Intermittent Fasting

[Justmehere]

I have put on a few pounds with a medication lately so I’m in the same battle. I have minimal to lose but want to reduce my sugar addiction anyhow.

I’m also over on reddit but many people there are extremely strict about fasting rules ie no meds while fasting, and well my body just cannot handle that.

I’ve had luck with IF in the past. Unfortunately one of my meds has put the weight back on, and quite quickly. I was looking for weight loss support. I now realize I need to seek support in the right places.

I would suggest steering clear of really strict programs with extreme steps. Really extreme ideas get posted many places on the interwebs. Great way to fuel a lot of unhealthy behaviors and lifestyles.

Think sustainable and maintainable. Not a short term diet, but a lifestyle shift. Short term changes, especially drastic ones, tend to lead to increased weight gain afterwards. The body is prepping for the next extreme loss of food.

I have followed a model of cutting every portion size by 1/4 and only eating in a 12 hour window each day (what is recommended for women.) It may not seem like much, but it’s working and it’s not throwing off meds (and I have meds that have to be taken with food 3x a day) or slowing me down as an athlete. I’m also not hangry (irritable due to hunger.) It’s a really common form of intermittent fasting for weight loss that doesn’t require med and life changes I can’t sustain. I feel better on it too. It also doesn’t slow down my metabolism but keeps it burning. It’s worked for a few friends who lost considerable weight. Being hungry is going to increase most people’s emotional vulnerability, mine included, and this seems to keep me more steady than skipping whole days. I tried that too, and it’s not for me. I don’t plan to stop this more moderate If anytime soon, unless I really need to do so for any reason. It’s a mindset shift. My weight is stabilizing and beginning to decrease even though I am still on the problematic med.

My suggestion is to pick a plan of moderation not extremes as a lifeshift rather than start/stop/start/stop which tends to lead to weight gain/weight loss/weight gain/weight loss.

I was just talking to a friend who is much older about the lifestyle shifts they had to make with food to adjust to an ever slowing down metabolism as they age. Without calling it IF they went from 4 meals a day in their 20’s to 2 healthy meals in their 60s. Basically, it’s intermittent fasting. But they also let themselves have a cheat day too. I’m on the fence about that one.

I hope you find what works best for you and your body.

 

[Sideways]

I’m talking about weight loss, so telling me I’m going to become an even bigger hippo ? is not what I call support.

This is a really sensative area for a lot of us, so I actually do get why you didn’t include in the OP that you were looking to lose weight.

I had a lot of trouble (due to shame) putting my foot down with my pdoc about my weight. I watched my sister go from dangerously underweight, to morbidly obese, on the back of psychotropic meds though. The impact on her life? Definitely makes recovery waaaay too much harder.

And oftentimes, it isn’t necessary.

I’ve tried a lot of meds, and a lot of med combos over the years. And one of my “will not tolerate” hard lines? Was I will not take a daily medication that makes me gain weight. It may only make me gain 1kg a year, but if I’m looking at long-term med reliance for chronic mental illness (which I am), that shit adds up.

After a lot of trials, and sticking my ground with my pdoc (because so many meds have weight-gain side effects), I’ve finally found some success.

I take pristiq (desvenlafaxine) as my anti-depressant, which is a newer and modified version of effexor (venlafaxine). It’s one of the few meds that actually has a common weight-loss side effect (finally! Yay!!).

The MAOI anti-depressant I tried (parnate) also worked really well for my mood. Couldn’t tolerate it because it interacted with my migraine medication, but absolutely no impact on my weight. For some reason, many pdocs don’t bother trying any of the MAOIs, simply because they’re considered “older” anti-depressants. But there’s a whole class of them that most people have never even trialled one of.

Seroquel is amazingly effective for me. But it makes me gain weight. Solution? I take the extended release version, in the evening. That means that the impact it has on my glucose levels that makes me need to binge? Occurs in the middle of the night, while I’m asleep. So, it’s like seroquel without the weight gain.

It’s a hard line that a lot of docs are going to be resistant to: No meds that make me gain weight.

But it can be done. Your doctor just has to work harder. All you need to do, is be willing to trial new options, and have the courage to stand your ground with your doc - “I AM coming off this medication because it’s making me gain weight, and that’s NOT a side effect I can tolerate”.

When you’ve reached the point of seriously considering intermittently starving yourself to manage the side effects of medication you’re taking? That’s an intolerable side effect. No one should be put in the position where they’re making that kind of trade in order to avoid their doc finding them a better med combo.

The point of all that is not: you should take the same meds I’m on. The point is just that there are options. More options than years to try them all. If you’ve found a med combos that works except for the intolerable side effects? That’s super useful info for your doc to find a more suitable combination. If your doc tells you “you’ve tried everything”? They’re just being lazy.

 

[Friday]

I’m talking about weight loss, so telling me I’m going to become an even bigger hippo ? is not what I call support. In light of this, your entire post sounds very sarcastic to me. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine, you could have phrased your post a bit differently than telling me it’s a fantastic way to gain weight.

1. Does ...It’s a fantastic way to lose weight... sound sarcastic and unsupportive to you? Does it need to be rephrased in some way?

Because there’s no difference.



2. I have no idea what you look like, or what your body type is. (Although, posting a diet that’s predominantly used amongst weightlifters, the elderly, and the starving to gain weight would indicate you were probably underweight, although possibly of normal weight with severe health issues, not uncommon with PTSD & long term psychiatric med use, or short term steroid use.).

You might consider the idea that people thousands of miles away, who have never seen you, must somehow sense your fatness, to be your issue rather than mine.


3. If you check out the disordered eating & eating disorder threads you’ll find there’s a pretty even split between people who struggle with eating too much, & too little; as well as people dealing with the health effects of being overweight & underweight (regardless of how much they eat, obese people are often tragically malnourished from starving themselves, meanwhile people who are eating themselves senseless are struggling to gain weight, and anorexics in recovery are often doubly struggling with both feeling fat and being fat :dead: ); and a less even split between people who have disordered eating, eating disorders, and trauma related food/weight/body image issues.

Food, weight, & body image are a complicated series of issues even before one adds in the effects of trauma.

Speaking personally, I’ve both been over 50lbs underweight and over 50lbs overweight. There are huge problems associated with both, that I’ve lived through some / witnessed far more, and regardless of what side of the line they fall on, they are tremendously difficult and painful for people to deal with. I wouldn’t make fun of either. Completely aside from the fact that underhanded & manipulatively cruel ain’t my style. Never has been.

I think IF is a fantastic way to gain weight. (There are just as many stupid ways to gain weight as there are stupid ways to lose weight.) Which is why I said it. Not in some complicated plot to fat shame you.

Lastly...
I have almost no tolerance under the best of times for people who twist my words in order to be hurtful with them, or impose their own ideas about what I “really” meant or was motivated by. Believe me, don’t believe me, I no longer care. I’m done explaining myself. You asked for people with experience in intermittant fasting. I do. First under hospital supervision, then any time I’ve needed to slow my metabolism down or add mass, often much to my ex’s irritation since my metabolism slows way faster than his. Partly that’s being a chick, partly that’s a history of starvation. I shared my enthusiastic support of this diet with you. If you choose to use that to beat yourself up with? That’s not me, and I’m done reading about it.

 

[EveHarrington]

1. Does ...It’s a fantastic way to lose weight... sound sarcastic and unsupportive to you? Does it need to be rephrased in some way?

Because there’s no difference.



2. I have no idea what you look like, or what your body type is. (Although, posting a diet that’s predominantly used amongst weightlifters, the elderly, and the starving to gain weight would indicate you were probably underweight, although possibly of normal weight with severe health issues, not uncommon with PTSD & long term psychiatric med use, or short term steroid use.).

You might consider the idea that people thousands of miles away, who have never seen you, must somehow sense your fatness, to be your issue rather than mine.


3. If you check out the disordered eating & eating disorder threads you’ll find there’s a pretty even split between people who struggle with eating too much, & too little; as well as people dealing with the health effects of being overweight & underweight (regardless of how much they eat, obese people are often tragically malnourished from starving themselves, meanwhile people who are eating themselves senseless are struggling to gain weight, and anorexics in recovery are often doubly struggling with both feeling fat and being fat :dead: ); and a less even split between people who have disordered eating, eating disorders, and trauma related food/weight/body image issues.

Food, weight, & body image are a complicated series of issues even before one adds in the effects of trauma.

Speaking personally, I’ve both been over 50lbs underweight and over 50lbs overweight. There are huge problems associated with both, that I’ve lived through some / witnessed far more, and regardless of what side of the line they fall on, they are tremendously difficult and painful for people to deal with. I wouldn’t make fun of either. Completely aside from the fact that underhanded & manipulatively cruel ain’t my style. Never has been.

I think IF is a fantastic way to gain weight. (There are just as many stupid ways to gain weight as there are stupid ways to lose weight.) Which is why I said it. Not in some complicated plot to fat shame you.

Lastly...
I have almost no tolerance under the best of times for people who twist my words in order to be hurtful with them, or impose their own ideas about what I “really” meant or was motivated by. Believe me, don’t believe me, I no longer care. I’m done explaining myself. You asked for people with experience in intermittant fasting. I do. First under hospital supervision, then any time I’ve needed to slow my metabolism down or add mass, often much to my ex’s irritation since my metabolism slows way faster than his. Partly that’s being a chick, partly that’s a history of starvation. I shared my enthusiastic support of this diet with you. If you choose to use that to beat yourself up with? That’s not me, and I’m done reading about it.

You made an assumption, that I wanted to gain weight, and your assumption was wrong.

Instead of assuming, next time ASK.

 

[Sideways]

Instead of assuming, next time ASK

Or perhaps we could not get angry at people for failing to be mind-readers.

You asked for feedback about IF. You got it. You didn’t like it. That happens here - a lot.

Take what’s helpful, leave the rest.

 

[Ronin]

and your assumption was wrong.

Offering someone very concrete pros & cons to a very generic question about the issue is the opossite of assuming. It is listing off everything, the a) I dont know what you need the information for... b) Though that is yours to decide and none of my business, I am going to tell you what I know / is known about the issue, so you can decide for your very own problem.

Furthermore, detailing how fast you will *gain* weight *while* heading for losing, a.k.a. detailing side effects you might have issues with... is giving you precise information about things you might want to avoid, or avoid the whole method for. Yours to decide, & exact science. Which again, is not judging you, in no way.

The rest, what @Sideways said. Basic manners.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

I've been practicing it for several years (typically about a 14 hour window) with nothing but helpful benefits in regards to my overall health and weight control, up until recently when I lost mom and started eating my emotions again. I also added back in a few animal products at the suggestion of a practitioner who practices the paleo/keto lifestyle and my waist line started expanding damn near instantly. I eat later in the night now and have a hard time avoiding the vegan "junk" foods that are so damn convenient to just grab and go. Adding the animal products back in tripped a few addictive triggers that I had previously been able to tame, but I did it once with great success, and will do it again once I heal the feels some more, dammit.

I had been practicing a whole food plant-based vegan lifestyle for the last 5 or so years, in addition to IF, increased physical activity, learning about food combining, paying attention to what comes out after stuff goes in, be it physically, mentally, or emotionally, learning more about our internal body clock via traditional Chinese medicine, learning about the energies our bodies are forced to digest (based on the journey the product had to take to get to my plate) when choosing certain foods, especially the highly processed varieties/animal products/etc., and eventually shed 110 lbs. and felt better than I ever recalled.

It always made me laugh, and sort of pissed me off, to be honest, how so many folks seemed so incredibly concerned that I was losing weight and not eating all the things I used to eat, but not a damn one of them expressed any genuine concern when I blew up to well over 300 lbs., with my heath rapidly declining, and was being diagnosed with severe IBS, severe nervous stomach, severe anxiety, severe insomnia, severe depression, severe this, severe that, etc. (most of which I no longer suffer with anymore, and definitely not to the degree I used to) I was much more malnourished then than I am now, based on my opinion as well as the opinions of the health and medical professionals I work with.

Intermittent fasting helped me realize that my innards need a break sometimes, too. Previously, I would eat right up until bed time, or any time I felt the slightest little growl in my belly, even if it was when I woke up to go pee in the middle of the night, as I'd long since been convinced that those belly sounds were hunger pangs.

I had no clue of the various parasites/worms and other lovely little living creatures living inside of me that I was steadily feeding all this time. I had never connected the dots that I really am what I eat, and what I eat eats. I would bet that many folks have never experienced true hunger pangs, although I feel I certainly did during the days of homelessness and not knowing when/if I would eat that day/week/etc. That was a totally different feeling than a few belly grumbles, for sure.

I try my best to stop eating around 8 p.m. every night, which was/is nothing short of a miracle in my world. Mornings were, and still are, mainly for healthily hydrating. I drink many different kinds of homemade and/or cold-pressed organic fruit and veggie juices and supplement them with various organic greens powders.

I don't eat solid food until 10ish or later in the mornings, depending on how hungry I am, and fruit is typically first. Learning about food combining and the time it takes to digest the various food groups taught me that I was previously creating some major gut grenades and intestinal road blocks, BIG time, but I was mainly eating and drinking as I'd been taught at home and in school and/or had been advised by doctors, who I learned receive only a very small amount of nutritional education during medical school. Apparently listening to what I'd been taught and programmed to do was my first mistake, as I've learned with so many different things.

I also don't drink with my meals, unless it's break-fast, of course, when it's mostly liquid anyway. I drink 20 minutes before and after, and make it a point to drink a lot in between meals, but I do keep about a cups worth of water with me when I'm eating just in case I absolutely need it. I learned I was washing away the digestive enzymes otherwise. I chew a hell of a lot more than I ever used to, as well. I learned my gut doesn't have teeth to finish chewing what I would just woof down and barely chew, causing my digestive system to have to work even harder. I even chew my juices and water often, as crazy as that may sound.

Sometimes my break-fast is just fruit, other times it's fruit mixed with a granola cereal topped with unsweetened almond milk, sometimes it's chia "pudding" made with berries and unsweetened almond milk, other times it's berries/bananas/whatever fruit I have on hand mixed with unsweetened coconut yogurt, other times it's a banana with sunflower seed butter, etc.

Lunch is a couple hours later and that typically involves a big ol' salad of some sort or leftovers from the night before. I try to make lunch my biggest meal of the day.

Snacks are usually chopped veggies of all varieties with hummus that I make, or with sunflower seed/almond/peanut butter...or a larabar...or a homemade treat. I typically do not eat fruit after eating the other food groups as fruit digests a lot faster and can cause much gas, belching, etc. if I do.

Dinner is whatever concoction we decide to create and we make sure we eat before 8:00. We eat nuts, seeds, legumes, locally grown organic veggies as much as possible, frozen veggies, home canned and preserved foods, and gluten-free as much as possible. We recently found a great meal delivery service out of Vermont called Mama Sezz that offers up incredibly healthy meals the way we've learned to enjoy them, and when you figure up how much time and money goes into grocery shopping, prepping, cleaning up, growing stuff ourselves, etc., it's a pretty decent deal. If/when I have a night time snack, it's usually non-dairy nice cream, graham crackers with sunflower seed butter, a little salsa and unsalted tortilla chips, or the Hippeas brand chickpea snacks.

I never leave home without my small cooler packed with nourishing snacks of some variety, and that has been a major help in fighting off the mass marketing and smells I'm bombarded with in my travels that are trying to direct me to all the places that contributed to my major health downfalls previously.

It was an extremely difficult transition to make for me, for sure, as I did it drastically and overnight in a desperate attempt to heal from a gall bladder attack and keep my organ(s), rather than easing into it gently. Looking forward to getting back into my groove once I process more of the grief and heavy emotional turmoil I'm currently experiencing.

Nothing tastes better than feeling good feels, that's for damn sure. I also learned I can't out-exercise poor food choices, nor can I out-smart my body by only changing my consumption habits without increasing my activity level. There's a healthy balance in there somewhere and it rocks when you finally tap into it. Realizing that progress/results can and will fluctuate based on circumstances, regardless of how well it does or doesn't work, can be the most difficult aspect of any healthy change, as I've learned. Best wishes in experimenting.

 

[hithere]

I have not looked into intermittent fasting. I do follow fasts for religious reasons, and there are a few high holy days that involve fasting and reflecting on the self. I think fasting has been helpful for my body. It certainly is helpful for my mind. I have not read anything about IF.

For a religious fast it is not advisable to do what people do on "fat tuesday" and binge for a whole day because you will be restricting your diet the following days. I prepare for it mentally, have what I need available, (I do keep crackers in my purse as I once started to pass out from fasting at my job and it was a bad experience. So now I'm ready if that happens again). Also if I'm sick, or have some special need the fast is modified. During pregnancies I did not do full fasts, but more restrictive of certain foods.

I also tell another like minded person I'm doing the fast and they will check in to see how I'm doing on it, and I check in with them if I need to. It's just support to get me through the days I'm fasting.

 

[blackemerald1]

I've just watched Dr Michael Mosley do a talk on IF - in the UK apparently some studies were done (I don't know who did them) and they discovered that under medical supervision very rapid weight loss diets of around 800 calories a day actually resulted in the subjects keeping the weight off for longer. (Around two years) and was significantly better than IF.

Sorry, but I don't know any more detail than that.

I agree with @Sideways anyway... talk to your psydoc about weight gain and meds. Far too often it is simply not discussed. But it is extremely important and has a direct bearing on your long term health in so many ways.

When I was on Seroquel - I put on a tonne of weight despite me exercising and being extremely restrictive in respect to diet. When I came off Seroquel - I dropped that weight so fast it was crazy but I was still maintaining my restrictive diet too. Anyway I ended up being way underweight.

The MAOI anti-depressant I tried (parnate) also worked really well for my mood. Couldn’t tolerate it because it interacted with my migraine medication, but absolutely no impact on my weight. For some reason, many pdocs don’t bother trying any of the MAOIs, simply because they’re considered “older” anti-depressants. But there’s a whole class of them that most people have never even trialled one of.

^Mostly, psydoc's don't like Parnate because heaps of people have accidentally eaten the wrong stuff (it is extremely diet restrictive) and given themselves massive strokes. Plus it may mess with blood pressures, (low) too. And it can become toxic but so can all drugs. I was on it for about eight years - that's how I know about it.

However, if the patient is very sensible and can maintain the diet that goes with Parnate it can literally make the sun rise. It did for me whilst it worked. :)

 

[lostforgottensoul]

You made an assumption, that I wanted to gain weight, and your assumption was wrong.

Ummmm

It’s an absolutely fantastic way to gain weight and slow your metabolism

No where in there does it state "you want to gain weight". It says "it is a fantastic way to gain weight". Meaning, @Friday is stating what IF does, not whether you want to gain or loose weight.

 

[Sideways]

Mostly, psydoc's don't like Parnate because heaps of people have accidentally eaten the wrong stuff (it is extremely diet restrictive) and given themselves massive strokes.

Huge misconception.

The diet was actually introduced as a limit theoretically, because of the similarity between MAOIs and other medications that required strict avoidance of certain foods and medication.

The strict diet has now been eased, and many pdocs ignore it completely, due to lack of evidence that it’s required.

Either way, the foods that it’s best to theoretically avoid, are ones that a lot of us never go near anyways (salami anyone!?).

I did a little experiment of my own when I discovered all this in hospital, and try as I might, was completely unable to bring on any kind of stroke (because, at the time, I found it kinda funny that, as suicidal as I was, it was allegedly easy for me to ‘accidentally’ kill myself with my medication - what the!?). I still remember making myself physically ill on a sandwich that had about a centimetre thick of vegemite on it (don’t do that - stroke? No. Vomiting from horrendous taste? Yup!).

There are limits on other medication you can take if you are on heart meds (because a theoretical risk is still a risk), which is what made me come undone, due to the unusual migraine meds I take.

Long story short? They be pretty safe, and worth considering.