Likely not. I know people are super concerned for your safety, and rightly so :) no one wants to be the one to just say yes go for it. Anyway, just please make sure you are eating enough calories and a proper variety of nutrients. As long as you do that and don't go beyond a 16:8, you will be fine.
In fact, some of the research on fasting mentions as a pre-hypothetical anecdote about how whole families in the earlier to mid 1900s, including children, ate their 3 square meals a day within 8-10 hours of each other, no snacking (think 1950s). And this likely contributed in part to lower obesity levels. Again with proper calorie intake and nutrient acquisition, you should be fine.
Sorry if this is a little rambly... just woke up, it's 5am lol (and I'm on Reddit.. haha)
Please read the dr. Fungs obesity code https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187 its not your fault you are regaining! Your body is designed so, that you would get your lost weight back! The insulin level needs to be adressed. You had probably slowed down your metabolism with cico and now you overeat eventhough you are eating normally. It just is boubd to happen. Try IF, fasting and remove sugars with refined carbs. And please read the book.
check this book out first. https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187 it would be cheaper and easier to check your blood sugar and eliminate that as a cause to night time eating. i changed my diet a little bit with less refined carbs (brown rice and lentils instead of white rice and pasta), a glass of milk, and a slightly later dinner time.
I started at 425lbs in July 2017. I am now sitting at 260lbs. My first 100lbs came off in 7 months of keto (no fasting at all). I took my foot off the gas pedal when we had a baby in June of 2018 but I'm getting back in gear now. You can absolutely do this but you need to take it easy to start. This is only going to work if you are willing to change the way that you eat forever.
I read Dr. Fung's The Obesity Code in the beginning and it helped me to understand why I was so damn hungry all the time before I went low carb. My advice to you would be to start with keto and just eat bacon and eggs (or some other super low carb food that you like) until you're not hungry anymore.
Once you get your body used to burning fat instead of glucose, you will feel like a bear in hibernation, living off your stored energy supply.
Here are a couple of helpful links. Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions at all.
https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187
A lot of docs are not trained to consider any blood sugar wonkiness short of prediabetes to be an issue at all, so problems build over time. But, cutting sugar and starches and IF are the most effective thing to do, so yay. If you are interested in the science behind it, check out The Obesity Code: Dr. Jason Fung, Brian Nishii: 0191091365847: Amazon.com: Books, otherwise just keep on. Replacing starches and sugar with more protein was really helpful to me. If you are ever able to get one, a CGM gives really valuable data on how your individual body reacts to certain foods. I was surprised by some of the info here. I could really relate to the feeling lightheaded and worrying about passing out in a shop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Drw9qwMSm4 Even going for a walk if possible, after meals is really useful. America, Your Diet Is Killing You: Why The Glucose Crisis Will Be Worse Than The Opioid Crisis (forbes.com) Please come back with updates, you are doing a great job!
Yea, Jason Fung covers it in pretty good detail in the obesity code
https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187
Good luck! Once I understood how to manage insulin and cortisol and the hormones that regulate hunger it was a completely different ballgame. I'm so grateful to Dr Fung and this sub. This book is a great read too, or if you are more an auditory learner his YT has loads of vids re: insulin and how spacing eating and avoiding processed food can help restore health. https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187 That knowledge + inositol were literally like the cheat codes back to health and a full head of hair for me. As my health improved, it was easier to get weight to adjust. Losing the reactive hypos, the fatigue and the driving hunger of IR were gifts that gave me my quality of life back. I used to limp from tendonitis and now I go hiking, I feel grateful each time. No more migraines, being in pain really sucked.
Best to all on your health journey! The silver lining of PCOS is that it gets us to make health changes younger and gives us the motivation of hair or skin, etc. Lowering IR pays health dividends for decades. Change is hard at first but gets to be the new normal. Once you feel better you will not want to go back. We all deserve to have energy and be pain free. :)
I do this breakdown after listening to this Fasting Method podcast episode and have found that it really works for me!
It’s a water fast but I also drink black coffee and if I’m feeling like I really need it I will drink a cup of hot broth (but quickly and not drawn out to keep insulin as low as possible).
If you’re new to fasting I highly suggest Dr Fungs book The Obesity Code.
I would recommend anyone who's interested in fasting to read The Obesity Code.
Here's what I learned from the book. The more insulin you have, the more fat you store. The more insulin you body makes, the more insulin resistant your cells become. So, to compensate, you body just makes more insulin, causing you to get even fatter.
Losing weight and keeping it off in the long term comes down to managing you insulin levels. Fasting appears to be a great way to keep you insulin levels low for a long period of time, and allows you body to build insulin sensitivity back up, and get insulin production under control.
This is one of reason I am very interested in a continuous glucose monitor from Levels for myself. I want to learn to manage my blood sugar, which should help me control insulin.
P.S. Just proof-read my post, I know I sound like I am shilling these products. I promise that I am not. And I know this is totally what a shill would say.
>Are you getting that info from the full study? It doesn't show up in the abstract.
Read the full study.
Both groups were able to improve health markers such as BMI, body fat percentage, waist circumference, blood pressure, and fasting insulin and glucose levels to a significant enough level to induce clinically-important health improvements. At the 12-month mark, LDL-C had significantly decreased in the low-fat group and increased slightly in the low-carb group. However, the low-carb group also saw an increase in HDL-C (2,64 v 0,4 mg/dl in the low-fat group) and large reductions in triglycerides (-28,2 in the low-carb and -9,95 mg/dl in the low-fat group).
Resting energy expenditure decreased from baseline for both groups (-66,45 for low-fat and -76,93 for low-carb, despite low-fat losing more fat and a lower quantity of muscle than the low-carb). Both groups saw metabolic syndrome reduced in severity, and some subjects saw it disappear despite weight loss being insignificant to you.
Weight loss was strongest in the period where a diet was prescribed and compliance was maintained, no one entered ketosis or fasted in the experiment, and weight loss plateaued at the new level after people were allowed to adjust their diets to a level they personally decided would be maintainable for them.
This illustrates quite well the health benefits of weight loss, that a small amount of weight is still good to take off, that people are able to lose and keep off weight, and so on and so forth, no matter how insignificant you personally may deem this loss. It is an improvement, no matter what you're going to say.
>You have claimed this, yes. But you've provided no evidence for it.
Because anyone interested in nutrition should be aware of this, especially before attempting to debate the matter. It isn't pleasant to enter a conversation adversarially and unprepared, as you've done here.
>Personal experience, anecdotal evidence and evidence from studies all seem to suggest that once one has ever gained substantial weight it becomes extremely hard to keep lost weight off. I don't believe there is any evidence to suggest it gets easier over time, though I would be glad to hear it if you had any.
This is a proof positive that you have not researched the subject in any way becoming of someone that wishes to debate the subject. In point of fact, it's almost insulting.
Sumithran et al., 2011 states: "One year after initial weight reduction, levels of the circulating mediators of appetite that encourage weight regain after diet-induced weight loss do not revert to the levels recorded before weight loss." Thus, the hormonal roots of hunger appear to adapt to cause a person to homeostatically adjust -- rebound, as you've said.
In the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, individuals were, at first, fed a diet of 3200 calories per day for three months. After this time, they were fed 1570 calories per day for six months (adjusted down and up for men to lose 1,1 kilograms per week). The foods were high in carbohydrates and meat was rare. Everyone complained they were too cold, muscle mass loss was evidenced, and the men reported being ravenously hungry -- they became obsessed with food.
Later, a man lost 125 kilograms by taking a multivitamin and drinking water for one year, and eating nothing else. The report reads: "A 27-year-old male patient fasted under supervision for 382 days and has subsequently maintained his normal weight. Blood glucose concentrations around 30 mg/100 ml were recorded consistently during the last 8 months, although the patient was ambulant and attending as an out-patient. Responses to glucose and tolbutamide tolerance tests remained normal. The hyperglycaemic response to glucagon was reduced and latterly absent, but promptly returned to normal during carbohydrate refeeding. After an initial decrease was corrected, plasma potassium levels remained normal without supplementation. A temporary period of hypercalcaemia occurred towards the end of the fast. Decreased plasma magnesium concentrations were a consistent feature from the first month onwards. After 100 days of fasting there was a marked and persistent increase in the excretion of urinary cations and inorganic phosphate, which until then had been minimal. These increases may be due to dissolution of excessive soft tissue and skeletal mass. Prolonged fasting in this patient had no ill-effects."
The man was able to get the weight off and keep it off, and reported little hunger after the beginning of the fast. But, this is just a case study. Jason Fung in his The Obesity Code writes that, in comparison to fasting, caloric restriction results in less weight loss, more lean mass (muscle) loss, and more hunger. In Upton Sinclair's 1911 <em>The Fasting Cure</em>, he writes: about his first few attempts at fasting: "I was very hungry for the first day -- the unwholesome, ravening sort of hugner that all dyspeptics know. I had a little hunger the second morning, and thereafter, to my very great astonishment, no hunger whatever -- no more interest in food than if I had never known the taste of it." He recounts other examples of benefits, but that's something you can find from consulting the text. Addressing concerns about fasting, he writes: "Several people have asked me if it would not be better for them to eat very lightly instead of fasting, or to content themselves with fasts of two or three days at frequent intervals. My reply is that I find it very much harder to do that, because all the trouble in the fast occurs during the first two or three days. It is during those days that you are hungry." Then he says, "Perhaps it might be a good thing to eat very lightly of fruit, instead of taking an absolute fast - the only trouble is that I cannot do it. Again and again I have tried, but always with the same result: the light meals are just enough to keep me ravenously hungry." He says that you will know when you've finished fasting, because your hunger will return; this was something recorded among many of the people who wrote to him as well.
This is adequately explained by the hormone "ghrelin," which Natalucci et al. (2005, linked just before), found to follow a circadian rhythm over the first day or so of a fast. It spiked at normal meal times, and it immediately went away. One easy way to lose weight, then, is to just ignore this impulse for about an hour til it passes and you'll feel less hungry. To disprove the absurd notion that hunger is simply not eating + time, note that ghrelin was lowest at 9 -- the longest period of not eating. This is because ghrelin, which comes in circadian waves, rises at normal lunch, dinner, and breakfast times.
To throw more weight into this, Espelund et al. (2005) analysed what happens when you fast for a few days. In both men and women, ghrelin levels fall, the longer you fast. Ghrelin levels of people that were fasting followed similar rhythms each day, as described in the study discussed above, but, each day, ghrelin fell to an even lower level - going longer without food, actually made people less hungry. Interestingly, growth hormone also increases while fasting, but not due to ghrelin (so, throw out your MK677 if you're using it).
So, via fasting, you can achieve hormonal regulation, consistent fat loss (especially because ketosis shifts you to using ketones instead of glucose for energy, and you, resultantly, lose more fat and less muscle, even via gluconeogenesis, over time), and an easy diet, since your hunger disappears with time. So, what about refeeding? Korbonits et al. (2007), found that refeeding improperly -- i.e., low sodium (which is VERY harmful for you -- current US and WHO guidelines are about 3x below the amount of sodium people actually need) and carb-heavy refeeding -- led to a rebounded hormonal profile and increased hunger. How odd, that eating led to more hunger (said no one that has ever fasted for more than three days).
>via heroic amounts of exercise (say, an hour a day, forever) and by counting every calorie.
>Heroic
If you think this is heroic, and not simply a normal amount of exercise for healthy individuals, then there may be something wrong with you. I, personally, exercise for about an hour each day, if not a little more. For one, my affective response is quite pleasant, and for two, I enjoy looking good so I have to do it.
>Were it really the case that keeping weight off gets easier over time as hunger decreases, wouldn't at least ONE of the 14 big losers be able to stay thin?
As you should have inferred, their hunger did not decrease. They moderated when they dieted, and they still ate carbs when they should not have. Such a method is bound to see rebounding, because the hormonal profile does not adjust. This is very plain to anyone that has put the time and effort into understanding nutrition and the HPTA/&c.
>Wouldn't people like Oprah or Steven Seagal (who had truly massive incentives to stay thin and lots of resources to help them do so) have been able to remain thin?
Gluttons will be gluttons, and if they receive bad advice (like the type Oprah and her entourage hock), then it's no wonder they've rebounded.
Megan McArdle is not qualified to speak here. She has nothing useful to say and the comparison to height is invalid because one facet can be changed and the other cannot. You have already tried this. She is dim.
Actually, its very hard to make someone obese based on calories. Our bodies do an amazing job of regulating calories. Its actually refined carbs. You can actually eat a deficit of calories but if you stick to refined carbs, you'll still gain weight. I suggest reading The Obesity Code, it talks all about this
I agree with you that eating less and doing more exercise is healthier than being overweight. Being obese could be trace, to some extent, to these factors – lack of motivation or discipline–, yet the full picture could be far more complex. As far as I know, the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) accounts for most of the energy spent by our bodies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate), and even if you exercise more you will likely eat more afterwards. The ultimate cause of modern obesity comes from the quality of food we eat.
Calories come in a variety of ways and not all calories are equal; could 200 calories of oatmeal be the same as 200 calories of french fries? Our bodies respond different to different types of macronutrients. All carbs break down into sugars, which are the body's main source of energy. However simple carbs are easily absorbed by the body, and after insulin has done its work, it leaves you hungry. (https://www.1843magazine.com/features/death-of-the-calorie)
Simple carbs are cheaper and widely available in developed countries, for this reason is far more common to observe obesity among low-income groups. (http://www.frac.org/obesity-health/relationship-poverty-obesity). There are are factors that cause obesity that we can hardly influence.
I recommend you to read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187
Look, douche, I get it, you're super smart and you're just here to argue because your real life sucks or whatever. Are you actually trying to have a logical conversation about what is and isn't intermittent fasting? If so, I suggest you go read a book or two about the subject because you're not gonna get anywhere shouting your opinion here. Here's a good one: The Obesity Code
And hey! No need to reply with another smart-ass answer, we all know you're the smartest person ever.
Try fasting.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/7-benefits-of-fasting
Edit: it’s intermittent fasting. Kick starts your body into ketosis. Strangely people upvote keto suggestion above and downvote this one...
Here is a book written by the same doctor at the previous link, lots of testimonials on the reviews:
https://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1536682187
anyway hope it helps OP, good luck