This is from Dr Yoni Freedhoff, and the study is on something called 5/2 intermittent fasting? 5 normal days, 2 days on extremely low calories?
Never heard of this kind of fasting before - is it even fasting? I mean, I have no idea how it’s supposed to work, or why they studied this and not the kind of IF that everyone seems to do here, which seems to be the kind with no calories at all.
The 5:2 diet has been around for a while, I tried it but found the 2 days of no more than 400 calories really hard, now I’ve been doing keto awhile I just naturally IF & EF, no problems. One of the issues is that doing that means you don’t get fat adapted so feel like you’re starving those 2 days, unlike keto where it’s not really an issue. And it’s mainly just a way to lower average weekly calorie intake.
I thought so. It looks like another semi-starvation diet which just doesn’t work.
I spotted it on Twitter and you can imagine the kind of responses it got about how IF is nonsense and just another fad…
Yep. Think it attracts people as they say you can eat “normally” on the 5 days, for me that was low fat low calorie mainly veggie etc which just doesn’t work.
Michael Moseley devised the 5:2 diet, there is science behind it & it does work for lots of people, quite well known in the UK. This is the official site: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/ I’m not sure if there’s research on there, if you’re interested. Doing 2 days didn’t work for me, but I did it alternate days, & it worked well, I lost 2 stone in 4 months, before I found keto… It’s not a semi-starvation diet because you only do the 500 cals twice a week, & not a fad as it’s been around a long time!
You should also note that they were given advice from dieticians, meaning high carb. No wonder they were so freaking hungry only eating 500 cals on two days for the intermittent fasting.
I have yet to try eating that few calories on the days I do a 22-24 hour fast. I usually eat ad libitum. However, I do longer fasts too (36+ hours, now trying a 5.5 day fast).
I think you might be confusing IF with EF. You most certainly consume calories on IF. You are just restricting the amount of time during a day you consume food. On EF you go more than 24 hours with no food.
I tend to agree with Dr. Fung in this case. If you’re gonna eat, eat. If you’re not gonna eat, don’t eat. the 500 calories a day thing would be harder for me than eating nothing at all. I would also think that would be like calorie restriction as opposed to fasting, which according to Dr. Fung, is one thing that will slow the metabolism. Wrong direction.
I honestly have no opinion as to whether there would be any difference at all whether a person ate normally for 5 days and nothing for 2 vs eating normally for 3 days, nothing for 1, eating normally for 2 days, nothing for 1, if weight loss was the goal. I would imagine that if one is shooting for autophagy, the week with 2 days off consecutively would seem better.
One thing this study isn’t considering is the composition of the food consumed on the “regular eating days”. 5 days of all you can eat donuts + 2 days of 2 donuts a day does not a viable WOE or weight loss plan make. (I know that’s an exaggeration, but I don’t think you can really mitigate the damage of a basically high carb diet by two days of calorie restriction.)
Once I hit my target weight, my current plan is a modified 5-2; keto to satiety 5 days, water fasting 2 days, or possibly keto 12 fast 2 if my weight is stable. I still believe fasting has benefits outside of weight loss, as well as helping to boost metabolism and keep weight manageable.
From my own experience, I have to fast for 3 days a week to get results. Otherwise, nothing happens and I’m just wasting my time.
At the moment, trying to lose weight, I agree, 3 days is way more effective than 2, and 5 days is a miracle. I’m just looking ahead to a time when (I dream) weight loss won’t be a goal any more.