I do agree in the IFing as a permanent way of eating for him, possibly a 12-8pm window for him, or maybe a 10-6 since they push the morning snacks at the kids still. He is 7, almost 8. Since his dad moved back to New York after our split, he has kinda packed on the weight, and on such a small frame, this is horribly unhealthy. I know it’s mostly my fault because I unknowingly thought that snacking was somehow healthier than 3 square meals, and let him eat whenever he wanted something. Drs would tell me, dont worry about it, he’ll grow into it, but he isn’t really doing so. And now he’s so self conscious about it, always asking if the clothes he’s wearing makes him look fat, or shying away from swimming around kids he doesn’t know. I lived with the same my entire life, and i want to do something to help him. We’ve tried low carb, and while he loves meat and avocado and cauliflower, he likes his junk food as well. His complaint is, why can’t i just be like all the other kids and eat normal stuff? It breaks my heart, and i want to help him fix this without making him the weird kid who cant have cupcakes on somebody’s birthday party. I’ve considered adf with him, with the exception of him drinking as much broth as he needs, and at least one salad per fasting day. Then he can eat his regular food on the other days without feeling like he’s missing out as much. Then when we’ve shed a few pounds, switching him to the eating window to hopefully maintain? I dunno, he sees me lose weight and I think it makes him feel worse about himself. I just want to help him, and make it something he can feasibly, and healthily, do.
August 2019 - IF/EF Chat Thread (All Welcome)
I guess my question in all this is: if over eating caused the weight gain to begin with, won’t under eating, even in a child, possibly be the solution to drop the weight? And with a very modified adf technique, his metabolism shouldn’t face any detriment…
I guess it’s a pretty tough subject. I remember a few years back when that lady put out a book about how she worked with her daughter for a year to help her lose weight, and ended up getting so much backlash from it…
My own mother would ridicule me endlessly for being a porker, or a pillsbury dough girl in an effort to make me over aware of my weight and hopefully try eating less or something. Ruined my self esteem, and I promised I would never be that bully to my own kid, however, the idea of another kid saying something to my kid makes my blood boil. Trying to cut out the carbage isn’t something that a 7 year old has enough willpower to do long term, and switching completely away from carbs isn’t something he is capable of right now. I dont know how healthy it is to switch back and forth from low carb to carbs, and I know at least for me, it’s easy to gain even more weight in the long run.
With alternate day, you dont necessarily have to be low carb, it’s just easier if you are…
I was under-eating for 2 months and I was doing strict Keto, no cheats and I didn’t lose any weight,and I was doing a bunch of fasting, daily 20:4 and 48 hour ones 1-2 a week and 72 hour ones once a week., I was not eating much for 2 months and I didn’t lose anything. When I increased to 1500 or so a day, eating more proteins and fats, I lost 2 pounds after a week of doing that after no weight loss for over 2 months, then 1 more pound last week, I am going slow and steady but it is going down once again.
I think that keeping the carbs to 20 grams or less a day and having no sugar, and no artificial sweeteners as well, is really important. Some people also find they have to eliminate all dairy to lose weight.
All this eating since February starting Keto has always been 20 grams or less of carbs a day as well.
About 27 hours in and no issues fasting so far.
Going until tomorrow evening and will break before my knitting night at a local yarn shop.
Taking my butter and HWC to work to doctor up my coffee after I break.
I would say just try to change what he’s eating. We have two daughters, the older one could be a bit heavy and is hungry a lot, whereas the younger one is not and can go a while without eating. (And the older was C-section, while the younger was VBAC…anyone familiar with the idea that vaginal birth is better because of the biome that’s transferred to the child?) Note also that the older, slightly heavier one is the one doing all the exercise. She’s in dance 3 days a week, and dance is brutal. There goes the idea that exercise causes weight loss.
We have gotten rid of all the crap we’ve had and have made an effort to make keto-like snacks. While we try to avoid snacks, the whole outside system is set up to force snacking, and often our kids are swimming, etc. Even I get hungry doing that, and will on occasion eat something outside my normal lunch/dinner routine.
I recommend trying to cut down on snacking, at least at home, and just teaching what should be eaten. For us, the hardest part is getting kids to actually eat things. We’ve made dinners that have been great, and the kids will fight and fight not to eat it, because it has red sauce on it or it’s new and they’ve never seen it or whatever. It’s like pulling teeth to get them to eat sometimes.
I personally don’t think kids need to actually be keto, and instead can have higher carbs. They haven’t had 30+ years to damage their metabolism. On the other hand, both my wife and I have genetics where carbs are not good for us, and they likely have the same, so we need to direct them in the correct direction.
@ ZuleikaD, I just wish there was a test I could take that would tell me what I’m missing to reverse cramps. Is it potassium? Magnesium? Salt? A combination of these? Something else? Can I take too much of these? And if you look at RCTs (done on high carb people, unfortunately) where they give them magnesium, they are generally bad. That is, there’s no benefit.
Today is day 4. My blood pressure is low again, 99/63. Will try to make it one more day. I slept fairly well last night, and was even not cold, though I did sleep under the covers. Another thing I do when fasting is stop my cold showers. I try to take cold showers, but I’m cold enough while fasting.
Hello Fasters! Checking in at about 39 hours on my way to another 42. I’m eating 2 meals every other day, trying to eat them earlier in the day. So today I will eat at 10 and 4. I put on a smidge of weight over the summer and today my weigh in matched my June 1 weigh in, so summer is off the thighs already!!
It’s really interesting that you have compiled a bunch of n=1 data and you are dispelling every leg cramp myth out there. Although you say that you see a relationship between leg cramps and work outs, which I’ve seen too. In fact, the worst leg cramp of my life was my right inner quad which fired off about 2 AM after a heavy weights work out. That muscle was so injured from the cramp that it took a few months before it felt normal again and I didn’t sleep for weeks for fear that it would fire off again (which it did a few times but never as bad as the first one).
That’s awesome! Good for you! The folk’s over at Jason Fung’s IDM clinic have shifted towards ADF for weight loss (and longer fasts for their diabetic patients) because they are finding that ADF is the most efficient for losing weight. I’m a couple of weeks in to ADF and I’m finding it really easy to stick to and I am seeing the scale move too. 
I think this may have an effect. If you read “Waterlogged” by Tim Noakes, he goes through studies of lower leg cramps for athletes, and he’s convinced that these are not caused by mineral deficiencies. But this book has not been updated for the low carb/keto crowd, where it’s generally assumed that we need to take in higher salt/potassium/magnesium. Certainly when I transitioned into low carb 5+ years ago, I took tons of magnesium and was using no salt for potassium. Over time, I got that down to using only magnesium spray, and the stopped that too. After that, I got some cramps at night.
But at the same time, I bought totally flat, thin shoes and also started jogging on the weekends. I made the mistake of changing two variables at once.
This fast, I’ve been taking in “fasting drops” and more pickle juice to see what happens. The problem is, though, that I also have not been jogging outside and went on vacation, with no exercise, so again I changed two variables. But that’s just what happened.
I’m doing a longer fast for its possible anti-cancer benefits and they do seem to help. The issue is that Fung makes it seem like these are easy, and I personally have never found one to be easy. And eating afterwards always causes me issues, in that I have not gone to the bathroom all week. I eat, and immediately begin getting rid of a ton of water. So, while I think they have benefits, they are also hard.
On the other hand, I don’t think ADF of >24 hours are easy, either. Every time I read a success story on Fung’s blog, where they are fasting 36, 42 hours 3x/week, I get fired up. I set a goal to do 2 or 3 of these per week…and I’m lucky to make one 36 hour and one 22 hour per week. Lucky. That may be that I’m getting close to the weight I can get to, I’m not sure. This is why sometimes I do longer fasts, as mentally these can be tougher, but I also know that it’s only one week per 3+ months, and not every other freaking day. 
38 hours in and no hunger this morning. Probably get some light growls around noon time. Not sure if I will break at dinner this evening as planned or go until tomorrow - I’ll decide later today.
Ah, I think I figured out why I felt/feel weird. My throat started getting sore so I am now thinking this is more that just allergies.
I did have a small meal last night at 24h fasted, gki=1.4.
Not sure what I will do today, it feels dependent on my health. Wishing everyone well with their plans as this week closes out.
This is very interesting to me that you mention this -I have 5 kids, eldest is now almost 28 and my only section and my only one that ever had weight issues (he is slim now as he just lost over 60 pounds in the last year) but my other 4 who were VBAC never had issues.
I also breastfed all 5 for over 2 years each, and I have always attributed then being slim to that too, and just blamed myself for him having issues because I gained 100 pounds during the pregnancy with him and ate non-stop.
I never thought of it having anything to do with him being a sectioned baby, but maybe that was what happened and why he has struggled with it all his life.
It could be. There is some evidence there is a difference in biome. See this for instance:
How much does it affect the child and their ability to control weight? I don’t know, as the biome has to be the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen. For instance, I used resistant starch, other prebiotics, and probiotics for a while. No benefit I could see, only detriments. I’ve also used Wheat Belly’s l-reuteri (a probiotic) yogurt for a while, with no benefits I could see. In fact, I often ate 12 ounces of it, and it’s supposed to make you have less hunger.
But for both of us, the child with a C-section has the harder time with weight control.
Anyway, one benefit to OMAD or alternate day fasting until dinner is that I can still eat dinner with the family. This week, I sat there while they ate dinner. I’m concerned that they’ll consider this a valid thing to do, when I don’t think they need to do it. It’s a double-edged sword: we want to encourage what we think is healthy eating, but I don’t want food issues to arise. My wife I think still has food issues, as she was put on a “diet” as a teen. That was very difficult for her, especially since her sister is ultra thin and eats all kinds of crap.
Maybe you should make a new thread for this topic, off the IF/EF chat and re-post that article and we can have more forum discussion on it. It is an interesting topic for sure, but also so we don’t hijack this thread on it =).
I would make a thread on it but it is your topic and your article so I don’t want to be the one doing it is all =).
Okay =) it is very interesting and I am sure that many people will want to discuss it and it will be a good forum topic. Many people will miss it on this thread and plus well this thread is for the fasting is all =).
42 hours and made it past lunch with no hunger - which is weird for me. If I’m not hungry or uncomfortable this evening I’ll go until tomorrow at lunch, so will be about 66 hours. I’m not waiting until dinner with my husband to break my fast! I usually don’t have break-fast issues but it has happend so am leary.
Well, I broke. About 3.8 days or so (about 8pm Sunday until 2:30 pm Thursday). I have a mentally demanding job (all I do is think all day long), and I was not able to concentrate and was trying to do something, and I couldn’t remember what it was. That’s not good.
I did not have any food at work other than canned fish. So, I had canned salmon, anchovies, sardines, with a bit of cheese and some olives (latter two in fridge at work), EVOO, AC + red wine vinegar. I’m taking enzymes to see if that helps with the going to the bathroom issue. Oddly, I’m physically shaking after eating. That’s weird. It’s like when you shake when you have a cold.
Congrats -that is still excellent and you will have nice Autophagy benefits. That is actually amazing you did that long with that type of job, well done.
Ok, not hungry so going until tomorrow at lunch. I am staying at an AirBnB without any food of my own so once I get there after knitting at the yarn shop I definitely won’t get back out for food! pfffttttt…
BG: 63
BK: 5.7
GKI: 0.61
Boz: 11
Ugh. When I got to the AirBnB my housemate was cooking bacon. Like I said - not getting back out again but I was like 
I’m not giving up 8 free hours of autophagy I can get while I sleep because of it. Going to bed soon so it’s all good.