Intermittent Fasting

I have been doing it for almost two months now, with an off week around Thanksgiving. I have not backpacked while doing this and I usually eat many tiny meals when I hike so that’d be quite different.
It makes sense to me, to take longer breaks from eating. Some days are definitively easier than others …

I did a 24 hour fast yesterday. I usually do one 24 hour fast each week for November and December due to the holidays. The rest of the year I do 16/8 by skipping breakfast.

I had bad acid reflux and the 16/8 fast was preferable over the meds they wanted me on.

I have been on a low carb intermittent fasting diet for nearly 20 years.  I too, have no problem hiking on an empty stomach through the morning and into afternoon.

For recreational/vacation backpacking – for me that means 12 days or less – it works fine and I lose some weight. Anything longer in duration or high intensity like 25+ miles day after day and/or big daily elevation gains/losses, I eat many small “meals” and more calories as well.

i like to get up and hit the trail holding off on eating until my stomach gets really noisy or I feel my blood sugar has really dropped. Honestly, having been on this schedule for so long, my normal hunger response rarely kicks in, I just start to feel woozy and know I need to eat.   Typically the longer I go without eating the easier it gets – to a point.  24-36 hours and my ability to perform manual work begins to suffer.

I hike the trails out my front door and typically get 35-60 miles a week year round and prefer to go with an empty stomach.  I feel better and hike faster and just eat later.  These are typically 7-12 mile hikes with 1-2k of elevation so not to intense.

I’ve been intermittent fasting for almost a year for IBS (and it’s helped tremendously). I don’t eat breakfast so my fast is about 16 hours or so. Typically when I day hike I stick to my program. When I backpack, if it’s a high output morning, I’ve been waiting until the last minute before I start walking and then have something small, or I hike a little bit and have a mid-morning small breakfast. It kind of depends on how I’m feeling in the morning, which usually depends on how good of a dinner I had the night before (i.e., if I didn’t eat enough dinner I’ll have less energy in the morning). When I’m backpacking I think I’m typically operating on a calorie deficit, which makes the morning calories more necessary than usual if i’m going to pushing hard. I don’t mind compromising on my system when I’m backpacking since it (unfortunately!) doesn’t make up the majority of my days.

Thanks everyone for your input – you have all pretty much confirmed my experience with IF and hiking/backpacking.

Other threads madder me almost post this previouslu but those one has prompted me to finally pay something here. Please note, I share the following not necessarily to brag but more to share the possibilities, MY experiences & to note it’s NEVER too late.

On this coming January 10th, it will be 2 years since I went ultra-low carb (Keto…30 carbs/day or less.) By default & not intentionally my body adopted IF by the 3rd month. I lost 50# in the first 6 months & then another 24# over the next 12 month’s. (The lowest I’ve seen in 25 years.) ALL major health issues I was experiencing disappeared by 6 months which is when I started 50 min of high resistance elliptical 5-6 days a week until month 17 always in a fasted state. (Job change nearly stalled this exercise until recently.) High BP, cholesterol, Triglycerides A1C/glucose, insulin, nocturnal & more frequent urination…pre-diabetic among other labs/biometrics all became not just better but better than normal! Knees & back rarely hurt, headaches & digestive issues all but disappeared. My GP was freaking out. Lol 😆

I’m back in the jeans I wore when I got married…at the age of 22. (I’m 52 yoa now.) The worst part is that it has been very expensive in regards to clothing cost… good problem to have I guess.

At 18 months I experimented with extended fasting on occasion with non-caloric fluids to kick up a stall, kick in autophage as well as to address excess skin & the last effects of insulin resistance. (Several 48h, a few 72h & a 96h…24h is now ridiculously easy…ZERO issues, so many benefits.) Btw, I worked out daily through these extended fast as normal. That is what took me from -65# to -74#. However probably not fully a stable -74# though. Hence, I’ve since stabilized with IF & Keto fluctuating between a -65-70# net loss but skin is tighter including loss of double chin. Zero caffeine with the exception of micro amounts from 90% chocolate on occasion.

Backpacking the High Uintahs this summer (with way too heavy a BP) was phenomenal…the best in nearly 20 years…I was by far the oldest adult (next closest was 9 yrs junior.) but would come into camp within 5 minutes of the 17 yo varsity HS athletes in our group.  On these trips, I continued a ULC Keto diet with daily IF. I hiked only in a fasted state, BP’ing 10-12 miles most days at 10k-12k elevations. ZERO issues, no crashes, tons of energy. With no carb loading, there is no carb crashing. There are so many benefits both practical & health to BP’ing ULC/Keto & IF…especially if this is your lifestyle and almost no downsides from my perspective. I will never go back…why would I?!

Sorry for the predictive text typos, I’m on my phone & it won’t let me fix them.

wow!  that’s a great story.  thanks

That is great to hear!
Right now I am doing ok with IF except I keep breaking my fast with coffee at 14 hours, instead of 16. I read quite a bit about eating early versus late but making my window 6am to 2pm would interfere even more with family life and I would never eat at home but rather have to bring my meals with me to work.
Maybe I could alternate a bit and have some early and some later windows but is a regular schedule key to this type of IF?

The past few decades more and more research has been done on fasting but I don’t think may GPs know much about it. I’m under the impression that different fasting times have different effects. So there may be an empirical answer to Kattt’s question.

However, for me, I stumbled into intermittent fasting for convenience reasons. At first I realized that stopping what I was doing to eat lunch was a waste of time; I’m often very focused mid day and I don’t exercise enough so two meals could have enough calories for me. I immediately realized that I could then eat more calorie dense, tasty foods for dinner without having ‘too much’ of anything. Over time I have grown to enjoy being hungrier before I eat; it doesn’t feel worth it to eat now if I’m only a little hungry cause it feels so much better to eat when I’m really hungry.

Recently I realized that eating breakfast at the beginning of my day was a hassle. So I have stopped forcing my breakfast down in a few minutes and started eating it when I have time later in my morning kinda before my mid-day work push. But that’s not always convenient based on what I have going on during the day. So some days I’m closer to 16-8 (doing a brunch/early dinner type thing) other days I’m more 12-12 having my breakfast before I start my day. I haven’t noticed much effect from randomly switching between the two regiments.

I usually do a smallish carb heavy breakfast (bagel+nut butter and kefir/yogurt+fruit) and a big dinner; I think the timing of my big meal effects me a lot more than the timing of my small meal, but the composition of my small meal effects more a lot more than the composition of my big meal. If I eat my big meal late I feel more tired the next day (don’t sleep as well). I don’t remember anything negative from eating my big meal early (other than being less hungry when I eat). If I change my small meal I usually feel ‘off’ or ‘icky’ kinda like when you wanted to exercise but couldn’t get out. But when I change my breakfast I’m probably on vacation or celebrating a special occasion and thus eating way more than I usually do.

But that’s just me and again I started for convenience and kept doing it cause it felt good. I’m not tracking my health per se.

a lot of stories in the news about this recently, e.g. https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/25/health/intermittent-fasting-live-longer-wellness-trnd/index.html

There is evidence this works, but the studies aren’t real good, need to study more.

https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2013/11/01/does-intermittent-fasting-work

In addition to losing weight, decreasing insulin resistance,… they speculate that IF will lengthen your telomeres.  As you age, telomeres (the ends of your genes) shorten and at some point you totally lose the telomeres and you start losing parts of the genes that are important and start getting old age diseases.  IF will reverse the effect.  So will eating less.  The result is you live longer and are healthier as you age.

When they look at “blue zoners” or “mediterranean eaters” that have long lifetimes, one thing they do is eat less.  And it works on lab rats.  But they need more studying to get more confidence.

https://www.inverse.com/article/61934-how-intermittent-fasting-impacts-your-body

This one quoted some “expert” saying that much of the benefits of IF are achieved with a plant based diet – Mediterranean diet for example.  You could still eat some meat, fat, sugar but mostly plants.

I normally eat some oatmeal in the morning, then lunch after 10 AM, dinner done by 6 PM, If I just skipped the oatmeal I could easily do a 10 AM to 6 PM IF.  I’ll have to try that.  And I do a mostly plant based diet.  Okay, we went out and had barbecue brisket last night.  I thought it was quite good :)

This is all very intriguing and I definitely could stand to lose some pounds, for health, vanity, and fitness reasons. But, the idea of making my life longer than the 85-90 years typical of my family members, is reason alone not to try IF (referencing the telomere comment). I sure don’t want to be around when all my friends and family are gone!  I guess I’ll stick to just cutting back on the cake and hiking more miles.

There are healthy 85 year olds and sick ones. It isn’t just about living longer; if one has a life partner it is also about not burdening them or others with conditions that could otherwise be alleviated.
As always HYOH.

I think the life extension is speculative

I don’t think it would be extending a decrepit life longer, but extending your healthy life longer.  Occasionally “they” interview “old” people, like in their 90s.  Interesting how some people have a hard time getting around and aren’t very lucid.  Other people still functioning well.  Something happens biologically that affects many body functions.  Maybe this is telomere shortening.

There’s somebody I remember maybe 20 years ago?  Who advocated extreme calorie reduction to achieve the same thing.  Restricting eating to 6 or 8 hours a day would be a lot easier.

Related – https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-your-brain-needs-exercise/

The only way to reduce dementia, supported by data, is exercise.  They have tried to come up with pharmaceutical treatments but haven’t been able to.

But that article said that just exercise isn’t as effective, like riding on a stationary bike watching TV.  But if you combine exercise with cognitive exercise it’s more effective.  For example playing a computer game while on the stationary bike.  Or riding a bike on a road and dodging cars and finding a route.  Or hiking and talking to people or balancing on uneven rocks or finding a route cross country.

I think this all is interesting although I’m not advocating it.

Maybe the IF idea will motivate me to not snack in the evening after dinner as I sometimes do.

On Circadian rythms and time restricted eating, Dr Satchin Panda is one of the top researchers.

Book: The Circadian Code

Podcast: Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee, #21
Why When You Eat Matters with Professor Satchin Panda
46 min, June 6, 2018

Podcast: Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee, #22
Why When You Eat Matters with Professor Satchin Panda PART 2
42 min, June 15, 2018

On Keto diets here’s a great video on Keto diets, just 6 minutes, just the science…..

Keto Diet Theory Put to the Test

Hopefully we’re not inappropriately derailing this thread : )

I’ve read that elsewhere – the carb insulin model isn’t supported by evidence

But another related mechanism that’s important is how carbs affect the microorganisms in your gut.  Maybe it’s not that carbs raise and lower insulin, but that some carbs like sugar result in bad microorganisms.  If you eat plants that have carbs, like potatoes or bananas or carrots, they also have fiber which result in good microorganisms.  This results in weight loss, also better immune system, less depression,…

I’ve heard Gary Taubes talk about how sugar may be responsible for the obesity epidemic.  And the contradictory data about the insulin model and the microorganism model.

I see Michael Greger advocates a plant based whole food diet,  That’s consistent with the microorganism model.

It seems like the two actually have a lot in common

Atkins used to not allow carrots, but they’ve eased off that and are moving more towards plant based whole food.

Eating a lot of fat and meat is the opposite of a plant based whole food diet.  That produces bad microorganisms.  I think that part of Atkins/Keto/other low carb diets is a bad idea.  Just my opinion.  I love eating meat on occasion.

Another thing confusing about weight loss is the amount of weight of stuff in the gut.  That video mentioned water weight, but maybe it’s more the food in transit. If you switch to a low carb diet, your weight will go down, but it’s just that there less weight of stuff in your gut.

The microorganism model also contradicts the theory of calories in – calories out.  To start, on food labels they count fiber as carbs, but we don’t metabolize it.  Then, those microorganism eat some of the carbs/fat/protein.  And, if you eat a lot of high fiber vegetables, a lot of the carbs/fat/protein flows through the gut, undigested.  In reading, a see only a few references to this.  They ought to study it more.  My mom said to chew my food better, maybe she was wrong, better not to chew so much so it doesn’t get digested.  Of course, another solution would be to just not eat so much : )

Jerry, try this excellent podcast on the gut microbiome.  Also available in iTunes.

This is to Jerry’s comment above about eating BBQ brisket.  I don’t that counts as a meat.  I think it counts as “heaven!” :-)

Jason, a good laugh is also healthful, thanks, I feel better now

I listened to a bit of that 1 hour and 38 minute podcast.  Downloaded to my (android) phone.  I’ll listen to it sometime, thanks.

Like he said, there is an explosion of research on the topic.  Every day the google news feed presents me with several stories about this.  He doesn’t seem to be selling a supplement or whatever so it sounds more credible.  When they began doing DNA sequencing in 2006 it enabled a large amount of research and understanding.  I think the most basic conclusion is to have a mainly plant based whole food diet to feed all those microbes.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/body-intermittent-fasting_l_5e0a3220c5b6b5a713b22dcb

“Here’s what happens to you — mentally, physically and emotionally — when you’re fasting intermittently.

You might lose weight.

You could get super hungry.

Your energy levels and moods will fluctuate.

Your gut health may improve.

You could cut your risk for chronic diseases.

Your heart health could improve.”

So many coulds and mays.  Promising.  They need to study this more.

So much hot air……

It looks like much of BPL is now Chaff……..

To add an additional perspective, I started IF/Time Restricted Feeding about a year ago, coupled with reduced carb intake. I did this not to lose weight, as I am very athletic and lean as it is, but to control my glucose levels and to reduce bonking on big days in the mountains.

I am an avid mountain hunter. This fall I went on my annual non motorized 10 day sheep hunt here in Alaska. My meal plan was very low carb. I eliminated all performance bars and had minimal carbs at dinner. Every day started around 6 am and I would only have a bulletproof coffee at that time. Around 11 am I would heat up a home made dehydrated egg and shredded moose breakfast, so essentially IF on an extremely strenuous trip, though not high intensity, mostly zone 1 and 2. In short, I felt fantastic. I never once bonked. My total food weight per day dropped from around 1.6 lbs to 1.1 due to this strategy. I am now experimenting with full nutritional Ketosis and still feel absolutely great, while still being able to add muscle mass during my heavy lifting time of year. I definitely recommend these ideas for performance, as well as the previously mentioned health benefits.