Anybody got the scoop on intermittent fasting? Is it actually healthy?

about 9 months ago, i was curious about it and started at a 16:8 with my eating window between 11a and 7p. didn't notice anything, but basically just didn't do breakfast and never ate late. acid reflux stopped. about 6 months ago, i was watching some lecture from a cardiologist give a presentation on autophagy and metabolism and fasting as a healthcare maintenance strategy. it was biology heavy, but delivered in a fairly entertaining way. as a biology nerd who took some human nutrition, animal nutrition, and a whole lot of soil metabolic courses, it was right up my alley. metabolic pathways are complex and us multicellular warm bloods have a lot of adaptability to variable environments, compared to single cells who just sort of go dormant like a robot.

anyway, the lecture made me super curious about a 20:4 (eating window 11am - 3pm). i decided to try that for 1 day. i had this impression that fasting for 20 hours a day would make me all fucked up, cranky, jittery, or whatever. the big change really was confining myself to only tea and water outside of that window, which meant no more artificial sweeteners outside the window. so anyway, nothing weird happened. i was "bored" at dinner time, but decided to just focus on something else. since it went off so easily, i extended the plan to last 3 days. actually had improved energy after that.

i did a week, then 3 weeks. i couldn't see any downsides. it also made me more conscious of my meal time to make sure to eat something balanced, not just some dumb crap to not be hungry. i decided that 2 days a week, i would optionally drop to the 16:8 schedule so i could be sociable at dinner time. i noticed that those extra meal days i was actually sluggish unless the second meal was super small and light. like a few vegetable dumplings or basically an appetizer. even during once a day regular meal, i could no longer pack it away. my capacity for big eating went way down, so i got full very easy and had that "sated" feel.

anyway, im roughly around 6-7 months on it. i have no scale and don't weigh myself. all of my clothes are now kinda loose/big on me. i went in to the doc for my check-in. i've been on 3 different medications for blood pressure, one for cholesterol, and i take stuff with meals for controlling blood sugar / diabetes. that has been going on for literally several years, and generally my numbers have been OK but not great and my meds have only ever gone up. anyway, i dropped 15% of my body weight apparently in the last 6 months. and my lipid panels all came back optimal, my a1c came back as optimal/normal. my cholesterol is ideal. my BP is now too low like a little old lady, so we're reducing my meds slowly and checking back in 3 months. i also feel like i have a ton of energy for shit and i am literally never hungry outside my window. i do get excited at meal time for the novely of eating and have found enjoyment in foods i used to not be excited by. like very spicy/acidic thai dishes that are like 80% vegetables by volume, pickled things. since i'm only eating once a day, i can be very intentional about it and i can spend a little extra dough on it if i want.

i gotta say it's working out for me. there are absolutely people it probably won't work for and some of those people think their situation is universal. they believe those of us having success with it are crazy nutjobs who don't listen to our bodies, so they wipe their asses on our experiences. my primary care physician knows i am doing it and seems neutral about it in general, but very supportive of my results. wouldn't it be crazy if the solution for many of those people succumbing to Metabolic Syndome X was to not force ourselves to metabolize something every 4 hours? like maybe we're some subset of the population that are better adapted to eat less frequently and we shouldn't let others bully us into conforming to their constant snacky snacky yum yum lifestyle because it's literally killing us.

There's some woo arguments in favor of it, but it's not completely bs, IMO.

It's basically a way to trick yourself into eating less by restricting the hours of the day you eat. Once you're doing it for a while your body adapts to it and you're much less hungry during your fasting hours.

I lost 60 pounds doing it without much pain. I still fast 12 hours(which is mostly sleeping) to maintain the loss.

i do it sort of accidentally, sorta on purpose. combined with my physically intense job i've lost about 35 lbs (of fat) in a 10 mos. still eat lots of calories, protein heavy, to keep my muscle mass up

get up at 5:30 am for work, don't eat anything until about 12pm and it's just a single energy bar (so about 14 hrs?). then eat 2 meals, one when i get home meal and one later. sometimes i'll break it at 12pm with an actual small lunch and eat an earlier dinner

I’ve not found anything that indicates it’s not healthy when done within reason. That is you remain hydrated and have the fat reserve to burn. So fasting doesn’t exclude water. Tea and coffee would be permitted as well as long as no sugar or milk. I also understand the intermittent fasting typically maxes around 72hrs.

Anecdotally, I found it highly effective as part of my dieting routine. I only did the intermittent fasting as a period of “you’re not supposed to eat between these times.” Now if I felt I wanted to break the fast, I made myself spend the effort and make something healthy. I let myself eat if I was actually hungry, but it had to be a real good-for-me meal and something that required dedicated time to make if breaking the fast.

My fasting target was from 8:30pm to 12:00pm the next day. The pattern and habit seems to help control that “boredom hunger”.

I found tracking everything I ate and using a food scale helped me learn what a serving size really is.

I see a lot of keto/low carb hate, but it’s the only one that worked for me. I was able to lose weight and not be hungry all the time.

Here’s a good article comparing a couple different studies: https://skepchick.org/2023/06/study-can-you-fast-your-way-to-good-health-maybe/

TLDR is it’s not conclusive, but you can ask your doctor about trying it out and as long as you don't turn it into an eating disorder and starve yourself, it might be worth seeing how it works.

It's reasonable but afaik it's not really significantly better than other equivalent healthy lifestyle changes. I'm avoiding the term "diet" since that carries too much baggage, but you get what I'm driving at.

I think there's additional benefits if you're pre-diabetic as it takes the pressure off your body's capacity to manage your blood glucose levels.

It can be really good for some people, for others it doesn't work any better than other options, and it really doesn't work for some people. If you don't have any major health concerns then there's little harm in trying it but it's not like some massive cheat code where all the work of a healthy lifestyle is addressed by using this one simple trick.

I like it and think it's helpful when paired with a low calorie diet. I drink a lot of coffee in the morning which helps stave off any hunger. Usually I don't eat until 2 or 3 in the afternoon and will stick with a mediterranean style meal for lunch and dinner. After that nothing until the following afternoon. So far I have kept 35 pounds off.

Personal anecdote time I've done it to some success, thing is watching what you eat afterwards. Did it enough times and I noticed I had trouble eating the same amounts I used to eat which I think has helped me more than the fasting itself.

healthy and good for certain bodies, worth doing some research on your own to see if it feels worth trying.

I'm not in a position where I can research it at the moment, but I kinda doubt it.

Feels more like a way to make skipping meals trendy.

I'll look it up when I get home from work.