I’m doing IF with my eating times between 11 AM and 6 PM. While I understand a week isn’t a long time to do IF and I should not expect drastic results that quickly, I have gained weight?
I’m limiting my caloric to about 1500/ day. I do have a sedentary lifestyle. When fasting I’ll have plenty of water (3 quarts) and maybe 2 or 3 cups of black coffee in the morning.
Thanks for any advice!
First, I’ve TAUGHT thermodynamics at a major university, and the CICO isn’t it. The problem is we may KNOW calories consumed (although NOT calories absorbed), but we DON’T really know the calories “out” – you can estimate it based on data for a population using things like TDEE, but it’ll never be accurate. We are NOT simple machines that use a set number of calories based on height, age, weight, and gender. Let’s say you eat 1,500 calories and you look at an online calculator and get 3750 cal/day. CICO says that’s 2,750 cal/day deficit and you’ll lose 3/4lb a day, about 5.5 lbs/wk. However, that’s not what happens.
If your insulin levels never drop low enough for you to access your fat stores – for example, you snack constantly or have some metabolic issues like most people trying to lose weight – your insulin levels remain high and you can’t use fat stores for energy, so to balance the budget, your body will cut spending – your body temp will drop, your heart rate will slow, you’ll feel fatigued and cold, your body will slow healing and postpone any non-essential cellular activity. IOW your metabolism will “slow down.” The biggest problem with CICO is that it assumes CO is constant – it’s not. Even the simplest benthic worms have highly adaptable metabolisms based on the quality of mud they consume, and we’re not worms. ;)
So, what can you do?
First, understand how our metabolism works. It’s complex (they’re still discovering new pathways), but here’s two easy points to know:
(1) Our body uses calories in the following order: alcohol (because toxic), food we just ate, energy we store as glycogen in our liver (from carbs), and finally, energy we stored as fat.
(2) We switch to fat burning when the glycogen stores in our liver drop enough (you’ll never use up ALL of that glycogen, but you need to put a dent in that store before you can access calories stored as fat). Our muscles have their own glycogen stores, but they don’t share.
Fasting (IF or water) works by giving your body a change to access the fat stores to supply a significant part of our caloric needs. Why is that important? Because when insulin is high (like after a meal) and we can’t access fat, the amount of calories available is limited. When we give our insulin a chance to drop and our liver opens up the storage, our bodies don’t need to slow down our metabolism because, let’s face it, many of us have the caloric equivalent of Fort Knox locked up in our fat. lol With access open, our metabolism doesn’t slow down because it doesn’t perceive a shortage (in studies, it actually goes up a bit).
What else can we do? Limiting carbs is a very helpful adjunct to IF. Every time we eat carbs, we’re restocking the glycogen we need to use before we can access our fat stores. Also, carbs make us HUNGRY because they make our glucose and hence insulin levels rollercoaster up and down. Protein is mediated by MTOR instead of insulin, so has only a small impact on insulin levels. Fats have almost none at all. You can do IF without limiting carbs. You can do IF with a Mediterranean diet (usually complex carbs). You can do keto (<20g carbs/day to start), very low carb (<50g/day), or low carb (<100g/day), or as a percentage…or really, whatever works for you. I recommend trying low carb (<100g/day) just because it’s not too hard but will really help with IF and hunger. I also recommend keeping under 45g/meal (ideally 30g) because it will reduce the insulin spikes (that’s a goal used a lot in diabetic management). Generally, that means you can eat most foods, just less of the carbs – like 1/4-1/3c pasta or rice instead of a big bowl, and focus on the protein, fat, and veggies (non-root).
I like combing very low carb with 16:8 and calorie tracking because if I “mess up” on one, I can still lose weight, so I don’t feel like I have to do any of them perfectly. To me, it feels more like something I can maintain for life. Find what you can take on as a lifestyle and not a temporary diet. It’ll help you maintain weight loss.
Exercise is a two-edged sword. It burns calories, but it makes you hungry, can cause inflammation, and temporarily raises your blood sugar and stops ketosis (fat burning) to make sure you have enough fuel. The best exercises while in weight loss are either gentle (like walking), weight lifting (muscle building), or HIIT. They help burn through your glycogen but don’t have the negative effects WRT weight loss of intense aerobics. Long aerobic activities are good for the heart, but bad for weight loss. So, move every day, go for a walk, and lift some weights – but don’t go crazy. If you’ve been sedentary, that’s actually good news, right? Change your diet to lose weight, exercise for your health.
Have realistic goals. Most people can lose 1-2 lbs per week. Initially you might lose weight faster or slower, and that’s fine, but 4-10 lbs/month is achievable for most people with a significant amount of weight to lose. Keep in mind, even if you keep your metabolism running strong, as you lose weight, the amount of calories you need will still drop since there is less of “you” to support.
A final word on fat loss versus weight loss. When we say we want to lose weight, we really mean we want to lose FAT. As our weight drops, some muscle will drop as well, which is fine because we don’t need as much to haul our smaller butts around, right? But, we don’t want to get weak or lose a LOT of muscle – that’s why being active and consuming enough protein is important. Both have been shown to help maintain muscle lass during weight loss.
The other part of weight loss is water. We are mostly water. That glycogen I mentioned? It really likes water. Each gram of glycogen holds on to 3 grams of water. We have enough glycogen in our body to provides enough energy for 12-24 hours. That’s how we keep our blood sugar from tanking overnight while we sleep, and why limiting our carbs means we’;; spend more like during fat. So, when you consume fewer carbohydrates and have less glycogen, you may drop several pounds of water. Sometimes we call that a “whoosh”. It can be really thrilling to drop 6lbs in that first week or low carb, but it’ll come right back if you resume higher carb loads. Some people don’t really whoosh. It really depends on how your body manages the extra water. Inflammation will mean more water weight, some people hold it as they burn fat (weight doesn’t drop), then drop the water suddenly. The rare unicorn drops weight steadily day to day. My advice is to take some pictures, take some measurements (chest, trunk, waist, hip, thigh, calf, bicep, neck), and track those weekly along with weight (I like to weigh daily, but don’t get hung up on the blips) – so you don’t get discouraged with the foibles of water weight.
Best wishes on your journey! You’ve got this.
The sedentary lifestyle is why. Never forget the rule of thermodynamics. Calories in - calories out = weight loss/gain. Also, what are your 1500 calories like? Are they high in carbs? If so, that could be why.
try skipping dinner or even just eating one meal a day instead. my mom’s ancient chinese belief is that the digestive system is resting at night and wont break down food as well so more of it will turn into fat (or something), idk but i was losing about a pound per day without dinner for the past few months and ive lost 10 pounds since i started water fasting on wednesday after lunch.