Can anyone confirm some IF broscience with anecdotal evidence?

Honestly asking, have you made other changes besides IF? Because a lot of that sounds like how I feel when I cut sugar and excess carbs out. Eat less and you crave it less, and it is overwhelming when you do eat it. Less bloated, more consistent energy levels, better sleep, which all combined for better focus.

Before anyone asks, yes I have been on IF for a few weeks but am not religious about it, and when I have had sugar or excessive carbs the effects described disappear. I also went years without eating breakfast because it wasn't feasible, just black coffee or water from 8pm to noon. I was still eating bad, while technically intermittent fasting, but in my experience it would just cause me to crave carbs at lunch and inevitably overeat.

If it's working for you then that's all that matters, I wouldn't get caught up in whether or not there is clinical evidence nor would I treat it as the end all be all of dieting.

Very hard for science to measure clarity and bloating. But most people report those being better on OF.

There are two studies that show IF tends to cause fat to be released from traditional low blood flow areas, i.e. stomach fat and love handles on men, more rapidly than a isocaloric diet. Keto has shown many of these same tendency and it could be that people on OF are going into ketosis during the fast causing the release of fatty acids from those areas. A lot more studying needs to be performed in this area imo.

Another item that tends to happen with many on IF and even low carb is people are tending to eat more protein. Protein causes upwards of 25% dietary induced thermogenesis. This was brought to light in the main stream by Martin Berkham in his lean gains diet book and then was a hot topic this week on Instagram after Dr. Bill Campbell made a post about how his and his affiliates opinion is now that excess protein can not and will not cause fat gain. He posted four studies that have proven this which included his newest study that shows if one is eating at maintenance and increases their caloric intake from protein only to above maintenance levels, one will not gain fat and it is very likely that one will lose fat.

Essentially what is coming to light is that protein is the macro that holds the key to breaking the laws of thermodynamics and calories in calories out. Alot more studing needs to be done in this area on how high this can go and also if nutritional ketosis can and does cause this same effect. Also needs be studied more in depth if higher protein intake does cause an increase in lean tissue. There is atleast two studies that show it does in well trained individuals and many that show it doesn't in untrained individuals.

As far as sugar cravings go, this can not be truely studied by science, similar to clarity of thought, unless people are hooked up and the brain is montiored while they are in the study. Really not a doable study in 99% of cases.

For sleep, that would require a sleep study. This is already a understudied but improving area of science. I would love to see the sleep of those on IF studied in comparison to one on a isocaloric diet.

Performance wise, you prolly won't notice a huge difference. Those that are at the top of the sport would, but Joe blow guy will not notice a ton. Performance wise, the system RP uses is going to be the best unless you have a very very qualified coach like Stan effering to customize everything and adjust as you go. The rp all has a very good AI system and is prolly the best bet outside of paying the rp staff or someone like Stan, John Meadows, Scott Stevenson, Layne Norton, etc.

There are several podcasts coming out about the benefits of IF above and beyond helping to drive a structured calorie deficit. Improved gut health and digestion are some of the other areas explicitly mentioned. Another thing that may be happening is cutting out a lot of traditionally higher processed carbohydrate meals via skipping breakfast and snacks between breakfast and lunch or late night. This could be causing the decreased sugar cravings without “changing” your diet. Either way, congrats, I’m glad you found something that works for you.

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Essentially what is coming to light is that protein is the macro that holds the key to breaking the laws of thermodynamics and calories in calories out.

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Absolute nonsense. I’ve been told countless times here again and again the the 1st law of thermodynamics.....wait....(/s)....may not apply here because the body isn’t a closed system after all. :throwsCICOoutthewindow:

It’s hormones...and the effect leptin and ghrelin hormones have have always had their place. Look at what protein does to these two. That’s why I bullshite about eating steak every chance I get. I believe, in a civilized and plentiful world where fat and meat is abound, that rabbit starvation is hard to achieve. Your body will crave fat to the point of driving you toward it. With that in mind. Eat all the protein from natural foods you can muster, because your body will literally reject you when it’s had enough. My mindless meat banter has an underlining meaning.

And oh, is sleep the underrated disaster in this country....as I type this two bourbons in...my god, get 8 hrs a sleep every night for a week without drinking and tell me you feel worse - I’ll call you a liar. Giving up coffee was an incredible eye opener for me and my own exhausted state. More time for shitposting tomorrow.

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Absolute nonsense. I’ve been told countless times here again and again the the 1st law of thermodynamics.....wait....(/s)....may not apply here because the body isn’t a closed system after all. :throwsCICOoutthewindow:

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Only applies to protein and the laws still counts but the dietary induced thermogenesis burns off many of the calories from protein just to digest. Also the mechanism in which fat is stored makes protein the hardest of the macros by far to store as body fat. For your info dietary fat are by far the easiest. So yea the hundreds of studies proofing CICO is the foremost driver of body fat accumulation still holds true with protein intake being a close second and everything else far down the list.

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It’s hormones...and the effect leptin and ghrelin hormones have have always had their place. Look at what protein does to these two. That’s why I bullshite about eating steak every chance I get. I believe, in a civilized and plentiful world where fat and meat is abound, that rabbit starvation is hard to achieve. Your body will crave fat to the point of driving you toward it. With that in mind. Eat all the protein from natural foods you can muster, because your body will literally reject you when it’s had enough. My mindless meat banter has an underlining meaning.

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Has little to do with insulin I can tell you that. The effects of ghrelin are hunger based with growth hormone being release being a secondary reaction. The gh release is not enough to allow for additional fat burning on any appreciable scale, can it help...yes but it is miniscule in the grand scheme.

Leptin...sure it plays a part but again miniscule in the grand scheme. And leptin reduces with a caloric deficit no matter what.


As far as your underlying point....all meat is stupid and no science in any way backs up that as the way to eat for performance or aesthetics.

Your point on hormones is true though and they do okay a part and it's why we are able to nutrition partition and gain muscle and lose body fat at the same time. For most those just tracking a workout or a days calories is a huge task and hard for them. So for 90% of people out there worrying about meal timing is something beyond the scope they are capable of.

And honestly that is why I do support the ketogenic diet in most cases. It's fricking easy for most people to get in a caloric deficit, especially when combined with IF. Eating two meals a day cuts down drastically the amount of calories one can crave and also cutting out a whole macro, especially when it's the one most processed foods are made of, really cuts down on caloric consumption. Like you said, people are only going to eat so much steak and eggs.

My problem with that is it's so restrictive for many, they fall off. Granted they fall off at about the same rate as traditional dieters, but without actually learning much in the process.

I just wrapped up my 72hr water fast last nite (made it 68hrs before I broke). I'm rolling straight into a 18/6 IF starting today. Dropped 9lbs of water weight and fat in the process, but the "keto flu" didnt hit me until about hour #55. So as I was creeping up on the end of my water fast, I was not only feeling worse and worse, but I was teetering up something unsafe based on what my body was telling me. It was my 2nd fast ever, I didnt want to push it, which sucks because I was dropping significant weight almost every hour there towards the end....

Cant say I saw any of the 'mental clarity' I hear so much about, however transitioning directly into IF I'm hoping to catch some of that this week. Ideally I'll get to a point to where I'm IF 5x a week and then a 72hr water fast every 6 weeks.

the IF in and of itself doesnt scare me in the least bit, it was pretty common for me to skip breakfast, lunch and snacks anyway, now it's just more structured. My concern is my portion control, While I eat good healthy foods virtually all the time, I also tend to eat 2 or 3 servings worth

I just find it stupid because 95% of people will not follow it. And as of now it shows no advantages other than people subconsciously decrease caloric consumption. Not saying that isn't a good thing just that on a molecular level you do not burn fat any faster that away, atleast bodyfat.

And I am an engineer, I understand thermo more than I care to admit, although I hate the shite with a passion.

And I get what you are saying, and protein doesn't really bypass the laws and make CICO not applicable. The body adjust for the protein through DIT.

And yes for overall health and longer term success I do believe quality matters as I also believe being overly strict has a detrimental effect on most over the long haul. Its why I prescribe a much more flexible approach.

If I had to say the absolute best way in a vacuum I sure as hell wouldn't say flexible is the best way. But when you look at it overall 85%-90% or so of all results are determined by calorie and protein consumption. When you think in terms like that, the other 10-15% isn't going to matter for 95% of the population. I hate though how we say it doesn't matter at all because it does, it's just that for most it's so small that people shouldn't become obsessive over it and it sucks people do that to where now we have to preach nothing matters. I also hate how it's become where iifym and flexible dieting now means eat Pop tarts and get shredded when the whole point when Alan argon first posted it, was for people to eat clean, healthy, quality whole foods 95% of the time and not freak if they had one Pop tart Saturday night. menno henselmans wrote a good article on this yesterday in his site. But people are stupid and obsess over small things instead of the big things and now we have gone completely full circle to where nothing matter except calories and protein and many like on Reddit are starting to preach lower protein, which is stupid.

And I don't believe even 2% of the population is leptin resist. I think most suck at tracking and are overeating.

We agree on 99% of things, from a scientific standpoint I just haven't seen anything that convinces me keto, carnivore, low carb, low fat etc provide any type of advantage at actual body fat loss once protein and calories are aquated.

I will say my unscientific observation though are that if someone stalls or is having trouble losing weight through caloric deficit, the easiest way to get them to lose the weight I have seen is OF combined with keto, especially in women.

Also kind of scientific, IF and keto have shown promise at using fat from traditional stubborn fat areas like stomach and love handles for men and hips and but on women. There are atleast two studies that show this. The 5:2 study very specifically showed IF to help in this area even though during the study it showed very little in the way of helping lose overall bodyfat faster.

I think calorie restriction is the cause of a lot of the benefits of all of these types of things. That said, I do IF on my cuts because it helps me with calorie restriction. I really like it.

That is exactly why I didn’t list autophagy as a benefit to IF/Time Restricted Eating (“TRE”). As I look into it more and more, it seems that we need 16+ hours of fasting before it is triggered. This would obviously be a huge advantage of longer fasts as Dr Longo and many others have deduced. I am really interested in Dr Longo’s research on immune system turnover in mice after extended Fasting Mimicking diets. Essentially, after a prolonged fast of a few to five days, his studies in mice show that “malfunctioning” or overactive immune cells are turned over first via autophagy. Then, upon refeed, growth hormone levels skyrocket and their bodies use internally generated stem cells to create new, healthy immune cells. Obviously a dumbed down version as there are a lot that goes into “immune cells”, but very interesting. Next steps are to see if this occurs in humans as well.

Most of the supposed benefits of IF are subjective and probably placebo, and the objective data shows it’s not superior to other diets in terms of weight loss. The inherent structure it provides does work well for some people, especially since certain careers lend themselves to IF naturally.