Intermittent Fasting

[JayLow]

For a bit of a counternarrative on IF, ketosis, and energy system switching, Layne Norton is worth a look. An entertaining, science-based (human randomised control trials! IFKYK) communicator who is not too biased towards one philosophy. He also shares his biases and is open about when he changes his opinion on things, because knowledge changes.

At the end of the day it is as @ChrisF said, if you consume more than you burn (very difficult to quantify accurately on both sides of the equation), you won't lose weight. There are no "silver bullets". The old-fashioned advice (sleeping well, exercising, avoiding processed foods, energy balance) are timeless for a good reason. 

[Bub Marley]

If you wanna do IF for better performance on the bike then it’s definitely something to look into especially if you like endurance type rides. The ability to use fat for fuel can be a game changer for these low intensity ultra distance events. If you’re doing events that are high intensity like a road race for instance, then I can’t see how this would be beneficial. 

 

If your objective is purely weight loss then I don’t think this is necessarily the best route. At the end of the day, you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. You don’t have to do this by fasting 18 or 20 hours. 

 

The best diet is the one that you can sustain. And most people cannot sustain IF or a low carb diet. It’s fine for a month or two but then they tend to resort to old habits. Just eat healthier, reduce your portion size and track your calories. Once you get into that habit, you will get a better understanding of what food works for you.

[love2fly]

9 minutes ago, Bub Marley said:

If you wanna do IF for better performance on the bike then it’s definitely something to look into especially if you like endurance type rides. The ability to use fat for fuel can be a game changer for these low intensity ultra distance events. If you’re doing events that are high intensity like a road race for instance, then I can’t see how this would be beneficial. 

 

If your objective is purely weight loss then I don’t think this is necessarily the best route. At the end of the day, you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. You don’t have to do this by fasting 18 or 20 hours. 

 

The best diet is the one that you can sustain. And most people cannot sustain IF or a low carb diet. It’s fine for a month or two but then they tend to resort to old habits. Just eat healthier, reduce your portion size and track your calories. Once you get into that habit, you will get a better understanding of what food works for you.

Long endurance rides are my game, - once I'm lighter and fat adapted 

[nonky]

Many great responses here already.   

If your goal is to lose weight and keep it off, consider tracking calories consumed vs. calories burned.

For consumed, get an app like "Lose It" or "MyFitnessPal" and track your calories.  For burned, get an apple or garmin watch and track your activities.

If you cannot afford the above, use a free version of a calorie tracker and monitor your weight vs your calorie intake from week to week (assuming your exercise stays more or less consistent).

All the experts agree that it is easier to fix your food consumption (intake) than increase your exercise (burn).

GOOD LUCK 

[love2fly]

3 hours ago, nonky said:

Many great responses here already.   

If your goal is to lose weight and keep it off, consider tracking calories consumed vs. calories burned.

For consumed, get an app like "Lose It" or "MyFitnessPal" and track your calories.  For burned, get an apple or garmin watch and track your activities.

If you cannot afford the above, use a free version of a calorie tracker and monitor your weight vs your calorie intake from week to week (assuming your exercise stays more or less consistent).

All the experts agree that it is easier to fix your food consumption (intake) than increase your exercise (burn).

GOOD LUCK 

Thanks. Yip, the plan is to lose and keep weight off via IF, eating less calories than I need, especially for the initial period, and becoming fat adapted and keeping up rides but doing shorter, lower intensity rides.

I'm tracking food intake and logging ride calories burnt on the Fat Secret app which seems to suit my needs pretty well.

[Puncture Kid]

In my opinion, accurately trying to track input calories is pointless because the equation is not as simple as

Calories In vs Calories Burnt

Consider the following:

• Your fitness tracker's calorie counter works off heart rate and from there it uses a model to estimate calorie consumption. Apple Watch and Garmin is the most accurate and still has a deviation of 20-30% in its estimation
• To calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, the number of calories burnt to stay alive) is calculated with a formula where the variables are Weight, Height & Age. As you can see, this is a static value that does not take environmental effects into account. I don't know how accurate that is and what the variance is across individuals, i.e. yourself
• While not active, your BMR also varies with cognitive load, stress, etc.
• So even though you are trying to accurately calculate input Cals, you are comparing it to a 'burnt Cal' value that is very inaccurate, hence my opinion that it is largely pointless
• In addition to that, One Cal <> Another Cal. They are not the same. Two foods of equal calorific value have different insulin responses. The 200Cal energy bar is going to spike your insulin and instruct your body to store the fat whereas the 200Cal portion of raw Macadamia nuts is largely fat and will be used for energy production if you are fat adapted. For this reason as well, simply tracking Cal In vs Cal Out is not a method to lose weight.

Edited Friday at 08:45 AM by Puncture Kid

[440MTB]

As a result of my former life... I was very unhealthy, used to drink a lot (as in A LOT) and eat what I wanted, and as a result I was really overweight and unhealthy...

I am 1.81m tall, and peaked at 113kg.

I tried Atkins - worked really well. Record was 12kg in one month (which is very unhealthy), the "banting flu" also was a major shock and I didn't like it.

I did Tim Noakes - Also worked well.

But above was all trying to mitigate my unhealthy lifestyle.

I went down to 92kg, and then I eventually went through a big lifestyle change later in life (quit drinking, started eating cleaner/less, etc), and that made a big difference, think I went down to around 80kg or maybe just under.

Long story short, I've been around the block in terms of my lifestyle, weight and exercise...

I currently weight 75kg (picked up a bit of weight due to lack of riding last year as a result of recovering from injury after a big crash), I usually aim for around 70 to 72kg.

For me currently, the best, and healthiest way to lose/manage weight is to use something like MyNetDiary (calorie budget/counting app)...

Try and figure out what your daily calorie intake should be (or go see an expert), and set your goals, try stay within your budget daily and you'll lose weight in a healthy way, you can even still have your chocolate and treats in moderation, as long as you don't go over your budget.

It is a lot of effort in the beginning, but after a while you get a feel for it... it helps that my wife can help make my meals and weigh everything, and I work from home 90% of the time, so that also helps.

[Puncture Kid]

6 minutes ago, 440MTB said:

As a result of my former life... I was very unhealthy, used to drink a lot (as in A LOT) and eat what I wanted, and as a result I was really overweight and unhealthy...

I am 1.81m tall, and peaked at 113kg.

I tried Atkins - worked really well. Record was 12kg in one month (which is very unhealthy), the "banting flu" also was a major shock and I didn't like it.

I did Tim Noakes - Also worked well.

But above was all trying to mitigate my unhealthy lifestyle.

I went down to 92kg, and then I eventually went through a big lifestyle change later in life (quit drinking, started eating cleaner/less, etc), and that made a big difference, think I went down to around 80kg or maybe just under.

Long story short, I've been around the block in terms of my lifestyle, weight and exercise...

I currently weight 75kg (picked up a bit of weight due to lack of riding last year as a result of recovering from injury after a big crash), I usually aim for around 70 to 72kg.

For me currently, the best, and healthiest way to lose/manage weight is to use something like MyNetDiary (calorie budget/counting app)...

Try and figure out what your daily calorie intake should be (or go see an expert), and set your goals, try stay within your budget daily and you'll lose weight in a healthy way, you can even still have your chocolate and treats in moderation, as long as you don't go over your budget.

It is a lot of effort in the beginning, but after a while you get a feel for it... it helps that my wife can help make my meals and weigh everything, and I work from home 90% of the time, so that also helps.

That is a very impressive weight loss! Yes, quitting alcohol is a massive game-changer is many respects. The problem is that I LOVE wine & beer... However, I am steadfast in my journey..

[440MTB]

40 minutes ago, Puncture Kid said:

That is a very impressive weight loss! Yes, quitting alcohol is a massive game-changer is many respects. The problem is that I LOVE wine & beer... However, I am steadfast in my journey..

Thanks man! A lot of hard work, and thankfully I really enjoy riding bikes, which makes it a lot easier.

I started drinking beer again (I REALLY love my craft beer) a year or so back, but with exercise and in moderation, it doesn't have too much of an effect. 😁

Edited Friday at 09:43 AM by 440MTB

[nonky]

3 hours ago, Puncture Kid said:

In my opinion, accurately trying to track input calories is pointless because the equation is not as simple as

Calories In vs Calories Burnt

Consider the following:

• Your fitness tracker's calorie counter works off heart rate and from there it uses a model to estimate calorie consumption. Apple Watch and Garmin is the most accurate and still has a deviation of 20-30% in its estimation
• To calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, the number of calories burnt to stay alive) is calculated with a formula where the variables are Weight, Height & Age. As you can see, this is a static value that does not take environmental effects into account. I don't know how accurate that is and what the variance is across individuals, i.e. yourself
• While not active, your BMR also varies with cognitive load, stress, etc.
• So even though you are trying to accurately calculate input Cals, you are comparing it to a 'burnt Cal' value that is very inaccurate, hence my opinion that it is largely pointless
• In addition to that, One Cal <> Another Cal. They are not the same. Two foods of equal calorific value have different insulin responses. The 200Cal energy bar is going to spike your insulin and instruct your body to store the fat whereas the 200Cal portion of raw Macadamia nuts is largely fat and will be used for energy production if you are fat adapted. For this reason as well, simply tracking Cal In vs Cal Out is not a method to lose weight.

Good points!  Nothing in nutrition is simple or settled, that much we can agree on.

I was trying to simplify things and convey to OP that he should keep a record of food (calories) consumed and then measure his weight (the one good data point) from week to week (against relatively constant exercise).  This would allow him to COMPARE calories (allegedly) consumed vs calories (allegedly) burned.  

The above would give him a ROUGH IDEA WHY he was gaining or losing weight.  As the old management saying goes, "you can't manage what you don't measure"; and many people have NO IDEA how many calories they are eating and/or burning.

 

[peetwindhoek]

Found it... So, I went and searched for the thread that changed things for me. I am in the boat of "no, this is just not another diet." Because of autophagy. Since that time, I have read and watched plenty of videos and inquired with AI to get as much information as possible. I am not aware of faster ways to induce autophagy other than being on a keto diet, doing IF, and exercising (I have not used pharmacological agents for this but apparently this can also trigger autophagy). Ever since I found it working for me, I have been advocating for it as far as I go.

Here is one of the very first videos I watched that set my course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq_3pYXXXQs

 

Edited Friday at 01:20 PM by peetwindhoek
Removed hubber name

[lechatnoir]

56 minutes ago, peetwindhoek said:

Here is one of the very first videos I watched that set my course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq_3pYXXXQs

 

this guy's been on my radar for some time.

 

[JayLow]

"Autophagy mode"

There is no evidence that fasting increases autophagy when you control for energy intake.

Fasting is useful because it helps restrict energy intake.

 

[mazambaan]

A very interesting topic and my interest stems from repots that cutting carbs is beneficial in slowing the possible growth of cancer cells and tumours (mainly Prof Seyfried).

From other stuff though a relative, senior citizen relative who was following a keto diet but swallowed a few too many OTC pain killers for injury and ended up with kidney issues. Recommendation was to reduce protein intake (not fats though) so check kidney function, ideally before embarking on full on keto maybe.

The other was a guest on the Prof Ross Tucker podcast; an Australian working with elite athletes, and her take on keto was that "digestion" is slightly LESS efficient in energy terms than for carbs; hence retaining carbs for most elite athletes performances (to go fast you must have sugar - one of the TdeF team support staff).

I am in the camp of reducing carbs, eating more protein and fat, maintaining weight, exercise to retain muscle and less refined foods.  Alcohol is a bastid; I love an evening whiskey.

[Puncture Kid]

On 1/31/2025 at 10:58 PM, JayLow said:

"Autophagy mode"

There is no evidence that fasting increases autophagy when you control for energy intake.

Fasting is useful because it helps restrict energy intake.

 

Can't say I like this guy's style. Feels like the typical snake-oil salesman. But that is a me problem.

The effect of fasting also minimising your body's insulin response.

 

[JayLow]

13 minutes ago, Puncture Kid said:

Can't say I like this guy's style. Feels like the typical snake-oil salesman. But that is a me problem.

The effect of fasting also minimising your body's insulin response.

 

Yea Layne's youtube persona is very obnoxious, but when you listed to long form interviews he is very thoughtful. He sets a very high bar for what he considers as acceptable evidence and he is open to changing his mind when good studies (well-designed human randomised control trials with large sample sizes) go against his ideas. At the same time, he resists charlatans (CGM/carnivore/fitstagram) with enthusiasm.

He also has some interesting videos (citing good studies, always) about the insulin claims of various diets.