The longer I do this, the harder it is to find any type of eating or non-eating low-calorie concept that I feel motivated to experiment with.

However, somehow, I always seem to find some type of diet or non-diet that gets my interest long enough for me to try it out.

Of course, I continue to consistently record all of my food intake every day in a computer food journal.  I have now done this every day for 11 years, and this is my most valuable dieting tool.

This past couple of months I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting again. 

I started by personalizing a 24 hr alternate day fast, similar to Eat Stop Eat, but designed for my own personal preferences.  I followed that for about 3 weeks, then I did one 36 hr fast, from dinner one day, skipped all food one day, ate breakfast the following day.  That seemed to work well for me, and the following week I did a 72 hr fast, where for 3 days I had water only with up to one cup of bouillon per day.  I had hoped to have a 5 to 7 day fast, but my body decided otherwise.  Day 1 was as I expected, Day 2 was far easier than I expected and on Day 3 I felt quite weak and nauseated. I woke up on Day 4 feeling ill, and ended the fast.

Although, I do like the concept of Fasting and want to run some more experiments, for a few weeks after the 72 hr fast, I was simply unwilling to fast any more, and followed my "normal" eating plan of trying to eat an average of under 1000 calories per day - eating whatever, whenever.

On Monday, Sept 14, I began another water fast, aiming for the goal of 7 days, with the understanding that I would stop when, and if, my body gave me the symptoms it did during the 3 day fast.  My fast went as expected, and this time the symptoms didn't show up until the evening of the 6th day.  My night was uncomfortable and I ended my fast at breakfast time the following day. Sunday, Sept 20. 

Today is the morning of the 3rd post-fast day.  The 1st day I broke my fast with a 6 oz can of tomato juice, then an hour or so later, 1/4 of an avocado. Several hours later my lunch was a saucer plate containing 1 1/2 oz roasted chicken, 1/2 cup green beans, and 1/4 of an avocado. Several hours later I ate 1/2 raw apple with 1 oz cheddar cheese.  I finished up the day with another 6 oz tomato juice. About a 1/2 hr after first taking food, my nausea receded and stomach cramps lessened, but all day I felt weak, tired, and crampy. I felt better the 2nd day, yesterday, but still very weak. This morning, the 3rd day, I feel normal.

Weight results of all this fasting?  My total net weight results of the month-and-a-half-before my recent 6 day fast ... which includes the return of water-weight-loss after my 3 day fast.  My best efforts resulted in about a 1 pound net weight loss. Knowledgeable medical experts are agreed that a "normal" person can only expect to lose about 1/2 pound of body fat during each day of a total water fast.  All the rest is water that will be regained after resuming food intake. My 6 day fast resulted in a 10 pound loss which I know is primarily water, and if I had the body of a "normal" person, I could expect a net loss of about 3 fat pounds.  However, probably for me the maximum fat loss will probably be more like 1/4 pound daily, which would mean I could reasonably expect about a net 1 1/2 pound loss.  This, of course, will depend on whether or not I can keep my calories consistently low during the next 3 weeks or so.  It's always emotionally hard to watch those pounds come back on daily when I am consistently and successfully eating very low-calorie, even when intellectually I know exactly why this is happening and even expect it. 

Since I am feeling "normal" today, my plan for the next several weeks is to eat according to my personalized plan for Alternate Day 24 hr Fasting.  I am a retired person at home all the time, and as a lifestyle I can't tolerate consistently missing breakfast or lunch or dinner. Lunch is my favorite meal, but I also love breakfast, and I love dinner. I also find it difficult on one day to eat all 3 meals, but then on the following day, to eat only one meal.  Here's a graph I made that explains my personalized concept, the one I find to be the easiest and most functional for me.

This plan allows me to eat lunch every day, along with breakfast on one day, and dinner on the following day. Repeat.

 
This article is mainly about WHEN I'm eating. I'm experimenting with whether, or not, lowering insulin through fasting will halt the creeping weight gain that I've been having - even with a very consistent, very low-calorie, food intake.  I've never had type 2 diabetes. I've had my blood glucose tested, but never a direct test of my insulin alone, since this isn't a test doctors do for normally healthy people.  I'm interested in Dr. Jason Fung's theories about Insulin Resistance, and about Insulin being lowered by fasting. Sometime I'll write a detailed article, but anyone interested can check out the series of fasting articles at his blog, Intensive Dietary Management.

As for WHAT I'm eating, I am working to eat an average of under 1000 calories per day; the ideal would be somewhere between 600 & 800 calories per day. I have no forbidden foods. I eat only foods that I like. At this point, the only macronutrient I pay attention to is Protein. (There are some some detailed articles in the DietHobby Archives explaining why.) My computer records tell me that, normally, my total day's food choices inadvertently wind up being close to the same percentage amounts of Protein, Carbs, and Fat - all 3 macronutrients equally.   With my calorie limits always in mind, I eat at mealtimes when I'm hungry (I'm always hungry at mealtimes), and stop when what I've served myself is gone OR when my body feels satisfied (even if I have not eaten all the food portion that I've pre-measured and allowed for myself).  I take a daily multivitamin pill and no other medication or supplements.

If anyone thinks I'm eating too few calories, before telling me that, read the more than 1,000 articles that are posted here in the DietHobby ARCHIVES.  While its okay to sympathize, I get annoyed by advice given by anyone who doesn't know ALL the details of MY personal weight struggles, AND who doesn't know at least as much as I do about the many different "medical expert" takes on diet and weight and health.

REMEMBER:
STARVING WORKS.

 Yumm !!!

Here's a vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, antibiotics-free, raw, non-GMO, organic, fat-free, low-carb, low-calorie meal.

Preparation Note: 
Use Filtered water only.

Does Fasting make you fat?
            by Brad Pilon

If I remember correctly, the FTC views the use of animal research in supplement advertising to be one of the most heinous advertising infractions, right up there with Photoshopped before and after photos.

Why?

Because they believed that due to the lack of transferability of animal research to humans, doing so would be intentionally misleading the customer as to the potential benefits of said supplement.

Even the most ‘fly-by-night’ ethically-devoid supplement companies do not use animal trials in their marketing for this reason.

Keep this in mind when you see journalists and bloggers reporting on the latest mouse research, using it to create clickbait style articles about human diet, nutrition and weight loss.

Alright, now that I’ve said that, lets get to that article that appeared on Yahoo suggesting that skipping meals will actually make you fatter.

It was an animal study, using mice.

We know that mice are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in both body weight and meal patterns. They are very small animals, and without getting too technical I’ll just say it’s well known in the scientific community that many parts of metabolism scale with size.

For 5 days the mice in the diet group were given half the amount of food as the control mice, and all of the food was provided in one meal per day (that’s why it’s being referred to as a ‘fasting study’).

After 5 days of dieting the mice were allowed to gorge for 13 days, they were given an amount of food that was the same or more as the control mice, and were still only eating it all in one meal.

So what happened?

The control mice continue to grow normally, and their weight increased throughout the study, but the fasting diet-restricted mice lost almost 20% of their body weight in the first 5 days of the study. (This should be your first hint that mice are different than humans. If you and I eat 50% of our daily intake for 5 days we’re not going to lose 20% of our body weight – heck, we could do this for a month and we’re probably not losing 20% of our body weight.)

Then, the fasted mice were fed 98-122% of the amount of food as the growing control mice, so the fasted mice started to grow… and they grew quickly. If you think about it, they were getting fed the same amount of food (or more) as the mice that were 30% heavier then them… so rapid weight gain (and fat gain) make sense.

So end result? Mice who rapidly lost 20% of their body weight and then regained most of that weight by overeating ended up with larger fat cells then the control mice. I’m not sure why this is surprising.

They also had worse measurements of a bunch of health markers… again not surprising.

I’m not sure how much the eating cycle mattered here. Again, as I stated earlier, mice are really sensitive to eating patterns so it probably did play some sort of role, but rapid weight loss then overfeeding causing increased fat stores and messed up glucose control isn’t surprising.

What’s surprising is the reporting.

Overeating and causing rapid weight gain is generally not a good idea. Losing excess body fat generally is.

So what does this have to do with humans and Intermittent Fasting?

Simple. Fasting is popular, so it makes for great headline fodder.

We were baited in with the headline, then they attempted to blind us with the science.

Here’s the truth – There are lots of ways to lose excess body fat – Fasting is just one of dozens.

They all work, and some will obviously work better for you then others, based on your personal likes and dislikes and styles of eating.

The bottom line is please don’t worry about the mouse study, and feel free to voice your anger when people use mice to try and tell you how to eat.

Mice aren’t people, people aren’t mice. Yes, there is value in animal research and animal research can lead to proof of concept for human studies, but jumping right from animal trials to setting dietary recommendations for humans is reckless.

Brad Pilon is an expert on intermittent fasting as it relates to losing weight and gaining muscle. He's a bodybuilder, and the author of Eat Stop Eat.