Adding IF to keto

(Joyce) #1

I have a question and can’t find any answers about it! Should I be keeping the same number of calories and macros when adding 16:8 intermittent fasting to keto? And if I should be decreasing any of those parameters, by how much?
I added IF to help me get rid of the last 10 lbs to my goal weight since I’ve been in a plateau since December.

(Chuck) #3

I am doing low carb and intermittent fasting, I am at 19:5 at this time and some days even do 22:2. I don’t count calories or keep track of micronutrients anymore. I am listening to the signals my body give me as to when I am hungry and how much it needs. But I must say I am not trying to lose weight but I am happily trimming my waist and thighs. I am 75 and feel the best I have ever felt, more energy, sleeping better, no brain fog, and no joint pain.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

You absolutely should. Short rations is the signal to the body that there is a famine going on, and the body in famine mode lowers the metabolism and cuts back on such non-essential processes as hair and nail growth and the reproductive system. As Dr. Fung, the fasting guru, likes to say, “When you fast, don’t eat at all; when you eat, feast!”

(Doug) #6

I agree. Without the higher insulin signalling response (and especially when one is fat-adapted), the body transitions pretty seamlessly into using stored fat to make up the difference. This will vary among individuals (as with baseline insulin resistance) and will vary with the amount of fat one has to burn. In general, fatter people have an easier time, while really lean people may not do as well - the body there is less willing to give up the fat stores.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

There is an enormous difference to the body, between giving it intentionally short rations, and eating a caloric deficit by eating to satiety. I’ve mentioned this numerous times, and Dr. Fung points it out in his lectures. Listen to your body, and give it what it wants. Deliberately restricting calories risks giving it the famine signal. Clear?

The attitude of Western medicine that we can out-think processes that evolved over millions of years to handle all kinds of situations is part of the problem. I could rant on about Neo-Platonism and its pernicious effect on our thinking, but I’ll spare you all. But it is much more helpful to think of ourselves as a mind/body unity, rather than a duality in which the mind is supposed to dominate the body.

(Chuck) #8

For way too long, over 12 years, I believed I could lose weight and keep it off if I only counted calories and ate less than I felt like I needed, but the truth is that my metabolism slowed down and I would gain weight. Our bodies are smarter than we are if you take the time to research and understand our metabolism.
Since I started low carb and intermittent fasting I have eaten until I am satisfied, not stuffed. I have not necessarily lost much weight but I have lost fat and inches from all over my body, and a lot from waist and upper thighs. I also believe because of the amount of inches that I have lost that I have regained some much needed muscle mass. And as you know I am 75 and had been told for your that it is impossible to build muscle as we get older. By the way as a none scale victory I can now wear my Navy dress blues, my uniform from when I graduated from boot camp in February of 1969. You talk about a huge smile on my face. And by the way I weigh just about the same as I did then.

#9

Whenever I change the size of eating window, I still eat enough for me to feel satisfied and satiated… I don’t have any other option anyway, I can’t just stay hungry or force things. And whatever happens, happens. I am tolerant with high-cal but if I happen to undereat, I make sure I eat enough again (but I couldn’t keep at it for long anyway. it’s just not nice to have some binge after low-cal days).
It’s very normal to eat less in a smaller eating window but it’s not always the case.
My number one reason to eat in a smaller window is to reduce my energy intake as I tend to overeat. But as I wrote, I don’t, can’t force it. I eat enough. (And don’t lose fat but that’s me. Keto IF never was enough. But a tiny eating window with very low-carb and well-chosen items? That should work.)

If I must, I tweak my woe, staying hungry never could be my answer even if I really wanted to slim down already (kind of, yes though it’s not my first priority).
And I don’t think my metabolism would get slowed down just because I intentionally eat less calories and stay hungry. It always gave big success to my SO and I have a lot of fat to use. But I hate being hungry (usually, there is a cute kind of hunger I like)… Or saying no to my body who can do way worse than giving me strong hunger.

(Chuck) #10

Yes I am learning that I can have some flexibility with my eating window. I have varied between 16 and 22 hours of fasting giving me from 2 to 8 hours of eating time. It is actually good to vary the amount of time I have to eat along with the amount and what I eat. I have come to fully understand that it isn’t good for me to get stuck in a rut with diet, routine or activities. I use to believe a set routine with great but I was also very bored. And I believe my digestive system is the same.

#11

I need flexibility too. Just because I often very easily eat enough in one sittings, there are different days. I eat as many meals as I need. I easily can imagine others don’t have this daily minimum thing but I have it. If I don’t eat enough during the day (enough food, enough protein, sometimes enough meat), I WILL get really hungry and unsatisfied at midnight… Better to feed my body well to begin with.

(Chuck) #12

I don’t eat after dinner which normally is before 6pm. And don’t eat until after 10am most days not until noon or later. Depending on how much I ate the day before at dinner I seldom get hungry. Like today I had my calorie rich, protein rich smoothie. I won’t eat again until dinner, then close my window for until tomorrow

(KM) #13

“Neo-Platonism … argued that the world which we experience is only a copy of an ideal reality which lies beyond the material world.” … I think something must have gotten lost in translation. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #14

Yes, the idea of the “copy of reality” is found in Plato’s teachings, as reported by Aristotle in the *Dalogues." But the mind-body duality only became central to his disciples’ thinking about three or four hundred years later, around the time of Christ, largely as an influence from Zorastrianism, which was profoundly dualistic, though dualism is also found to some extent in other Greek philosophy.

Neo-Platonism had a profound influence on Christian thought. The influence started in the early fifth century, after the Edict of Toleration, as Christian apologists attempted to frame the doctrines of the new religion in the philosophical vocabulary of the times, and it really took hold in Christian thinking during the Middle Ages, after Arab scholars reintroduced Aristotle to the West. The mind-body dualism typical of Christian theology (mind/sprit good; body—especially sex—bad) has persisted ever since, despite the efforts of certain theologians to point out that it is really an alien idea to the Hebraic tradition, which insists that God created the material world and called it good.

In any case, the distinction between the human mind and the rest of the universe is an unspoken assumption of scientific thought, for both good and ill.

(Doug) #16

Heaven help us, Michael - I’m agreeing with you. :smile::slightly_smiling_face:

For me, it makes all the difference too. There is absolutely no comparison. To my discredit, I don’t stay with a strict keto diet enough of the time.

We know (or at least have a pretty good idea that) there’s a daily limit on how much energy we can take from our fat stores, roughly 28 - 34 calories per pound of fat, or 62 - 75 calories per kilogram. This comes from the research in “A limit on the energy transfer rate from the human fat store in hypophagia.”

So if somebody has 47 lbs/21 kg of fat, they can get ~1500 calories per day from it. 62 lbs/28 kg = ~2000 calories per day. For most people, this will cover their energy needs, or it won’t take much in the way of eating to make up the difference. There is the labile pool of amino acids and autophagy (in the case of fasting) to also help make up the difference.

The concept of this limit would explain why in general really lean people have a hard time with longer fasts. For intermittent fasting, as long as the person has low enough insulin to readily access the fat stores, there should be no problem at all.