'go out a buy a 2ltr of coke because youll need it to get by'. I dont decide the night before 'hey im going to IF or CR today'.. I just do it. I wake up and eat for a few hours and then I dont eat. but.. if someone has to do that. if they HAVE to make a PLAN until their body gets back to being 'normal', why is that so terrible? they shouldnt be made to feel as if they are subhuman or somehow ignorant. incidentally, the hypothalamus in the brainstem largely regulates eating behavior. it is influenced by both internal factors and external factors. one of these is blood glucose (which we know can be influenced by the amount of carbs we eat etc al). another one of these is leptin. whatever these two things do (along with other hormones etc) affects the hypothalamus.... which influences our eating behavior. knowing this is how hunger works and knowing that most people have eaten the SAD way since childhood... why would ANYONE expect them to know true hunger? why would we EXPECT these bodies that have been abused and neglected (even by overfeeding) to react in a normal fashion? most bodies are broken. do we think they will fix themselves without any intervention? after so much abuse? surely not. Just because you are experiencing what you think is hunger does not mean you should eat. It may mean that, but it may mean you should cut out the jelly donuts you had for breakfast or the lunch you had at McDonalds that came to over 2000 calories. sometimes, people are experiencing hunger pangs while they are eating themselves to death. unfortunately, the majority of us have grown up not having one clue as to what 'naturally drives' us or what our bodies should 'naturally want' or even what they need. we have grown up in the days of kelloggs pop tarts and deskjobs that keep us indoors from sunup to sundown. and THAT, my friends, certainly isnt normal. ,
mina |
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| Dean |
mina,
Right on. This is so true. I don't know why people get so crazy against people trying to IF to return their bodies to a more normal state. As I said before, IF & ZC go hand in hand, so if one does one without the other, that may be the problem right there. I know from sugar binges in the past that I would munch on that sugary crap all day, but with ZC eating, I don't have those types of cravings. You are so right about our modern life NOT being normal in any way shape or form. I wasn't kidding when, in another thread, I said...
I think there are those people who have not gone far enough into ZC eating and are still hooked on getting some type of sugar fix, even if just a small one, and they have become dependent on the hormone rush from eating. Even eating ZC food will give some rush. Or they wanna get some oral pleasure or something out of eating. Or some reward system or something. Get hooked on a taste or a texture, and push the envelope. Eating for entertainment, I believe it's called. So easy for anyone to do. We modern humans living in the (developed?) world don't know true hunger, and we don't know real physical endurance, unless we are serious athletes in serious training. These things were normal for our ancestors. Our bodies are sick, cuz we have rapidly changed environments. We may be doomed as a species because of it. In the meantime, I get sick of the denial. It's like people are afraid to face the facts. Why? It is not our faults that we have been born into this. Let's just accept it for what it is, and try to make sense of our physical needs in light of these facts. What's so hard about that? We don't live in anything normal for our physiology. In our natural environment, we would be sleeping in caves and would be out of the light for a long time every day. Check out Lights Out. That book addresses this universal problem. Hormone hell is where we live. If you take the red pill you will see this. Yah, in a normal environment, we'd be getting way more exercise, breathing much fresher air, eating much cleaner foods, drinking much cleaner water, etc. Our bodies are sick. Why not try to give them a break so they can heal, which they will get right under way with, if we give 'em a chance.
DIGESTION IS HARD ON THE BODY. Sorry, but that is just a FACT. So, if you graze, you are gonna pay. There is no way to escape it. And, if you are grazing, you might wanna consider why. Cuz, it aint normal. Our ancestors didn't have a constant stream of food comin' in. We don't have multiple stomachs like the herbivores. We are carnivorous, and it's not normal to always feed our face. It just isn't. I don't find it surprising at all that these scientists have found "improved" health while fasting and reducing the amount and the frequency of eating. That "improvement" is really just a return to normal. What is going on in most of our cells would make the cells of our ancestor's bodies freak out! We are sick. We need to heal ourselves. God knows modern medicine aint gonna do it. If IF helps with that, or it helps us to get off this modern paradigm of grazing, then I say go for it.
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| ~mina~ |
thanks, Dean.
very good reply
ETA: been reading through some posts at http://projectfit.org/iflifeblog/ .. not that I agree 100% with everything he has to say, but most of his IF posts seem within reason and he has some very viable points. his links page is very good. |
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| lex_rooker |
I attempted to read the studies at the links that Mina posted, but not sure that any of it is of practical value to people like me.
It is human nature to look for complicated solutions, and the biological processes at the cellular level may indeed be complex. However, the practical living of daily life has to be so simple that “even a cave man can do it” or you and I wouldn’t be here today. I have focused my attention on returning to this simplicity. I eat when I’m hungry, I eat meat and fat from animals that ate their natural diet, and I eat until I’m satisfied. If I’m not hungry due to illness or for whatever reason, I don’t eat until I am hungry again. If I run out of food, I don’t eat until I obtain more food. Yes, there are occasions when I don’t eat, but they are unplanned and come out of the normal chaos of daily living. This is no different than any other animal in nature. |
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| Tracy |
Everything Mina and Dean said. Using a schedule at first really helped me learn to listen to my body, and after a few months I scrapped the schedule and just went with it. Now I eat when I'm hungry, which just happens not to be until later in the day, most often. If it's earlier, who cares? I eat.
So simple, but after years of low-fat, high carb food (and a couple years vegetarian) my hunger signals were really FUBARed. Nothing like high-fibre bran cereal with low-fat vanilla soy milk to start your day off wrong. ;) |
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| Kristelle |
Yea...it takes time to get your hunger signals right...even to this day, it is not always clear. | ||||||||
| Badger |
Dean, I read Light's Out after seeing it pimped so heavily on the Bear's ALC thread and I gotta tell ya, I wasn't impressed. My one sentence impression: Good hard science mixed with pseudoscience, speculation, mythology and factual errors all presented as the absolute truth.
There's some great information in there, but I don't know how to separate the dross from the gold. After reading that humans are the only nocturnal animal and that the African rain forest/savanna that we evolved in has plenty of caves that we all slept in, caves so deep that no moonlight or starlight would reach us as we slept, I realized that I could not trust anything I read in there that I didn't already know to be true. And the references, my goodness! Sure there's over 4000 of them but they aren't actually references, just a bibliography of sources arranged in alphabetical order by chapter. There's no way to actually track most of the claims back to the references and see if they have any validity. I would love to see Wiley's subject revisited by someone with a bit more intellectual rigor because there's probably something to it. If only Gary Taubes would approach this topic... |
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| Dean |
Yah, who knows about that one, but as you said, there is probably something to it. I wonder about all those NIH studies. Do you think those were off the mark? One thing I always wondered about was the tiny dot of light in those NIH studies causing hormonal problems. The blacken all your windows and the alarm clock. That was a bit extreme, I thought. There was probably more than a bit of drama in that book, and it was written in that fashion, but the general ideas were pretty interesting. Yah, I'd also love to see Taubes take on that subject. I'm sure there is something to this. I know that excessive light exposure must effect us, but just how much would be interesting to find out. Just don't get into it with Neil about all this.
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| Badger |
The NIH studies may have something to them; I haven't read them. I do think that it is very difficult to generalize from their specific study situation to real life. Is the little bit of light from my alarm clock or creeping in the window closer to the NIH amount of exposure or to starlight? Without further study I'd be tempted to conclude starlight, but who knows? | ||||||||
| ~mina~ |
nice blog today on the IF life
http://projectfit.org/iflifeblog/...une-the-body-with-a-partial-fast/ a few snippets:
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| Billi-Jean |
thanks mina, cool blog... I'll have to sniff around that website a bit more, I don't think I've been there before...oh, hang on, rats, that means more reading!  AGH...I'm meant to be studying for my exams!!  
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