Intermittent fasting: 14/10-16/8, 5:2, 24-hr fast, 20-hr fast

[Finsky]

I'm pleased you find talking about hunger interesting - I think it is an important topic in a fasting thread! . As anyone who reads my posts know - I have not found that hunger miraculously disappears on day 2 (such a nice idea!), (Dr Fung and Prof Taylor both insist that this happens regularly), although I do understand that it can for some. But I can live with hunger much much better, and have my body seems to have retrained itself (I don't have hunger pains at all anymore - thank goodness), (and I only experience some mild tummy rumblings rarely).

I believe I get through the work day without getting noticeably irritable (although ask my family what I am like when I get home?! That may be another thing. Grumpy, is a nice word for it, and I believe folk on VLCDs talk about being a bit, er, grumpy.) Currently, I have two fasting days a week - close-ish to 24 hours, and I always inform my loved ones that it is a fasting day - and they adjust their expectations of my mood when I get home before dinner accordingly! (It can't be too bad, as I am still reminding Herr Svea, on fasting days, that an earlier dinner at 6ish might be better for everyone than a late dinner! But you might want to ask him how, ah, tenderly I suggest that earlier dinner time!)

I don't tell anyone at work that I am not eating two days a week there. Everyone is too busy and the office is physically very big, to notice, which suits me fine. At lunchtime I take a cup of broth, or a coffee with cream outside and walk around with it for a half hour.

Not packing a lunch two days a week out of five - is fantastic! I have to say. Not having nuts at 3 in the afternoon not so fantastic. But today is a non-fasting day! So I need to get off to work with my rather large packed lunch.

It is funny sensation..'feeling brilliant for not having to prepare or eat anything'....all that spare time in one's hands!

What I remember from my early years fasting and from the recent one...the first two days I have been have been having to 'fight' with one's brain and curb down the habitual need for the eating and one feels like one's jaws could do with work out with food...then comes the 'I could eat something' feel, little niggling 'I miss it'...and occasional 'I REALLY could do with some food'..but then comes the third day and things get much easier. Tummy feels empty but not in a 'hungry way'...and usually it carried on like that, but I never did do any longer than a week. This recent attempt didn't go so well..the third day was brilliant, but then it did go down hill and quickly. Seems like I still have lots to learn and try to find new recipe that works.
I can't say fasting does effect hugely with my moods, which I'm surprised because normally when I get ready to eat/hungry...I tend to get bit snappy or short with the 'sense of humour' department....and my OH does tend to get carried away with teasing if not issued firm warnings in advance...so he ends up being receiving end.
I do suspect that even I did drink broth, I still didn't get enough salts in me...as my skin did go really wrinkly and it lost its elasticity...like I was dehydrated. My skin is back in its 'old' self ( don't use or need moisturizers)..and my carb intake is getting slightly lower and lower again...having some ketones days too (experiencing some killer breath's)...so I'm quite nicely lowering myself into another attempt into fasting session again in couple of weeks time.

 

[AloeSvea]

It's good to hear the full range of someone else's fasting experience @Finsky! What kind of fasting session are you preparing/planning for?

 

[Finsky]

It's good to hear the full range of someone else's fasting experience @Finsky! What kind of fasting session are you preparing/planning for?

What kind..hmm..well, I would like to push my boat out and see if I can achieve full week this time...and by only having some broth, water, herbal teas and black coffee...if I need I might have squeeze of lemon into my water intake but that's it. I don't really have any firmer plans than that...supposed it is better take it as it comes. My mother is coming over for a visit this week and no doubt we'll be going out for 'spot of lunch' or something...so LCHF diet is going to be put in 'test'...I feel I'll be in need for fasting session to get my system back into 'straight and narrow' again.
I'm just about to get some chicken bones and left over meat on stove for stock>> freezing it all for later use..

 

[AloeSvea]

Yes - making your own stock can be a mission, but a satisfying one for sure!

A full week sounds good. It'll be interesting reading your experiences when you do it. The last time I did 3-4 days I had a good ketosis experience, with a rush of energy and a feeling of well-being on the last day - now I wish I had kept on going. (I didn't get that the first time I water-only fasted for 4-5 days I think it was.) Fasting with broth is a good thing I agree - keeping your salts up and feeling sick or faint at bay.

 

[Stevia_queen]

@Stevia_queen - I'm not sure why you are so hungry from cutting carbs - are you getting enough protein and healthy fats? (Do you really think it's stress causing you to feel hungry?) I get hungry when I don't eat - although this is improving a lot with fasting practice, as in I can deal with hunger a lot better now, and I don't feel it as intensely. But, I don't suffer undue hunger when eating! Nuts, meat and lots of veg, big bowls of salad, seafood and fish - won't spike your blood glucose, is nutritious - and should be well filling. What kinds of things are you eating low carb? (Can I ask?)

Yes I th8nk its just it neing the first week in. I dont think im eating enough greens to be honest. Although I do have a bit ecery meal. Its really not enough. I am getting usedcto it. Also I thi k my calorie intake is at 500 to 800 a day everyday this week. which may not be enough. Today I had a good breafaat which set me up for the day and I didnt geel hungry till dinner. X

 

[AloeSvea]

If you are having only 500-800 calories a day, @Stevia_queen - I'm not surprised you are hungry!! That is not just low carb - but Very Low Calorie Dieting (VLCD). I remember the teeny tiny portions of everything on a VLCD - mini roast dinners (the single chicken wing! The quarter each of three roast root veges - how quickly it went down!) (I stupidly wasn't really Low Carbing then, not being a numbers gal, and not reading the Atkins induction diet or any such thing.). But yes - eating a large bowl of salad or favourite cooked greens - very very good for you. And all that chewing! And all that fibre. So are you on a VLCD then? Sorting out a fasting regime, or some such?

 

[Finsky]

Well....good news at last! After I ended up the last fasting session and had to had carb binge to end up my body issues...it has taken WHOLE 3 weeks to get back where I started...I just had my first ''4' blood sugar reading since that event! Yesterday I got first '5'...and rest of the time it has been hovering between 6-9 while I've been back into LCHF eating. I was beginning to think that something has happened in my body and I cannot get back into lower readings anymore..
Last couple of days I've had REALLY bad ketone breath so I knew from that point of view that I'm on 'burning mode'..which was encouraging and my weight has been stable..maybe even lost a teeny bit. I'm on 'that time of the month' so cannot really tell yet.
This morning I had 1/4 of slice of toast..not because I fancied it but with a lack of suitable alternative type of carbs in a house (not been shopping yet)..I thought I better have a little while I have small amount of injected insulin in my system...looking forward to start lowering my injections again and fingers crossed that I can have some drug free time in next coming days
Yohooo....looking forward for the on coming fasting session...I NEED to give my pancreas a 'holiday' and give them a chance to start 'thinking' little differently about their future..
I'm starting to feel teeny bit hopeful again...maybe there is enough life left in my old liver and pancreas after all for at least 'almost drug free life...just maybe..!? Why oh why didn't I start doing this yeeeeears ago.... (I do know the answer but I wish I would have not trusted doctors and nurses so blindly )
Another week or so to go for my fasting session...I'm starting 'stretch' my night time fasting teeny bit more now...

 

[AloeSvea]

I too like the idea of giving the liver and the pancreas a holiday during a fast - the pancreas at least! And it is genuinely a buzz to switch over to 'fat burning mode'. Can I ask how long you had had T2D before you were put on insulin, @Finsky? I have to remember you are on insulin, because I re-read your opening sentence there a couple of times, and then down to the insulin and drugs bit before I really understood. (Carb bingeing is to bring your blood glucose up if it goes down too low? )

 

[AloeSvea]

Before I did my first water only 4-5 day fast a year and a half ago, I read Dr Fuhrman's wonderful book on fasting (this was before Dr Fung, and Dr Mosley had brought out their more-directed-at-diabetics books on fasting and low carbing), and he made a comment about longer term fasting - fasts over time - for health is actually a way to rebuild your body. I thought that was interesting. And it fits in with Prof Taylor's 'personal fat threshold' - especially with fat on the organs, and if what we know about insulin resistance.

IFing is definitely helping me with my waist and hips, and therefore - fat on my liver and pancreas. I am a rectangular shape 'normally', due to the fat I store definitely going on my waist. I had PCOS when I was in my 20s - so I know I have had insulin resistance for decades because of that (small cysts developing on the ovaries - another waist-level organ of importance) - back in the days when I never heard the phrase 'insulin resistance' whispered - let alone 'excess carbohydrate'!

After the IF regime my waist size is hovering around 82cm (or 32 inches) - which is so vast a difference from a couple of years ago when I was diagnosed I can't say. (I can't say! Because I didn't used to measure it. But I had a lot of people ask me if I was pregnant over the years, due to my slim legs and big big belly. Classic diabetes risk stuff.) It got down to 81cm when on a VLCD for two months. But I didn't really know what I was doing when I came off it, and my waist promptly - over a few months - went back up to 85cm even. After IFing as I said - it's 82cm, and I have less fat on my face, and of course the belly proper. And it does look different. Really different. A newly (re) built body! As Fuhrman was suggesting.

Needing to get it back to the way it was when diabetes free (and Insulin Resistance free in my case) is what Prof Taylor et al say about it. He (Taylor) even goes as far to say this means your body needs to very closely approximate when you were youthful and diabetes free. (ie how little fat was on the organs!)

Let's not go there right now! (Too too - too - many centimetres for me to consider this morning.)

 

[Finsky]

I too like the idea of giving the liver and the pancreas a holiday during a fast - the pancreas at least! And it is genuinely a buzz to switch over to 'fat burning mode'. Can I ask how long you had had T2D before you were put on insulin, @Finsky? I have to remember you are on insulin, because I re-read your opening sentence there a couple of times, and then down to the insulin and drugs bit before I really understood. (Carb bingeing is to bring your blood glucose up if it goes down too low? )

Oh...I've been on insulin about 20 years and but recent test showed that I still have functioning beta cells so I'm pushing my 'luck' and trying to see if they still function enough for me to live without injections...one can only dream...
My carb binge was because day 4 with my fasting I didn't feel good anymore. I didn't 'need' insulin as such during fasting or short while just before fasting while LCHF'ing...but my insulin resistance kicked in and although I didn't eat anything my blood sugar levels started to raise and body couldn't make any use of the circulating energy. I couldn't understand what was going on until I was alerted about 'Physiological Insulin Resistance'..read about it and it all sounded very much like it...and 'recipe' to correct the issue with wrong hormone messages is to have 150g of carbs on each day for 3 days. So that much about benefits of that fasting session.. But it worked very quickly...within hour from starting to eat carbs, my body aches started disappear.
Now I'm back in 'starting block'...getting my blood sugar reading back into lower numbers. Not each and every time I test but it is certainly looking better and I've already lowered insulin dozes a little more. Where I was 3 months ago with insulin intake..I'm now taking about 2/3 less in total than before! Not bad after all these years

 

[AloeSvea]

Not bad at all @Finsky. It seems that beta cells do replicate and regenerate. And 2/3 less added insulin is not bad at all indeed! If you can get off added insulin eventually, you can see more clearly how your diabetes is working in you? And target your treatment in order to get better. (Fung would say - increase intensive dietary management with fasting - that we know.)

 

[Brunneria]

Not bad at all @Finsky. It seems that beta cells do replicate and regenerate. And 2/3 less added insulin is not bad at all indeed! If you can get off added insulin eventually, you can see more clearly how your diabetes is working in you? And target your treatment in order to get better. (Fung would say - increase intensive dietary management with fasting - that we know.)

Hi Aloe,

Do you have any links or ref for that beta cell regeneration info? I haven't done much reading on the subject, but it was my understanding that beta cell regeneration was unreliable in humans, and highly dependent on youth.

If you have better/different/newer info than that, i would love to read it!

 

[AloeSvea]

Nice to see you @Brunneria! My reading is just the standard search engine results stuff, but I was just reading them to reply to Finsky, to check my understanding (and I promise I am open to hearing that my understanding is wrong!) - no worries to cut and paste. I slept through some of it I must confess! Those science papers can make one, ah, a bit on the sleepy side, as I am lying in bed on a Saturday morning while in the forum as I key. I will select the links and post... (just after putting the wake me up coffee on... .)

 

[AloeSvea]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150921182105.htm

http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/blog/can-beta-cells-be-healed/ (David Spero is very easy to read - no sleeping through this one, but yes, this is much more careful in whether or not we can regain beta cell function)

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/59/10/2340.full

http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/544820 - great on everything you ever wanted to know about beta cells, but I couldn't get to page 2 and 3. I think this is the article (and slides) that introduced me to the idea that the beta cell itself has insulin receptors, and can get insulin resistant.

http://www.cmecorner.com/macmcm/aace/aace2002_03.htm - Burant again, but only a brief mention of beta cell neogenesis at the end - but my understanding is that beta cell neogenesis is the generation of new beta cells?

 

[AloeSvea]

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/keyword/beta-cell-regeneration

Has 24 studies/abstracts supporting the taking of natural substances like gymnema sylvestre, neem leaf, berberine, curcumin seeds, bitter melon, to name a few, that may aid in beta cell regeneration.

Who knows what to make of it! Read and decide for yourself? (And y'all know I am a big supporter of try it and see - experimentation. )

 

[Stevia_queen]

If you are having only 500-800 calories a day, @Stevia_queen - I'm not surprised you are hungry!! That is not just low carb - but Very Low Calorie Dieting (VLCD). I remember the teeny tiny portions of everything on a VLCD - mini roast dinners (the single chicken wing! The quarter each of three roast root veges - how quickly it went down!) (I stupidly wasn't really Low Carbing then, not being a numbers gal, and not reading the Atkins induction diet or any such thing.). But yes - eating a large bowl of salad or favourite cooked greens - very very good for you. And all that chewing! And all that fibre. So are you on a VLCD then? Sorting out a fasting regime, or some such?

To be honest i don't know what I'm on - I have been just low carbing it. and eating 3 times a day but small portions. I have a small bit of protein before i go to bed to stop the Dawn phenomena.
I've bumped it up with meat and chicken and more oily fish slightly larger portions the last few days, eating more greens and slowly introducing a bit of carb in the form of ryvita a few days or rice noodles once . the latter made me spike a little. I have succumbed to chocolate today AND yesterday. not so good . spiked. (but its my time of the month so **** it) but still down to HAC1 5.3% from 6.4%. so guess its the balance.

 

[AloeSvea]

A HBA1c of 46 to 34 in a short amount of time is impressive, and enviable indeed, @Stevia-queen. (If my reading the wonderful '50 shades of diabetes' graph is right.) From low carbing and Low Calorie Dieting (LCDing) - or eating small portions as some call it. (I actually like acronyms - as long as I myself, and readers, know what they stand for!)

The only thing I believe you need to do is keep a new eating regime sustainable - and that means eating more healthy fat when you eat to satiety in the LCHF way of thinking. Mind you - the article I read this morning posted in this website has folk smaller-portioning for a year! (Wow!) Article on the role of hunger hormones, that I of course found interesting:

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2016...ble-weight-loss-in-obese-people-96786015.html

And how to stop eating chocolate? And if you love it - why would you want to? . I was talking to a woman serving in a gas station last night, as I was delighted to discover my favourite stevia sweetened, hardly-any-at-all-BG-spiking chocolate was being sold there. Because I grabbed a whole bunch of them (sadly costing a small fortune), I felt I needed to tell the kindly woman serving me why. She told me her mother was diabetic, and she had had gestational diabetes (and I could not help but notice she has the same fat storage pathway as I do myself - ie around the middle of course). So I suggested she stick to the stevia sweetened products based on my own experience, if she wanted to help keep herself diabetes-free. (Naturally I did not go in the weight loss route - this poor woman having me offer safer chocolate eating advice unsolicited was enough I think!)

 

[jd58]

I have just started a an intermittent 16-8 daily diet as part of my LCHF diet now im off the metformin tablets for type 2. This LCHF diet was recommended by my GP and have not looked back since weight is dropping off and feeling great. So i added the intermittent diet to boost weight loss further to reach my goal of 95kg - currently 105kg and was 113 kg 2 months ago. Using dietdoctor for advice and recipes.

 

[Stevia_queen]

to be honest I'm struggling now after such low calorie low carb for first week or so
Im on 3rd week and have indulged in pizza chocolate and cake this weekend and i regret it , energy has lowered, I'm sadder, and my sugar levels have been spiking of course. I'm back on it and finding it harder than i did last week.
do you find stevia increases blood sugar?
I have only one spoon in my 1 coffee in the morning and it spike o.6 and i use lactofree milk.

 

[Finsky]

to be honest I'm struggling now after such low calorie low carb for first week or so
Im on 3rd week and have indulged in pizza chocolate and cake this weekend and i regret it , energy has lowered, I'm sadder, and my sugar levels have been spiking of course. I'm back on it and finding it harder than i did last week.
do you find stevia increases blood sugar?
I have only one spoon in my 1 coffee in the morning and it spike o.6 and i use lactofree milk.

Are you using pure stevia or the stevia 'blend' that you get from supermarkets? The stuff from supermarkets don't have much real stevia powder in them, but depending of the brand...the 'sweetener' they use to bulk up the contents can have effect to your blood sugar levels. One of he 'bulkers' is maltodextrin....I'll let you to do some 'googling' if your product has that in.
I buy stevia in its pure form..that has no effect to blood sugars. Yes, it is more expensive to buy, but as it is so concentrated and you use VERY little compared to those stevia products in shops..in the end the pure form works out MUCH cheaper to use.