How safe is intermittent fasting beyond 12 hours?

Lamont D said:

Your initial question regarding fasting, is something I frequently use everyday.
Usually, I don't eat after 7pm for logical reasons that I need to know where my BG levels will be.
I don't eat till mid afternoon. This is what I do. Small meals of probably meat and salad, eggs and such.
however because I can, I have and will fast for a few days, my longest is five days.
I wasn't hungry I did drink, but I needed some nutrition afterwards.
but it isn't something I would advise for that long, firstly because some people just can't do it. Some for medical reasons, others just can't. Some could do a day or two. But it is so forced into our psyche to eat too much from young. And we do. Never mind the number of meals but actual portion size and amount through the day.

Start with missing one meal, then half a day while awake, then intermittent, then if you can a whole day.
if not, smaller plate size, less snacking, less starch and carbs, sugars.

For a T2, it is the spikes of higher than normal BG levels you need to avoid as much as possible, especially going into double figures mmols.
And the longer your BG levels are in or around normal BG levels (4-6) your health will improve.

Finally, a tailored dietary regime to your own tastes etc. Is what I would recommend.
No fad diet will do anything. And from my experience fresh food only will help so much to control your T2.

My best wishes.

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IanBish said:

That's good advice. Which I didn't realise till I was diagnosed.

I'm wearing a CGM at the moment. Most of the day I'm around 4.5 mmol/L and occasionally just below 4.0. And I'm still alive.

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KennyA said:

I sometimes go 36 hours, but not very often. There's no feeling of hunger, just that it's time to eat something.

And it's not that I don't eat much quantity. I eat lots of meat, in particular. The "all you can eat" barbecue places are perfect.

I just don't eat very much of anything that has carb in it.

Best of luck. There's no single right way to do this - you need to find what works for you.

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Lupf said:

Hi @LiSwati, welcome to the forum. As you ask about intermittent fasting (IF), let me add my story.
Five years ago I lost 10 kg with IF, basically by doing Michael Mosley's 5+2 diet.
On the two fast days each week I only ate 600 calories and basically very little carbs, i.e. a small breakfast, e.g. an egg or nature yoghurt with half an apple, during the day I drank only water and coffee. For dinner it was lots of vegetables, e.g. curries, soup and salads, maybe a bit of chicken of fish. On the other five days I ate normally, i.e breakfast, a small lunch and dinner, but no snacking. Rather quickly the pounds started melting away and my belt needed tightening. The amazing thing was that I never really felt hungry when fasting. You can eat lots of soup, vegetables and salad for 600 calories. This allowed me to get off Metformin and get my HbA1c into the 40s. I still do IF, it has allowed me to sustain my weight for four years so far.

Reading Jason Fung "The Diabetes Code" has been very informative. Basically a low calorie diet is not sustainable, as your base metabolic rate BMR will reduce and you will need fewer calories to maintain your weight. You will stop losing weight, feel increasingly miserable and give up eventually. You might try again later, but this circle of yo-yo dieting is only successful for weight loss companies, and is the source of lots of human misery.

I now understand that our bodies are not like combustion engines, but hormonal engines and the effects of calories from carbs differ from those from fat and from protein. Fatty food is much more satiating than carbs, e.g. compare eating an omelette with ham and cheese with having cornflakes with milk for breakfast. The former will last you through the day, if needed, while the latter will make you hungry after 2 hours. People here have lost lots of weight without trying by simply increasing the amount of fat in their diet, i.e switching to a low carb high fat diet.

I have consequently banned all low fat products from my fridge. I never liked them anyway. These usually have lots of added sugar as removing fat removes taste, are ultra-processed and the sugar is addictive. I avoid plant based oils and margarine and use olive oil and butter instead, eat significantly more cheese and despite eating lots of eggs - fried, scrambled, soft and hard-boiled or in omelettes - and fry ups with bacon my cholesterol has come down as well. Eating in this way also makes it easier not to snack.

Of course all our bodies are different and your own mileage may vary, but If you want to do IF I can only encourage it. To me IF is the only diet tested by evolution. if our ancestors were unsuccessful in hunting they had a lot less to eat, only what they could forage. In more recent times fasting is practised in many cultures and religions and is considered healthy.

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AloeSvea said:

Hi @LiSwati. This would be a great thread in the Fasting sub-forum! But great to see it generating lots of discussion about intermittent fasting (IF), and fasting (F) proper for T2D treatment. A great tool in the dealing-with-T2-tool box imho.

Re gut-health, I'm interested in that subject independently of my interest in and fasting practices. Re the gut biome - that would be the food you eat when you do eat? Quite simply, I would say. IF and F has great, and interesting effects for the person with diabetes. But I am sure there must be some info out there about what happens to the gut biome during fasting - is there someone out there in ouyr Forum who can answer that detail?

The constipation question is easier to answer from a personal standpoint. What happens to you in early hours or days of fasting with your digestion and pooping must be closely related to your movements when eating? i would say. ie if you are regular, and not suffering straining, there is no constipation issue when adapting your window of eating to a new regime. If you have constipation issues, then that will cross over into your toileting exprerience early on in your new IF regime? (And LCHF way of eating I would imagine.) If you go some time when not eating, then the pooping does stop, but it isn't a problem. When you re-start eating, pooping restarts, and no straining. I must have been told very strongly as a kid not to talk about one's own pooping, as I find it very hard to actually write 'in my own experience' , but yes. Gee. In my own experience.

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AloeSvea said:

I totally agree on the all you can eat BBQ - yum yum big time!

But back to the details of fasting. I contribute the same thing on the subject of hunger and not eating for any length of time as I always do - we as a species would not be here today if we did not experience hunger, even keenly, especially keenly? and definitely thirst , when not eating, and defintely when not drinking/water. We have a normally fine-tuned hormonal system in order to keep us leaping off the sofa and getting to the garden/game environs/slaughter-shed or the supermarket, and certainly to the water tap/well/stream - and again that busy supermarket.

So, in my own experience at least, as someone who feels hunger keenly, it's about that awful 'discipline' thing, at least until you can habituate your body (is that a thing?) to your new window of eating regime, or, deal with not eating for a longer period of time. (If memory serves, my longest fast was 10-11 days, but that was a bone-broth and cream in coffee assisted fast, not a water only one. The longest water only fast I have done was three to four days.) I have read medical professionals-educators who swear hunger goes away, and of course in here, but I have not experienced this. Lucky those who can do such a terrific treatment without suffering hunger! But I would say - prepare yourself for dealing with hunger, at least for longer periods of fasting, then it won't come as a shock. (I don't like shocks.)

So yeah - deal with the hunger with any self-disciplinary technique/motivation/distraction that works for you.

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Lamont D said:

My gut health was very poor before diagnosis.
And fasting.
I was following medical dietary advice, the usual eat well plate etc.
Anyway, I was diagnosed with helicobactor pylori after a endoscopy.
I was having issues with stomach pains.
I had the antibiotics, and it was better.
stopping the metformin and going keto, improved my stomach issues much more.
Don't have them now.
don't have constipation.
And when fasting, it can be irregular but that is okay.
Hope that helps.

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