Good luck on your surgery and a speedy recovery.
Also, when I say something like, "I last ate a real meal on Saturday night," I mean that I've only eaten junk food since then, not that I've had nothing solid.
Good luck, heebie!
I could never fast like that voluntarily, but I hope it works well for you.
Yes, good luck! It's hard to imagine the mechanism--it sure seems like surgery is draining and having a reserve of resources to pull on is important. But when you mentioned it before, it sounded like you're in good company with experimenting along those lines.
Best wishes for your procedure and a speedy recovery, Heebie!
I'm contemplating adding intermittent (one, mmmmayyybbbeee two days a week) to my current diet plan (I've been doing the Ketogenic diet for the past three weeks, some of the reading I've been doing suggests they're complimentary). My problems are threefold:
1. When I get hungry, I get a headache and my mood just falls apart. You wouldn't like me when I'm hangry.
2. I need to get back into going to the gym, and fasting seems counterproductive on gym days.
3. I don't really want my girls (ages 9 and almost 12) to know that I'm doing it. Seems like a recipe for normalizing eating-disorder-adjacent behavior that adolescent girls may be especially susceptible to, even though neither one has offered any body-negative talk/behavior as yet. I have them ~40% of the time, so between that and gym time, scheduling seems like a bear.
My ex-gf would fast for the whole month of Ramadan. In the summer in northern Europe, that meant no food or drink between ~3am-9:30pm, She would break the fast with only a light dinner, and set her alarm for 3am so she could wake up and drink a bunch of water and a protein shake before the fasting period began again. Then a whole day of sweating through summer temperatures and no AC. No one understood how she managed it, but after the first few days she'd hit her stride and it barely phased her. She'd even throw in a quick cardiovascular workout in the early morning hours before it got too hot.
I had the impression that many Northern European Muslims fast according to Mecca time as Ramadan wasn't really designed with high latitudes in mind. Is that not actually how it's usually done? Anyone who can do summer fasting in England or anywhere further north is amazing.
6. Our neighbours do this (apart from the father who gets a dispensation for type 1 diabetes). This year it was June/July. I can't think the Prophet took northern latitudes into account when he laid down the rules. I mean, not eating I could handle, but no fluids for 18 hours in the middle of summer?
To be honest, it sounds easier to go form 18 hours without water in the summer in Scotland than to do so for 12 hours in Arabia.
I'm just putting in extra letters today. We'll have to get used to itt.
I was kind of fasting on Sunday and Monday, if being unable to keep food down counts. I like heebie's idea better.
Yeah, it seemed crazy to me and everyone else, but I guess she had the physiology for it.
Good luck heebie! For what it's worth general anesthesia always puts me in a really good mood for like a week after.
7: no, as far as I know they go by local sunrise and sunset, which varies from mosque to mosque.
The people who go by Mecca-time are those who either don't have any sunrises at all during Ramadan (i.e. in the polar regions) or have too many (i.e. in low earth orbit where the sun sets every 90 minutes or so). Presumably Muslims on Mars would go by local sunrise and sunset, as the Martian sol is only 40 minutes longer than an Earth day.
There are also exemptions for those who are travelling during Ramadan; you're supposed to make up the fasting time after the journey's over.
I imagine anybody who gets cured of Type I diabetes has a really long set of fasting days to make up.
16: Ahh, okay. I thought I had heard about this in regard to the Muslim community in Birmingham but I'm probably misinformed. Thanks for clearing that up.
I was doing a 24 hour fast once a week for a while.
I would fast from lunch to lunch the next day. I would have a big lunch after exercising then go 24-ish hours. Some people like fasted exercise. The only problem was that I wasn't getting much done on fast mornings.
I would order pizza for the kids for diner. If you are doing mainly low carb options, they probably would probably be happy with the change.
Low carb with intermittent fasting is mainly a diet for dudes so I don't think it is going to mess teenage daughters up any. They are likely just going to think that it is weird and make fun of you.
Also, it didn't help me lose any weight, but it apparently has other heath benefits. Maybe you could say you are doing it for its "potential to improve health and reduce the risk of chronic diseases"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting
"Yes, good luck! It's hard to imagine the mechanism--it sure seems like surgery is draining and having a reserve of resources to pull on is important. But when you mentioned it before, it sounded like you're in good company with experimenting along those lines."
Apparently, your body goes into repair mode when you are fasting. It doesn't actually make sense but that is what they have found.
Yay, heebie! Thinking of you! I appreciate your true dedication to the blog's relentless need for new photos of chests of all sorts.
We've had several posts on intermittent fasting in the past. I'm not doing any sort of diet (and am, in fact, eating some frozen pie crust I cooked with honey on it, so!) but I didn't find it a terribly painful one though also not satisfying in the unhealthy but mouse-pleasure-center way that actual self-starvation is. But Chopper, those are some major downsides. What could it do that would possibly be worth all that?
Low carb with intermittent fasting is mainly a diet for dudes -- really? Sounds pretty female-typical as a diet here in CA. Do women actually need more carbs in their diet than men, however the marketing goes?
21.2 is how it was explained to me. That it takes 4-5 days and then you switch gears. I've lost about half a pound, fwiw, so weight loss was not a part of it.
Well, you wouldn't expect more than 2-3 pounds in that much time even assuming calorie deficit worked perfectly as expected. (3500 calories a pound, calorie need in a given day, say 1700-2000 calories... four days isn't that much.)
Plus, doesn't salt make your body hang on to more water? Or does it make it go through more quickly?
I just get useless and mean when I'm hungry--I don't even feel hunger half the time, but I will realize I am exhausted and cranky, and that means it's time for some crackers. Maybe that would change after a day of fasting but it would be really hard to just sit with the crummy feelings for hours consciously rejecting something I know would help. I basically only consume smoothies now. Chewing is for chumps.
28 is right. Also, I used to think I had insomnia when I was really just hungry. Cheese is my Ambien.
My understanding is that the current consensus on surgery is the exact opposite of this -- apart from the immediate risk of vomiting, people are encouraged to eat well prior to undergoing surgery, the rationale being that having plenty of resources available supports healing. In more general terms, obesity is considered a protective factor for surgery as well.
I would say that's conventional wisdom more than cutting edge research, but fasting certainly isn't mainstream.
22: Partially to potentially accelerate weight loss (I let myself go these last couple years, time to knock it back a bit), and partially as an experiment to see if it impacts my IBS. The other anti-IBS experiment option is going low FODMAP, and somehow giving up garlic and onions seems more drastic than skipping a few meals.
I recommend pie crust and not giving a fuck, Chopper, but my actual plan is to get through physical therapy once they know what's wrong with my ankle and then do strength training and probably some sort of compatible eating regimen that involves, like, meals plural per day instead of the nonsense I subsist on now, and then eventually being more attractive and probably seeing that it makes no difference, which would serve me right.
You're supposed to neg the other person.
Not giving a fuck is my usual practice, but when I do that I gain 10-15 lbs./year. So every few years I diet enough to knock it back a ways. I keep it up for a few months, lose 15-30 lbs., then go back to not giving a fuck. (Although it would be nice to figure out the IBS.) I'm fine being hefty, but I don't want diabetes or a scooter in 15 years.
Yeah, adults look like idiots commuting on those Razor scooters.
I'm trying to talk my alcoholic brother with IBS into trying FODMAP, though he's (probably wisely) not bothering. He even has a sensitivity to onions/garlic and avoids them already so how hard can it be? But dunno.
30: according to Antony Beevor you want to be skinny; German casualties in the Ardennes healed from surgery a lot faster because they lacked the solid layer of fat that GIs had.
"I just get useless and mean when I'm hungry--I don't even feel hunger half the time, but I will realize I am exhausted and cranky, and that means it's time for some crackers. Maybe that would change after a day of fasting but it would be really hard to just sit with the crummy feelings for hours consciously rejecting something I know would help. I basically only consume smoothies now. Chewing is for chumps. "
If you go low carb first it is easier. I used to get angry/hungry but it the low carb diet ended that.
I mean, my life is fine on a normal carb smoothie only diet, I just have to not fast.
I probably need to go back to my happy breakup diet of smoked salmon, nuts, giant quantities of arugula with cheese and lemon juice. There might have been more to it than that, but really what more could you need? I don't know if it has anything to do with weight loss, just happiness. (I did lose weight. I'm hoping not from cutting out alcohol because that would suck.)
Speaking of lean meat, I know what ajay wants for Christmas.
What ajay wants for Christmas is for me to have gone to one of the atlatl demonstrations this summer, but I didn't. Next year not at all in Jerusalem!
I wouldn't want to try to carry on an atlatl on a El Al plane either.
44: that author's name could only be improved if she had married, for love of course, a Mr. Poon.
(Yes, I know this is not adult; it reminds me of a French cow-orker who was delighted for weeks by her discovery of a member of the House of Lords called Lady Garden)
It occurs to me that the unfogged idea for an iAtatl app anticipated Pokemon Go in some ways.
I find The Angry Chef to be a voice of sanity:
"Eat breakfast. Then wait until lunchtime before you eat again. You might get a bit hungry, but just deal with it. I am told that people have a dip in the afternoon and have a need to eat sugary snacks. No you don't. You don't even have to replace it with a healthier alternative. Replace it with being a bit hungry. It's fine, you're not going to starve if you have to wait until dinner, but you might loose some weight.
Loosing weight requires cutting calories and if you eat less than you are used too, you are likely to get a bit hungry every day. Hunger is not a terrible thing, it is a signal from you body that it is time to take on some fuel. Not right this second in whatever form you can cram into your mouth easily, but soon. Hungry? Then check your watch and see how long before your next mealtime and wait. It is not the end of the world and you will get used to it. So will your children."
The whole thing is here http://angry-chef.com/blog/how-did-this-happen/
I hope your surgery goes very well heebie!
Not generally, but in this case you're taking the weight, represented by relatively long organic compounds, and loosening those chains so that it can leave the body as carbon dioxide. Scientists will eventually turn that CO2 into vodka so that it may migrate into someone else's thighs, completing the cycle.
I agree with the article linked in 49. I try to eat only at meals rather than snacking, and ime the body readjusts. (All bets off now as the baby is on a growth spurt, but ideally, three meals or three and a snack if I'm exercising works for me.)
51
As we learn in the "Cold Fusion" thread, it will turn into ethanol. Somehow this reminds me of "Fight Club." Vodka made from the burned off fat of the overweight middle class.
I also only eat meals and avoid snacks, and this is where the Mediterranean schedule makes no goddamn sense to me. When I eat three meals (I usually skip breakfast), I eat breakfast around 9, lunch at around 1/1:30, and dinner at 7/7:30. I find 5-6 hours is the longest I can go comfortably without any food while being awake and active. My boyfriend prefers to eat lunch around 1, and then not eat anything for 8 hours, until dinner at 9 or 9:30. I find myself uncomfortably cranking and famished, and then kind of sluggish at night. I also like to go to be feeling just a tiny bit hungry, if I'm full I find it really uncomfortable.
54: My schedule is more like yours, Buttercup, in that I avoid eating a lot too close to bed, or my stomach will be upset for hours when I try to sleep.
My solution would be to consistently eat my large portioned meal at lunch, but dinner is when I have time to cook and my wife is able to join me. So earlier evening eating or lighter dinners become a must.
I rarely (as in: one or more weekend days) eat breakfast, eat lunch at noon, and eat dinner at about 6:30pm. So I typically "fast" for close to 16-18 hours.
In the morning and afternoon I sustain myself on coffee, so maybe none of the above count.
Out and home again. Thanks for the support!
Also I'm just like DaveLMA, which is why I suspected it wouldn't be too bad. I drank tons of coffee, though.
32: I just read on the Consumer Reports website* that hypnosis has been shown to help with IBS. It certainly sounds less dreadful than the alternatives you mentioned.
*It's official. I have turned into my father.
59: Thanks for the tip. I haven't found hypnosis particularly effective for other things in the past (although it's very relaxing), but I'm open to anything. I'll look into it when I have decent health insurance again.
I think you underestimate how 'received' eating before surgery is -- where I live in Alberta, feeding people up prior to surgery is one of the main thrusts of a strategic clinical network, one of the provincial bodies that tries to get new evidence-based approaches adopted.
But what I don't really understand is, if you agree that this is the consensus, why are you fasting before surgery?
Because I don't think the majority of the scientists are aware of this research, and I trust my family scientists more than I trust generic scientists.
The ones with diplomas having only black test reading "Ph.D."
Sure. This stuff is too preliminary for them to really consider looking at it closely; I shouldn't have implied that they're untrustworthy. That doesn't mean that fasting doesn't offer significant benefits to otherwise healthy individuals. I figured no harm no foul, and I think there is clearly enough evidence that there's no harm (in a healthy individual).
Fancy, unproducible evidence. The evidence supports me in email.
I haven't the slightest idea. I just liked the mental image.
I should probably think of something to post. Is there anything new to talk about?
There's nothing new under the sun. So, I guess we need an astronomy post.
Wait, hypnosis for IBS? I need to know more.
FODMAP isn't that bad. Well, it is, at first, until you know what you can add back in and get used to it. Garlic oil is your friend.
I am maybe trying FODMAP at some point. It does seem that wheat is not my friend.
I tried hypnosis for fear of flying and seem not to be one of those people who responds to it. I mean it's nice lying there with someone talking to you in a quiet voice and all.