Does IF Work, and How Much Can You REALLY Lose With It?
I’m back with another fun article based on my exploration of Reddit. Once again, highly recommend using it if you’re looking for a community of like-minded people also doing fasting!
So many different sections for all your different interests, hobbies, workouts, and meal plans.
And the main thing I like is the emphasis on posting personal experiences. After all, I shared my own journey. I also managed to share the success stories of other women on Intermittent Fasting. Experiences with deep thoughts, insights, and pictures of what people have gone through. For some reason, Reddit in particular excels at drawing these out from people, so I figured it would be a great place to address some concerns and/or spread things that I find to my readers who may not be familiar with the site.
From Reddit User Mattandsuch – “I am thinking about trying it. When I have dieted in the past it’s worked just fine cutting calories, but I have seen some posters with outrageous results using IF.”
And the top voted response:
I’ve done it. I lost ~40 pounds on it earlier this year. I did it mostly by running/biking after a fast. The idea is it uses body fat for fuel. IF works great as a caloric restriction, as well. You take a meal out, keep the others at the same calorie count, you’ll lose weight whether or not you exercise. If you do fasted lifting, BCAAs are recommended but I’ve never used them.
Maybe I’m just indulging myself here, but it feels good to see the top rated comment is in line with the same advice I have been offering on my blog.
The one thing I severely disagree with is not using BCAAs while training fasted. There are studies that support them being helpful, such as on this article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5295061/
“BCAA supplementation increased leucine uptake, protein synthesis, protein degradation and net transamination.”
“Moreover, BCAA supplementation enhanced the fasted-state phosphorylation of protein translation initiation factors and inhibited the protein-degradation signaling of ubiquitin-proteasome and autophagy-lysosome systems. In conclusion, supplementation of BCAA to reduced-protein diet increases fed-state protein synthesis and inhibits fasted-state protein degradation, both of which could contribute to the elevation of skeletal muscle mass in piglets. “
The bolded is one thing I mentioned a couple of times in my intermittent fasting diet plan breakdown, but there’s plenty of reasoning behind why you should be taking BCAAs. Even if you don’t believe that they are necessary, the research supports the idea that taking them is optimal.
So why wouldn’t you?
But who knows. Dieting and Fitness seem to change more than clothing fads, maybe 3 months from now they’ll be printing retractions and saying we should do the opposite. If you don’t want to take BCAAs, don’t force it on yourself. If you do, well, you’re part of my club. By the way, if you need a brand recommendation on BCAAs, I personally take Purple Wraath.
And here’s another level-headed response to the question of whether or not Intermittent Fasting works (although by now if you’ve seen peoples results you know it does).
“IF isn’t magic, it is just a way to carve up your meals across the day to better manage hunger. Most people fast from morning into the afternoon, and then eat all their calories in a 4-8hr window before bed. You could just as easily eat all your calories for breakfast then fast the rest of the day, but this wouldn’t work as well when you are supplementing.”
Amen, brother keoking. Although, I will say this his comment steered straight into unfamiliar territory for me after this. He recommended combining it with caffeine and yohimbe or ephedrine to curb your appetite in the morning.
I was aware caffeine had appetite suppressing effects, but honestly, I didn’t mention it here because I know it’s also addicting as all get-out. If you guys do this, just make sure you’re not adding extras to the Coffee, which would bump up the calorie intake and end up breaking your fast. I know that black coffee works on Intermittent Fasting, I’m not so sure about others.
And Yohimbe? Ephedrine? I am very vaguely familiar with these, but it’s starting to get into “magic cure” territory for me. The main thing I like about Intermittent Fasting is how painfully simple it is.
You want to lose weight and boost your metabolism? Okay, let me introduce you to the idea of an “eating window“.
That’s it.
We start getting into the science and specifics because information is power. Fasting can be hard, so the knowledge gives us the strength to push through.
But once we start veering off a little too much, it can complicate things, which just makes people more like to snap off the diet and go back to their regular, unhealthy eating habits.
Overall, I have to say I love going to Reddit. I get a good deal of ideas on content that my readers might want to know about, and I generally learn a lot from their different takes. If you’re looking for a non-Facebook/Pinterest social media to start spending time on, I highly recommend it!