There's something about the phrase 'Bernard Matthews chunks' that sounds really revolting....Originally Posted by senwar
The number of time I've joked about getting some speed and upping my metabolismWhen I was a lot lot younger, a steady weekend diet of amphetamines and dance music used to do the trick too....
Not to be reccomended now of course.....
Ha ha fair point
Tried it about 6 months back and didn't stick to it as I was on the weights 4 days per week but started again for january and lost 6kg so far, first 2 weeks i had the biggest weight loss but now slowly losing more, i'm still running (interval sprints now) and gym 2/3 times a week to reduce muscle loss, not managing to increase my lifts but that can be expected I guess.
Thanks everyone for all the advice and experience.
With my crook knee I am in the gym a lot to do my basic Physio exercises on my legs and I have always lifted weights so I am back doing upper-body only training. I have been using the HIT protocol of intense weight training since my teens. I believe Arthur Jones was the origin of this type of work back in the 70s.
So those that are fasting and weight training, obviously it would make sense to train on non-fast days, am I right?
I'm fasting between meals.
Guys who do it, on those days that you fast, do you exercise at all? Or is that too much?
I think generally speaking, it all depends on the person and how they feel. Some people say they feel energised on their fast days in which case a workout is probably fine, others say they feel lethargic and light headed (at least when first starting the fasting regime) in which case a workout might not be the best idea.
I think the idea is to do what you normally do, or feel like doing.
There is no "system", no right or wrong, just do what feels right for you.
The only tip I have is to let your body adjust to the new regime, get used to the feeling on a fast day before introducing any additional exercise or workout.
My first fast day today, so far so good, 1 cup of lemon water and 2 coffees....Easy
RIAC
hot lemon water is the business fats
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Try the whiskey diet, I lost 3 days last Month.
Have also been thinking of trying this for quite some time ago,particularly as i notice how much more energetic i feel when i'm not stuffed full of food,had a bit of a go yesterday to gain a feel for how my body will react and i'm confident it will work for me so going to have another go tomorrow.Also just ordered up a bike rack so i can get out on my bike away from the roads and start enjoying exercising again.
Cancelled my gym membership as well yesterday as i wasn't going anymore and feel like after 20 years of gym workouts it was a chore rather than a pleasure,quite excited that hopefully i'm going to be taking a more positive path to getting fitter and healthier again,and have also cut out all Aspartame sweetened products from my diet.
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I usually exercise on fasting days. That's not intentional, just often the way it works out. It can leave you pretty exhausted though, especially if you do hard cardio.
From a very simplistic view, I am thinking that exercising on fasting days would be even more beneficial as fat would be burned rather than any recently consumed glycogen..hence more acute weight loss.
Last Summer when I was on a regime, I was often going for runs quite late in the evening and not eating before bedtime as I didn't feel particular hungry. I lost quite a bit of weight and I think this was a contributor.
I'm doing a nutrition degree & have come across this idea. most notably when my girlfriends dad announced that he was starting it. this was his reasoning too, of course while it is true, how long ago were we "carnivores" in the true sense of the word? a few billion years ago? when the life expectancy would've been about 30 & we knew relatively little about science & the body. do it if you want, you will lose weight. if all you ate every single day was burgers, you'd lose weight too, but that doesn't mean it's a healthy diet
seems like some people can't be arsed eating healthily & balanced so they latch on to some crazy fad shite, there's a reason a balanced diet is so easy to get hold of, it's cos everyone knows it works. if people want any advice I'm happy to post some on here, if you really want to do something the best book I've ever read on the subject would be this one by David Zinczenko, it's not faddy, it's not extreme & it's perfect, near enough
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Abs-Diet.../dp/1405087978
Always interested in advice.. :)
I think that would be my only concern. How did you feel after a few weeks of 5:2?
As a regular runner (10k 1-3 times pw varying intensity) I'm worried I simply wouldn't recharge. But then again part of the reason for running is so I can eat what I like and keep my weight under control...
I also exercise on fast days, and this is also just how it falls, not necessarily by choice.
I play badminton once a week, cycle, spin and do Body Attack. I've done Badminton a few times and Body Attack once and its been fine. In fact, playing badminton at lunch gets me over that period where I wouldn't be eating anyway.
Have to say, 3 weeks in and I feel pretty much far more energetic than I have for a while. Think the comment above about 'some people can't be arsed eating a healthy balanced diet' is wrong in the most instances around people doing IF.
yeah that was a bit flippant. maybe looking for a quick fix would be more apt
That's the trouble with "closed" minds - traditional thinking, not open to new ideas, accounting for recent research [even if incomplete]...
No-one is saying it's a quick fix, no-one is saying the results and/or health benefits are unequivocally proven, nor that no more research needs to be done...
Just that IF has been around for practical, cultural & religious reasons since the beginning of man's evolution... and perhaps IF might be beneficial to "Western" society which is getting fatter each generation despite all the traditional "eat a balanced diet messages"
Unfortunately your emphasis about doing a "nutrition" degree suggesting somesort of expertise is contradicted by your assertion "of course while it is true, how long ago were we "carnivores" in the true sense of the word? a few billion years ago?"
when of course we humans have only been around for 200,000 years (source wikipedia).
Surely, whatever helps one achieve;
1st - stopping weight going on
2nd - losing weight
without cutting out any of the food groups, and that may also have other health benefits, must be a good thing?
apologies, i didn't realise we were talking so seriouslynot trying to assert expertise at all, simply saying that this is something i've come across & have a bit of background knowledge about
i've had a lot of experience with different nutritional aspects, not all good. personally i wouldn't do anything for any length of time where health benefits/results weren't proven. not something worth messing around with when there are many tried & tested methods that do work if you put in the effort. depends how much you value your health, i guess
as for your two points, yeah it might be a good thing. but it goes against widely accepted methods of weight control & healthy eating as well as not having any tried & tested results. knock yourself out if that's your thing, but i wouldn't go near it
literally some pretty simple changes/guidelines can make a massive difference, don't know why people would try untested, unproven stuff like this
Your permission is greatly appreciated.
Current 'Western' thinking clearly isn't working despite the "evidence".
Other racial, cultural & religious groups have 'practiced' fasting either through necessity or dogma for many hundreds of years.
Limited "Western" research is beginning to suggest IF might have benefits.
What do your studies suggest is better for the average human - severe obesity or significant calorie restriction for a few hours twice a week?
you think all the evidence is "western" ? really ? yeah it's been practiced as a form of punishment or sacrifice. a current nba player carmelo anthony fasted the other week. his performances dropped, his energy levels dropped, his ability to recover from training & workouts dropped. he said he felt lethargic & it put him at risk of injuries. bear in mind he's doing this at a professional sports club so would've had more than adequate facilities & nutritional advisers
it's not a few hours is it, it's two days ffs
i've got this email on my laptop that i sent a friend who asked for help losing a bit of weight. it seems lengthy, it's basic stuff. does this honestly seem harder than starving yourself for 2 days ?
Take in roughly 2500 calories a day if you want to maintain your weight. This will obviously vary with people and your excercise regimes, but it's more or less correct. Take in about 500-700 less if you want to lose weight so 1800 to 2000 per day.
In terms of food you need to be eating complex carbs - ie wholegrains, wholewheats etc. never let a simple carbohydrate touch your lips if possible. It's refined, and spikes your energy levels, causing a huge surge. This huge surge is followed by a drop back down which will drastically mess up your metabolism. So nothing white, no white bread, white rice, no doughs, etc. Stick to wholegrains, wholemeals and that.
It's complex carbohydrates which give your body a slow burning efficient energy source that maintains your metabolism at an efficient rate over a long time - result is you burn more fat, and feel less tired throughout the day.
Cut out the "junk food" completely if you can. It's obvious what that is so I'll leave it at that. Look avidly at the nutritional labels on everything for calories, and tot up your daily calories in your head if you find it helps you.
To boost your metabolism and ensure everything is working right, drinking at least 2 litres of water is essential. Some of the following also boost your metabolism:- green tea, almonds (no more than say a handful tho’) and chilli peppers (jalapeńos and that).
Don't drink more than 2 cups of coffee(or similar caffeine content drinks) a day, although caffeine does boost your metabolism.
Eat a bit of protein - from lean meats (best is turkey). Whey protein is good too but you have to be careful with not buying the cheap stuff and I personally would only take it while/after working out on weights or a game, and I would only take it as long as I have been training very seriously and for a few months. If you take whey and you’re not training it’s pretty pointless and could actually lead to you putting more weight on.
Eating 5 smaller meals a day boosts your metabolism - start off with a good hearty breakfast with complex wholegrain carbs, then mid-morning have a little snack - like almonds then a good lunch and a midday snack and then a nice tea. Try not to eat any carbs after 6pm if you can.
Also if you want to be fit ideally you should cut out booze as much as you can. It's empty calories - meaning they don't actually fill you up, decreasing the amount of food you eat, which then encourages the body to eat more. The worst thing about the effect alcohol has on you in encouraging appetite is while your liver goes to work on breaking down the alcohol, it stops any work on burning calories. Anything you eat while alcohol is in your system will pretty much be stored as fat. It can also inhibit testosterone and human growth hormone - two hormones which help burn fat and build muscle.
Working out first thing in the morning also raises your metabolic rate for the rest of the day.
As for exercise, I don't really know what your regime is like now so can't comment. But in general I'd recommend trying a full body workout instead of body parts. Obviously you'll have to work it out so there's a day of rest in between each weights session. Normally you want to aim for about one hour of cardio exercise a day.
Another key thing to look out for on labels of food is Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil and Glucose Fructose Syrup - quite simply if you want to be fit and healthy stay away from things with those in. Glucose Fructose Syrup is in a LOT of things - Red Bull, Chocolate Bars even slimming food - its a man made sweetener made in a lab in the 1970s which is cheap and good for profits. It doesn't show up on the sugar scale on the labels so they can put it in anything and it doesn't look as bad. Problem is because it's man made your body can't break it down very well and it just goes to fat.
Sorry, just to be clear in case I mislead. I myself was not on the IF regime. I was on a more normal fitness and controlled diet of my own choosing. I just happened to miss a few dinners after evening exercise and this seemed to accelerate the weight loss. Even the following morning, I felt lighter.
I think this is a more accessible habit for those who don't want to go the whole way with IF.
It's quite easy to miss meals. There are times when you're just not hungry and having this pre-programmed need for three good meals a day is a fallacy. Eating only when you're hungry (and even then , not a heavy meal) will go a long way to helping you lose weight.
"does this honestly seem harder than starving yourself for 2 days ?"
OMG - yes!
No "starving" necessary - just don't eat for a day or minimallly - hunger plateaus
Your advice doesn't necessarily coincide with many reports of personal experiences re energy levels (we're not talking athletes, just your average Joe Slob).
Recent research counters your caffeine advice.
And although what you say might be academically correct as regards nutrition, balanced healthy diet - I would hazard that your average overweight/obese serial dieter is never ever going to... work out complex carbs, give up "junk" food (define) and drink nothing but green tea. For most eating five meals a day, only eating 'quality' proteins, not eating after 6pm and cutting out alcohol is just not going to happen for any length of time...
Get real.
Your well intentioned message based on "traditional" expertise simply doesn't work for the general public, if it did then obesity wouldn't be on the rise.
What's your objection to IF as long as it enables 'Joe Slob' to lose weight in the real world as well as probably reducing cholesterol levels & blood pressure etc etc...
I read somewhere that a the intermittent fasting won't get industry wide acceptance ever due to it going against getting consumers to buy food and more of it! food industry worth clearly billions and if everyone stopped eating for 2 days a week for any length of time would surely have a bad effect for many companies out there.
To answer another question I've been running on a fast day and have been completely ok, just ensure you drink enough, My goal is short term weight loss whilst still being able to go out to restaurants and eat good not always that healthy but tasty food!
Also done a fair bit of research primarily leangains.com which I think someone on here mentioned a while back and also read 'Eat stop Eat'
Just started on this. Normally I would be playing badminton 3x per week at 2+hrs each time but I've got an achilles strain so haven't been able to play very much at all recently!
On an average work day I would start with a small bowl of jordans in the morning but skipped that and had some green tea instead. Had a banana and more liu cha for lunch. For evening meal had half a tin of beans and a breaded turkey escalope at ~ 550cal. I'm still hank marvin, though!
I'd usually drink some pepsi in the evening but I have some low calorie ginger beer to get me by until tomorrow, but it's probably not much better.
Isn't this just some new sort of fad diet, like the cabbage soup diet or the Atkins diet?
To be honest, I'd rather hear from someone studying nutrition academically than a bunch of middle-aged sad sacks desperately clutching at straws.
No because it doesn't exclude any particular food group.
No because it's not new - just the mainstream media have become 'aware'.
Fad? Possibly, who can say.
I'd prefer to hear from qualified experts in the field rather than someone "studying" nutrition... eg;
Professor Mark Mattson
Professor Valter Longo
Dr Luigi Fontana
Dr Krista Varaday
I'd be equally pleased to read informed expert rebuttals.
No, just because it has recently become popular doesnt make it new or a fad. There is already plenty of robust science that supports this approach.
To be honest i would rather read the studies than be spoon-fed "conventional wisdom" which is frequently not supported by good quality scientific studies (though often supported by poor quality ones).
I have a degree in Pharmacology and Physiology and though that makes me far from an expert in Nutrition the Science does seem to add up.
I would second the post saying that something that has been practised for millenia is hard to term a fad.
This is my first week, and two fast days down. It is much easier than I was expecting, the fasting part. It has certainly made me chew and enjoy my food more and take my time when eating...
Good link, great to see some actual science combined with the underlying references rather than the usual conjecture, half-baked opinion (mine included!) and nonsense posted on the internet.
If only more people would read it, and put 'little and often' to bed once and for all.
<Thread drift warning>
When I quickly glanced at the title of this topic I thought "great....that's something I know a lot about!"
Then to my disappointment I realised that it wasn't actually about intermittent farting at all!
Then I began to wonder whether the two subjects were, in fact, related. Those conducting the fasting may be able to shed some light on the issue.
jeff (gone to specsavers!)
On my first fasting day today, 1 slice of brown toast so far for breakfast and not feeling too hungry YET. Planning on an orange, and sugar free jelly pot for lunch (wow) and a big bowl of soup (220 cals) and half a banana for 'dinner'. Will see how I feel at 7pm tonight...
Ordered that book listed above so hopefully I'll be able to be a bit more adventurous on the menu, but I only decided last night to start today (now or never).
Hope that's air popped fat free popcorn & a diet soda you got there?
Just because somebody is "studying nutrition" doesn't mean everything they are being taught is correct. I believe in results that improve general heath, weight and blood chemistry and IF appears to offer this without the need for drug intervention, what's the problem?
Last edited by Chinnock; 31st January 2013 at 21:23.
“Don’t look back, you’re not heading that way.”
Anyone watch yesterday's Horizon? Very much related to this subject and a bit of an eye-opener. Much real science involved. It's probably still on iPlayer.
Yep, and I find it hard to view as a 'fad' when all you're doing is not eating. Let's face it, humans probably don't need as many calories as they consume to properly function and missing a day of eating or eating very lightly a couple of days a week is something that you could keep up for ever. It's not exactly a hardship, especially once you've got used to it.
Got through my first day, difficult at times but will stick with it. Never been looking forward to breakfast tomorrow so much!
Strangely enough I had been thinking about this technique more and this thread inspired me to give it a go.
I've never been one for any sort of diet fad, they generally seem absurd. I know how to eat healthily and get a reasonable amount of exercise (although I think it's eating out too much that has been my downfall recently). But I could still do with losing a stone and am too busy with my business to dedicate more time to exercise, plus I do often feel like we as humans consume a lot and don't give our bodies any sort of break.
I was going to split 600 calories between breakfast and dinner but then read a few places suggesting the length of the fast can play a role as well. So I didn't touch any food all day, just water, herbal teas and one black tea. Actually felt fine, I was pretty hungry at 8 'o clock but my small courgette / pepper frittata with watercress amazingly filled me up pretty well. I'm sitting here with breakfast in front of me (just a banana and a grapefruit) and very strangely don't feel that hungry. Perhaps by lunch or dinner I will. More than anything it has made me conscious of how much I eat / snack generally (healthy food but quite big portions and probably too many carbs and too much butter).
I'm still very wary of any "fashionable techniques" but am interested to see how this progresses and will be doing 2 a week. Of course just the drop in calories (and alcohol!) will inevitably help with some weight loss, let's see if there are any other benefits.
This is what I found too, had nothing all day but fluids, pretty hungry by teatime ( especially after making the kids their tea) but really enjoyed a 600 cal Ceasar salad!
Cheers..
Jase
In evolutionary terms, the so-called "balanced diet" is the fad.
http://perfecthumandiet.us
Couldn't have said it better myself. For the last 30 years we have been conned by the conglomerate food producers into thinking our well being is in their interest. However they have lied to ensure their pockets are filled with our money at the detriment of our health. Hopefully with videos like this and continued support from the media, people will to start to understand and be educated and appreciate that the first 2 aisles of all supermarket are the safest and the rest are dangerous to your health.
“Don’t look back, you’re not heading that way.”
I cant find it now but i used to have a chart that showed western consumption of processed grains vs diabetes and heart disease growth since 1900. Obviously correlation does not equal causation but even so........
It has been a month since the last post on this thread and I have now seen the Horizon documentary which sparked it. I would be interested in hearing members' anecdotal evidence of how they have got on in the last month if they have been following 5:2. Might encourage me to give it a go on days when I am not weight training!
Have been doing 5:2 for the last 3 weeks. Have never dieted before but am finding this pretty painless. Not too hurt by the suggestion that this is a fad for middle aged blokes (and women too: my wife is also on the diet) because it is probably true.
Have so far lost 6lbs and plan to achieve a target weight loss of 1 stone. Understand this will allow me to look a lot more like George Clooney so will persevere. Have some concerns if my wife begins to look like George Clooney too!
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Thanks - this is helpful. 6lbs in three weeks sounds impressive! I'll be judging it more on whether belt feels looser. I think you'll find it's drinking Nespresso that makes you look more like George Clooney...
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