Fasting, and my irrefultable results.

The brown-rice fast works good for me. 1/2 cup of brown rice for breakfast lunch and dinner. Top with some suchi vinegar and maybe a pickled plum or something. Do that for ten days.

And then there is the fruit juice fast. A little more extreme but not as bad as a water fast.

Originally posted by starsyren
reply to post by JohnJasper

 

I've been trying to ease into this whole "fasting" idea gradually. Weening myself off of one vice at a time. Starting with the caffine, then sugars, fats and so forth til I can let go of my 5-6 cigarettes a day. Been replacing my coffees and teas with water and low-sugar fruit juices.

It seems to be the morning hours that are the worst...and by morning I mean everything up til noon. The afternoons and evenings arent so bad (this could be because I sit behind a desk and stare at papers and a computer screen for 8hrs/day)

Haven't heard of the Fast-5 thing you mentioned, I may read up on that too....

When you go to the Fast-5 website you can download a free e-book written by the medical doctor who developed the diet. I've tried complete water fasts, and this is MUCH more livable to me.

Originally posted by JohnJasper

Originally posted by rwfresh
Not sure who you are talking to.. but if you are saying that eating less calories is sometimes not a good idea for someone that is overweight i will say you are delusional. Go ask a doctor. Go ask anyone in the history of time who has lost weight. Forget exercise. This is so simple. I don't care what you eat. Yes it is a blanket solution.. but it is an actual solution. If you are overweight and it's hurting you, eating less (doesn't matter what you eat) will result in weight loss and improved condition. PERIOD.

Everyone should just stop with the BS. Emotional bull. Is it easy? NO. But the solution is OBVIOUS and proven time and time again. Do not let anyone convince you otherwise.

rwfresh, you should try shouting - you know, put the whole message in CAPS because basically your argument is nothing more than "I'm right and if you don't believe me then you're not particularly bright"! Hardly much of an argument.

What is logical is that it really does depend on what you're eating. If you're eating 3000 calories per day of fruit and then start eating only 2500 calories of high-fat, processed food, you will underfuel your system but load up on fat deposits. Whether you actually lose weight or not on those specific amounts will depend on multiple factors not least the speed of your metabolism and your daily energy expenditure. I have no sample cases to prove this but if it will help, I'll shout out IT'S OBVIOUS!

You should try crying louder. It's not obvious or logical and it's also totally misleading.

If you eat 2500 calories of high sugar fruit like dates or bananas but your BMR is 3000 kcal you will lose weight. guaranteed.

If you eat 2500 calories of McDonald's burgers and fries but your BMR is 3000 kcal you will lose weight. guaranteed.

If you eat

reply to post by JohnJasper


"doing what they please"

They are doing what they please because it works. Rather than blindly assume some bs from someone that isn't actually healthy and long-lived i suggest looking at those champions and seeing what is COMMON in all their diets and lifestyle. It's not some big secret. There is no magic diet. Eat what you want in moderation. Practice moderation in your life and health will follow.

reply to post by imagineering


I don't doubt that you lost weight. I do wonder how good it is for your heart though. I would think doing this often would be bad for your heart.

Originally posted by GrimReaper86
reply to post by imagineering

 

I don't doubt that you lost weight. I do wonder how good it is for your heart though. I would think doing this often would be bad for your heart.

To the contrary, fasting done correctly improves the circulation and supply of nutrients to all cells thereby improving the function of all organs and bodily systems. It only becomes a problem if fasting is continued after the body's reserves get exhausted. This isn't easy to do because the body recognises that point and sends unmistakable signals that say "FEED ME, NOW!" Only a fool ignores these signals and attempts to reach some predetermined fasting target.

reply to post by JohnJasper


hmm, ok. What are those unmistakable signals. Just out of curiosity. I'm not mocking you. I just genuinely want to know.

reply to post by GrimReaper86


It is known as true hunger, and it kicks in when you run out of fat to burn, aka right before starvation. It can be very painful, think of it like not eating for 1 day times 20. Huge hunger pangs. If you don't stop fasting at that time, your body will consume its own organs to preserve the brain, and you will die.

After 3-4 days of fasting your hunger goes away. It comes back with a vengeance when you run out of reserves, because technically the body isn't starving while fasting, it is getting nutrients and energy from its own fat reserves, which is what the body is built to do. There is a reason the body stores extra energy and calories as fat. This way if you one day find yourself in a situation where food is scarce, you can survive off your own fat for weeks.

Originally posted by rwfresh
You should try crying louder. It's not obvious or logical and it's also totally misleading.

If you eat 2500 calories of high sugar fruit like dates or bananas but your BMR is 3000 kcal you will lose weight. guaranteed.

If you eat 2500 calories of McDonald's burgers and fries but your BMR is 3000 kcal you will lose weight. guaranteed.

If you eat

Originally posted by JohnJasper


The following comments lifted from 30BaD website from a member who knows nothing about our ongoing discussion: (This Link reposted without permission)

O.K., so one of the reasons I switched to low fat/high carb eating was because I was getting the "middle age spread". I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I wasn't eating any animal products, kept my calorie count low ( I know, I know!) and the weight just wasn't coming off. Then I found 80 10 10, tweaked my diet, and 5 pounds fell off. Seriously. I have only been doing this a couple of weeks and I can't stop smiling! I went from "Did I eat too much today?" to "Did I eat enough today?" I think love handles are made up of avocados because I was eating a lot of them and once I stopped they just melted away. While eating twice the calories I was eating before. Why don't they teach this is school?

I'm still not 100% raw, working towards it, and this still works. I sleep better, I feel better, and I'm not constantly thinking about food. That is the greatest thing about this way of eating. You just relax about food. Knowing that you can eat as much as you want whenever you get hungry is so freeing. I can't believe I wasted so many years doing it wrong.

No doubt you'll disregard this anecdotal evidence because nothing that happens in real life counts. What's important is what happens in a petri dish or a lab rat.

edit on 20-6-2012 by JohnJasper because: Attempt to fix link

Friend.. you got me ALL wrong. I am not some nutritional science fundamentalist. I'm not. As i told you already i have personally tried numerous diets. And not just for weight loss. I have been upwards of 30+% body fat as well as ~9% bodyfat. I have been a vegetarian for 8 years, vegan for 4 and raw/juicer for 2 of the 4 vegan years. I have also fasted. Upwards of 150+ days in a single year. I have juice fasted, Master cleanser, distilled water, regular water and urine fasted. blah blah blah

I'm not trying to say i am some ultimate authority.. but rather, just want to give you an idea of my own journey so as not to be assumed to be some meat-headed Dr Oz follower.

I am not saying there is nothing to macro-nutrients. because their is. You are right. But it doesn't negate the provable fact that eating ANY mix of macro-nutrients below your BMR will result in weight-loss. Fat is the most calorie dense macro-nutrient and the easiest to underestimate. Do you know how many calories an avocado has? lots. Eating only avocado, most will gain weight on over 6 a day (1500+ calories). I would suggest this person was miscalculating their caloric intake. Unless they were using a scale and logging what they eat i will guarantee it.

Go to www.reddit.com... or /r/loseit and see story after story after story of people tracking their calories and dropping weight. Also look at what they eat. Some are vegetarian, many are omnivores, some eat clean and many eat like crap. There are tons of people on there who drop weight and get buff while eating fast food within their caloric limit. And most will post their food diaries with counted calories as well as macro-nutrient makeup.. and before and afters. Check it out.

Sorry if it is sounding like i am advocating eating like crap. I'm not. I am saying, if someone is overweight and the confusion as to why is stopping them from making progress, they need only follow one simple proven plan. Calculate BMR, track calories, eat less than required, lose weight and health will follow. It works.

www.reddit.com...
www.reddit.com...

Fasting is good for a short term detox. But how will it effect you long term.

It can't be good for your body to fast for 2 weeks without vital vitamins as a regular routine for such a long time, right?

Originally posted by CoherentlyConfused

I'm not trying to refute your method...but anyone can achieve those results with eating healthy and exercise. you don't necessarily need to fast to achieve any one or all of them.

No, there are states that you cannot replicate without fasting. That's my experience, anyway.

I have been eating more or less healthily all my life, I have been a vegetarian for more than 15 years now, I don't drink alcohol or sodas; until very recently I was also very active physically (mountaineering, among other things), but never did I experience the kind of surge of physical and mental and spiritual power that I usually feel on the fourth day of fasting and for about a week afterwards (at which point I usually break my fast). I don't even know how to describe it, because it's so unlike any other feeling I've had. It's much more "solid", somehow, more steadfast that the usual bursts of such sensations; and the spiritual power that comes from it - uninvited, with no special meditation involved - really does feel literally, like a sort of "enlightenment". The lucidity of thought and comprehension that comes with it is extraordinary.

Maybe not all people experience this. I didn't expect it, had never heard about it before I did my first fast, back in 1998. It took me by surprise, but it has happened every time since.
However, I do know a person who felt no such effects from fasting. (She describes herself as "dull", one who never gets to experience any of the effects other people do.) However, she did break through her preconceived idea that she could not last without food for more than a day or two, or that it would be hell, so she's very happy with that and tries it every year.

If anyone is interested, I should add that usually, that is, most years, I do have a coffee when I get up (and sometimes even during the day), but other than that I only drink water and eat nothing during my fasts. I've never felt any nauseas - except that feeling of "faintness" in the stomach that obviously comes from hunger - no headaches, nothing much really. I also practically don't lose weight at all. I don't really weigh myself - I don't have scales at home - but I notice differences in my weight by how my clothes fit. My weight loss during fasting is minimal.

The worst part is finding the motivation to push through to the fourth day when the hunger usually disappears as if by magic and doesn't return for the next seven or ten days. I don't normally eat much nor am I an "emotional" eater, but I do enjoy good food, so I have to motivate myself by thinking of the"prize": the fourth day and beyond.


I am not "recommending" this or anything.
Just wanted to corroborate the OP's experience.

Originally posted by _Phoenix_
Fasting is good for a short term detox. But how will it effect you long term.

It can't be good for your body to fast for 2 weeks without vital vitamins as a regular routine for such a long time, right?

edit on 20-6-2012 by _Phoenix_ because: (no reason given)

You're right that fasting is only a short term tool which can not be continued past the depletion of reserves. Up to that point, the body is in ketosis. When the reserves are gone, the body has to start sacrificing critical tissues from organs etc and is clinically starving - no longer fasting. Most people have sufficient reserves to fast 40 days and many have fasted for 60, 90 or more.

When we talk about reserves, we mean everything that the body needs to maintain itself in good health. It has been scientifically proven that the body does not suffer deficiencies whilst fasting (Fasting: The History, Pathophysiology and Complications. (or download full text pdf ))

Originally posted by rwfresh
Friend.. you got me ALL wrong... I'm not trying to say i am some ultimate authority... I would suggest this person was miscalculating their caloric intake. Unless they were using a scale and logging what they eat i will guarantee it...

rwfresh,

You're probably correct but what's more important is that you're starting to sound like a reasonable person. My personal experience is that when we think we know it all, that's when we stop listening and learning and become useless to our fellow humans and other companions in this journey through life. Thanks for being there!

John

reply to post by AdAstra


Thank you, and I could not have descibed the mental clarity experience better than you have. The abundance of knowledge here and all the do's and dont's I certainly appreciate from everyone here. Like I said at the beginning, fasting has worked for me, I have had no adverse health effects, very much the opposite actually.

Originally posted by JohnJasper

Originally posted by rwfresh
Friend.. you got me ALL wrong... I'm not trying to say i am some ultimate authority... I would suggest this person was miscalculating their caloric intake. Unless they were using a scale and logging what they eat i will guarantee it...

rwfresh,

You're probably correct but what's more important is that you're starting to sound like a reasonable person. My personal experience is that when we think we know it all, that's when we stop listening and learning and become useless to our fellow humans and other companions in this journey through life. Thanks for being there!

John

Hey thank you! Yeah you are right.. keep learning and believing in what you directly experience. Peace!

Originally posted by JohnJasper
Thanks for the offer. I referenced a few meat-eating cultures, namely the Masai males, Eskimos, and Greenlanders, in my response to gman1972.

Thanks for the response. And sorry for my late response. It's been a busy week.

My point was, mainly, that there exists, nor did there ever, no healthy, thriving group/culture that eats an entirely plant-based diet from the land. There are, however, groups/cultures who live almost entirely on animal products. Eskimos, or Inuit, were not unhealthy. They were, in fact, robust and healthy; almost disease free (heart disease, diabetes and obesity didn't exist and cancer was rare).

Stefansson is also a figure of considerable interest in dietary circles, especially those with an interest in very low-carbohydrate diets. Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet consisted of about 90% meat and fish; Inuit would often go 6 to 9 months a year eating nothing but meat and fish—essentially, a no-carbohydrate diet. He found that he and his fellow European-descent explorers were also perfectly healthy on such a diet. When medical authorities questioned him on this, he and a fellow explorer agreed to undertake a study under the auspices of the Journal of the American Medical Association to demonstrate that they could eat a 100% meat diet in a closely observed laboratory setting for the first several weeks, with paid observers for the rest of an entire year. The results were published in the Journal, and both men were perfectly healthy on such a diet, without vitamin supplementation or anything else in their diet except meat and entrails.

Most of the "meat" they ate was fat, mind you. This is important, and I'll explain later.

But you seem to have--purposefully or not--avoided the main points I made in my post. You didn't comment on the physiology of humans and their incapability to digest the most abundant plant foods. You also failed to address the lack of pure vegetarian/vegan cultures who live entirely on the land, locally (no supplements, no importing foods from across the globe).

While the links you provided (here and here) are thought provoking and intriguing, they're loosely bound hypotheses that are really quite the stretch. To take from one of the links:

The progress of science, and indeed, of human knowledge, requires a dynamic tension
between the mere accumulation of observations and “dusty facts” and a synthetic process in
which the accumulated results of scientific observation and inquiry are woven together into
frameworks that, in the ideal case, create revolutionary paradigms that enhance human
understanding of apparently discrete and unrelated aspects of nature.

In other words: They're piecing together loose observations and correlations to form a fringe hypothesis with hopes to shake the foundations of upon which evolutionary/paleoanthropology is built.

We could discuss how cutting out the middle animal and feeding the animal feed directly to humans (if they will eat it) would feed 30% more people than the combined meat and dairy produced by the industry or turn that around to the number of people suffering and dying because of our desire for meat. We could discuss how the inherent cruelty of the industry belittles us as humans. But that's probably too off topic!

Ok. We could. But that's not the topic at hand. And it has nothing to do with nutrition/fasting.

In the Garden, we would naturally have received fat in the form of easily assimilable fatty acids from nuts especially coconuts, seeds, avocados and any similar type fruits whether still available today or not. What's more, any excess fruit sugars would be stored as fat for later use.

That sounds great except there's no evidence to support this idea. Our early human ancestors didn't garden. They were mobile, and they had to be to survive. The time and effort it takes to tend a garden to produce food for a group is much more compared to the time it takes to hunt and kill a large animal (and the animal will provide more caloric density as well as clothing).

Secondly, excess fruit sugars--mainly the fructose--is quite damaging. Of course, fructose really isn't inherently dangerous unless you over consume it or you're already metabolically unhealthy.

Most of our evolutionary history was spent hunting and gathering... that is, until some idiot decided agriculture would suit us better (that's another topic). And if you'd like me to cite my sources later, I will. I'm just at lunch right now and am crunched for time.

Continued below....

Continued from above....

Contrast all of that with modern diets where we consume vast quantities of oils and fats that have been processed, heated or just rancid due to oxidation. None of these are easily assimilatable if at all by the body, are difficult to eliminate, interfere with the supply of glucose to the cells and wind up stored in the body in various places to isolate them leading to atherosclerosis.

Actually, according to NHANES data, fat consumption in the United States has decreased--slightly-- ever since fat became demonized in the 70's. In fact, wheat and grain consumption increased; sweetener consumption increased; saturated fat decreased; and animal/milk fat consumption was essentially replaced with vegetable oils. The biggest difference was the increase in carbohydrate consumption (sugar and grains) and the replacement of animal fat with vegetable fat (keep in mind that fat consumption only very slightly decreased).

Take a look at the Pima before they had the highest prevalence of diabetes in America. They ate a lot. A lot fat and meat and animal products. And they were healthy and robust. When they went broke and their food supply was removed by 49ers, they had to rely on government rations for survival. The nutritional transition was almost identical to the one observed in Americans between 1970 and today. The result for the Pima is almost every woman is type 2 diabetic and they have a near 100% prevalence of obesity.

It's highly unlikely that animal products are caused an increase in prevalence of diabetes, obesity and atherosclerosis considering the above data and that these maladies were NOT prevalent in the early 20th century (especially diabetes and heart disease).

After that, they go unscientific by formulating opinions based on the facts but for every white coat that says one thing, you can usually find 100 who will scoff at them.

There are a few reasons for this. 1) Most of nutrition science is based on observations. Scientists make observations and then hypothesize without testing their hypotheses, or at least not testing them correctly. 2) The quality of the science is not good. It's hard to conduct large scale trials on humans for nutrition. 3) Public health authorities have interrupted the scientific process. 4) Poor journalism.

Fruits compare very closely to mother's milk in that many are nutritionally complete and provide that nutrition in the correct proportions required. If eating sufficient quantities of a varied assortment of fruits, an average person need not worry about supplementing their diet in any way. Nuts, seeds (part of the fruit family) and avocados are exceptions in that they're not so well balanced but they provide additional protein, fats and minerals to ensure that even the most energetic person's needs are met. Green leafy veg is recommended as insurance that vitamin and mineral needs are met but that seems to be due to the stresses of modern civilization and the difficulty of finding fresh off the tree fruit in quantity.

So, in the wild, do you think all of these things will be readily available (and in mass quantity) year round? It's unlikely, and that's why there are no tribes/people/cultures that thrive on this diet. Not to mention the mound of evidence that we, being humans, evolved--and perhaps developed bigger brains because of--eating an animal based diet; hunter-gatherers who ate hunted large game and ate plant foods in between kills to sustain.

You may choose to side with the omnivore or herbivore people but remember that the proofs in the pudding. For dessert, try reading/watching The China Study

Now, do you mean the China Project, the actual study, or The China Study, a silly book by a silly old man?

The actual study was a great observational study. But it was just that... OBSERVATIONS. And correlation does not equal causation. And to add to that, T. Collin Campbell absolutely misrepresents the data (which in its raw form is a rather tedious chore (again, if you'd like sources.. just ask).

Sorry DevolutionEvolvd, I'm not sure how your chicken comment applies to what I said previously.

You said high protein diets can be problematic. I'm saying that's true if you're rabbit or chicken (very lean meat) for every meal and only that. See Rabbit Starvation

Oils and fats constitute about 40% of the American caloric intake.

Oh jeez. See, it's hard to take on seriously when you bend the facts while contradicting yourself. According to the CDC and NHANES, fat actually constitutes 33%. If americans were consuming 40% fat--their not--and 50% carbohydrate--which they are--that would mean 10% protein. So then what happens to your high protein diet of Americans???

Originally posted by rwfresh
reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd

 

Looks like you got some stars for saying eating less does not make you lose weight. Wow.

Actually, no. I didn't say that. In most cases, eating less leads to weight loss. Violating thermodynamics is a hard thing to do, I hear. However, saying obesity is caused by over eating is like saying alcoholism is caused by drinking too much. It's just restating the obvious but it doesn't answer the WHY. The real cause.

My point about the mother is an extreme case, no doubt. But it's one that can't be ignored.

Experts will readily admit that, contrary to what should happen, caloric restriction does not cure obesity very well. Regardless of how obvious it may seem to you, it's just not true. Go dig through mounds of studies and see if you have the same opinion...

Are you actually waiting for someone to tell you calorie reduction reverses obesity?

No. That's what everyone already says. And, guess what, it's not working.

That obesity rates are inversely proportional to life expectancy rates?

Can't disagree with that!

Calorie reduced diets.. ie: an intentional reduction in caloric intake for the purpose of reducing body fat definitely increase likelihood of living longer. Just like not flying reduces your chances of dieing in a plane crash.

We don't know that for sure. There have been no studies on humans regarding the efficacy of caloric restrictions on humans, much less primates (though there is one with primates underway). And, even if it does work, we know through countless studies that humans don't fare too well or even last very long on a calorically restricted diet (that includes fasting, we usually make up for the lack of calories consumed during the fast).

Not everything is rocket science. Come on. The fatter you are the more likely you are to die younger.

I'm not arguing this.

Obesity is most commonly caused by a combination of excessive food energy intake

No. Obesity is almost always associated with excessive food energy intake. When a teenager hits puberty, do they grow because they're eating too much and sleeping too much? Or do they eat too much and sleep too much because they're growing? Don't confuse causation!

calories have something to do with it.

Agreed. Something.

Here's something to think about. Gasoline is more calorically dense than starch. It's true. 11 to 4 respectively. Their both organic. They're both composed of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon. But what idiot would ever suggest that gasoline is more fattening than starch (or what idiot would try THAT experiment)?

Regarding calories alone, one would assume that gasoline is more fattening. It would release more energy than starch were the body able to break the chemical bonds of which it is made. That calorie count, however, doesn't tell us what these chemicals will do to the enzymes, hormones and cells in our bodies, much less whether they'll even be usable as energy or if they'll kill us.

You're not what you eat; you're what your body does with what you eat.

Originally posted by rwfresh
If you eat 2500 calories of high sugar fruit like dates or bananas but your BMR is 3000 kcal you will lose weight. guaranteed.

If you eat 2500 calories of McDonald's burgers and fries but your BMR is 3000 kcal you will lose weight. guaranteed.

Can you tell me what happens differently to the metabolic hormones?

Can you tell me what happens when you do these two diets for a week... say when the BMR begins to increase to compensate for an increase in calories.

If you eat