I’ve seen way too many posts declaring that people have a low calorie cap (300-500) on “fasted” days. I’m not one for gatekeeping here, but this is not even a dirty fast. This is just eating at a low calorie amount, and for many of us, those that feel run down on this should consider either fasting or just CICO.
A dirty fast is one where yes one technically breaks but this must be minimal. This means maybe some bulletproof coffee or honey in your tea, but nothing like 300-500 calories worth.
Read about the Minnesota experiment. The reason that failed is that people kept their caloric intake high enough to prevent the switch to fat burn. If ultra low calorie OMAD is working for you great! But it really didn’t work for the people on the experiment and it can be dangerous. For some of us, fasting properly, even dirty fasting, has substantially better results in terms of how one feels on the fast etc.
Its getting to the point where I’m not sure whether to trust a post, even if they claim they are “fasting” as now it means so many different things that it basically means nothing. Everything from only water, black coffee, unaltered tea all the way to basically have a normal BMI TDEE daily or mountains of “zero calorie” products which might have an insulin response. Yes, I accept things like OMAD etc as “fasting” but that has a different feel. People there are intentionally eating during their eating window and only count the honest hours of fasting as such.
Can we at least get a flare to tell the difference or perhaps we’re at a point where there really is a need for different subs. The culture around ultra low CICO and honest fasting is different enough that the communities should perhaps reflect this.
I often do a broth fast, where I have a cup of chicken broth at night to help me sleep. About 15 calories, and it makes the difference between being able to go 7 or 8 days easily vs being desperate around the 3 day mark I hit on water-only fasts.
Just for the history, the original 5:2 intermittent fasting started by Mark Mattson some 25 years ago, is exactly that: 2 days with calories under 500.
Maybe not the best name in introspect, but it is what is now.
i’m pretty against puritanical takes on anything. if someone is only eating 500 calories a day i’d perceive them as being in a fasted state most of the time. whatever metabolic function is happening doesn’t matter imo. eating 500 calories a day is beyond low calorie… a tiny person burns that within hours of waking up just by existing. it doesn’t really seem meaningful to me to have opinions about whether eating a banana or a handful of nuts makes a difference in the definition of fasting. a 500 cal diet is a diet spent almost entirely in a fasted state.
all that being said, i do think it might be helpful to have a kind of flair for ultra low calorie diets. i think that kind of diet should still be considered fasting but i do see your point in how it would be helpful to differentiate between super low cal and absolutely no cal diets.
I’m not sure how much of a problem under 500 cals is. Dr Jason Fung said that some of the research he looked at, the fasters were actually allowed 500 calories. None is best but I don’t think we should gatekeep that amount. I also expect that is is a small minority that do that and it’s moving in the right direction.