Adf

#1

New here. Still learning the site.
Wasn’t sure where to post my question.
Does adf have to be done with keto?
I’m not quite ready to do keto yet.

(Robin) #2

Welcome to the forum!

IMO, Alternate Day Fasting would be a poor choice if you are looking for permanent change/improvement.
Eating whatever you want every other day, will prolong your desire for foods you should give up…. Mostly carbs and sugars.

From my experience, the lack of cravings on keto is what made all the difference.

(Chuck) #3

It depends on what you are looking for. I fast an average of 19 hours per day, my eating window averages 5 hours per day. I eat a moderately low carb. Meaning I eat real food, no highly processed carbs/ food and no fast food. I eat meat, whole fat dairy, most vegetables, and fresh in season fruits, and flash frozen fruit as long as it doesn’t have added sugar. I don’t eat eat bread or wheat products, I eat potatoes in very limited amounts and seldom. I am in weight management so I do allow myself a meal every few weeks that is not in my standard diet.
I did strict keto for about 2 months then modified my diet for my lifestyle.
Background is needed here I am not and never have been diabetic, I was on blood pressure medication, acid reflux medication, and even cholesterol medication. I have lost 55 pounds and I am no prescription drug free. I am 76 years old and had been on blood pressure medication for 40 years. My advice is find what works for you, be flexible and be patient. Also, be ready to make needed adjustments as your body changes. Most of all listen to your body it tells you what it needs, don’t listen to ads, your brains cravings, and for that matter even the offerings of family and friends. Everyone is different remember that.

(Allie) #4

No, but if you’re fat fuelled it will be much easier for you to handle.
I tried ADF for a while and even as keto, it was too much for me.

#5

A tiny forewarning: I know nothing about ADF, I just googled it, so it’s OMEOD, okay then.

All my scepticism or criticism is for ADF, not ADF with keto. ADF doesn’t seem a good idea for most people, to me… But of course, it may be great for some.

If I ever did ADF, I would try do it with keto, I am bold so even with carnivore… It would be easier with more carbs for me as it helps with eating a ton every other day but it’s individual, some people get hungry from carbs even the next day, maybe their desires are off too… So if ADF would be mandatory, it’s a bet or something, I probably would eat a lot of carbs as long as I wanted them. They would be helpful on fasting days. But I am the only one I saw on this forum who said they can ensure OMAD success only with a lot of carbs (and focus. if I eat normally, that doesn’t work) and as carbs go down, fasting gets harder and harder. People usually say the opposite so maybe keto is better with ADF for you.

But ADF is just timing, it can be paired with any diet if you can do it that way.

I prefer eating similarly every day and I do get hungry every day so I just go for OMAD (with much carbs) or TMAD (on very low-carb). I would do a fasting day here and there if my body would be cooperative but ADF/OMEOD…? Sounds extreme and unnecessarily hard. It’s like cycling with too much elevation: bad in both direction :smiley:
But it’s me. Interested why people do this uncommon method. I imagine people who like eating a lot but able to fast longer may find a feast/fast pattern nicer than eating little every day. Well I hate eating little any day but I have found a woe where I feel I eat much while being at a deficit.
Fasting days have their own benefits though… I want some higher level autophagy one day too. My body isn’t cooperative at the moment.

(KM) #6

I have heard that ADF is actually the most difficult kind of fasting. In an extended fast, my experience has been that the second day is the hardest. We are all finding our way here, for me a moderately restricted eating window of about 6 hours, and a 3 to 4 day extended fast every few months, is what works.

(Allie) #7

Certainly was for me.

Fasted Monday fine, fed Tues, fasted Weds, fed Thurs… fell apart Fri - every single week i tried it.

(Central Florida Bob ) #8

I did ADFs for six month long stints two years in a row. I never made my goal weight. I got close but both times when I stopped “close” turned into 10 pounds away. Which is about where I am two years later.

I’d recommend just plain keto, perhaps pure carnivore.

I find keto every day easier than ADF.

(Chuck) #9

As I am entering weight management, I have read that instead of intermittent fasting each day that doing a 24 hour fast once or twice a week is best for weight management. I am so use to and happy with daily intermittent fasting that I am afraid that I would fall off the wagon as this say if I tried to only fast for 24 hours once a week or even twice a week. I have only managed to fast as long as 25 hours a couple of times and it doesn’t bother me to do so as long as I am extremely busy so I don’t have time to think about eating. But like I said this is totally something that should be individual and the individual should find what works the best for that individual.

#10

It’s surely individual. IF is what I do, no effort or anything (I do have non-IF days, I blame the lack of carbs, with reason but it’s no problem if I have a huge, 9 hour eating window now and then. it would be with carbs but I can do it without overeating on carnivore)… While EF just doesn’t happen.
I doubt I need any effort to stay at an okay weight, not like I ever had an okay weight before… But if it’s easy to eat at a deficit now, it will be easy to eat at maintenance later (extrapolation but sounds a good guess to me, knowing myself).

I agree that ADF is probably the hardest for most people. (I suspect what would make it doable but that wouldn’t be healthy.) But some people do it so it should suit some.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #11

Fasting is something a lot of ketonians do, but many others do not It’s your choice.

However. we generally advise beginners not to worry about fasting at first. When you get to the point of forgetting to eat, because you’re simply not hungry, that is the point where you might want to experiment with fasting.

On the other hand, nutritional ketosis and fasting ketosis are nearly identical metabolic states, so if you decide you don’t want to fast, you don’t have to

#12

What would be your reason to do Adf?

(Harriet) #13

I did ADF years ago (more than five) anyway, something weird started happening after a few months, I started getting daily nosebleeds. Don’t ask me what the cause was, all I can say is it stopped when I went back to daily eating.

I’m pretty sure I wasn’t following keto at the time and I was experienced with fasting. I didn’t gorge myself on refeed days, I watched my intake but I won’t do that again. These days I’ll do 24 hour fasts occasionally, and I currently follow ketogenic with IF (17:7) WOE.

Honestly I hated ADF. The fasting day for me was just, ugh, I was so hungry, I couldn’t stay busy enough, just one long boring day constantly thinking about eating tomorrow.

#14

Fasting and Keto are two totally separate things. That said, Keto’s WAY easier than not eating for an entire day! ESPECIALLY when you’re not doing keto, or at least low carb, and therefor don’t burn bodyfat as a fuel source efficiently.

#15

Wow, an experienced one. How much did you eat on eating days compared to your energy need? I would make sure I eat for 2 days or else I would face hunger on fasting day! And I don’t do hunger. Why anyone, barred some unusual cases that I kind of understand? Hunger means my body wants food. It gets food, why would I deny that? It NEEDS the food to function well… (Or not but it WANTS it and I experienced its temper tantrums and I don’t want it again…)
Why do people torture themselves with long term hunger with all the problems of it besides feeling borderline painfully hungry?
What extra can ADF offer? Even if one can’t eat little enough on normal days (I have been experiencing it since quite many years), some rare but potentially longer EF sounds easier to me.

(Harriet) #16

Okay, probably TMI and far too long but here’s my basic story. My weight has been an issue my entire life. Essentially to maintain a normal weight I have to watch my calories so I’ve been logging my food since I was 14 (it worked, I lost 100 pounds by the time I was 16, I overdid it and gained back about 20), and even now I basically still have to go to bed hungry. I used to be able to really eat when I could exercise but that’s done, I have joint and connective tissue issues and my tendons constantly tear. Newest is my Achilles tendon. This is just doing day to day stuff.

Anyway, I’m 58 so that was a lot of years of counting calories. I wanted to find a way to get around it and it was before I discovered LCHF. I figured one day hungry, one not, no calorie counting, it’s easier. You heard how it went. As for what I ate on feed days, just normal, maybe slightly larger portions of three meals with a snack. I still stopped eating around 6:00. I can’t eat before bed it’s just too ingrained.

I’m not anorexic, I just pile on weight very easy and even have to watch my calories on keto to drop. The thing is, I would get tired of being vigilant and boom, I’ve put on 15 pounds in a month or two. As long as I stay keto I don’t gain if I splurge, and there’s hunger suppression. These days my eating window closes at 3:00 pm.

I’ve heard that if a child is obese before age 18 they’ll have a permanently damaged metabolism, the younger they start the worse it is. So that’s where part of my problem comes from. I realized wheat gave me trouble in my teens, eating it for breakfast left me chronically hungry, hollow feeling. And when I was in my 40s I was diagnosed with a low thyroid and treated or not, and mine is, it also slows your metabolism and now menopause is here, yay. So a confluence of circumstances make me the keto person who still counts calories because I’m still at least 10 pounds overweight from falling off the wagon most of last year.

#17

Thanks for your story… My SO and I have some fragments in a softer way (we are healthy, that’s great but eating little enough may be a challenge. he can do it but he needs to be hungry a bit even for maintenance while he can’t stop exercising for several days or he starts to gain, very noticeably and he can’t eat even less then, that’s horrible for him. so he hopes he can be active all his life, it’s a nice goal anyway. and 10lbs extra is nothing, he must live with that, it’s just way too hard to be really slim. a little belly, not too bad. well I have 40 and I couldn’t ever lose on keto but longer term mostly carnivore with tracking and being careful will do the trick. I never stay hungry or even unsatiated and I eat food I like, I am quite hedonistic, my SO is the vain one who suffer some hunger for his figure). But you have it very bad, it’s a sad story. You put in so much effort and endured and it still wasn’t enough for some tolerable fat-loss and enjoyable maintenance :frowning:
My SO simply skip a meal if he wishes to lose fat (and don’t stop exercising while doing it, of course). It works for him. He never tracked in his life and probably never will, sometimes I track his day out of curiosity. But he automatically eat the same amount of calories, no matter the macros, IDK how he does it… Everything remotely okay food for him satiates him the same, maybe that’s why. After many years of tracking and eating somewhat similarly on my good carni days, I still don’t have much idea without tracking…
I always was chubby but not exactly obese, I gained fat super slowly even though I ate very much carbs and even more fat for decades. I don’t know what that causes but I never ate little enough to slim down to normal weight so I guess I will see when I do it…? Breakfast didn’t do good to me either but it merely made me hungry and unfocused (only right before I ate my second meal, fortunately. but I didn’t need my second meal if I skipped the first one, at least when I was big enough that I could say no to breakfast, that happened). I had a friend who had it worse, Mom forced breakfast on them and they got unwell every morning. And of course, most people ate not great food as a kid… Most people eat not right as an adult too, at least we could change at some not too late point. I still feel the effect of my past but it feels little compared to your problems.

(Harriet) #18

Oh, you’re sweet! Honestly it is what it is. I miss exercising the most. I loved walking and weight training, I had a fantastic home gym (and I never had a chance to pair keto with weights). I turned 40 and literally woke up with my first rotator cuff tear. I’m surrounded by beautiful rail trails but forget that until my Achilles is repaired, hopefully by the spring.