Intermittent Fasting and Autophagy

[Alibaba789258]

I start intermittent fasting mid June 2024 and try 64 hours fasting with water/herbs tea/coffee on beginning of July 2024.

My current eating windows on my intermittent fasting is 6 to 8 hours and plan to do autophagy or fasting water/herbs tea/coffee for 72 hours in quarterly basis

 

My daily diet is no rice/noodles/pasta or limit to 150 gram daily and strictly no sugar/honey.

my meals are as follows: fruits > protein + veggies > 4 soft-boiled eggs > fruits > protein + veggies.

my drinks are black coffee and herbs drinks + lemon juice.

 

Out of my curiosity:

what is your first meal of  your intermittent fasting? 

anything you avoid?

anything you always have in your meal?

 

Edited August 9 by Alibaba789258
missing information

[Strange Fruit]

I used to intermittent fast quite regularly last year, the job Aldo makes it easy as it involves interacting with people and so I cannot be eating at all while doing so; I add Lao did not take any food breaks most days. I only had dinner when I got home around 10.30 (late I know) with maybe a four-hour snacking window where I could eat anything (mostly roasted peanuts and dark chocolate, my favourite snack to this day) so most days I fasted 20 hours or more. I found intermittent fasting way easier to maintain than keto which I did for six months years ago because you restrict the eating time rather than carbs which can be hard in Singapore. I’ve also done a maximum of 60-hour fasts... occasionally I did feel weak or tired going about my day and the hunger definitely never left - I was always relieved to finally be able to eat, but it was never a gnawing hunger and I never got gastric pains. I have stopped doing both ever since I got back into the gym six months ago and now feel hungry all the time, but like you I try to limit carb intake to 150g max a day, maybe more once or twice a week.

[radiusulnar]

On 8/7/2024 at 10:34 PM, Alibaba789258 said:

64 hours water fasting

 

How to manage not drinking water for 64 hours? 

[Alibaba789258]

I mean.. fasting with water only..

[radiusulnar]

oh i see! silly me.

i am restarting IF after stopping for a year. when i am more settled in the IF routine, i will try this water fasting. hopefully it will make the IF more effective

Edited August 10 by radiusulnar

[Alibaba789258]

better start with intermittent fasting first.. until your body are okay.. then do 3 days fasting with water. the water can be replaced with herbs tea and black coffee or lemon juice or water with salt.

 

[Chronicle]

Am slowly getting back into intermittent fasting, so I haven't reached the 3 day version. My max was 46 hours. I'm extending the time of my daily fasts now, am getting to around 18 hours most days.

 

My first meal is around 2pm, overnight oats.

Have avoided added sugar, unless I have no choice. Have successfully switched to black coffee.

Been told I'm not getting enough protein, so eating more eggs and tofu now.

[radiusulnar]

On 8/10/2024 at 2:23 PM, Alibaba789258 said:

better start with intermittent fasting first.. until your body are okay.. then do 3 days fasting with wate

 

i tried to be clever and do a 24 hour water fast since I am doing 18 hour IF. Gave up in the 22nd hour. It was tough!

[Strange Fruit]

On 8/13/2024 at 8:12 AM, radiusulnar said:

 

i tried to be clever and do a 24 hour water fast since I am doing 18 hour IF. Gave up in the 22nd hour. It was tough!

I find the 22nd - 28th hour the toughest. That’s when my body is most aware of how Long it’s gone without eating. You just have to tell yourself that those are the hours where the autophagy and growth hormone increases really start to kick in and every hour extra that you can go on for is beneficial to your body. 

[Alibaba789258]

My latest session was okay. I personally don't feel any cravings, dizzy and low blood pressure at all until 50hours.

[radiusulnar]

Seems like mind over body! Will try to persevere the next time

[Alibaba789258]

My next session is 30 Sep to 3 October.

[Guest IFer]

... taken from a private chat group, written by a friend.

 

Hi !  I've done IF for a period of time.  It was some years back.

 

For me, it wasn't that difficult.  That time, IF was still not that popular or well known in SG, at least among the people I know.  It was all online knowledge.  But I watch the videos and it sounded very reasonable to me and I decide to give it a try.

 

I listened to Jason Fung.  No1. What I condensed from him is that if we constantly eat, the body sees food coming in and will consume that food first instead of touching the body store. The body, after some time, will prioritise incoming food and even lose it's ability to burn the body store.  So if you let the body know there is a eating gap, it will burn the body store.  That's it.  So my routine as a beginner is breakfast + dinner.  No2.  I don't eat less, in fact I eat much more for dinner as JF said that if our calories goes down, the metabolic rate also goes down, then will burn less fat. And IF will fail.  No3.  I take note of all the  signed and potential side effects that IF is working.  No4. Oh yea... need to exercise.

 

So, so.... ah soh...  Take note, this is my first attempt and I stay on it for quite a long time, probably close to a year and the result was a surprise.  People start to complain I too slim... 😂😂😂.  It was 'unfortunate' cause I started having lose skin.  So I'm going for autophagy to try to lose those loose skin.

 

Ok.. what I did and it may be a surprise to you, but it worked very well for me.

 

I ate breakfast and dinner.  Breakfast was eggs and condensed milk coffee.  Dinner was normal, but I tried to eat more cause it's lunch+dinner portion (like dinner+++). I tried to eat more but how much more can I eat.  I stopped rice.  On top of that, I ate all sorts of tidbits... chocolate, crackers, what have you.  I just eat more so that my caloric value don't drop.  Also, it was an incentive to me.  Doing this, I look forward to the next day dinner break-fast. I really enjoy the tidbits part... no guilt.  I go exercise, nothing specific.  May be jogging or just walk.  I think that's about it.  I might have missed something cause it was some years back.

 

I watch out for symptoms.  I get white tongue, skin rashes ( ketones ).  The skin rash was quite disturbing cause it disrupted my sleep.  I woke up intermittently scratching myself and some nights, I can't sleep a full night.  But I was very happy !  Cause like JF said... you literally throwing away your fat.  Cause it's due to the body breaking down the fat but still not able to burn the ketones effectively.  The skin rash will ultimately subside when my body adapted to it.   I get brain fog, it's not just tiredness, but cannot concentrate and seems like there is a cloud hanging over the head. So I saw all these symptoms which I learnt from the video and I know ketosis is working. Yeah !  I only IF 4 days a week. But every week. 

 

It took me about 4 days to adapt to the routine.  And about 3 week to stabilised, meaning it became part of my life.

 

I have a issue later on.  As I do IF, my stomach started to shrink or perhaps my esophagus shrinked.  I don't know which one.  It's that I find it hard to swallow and my stomach start to fill more quickly.  I had to slow down.  I also found that I don't need to eat so much.  The body started to consume it own fat and rely less on external fuel.  I ate less.

 

Results:  After a while, my weight keeps dropping and dropping.  I cant remember how many kilo a week. I didn't take note of that as I was just happy seeing the trend.  But it was really dropping so fast that I couldn't believe it.  I thought I might have done something wrong and I might be sick.  So I stop and force myself to gain weight to make sure I'm not sick.  Convinced, I then continue my IF.

 

... some more, but I could find the other parts of the msg. 

 

I also do IF.  I just share his experience here.  Actually, we don't find IF that difficult thing to do. When my friends hear I do fasting, the first thing they say is that oh, I need to eat.  It's a mindset thing.  I would advise that you listen to Jason Fung earlier videos (cause I didn't listen to his recent video and I don't know what he said) and lots of them.   The earlier video was very good and he said people actually reverse their diabetes (note: if you have diabetes, you need doctor supervision cause your blood sugar might get so low that you may collapse.  Your doctor need to supervise you and adjust your medication accordingly). Watch the other creators' videos also, pls !   Go through the videos routine and you mentally convince yourself that I will work, then go for it.

 

 

[Guest IFer]

btw, now that I've conditioned my body to IF, I can easily slip into 2 day or 4 day fasting.  I just think, oh, let's fast 4 days and it just happens.  Note: long fasting, the 4th day is the most difficult.  If you train your body for longer fasting, you can get into autophagy.  The body needs to deplete the protein in the body so that it doesn't activate mTor to start autophagy.