I’m wondering how common fasting and calorie restriction are in the community here.
Have you experimented with any of these calorie restriction or fasting techniques? Leave a comment below with details, including why you do (or did) it, and what the effects were.
Intermittent fasting —periodic feeding, like 12:12, 16:8, 18:6, 20:4, etc.
Water fasting—more than 24 hours with only water
Juice fasting—no food, but do drink liquids like juice or other liquid calories
Occasionally or regularly skipping meals—mini fasting
Calorie restriction—reduced calories but feeding isn’t limited to specific time periods
Other calorie restriction or feeding patterns—explain in a comment below
I haven’t done any fasting or calorie restriction
0voters
The numbers above like 12:12, 16:8, 18:6 refer to the daily eating window. E.g., 16:8 means keeping all food intake within an 8-hour period each day, fasting for the other 16 hours.
Note: consult with a medical professional before doing anything extreme with your diet, especially for people with eating disorders. Nothing here is intended as medical advice or recommendations. It’s just a survey of the community.
I tried low-key intermittent fasting without much benefit.
I’m curious to do a longer fast e.g. 48 hours but doing it properly. Some friends had good effects from fasts of varying lengths, sometimes several days! Of course, even a moderate fast needs proper preparation and I wouldn’t recommend anyone just dive in to doing a random 48-hour water fast.
Intermittant fasting (for me it simply means skipping breakfast) worked great health wise (to stabilize weight). I did it because it’s the easiest to implement. And because I often found myself standing before the fridge asking myself what I wanted to eat for breakfast until I wondered “why do I force myself to eat something if I’m not hungry?”
I was always told “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Turns out it’s a marketing thing from people wanting to sell overly sugary cereals, so no thanks, not anymore.
I do drink a lot of green tea + coco milk + curcuma/pepper/cinnamon in the morning though.
That’s interesting. I heard the “most important meal of the day” thing for my whole life but didn’t consider that it might have been just a marketing campaign.
I usually don’t start eating until somewhere between 11 AM and 2 PM because I’m doing 16:8 (max) intermittent fasting at the moment, and breakfast is the easiest meal for me to miss. Starting a little later keeps me from getting hungry at night.
I used to do intermittent fasting with an eating period of noon until… Six? Something like that. I didn’t perceive any benefit or drawback.
I expect IF to be a “reap the benefit over a great timeline” investment, like fish oil and possibly rooibos.
While I don’t strictly practice it anymore, I still do more often than not. Very rarely eat breakfast, but if I really want to I will. More often than not I don’t even decide to eat until around 2 PM.
used to skip breakfast some years ago for a couple of months. Works well but i did not experience any of the quoted benefits. Dropped it.
Went a couple of times with water fasting only from 3-5 days. This one has really nice benefits in terms of mood and drive. Also you value simple food differently afterwards (hunger is the best chef…). It also is a nice education that you will not die if dinner is a bit late
Fasting is taxing though (HRV values collapse temporarily, sleep is impaired, transition can be unpleasant) and weight loss is not an objective for me. I am currently on a “build stronger body” regime but plan to then fast again, ~once a year.
Well, I don’t know whether this is a coincidence or not, but I started Ramadan today. I’ve been fully doing Ramadan since I was 9. I don’t know if this is as relevant as the others, but I’ll share some of the changes I’ve experienced during it.
My mind was a lot clearer after the first few days. It takes a couple of days to get into the rhythm, but then my mind got a lot calmer. Idk why, not a nutritionist.
It became a lot easier to just… not do my addictions. Porn was never a problem. Smoking wasn’t. Gaming was though. Being less addicted might’ve been caused by the sacred flavour of ramadan, though, and not directly by the fasting itself.
I think the magic in fasting partly comes down to
not eating the junk we normally do. I’m less gluten sensitive if i don’t drink an entire six pack of beer!
Yeah, that’s what makes me weary of intermittent fasting. It’s a hair away from disordered eating - but an important hair that has some people really benefiting on the safe side of it.
@Gravity - there are plenty of regiments described for starting to fast. When you are healthy i dont think anything is necessary. I started with just three days and noted that it is doable for me and then scaled up until 5 days.
The first two days are usually pretty bad and i noticed that it helps me if i fade out carbohydrates in the two days before the actual fasting starts. Basically your body adapts to a no sugar metabolism (and move into ‚keto‘ state). That can be a bit unpleasant and creates craving but you can sooth it because you still eat other stuff.
When you stop eating from one day to the other your body needs to adapt to not having sugar anymore and also no food at all. For me that gave headaches and heavy craving. With the above protocol it was easier. Generally i would say benefits start from day 3.
But as said - if you are healthy you can probably just stop right away IMO. You just need to experiment what way works best for you (stop in the morning/ evening; to work or not to work, etc)
If it’s a water fast longer than 24 hours, I get ketone strips to track ketosis. If the levels get too high I drink more water. I also keep lemons or limes on hand and squeeze a little juice into the water if I get nauseated. (I rarely do that though.) It’s usually easier for me if I load up on a little extra calories a day before, like have some peanut butter on bread or something like that.
This isn’t a recommendation to fast. I’m just sharing what I’ve done. There are probably communities on Reddit or elsewhere that have advice. Intermittent fasting (periodic feeding) is easier than water fasting. I currently do 16:8 (often ends up being more like 18:6), meaning I restrict all food intake to a 6-8 hour period every 24 hours.
