Time-restricted eating

Parent Cafe
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My hubby has been OMAD (one meal a day, 21-hr IF ?) for about 15 years now. He lost more than 50lb in the initial five years and has been keeping them off. He is very fit.

I could not do OMAD since I have weaker will power, being a SAHM is not helping there. I just started doing IF (eating between 12-5, but I add one spoonful of coconut oil in my morning tea) and “low or no-grain” diet (couldn’t do Keto as I love fruits too much). Neither DH nor I have high cholesterols or diabetes, we just need to work a bit harder in maintaining healthy weight.

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At first, you feel like you must be doing something wrong. To be honest, it’s more like an extended meal, and often I will eat (a hearty salad, for example), let it digest for a half hour or so, eat some protein, wait a bit, and then have a heap of berries. Total elapsed time might be 2-3 hours.

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@IxnayBob Are you eating less calories than you did in the old days? I assume one other improvement is a change in what you eat (cleaner) with your switch to IF as well? Has weight loss as a result of your change in eating patterns and habits been a contributing factor to your improved health or is it more attributable to the IF and potentially different diet? If all this is too nosy feel free to ignore but I appreciate all you’ve shared.

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@doschicos, I probably eat around the same number of calories. I was morbidly obese IMO, and am now just overweight :smile: I entered into IF and low carb as a way of life to reduce my glucose levels, reduce my medications (especially injecting insulin), alter my lipid profile, reduce my insulin resistance, improve my kidney function, etc.

It’s a bit difficult to compare calories, because I’m eating such different foods: no more bagels, only very little low carb bread, no pizza, no more daily oatmeal, lots of good butter, lots of eggs (I did that before), good cheese, mounds of salads, fewer apples but lots of berries, etc. If you look at what I eat, visually it probably looks like a days worth of food, but I’m not a calorie counter.

I was relatively “fit” in terms of body composition, having a genetic predisposition to being muscular (in my youth, anyway, not so much as I approach 70j. So, losing weight was a benefiside effect of my improved other numbers, and I lost 50 pounds almost effortlessly. I would like to lose 25# more, but I seem to have stalled; everything else considered, neither my doctor nor I are upset about it.

I’m glad I lost some weight, but I’m more proud that I improved my kidney function (a surprise, I thought that was irreversible), my cardiologist taking me off blood thinners and statins, my lipid profile becoming awesome (everyone should ask their doctor for a detailed lipid profile: just knowing your total cholesterol is like a newscaster saying “the total score in tonight’s NBA playoff was 201 points” without telling you which team got how many.

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Yes, every time he eats a meal. :slight_smile:

Bob has said he basically eats a ketogenic diet. When you are eating keto, you are usually not all that hungry in the morning. You don’t have the blood sugar instability that people who eat a lot of refined carbohydrates have. It’s not that keto eaters have great will power-they just lack the same kind of appetite swings of other people.

There is no reason any relatively healthy human being needs to eat 21 meals a week, much less the “six small meals a day to keep the metabolism working”. If this were the case, there is no possible way our species would have survived to modern times. It’s only been in the blink of an eye in the history of humans that we have had the ability to eat so regularly. Our bodies have been wired to go without food for intervals; in fact, some very important processes take place in the fasting state (google “autophagy,”) and it has been postulated that we have done ourselves no favors by interfering with these natural protective processes.

I read a thread once on CC about students in dorms who don’t have access to the cafeterias on Sunday nights because no meals are served. Parent after parent was appalled at how these kids are “going hungry.” Well, they certainly might feel hungry every Sunday evening, but they are not actually “going hungry” in terms of being at any risk of malnutrition or other harm if they are average healthy humans.

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Note that combining carbohydrate foods and fat can produce really high calorie combinations, so if your previous eating habits involved bagels with cream cheese, pizza with lots of cheese and greasy toppings, croissants, pasta with alfredo sauce, etc., then you may have been eating a lot more calories then than now. Carbohydrate foods can have considerable calories themselves, while also functioning as carriers for more fat calories than one would otherwise eat.

Presuming you mean high HDL, low TG/VLDL, low LDL?

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Well, wasn’t that big of her? Grrr…

It’s good that you, while trying to respect her education and expertise, nevertheless exercised your inalienable right to self determination. It’s amazing how many people don’t realize that they have a right to refuse any recommended treatment. Should we refuse to take Dr’s advice just because we can? No, that could be very detrimental. Should be blindly accept every bit of advice? Nope.

@lookingforward said:

Yes, to all of the above.

Anyone who wants to truly understand the benefits/risks of fasting should absolutely read *The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting * by Dr. Jason Fung, MD and Jimmy Moore.

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Yes, those for sure, but there were another handful of other measures also that I might look up later. We only do the fully detailed test annually, but the ones you mentioned quarterly. And, of course, the ratios between them.

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I don’t think we can guess whether it’s keto, dramatically reduced carbs, and/or calorie counts.

Interesting that kidney function improved. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay keto much longer because I’m prone to kidney stones and keto is too much meat for me. I did get the lipids down to normal by eating smaller meals, normal schedule.

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I tried strict keto, and I just can’t do it. I am keto-ish. Low carb, but not as a religion. Last weekend, for example, we went out to a place that makes their own pasta. I had a serving, it was delicious, and frankly my glucose didn’t shoot up half as much as I expected. I even had a hunk of fresh baked bread dipped in olive oil. As my father would have said, “that was worth a sin or two.”

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My old nephrologist (since retired) told me that at best we could stop further kidney deterioration. My doctor and I are shocked, but over the past 18 months, the numbers get better every time. I used to get kidney stones also; I don’t want to jinx it by presuming causation, but I haven’t had a stone for 2 years (knock wood, salt over shoulder, etc).

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Lol on the cheat! Your thoughts are so helpful.

This reassures me that my idea to focus more on low carb is okay. My issue is the a1c and glu are just above normal and I’d like to get them down. As well as lose weight. My new freshly minted doc, a gem, said beware the carbs. Tracking showed me I had no idea.

There is info online about what happens when a diabetic on keto has a cheat day.

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Being forgiving to oneself keeps a pasta cheat from becoming a carb binge. I had fasted until 5PM, ate a salad followed by seafood over homemade linguine, went home and had some frozen blueberries. Watched TV and went to bed. I was a bit stricter the next day, but not punitive.

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@lookingforward, slightly elevated glucose and HbA1c will surely respond to low carb. If you can’t do keto, low carb probably gives you 80% of the benefit. Heck, even my sky high A1c was almost cut in half.

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:smiley:

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My cats are on IF. They fast between 7 am and 7 pm and then again between 7pm and 7am. That’s when their automatic feeders go off. :slight_smile: In about 10 years I will know if these cats live longer or not than the previous batch of cats that was fed ad lib. :wink:

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I am pre-diabetic. My reading are on the high normal side. It is well under control as far as I stick to strictly low carb diet. I thought it will be nice not to be strict if IF can “cure” .

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@iglooo, I think a combination Low Carb & Time Restricted Eating works best. A 16:8 eating schedule barely qualifies as fasting, but it’s so easy: basically you’re skipping breakfast (coffee/tea/water is fine). Your pancreas and GI tract will appreciate the lighter workload :smiley:

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I know two near-diabetic people who take a specific brand of glutathione (supplement) and within 6-9 months saw significant improvement in their kidney numbers.

Friend A did it first, and told Friend B.

I asked the vet about it, for my dog, and she said nay.

The fasting technique is fascinating! Several relatives on H’s side would benefit from it. But they would need a doctor to tell them. There would be a lot of cultural messages to overcome about the harm of not eating.

Wishing you continued good health @IxnayBob

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Thank you for your well wishes @midwest67. Overcoming the “Doctor knows best” thing can be tough. The thing is, doctors get very little (or no) training in nutrition, but feel free to lecture patients anyway.

ETA: many of those “cultural messages” were sponsored by Kellogg’s, the corn industry, the soy industry, and some fraudulent research (Ancel Keys). Read *Good Calories., Bad Calories… * by Gary Taubes.