This is a copy of a reply I gave someone asking for my thoughts / my approach to intermittent fasting. I do not believe there is one perfect way to lose weight....you find what you can sustain - the right fit. For me it was IF - have before after stuff in old posts but at 55 - it was a total game changer....42 inch waist to 29. Just thought I would post my reply on here in the vein of " the more you know"...I am no expert on anything....just a guy who had a great experience and feels a little compelled to help others...take out of this what you will.
"I started out in january 2018 with a 16/8 window. I had researched IF enough to realize that , if it was legit , I wanted this to be a lifestyle change..not a temp weight loss program...so I wanted to give myself the most chance for success. I also knew that there were 2 separate things going on here...the eating style and then the fasting hours...these have zero to do with each other ( although what you eat can affect how you experience the fasting hours - hunger levels ). So I decided to try a healthy eating style I could sustain. If you can't sustain it...you will not have lasting success ( keto is great...too restrictive for me ). I decided to eat low glycemic - has been around for decades to help diabetics and since it is soley focused on minimizing insulin spikes, it seemed a perfect fit for intermittent fasting - the entire mechanism of the health benefits of IF is the low insulin levels during part of your day.
Anyway...no way I could handle fasts longer than 16 hours at the beginning so that is where I started. I also knew that carbs make me hungrier the next day ...eating low glycemic naturally tweaked my macros to less junk carbs and more fat but no where near the extremems of keto. I mean I can eat peanut mms and high fat ice cream and still have a low glycemic load ( the fat slows the sugar being introduced into the blood stream - the lower the sugar, the lower the insulin )...also I am no expert...this is just how I approached it.
So...a few weeks of 16/8 and low glycemic eating...hunger is reducing...so I am naturally pushing my fasting window our longer and longer. By April I was eating 23/1 with zero hunger.....and that is where I have been ever since ( almost a year of omad now ).
Energy is always good...hunger is gone - I literally do not feel real hunger for days...and I have done small extended fasts of 48 to 84 hours over the last year - I don't want to lose more fat ( I had already gone from 35% to 15% body fat ) but the immune system boost keeps me hooked. I have not been sick a single day in the last 15 months since I began IF - I am not preaching causation and effect - just relaying anecdotal experience. I am 55 and have never looked this good...ever...have never felt this good.
Fasting is like a muscle...you can't lift more all at once...you have to work it out. So while I would struggle in the past with fasting for blood work....now I never think about food for 23 hours of the day. ...but it took time to get to that level of conditioning.
Workouts - I know that hgh levels ramp way way up for every additional hour you are in a fasted state...I am not a DR..or a workout expert but I know that hgh levels are kind of important for fat burn and connective tissue regeneration so I want that level as high as I can get it when I work out...I only work out fasted. I do daily treadmill sessions and lift to exhaustion 5 days a week ( just standard garage setup push/pull rotations ) but my body has never gained muscle like this before - and I really don't like lifting - it feels like I have been beatup when I finish but I am 55 and resistance training is the best thing as you age ...so I lift. I only workout fasted and I thrive on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgeh2w0j51w&t=17s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZCfmgzoS0&t=463s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk&t=1569s
these are some good videos for giving you tangents to further research if you are interested.
I see a lot of folks say IF only works because it helps you do cico better...totally disregarding the two most important benefits of IF...increased hgh and enhanced autophagy ( immune system boost )...
Some folks really don't want to give IF the credit it is due...personally I think it is a total game changer.
last thought and then i will shutup....once I researched and started to experience IF...I realized that because of the enhanced hgh and autophagy....that the term 'fasting' should be replaced with 'healing'...they are healing hours...not fasting hours. Some folks struggle...and I think it is mindset...'fasting hours' has a negative tone..."oh my god...I am restricting food. How many minutes until I can eat?!"...its an onerous chore and they can't wait until the clock says they can shove food in. But for me it was " right now my body is being bathed in higher and higher levels of hgh and my immune system is ramping up - tearing down damaged cells and using them to build new ones ( autophagy won the 2016 Nobel prize in biology ) - my body is breaking down fat for fuel...the minute I put food into my mouth...all this comes to a stop for the next 12 hours "... fasting hours is an endurance test....healing hours is a gift I am giving my body and I want as many of those as I can get. Ok...am done...feel free to message me if you have more questions....you will find that as you research you will have more detailed questions.
Good luck,,if you commit this will be the most amazing change you can make for your body's health and conditioning. "
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