I am just adding this comment because, invariably articles on food & health results in comments about intermittent fasting with glowing reviews. It really does marvels for some/many. There are also cases like me for whom it does seems to hurt. Maybe I am approaching it wrong. Just adding my anecdote for a balanced view.

I looked into IF and decided against it for that reason. The documentation on it recommended longer feeding windows for women to the point that it didn't seem like intermittent fasting - it was just eating breakfast an hour later. I just looked it up again now [1] and I guess it does have to do with our hormones. Either way, I appreciate you speaking up to balance out the raves.

[1] http://paleoforwomen.com/shattering-the-myth-of-fasting-for-...

  I tried to fast from 8PM to 11PM

Also, I think some studies show that the fasting period begins after 12h (others say 8h), but it's much more pronounced after 18h. So the more you fast, the better. But take it gradually the first few weeks.

As for binge-eating, you can also try eating normally every other day or every 3 days, especially in the beginning. Then the next day or two try to "compensate" and eat less in those fasting periods. But it's important to keep a low-carb diet, because a high-carb diet is also what makes you hungry more, and looking for sweets, too (and proven to lead to many chronic diseases).

As for the starvation response, it's really important to ensure your feeding window includes all of the needed macronutrients along with your calories. Doubly important if you're training/exercising regularly.

Female hormones are also tied to fat intake, so I'd speculate that ensuring you're ingesting enough fats is probably more important than for men too.

I started delaying my breakfast later and later until I was able to eat "breakfast" at 1 PM. I work out (boxing or weights) in the evening at 6 to 7 / 7:30 PM 5 days a week atleast, so my last meal for the day is at 8:30 or 9 PM. I don't eat any meat.

1 added benefit is that you also lose body fat and become lean because it seems that we start burning fat after 12 or 13 hours of fasting.

Initially it was hard, I was feeling hungry, but once you get used to it, you don't miss it. If you are a morning person, do your fast from 5 or 6 PM to 9 or 10 AM. If you are evening person, then do it like me, i.e. fast from 9 or 10 PM to 1 or 2 PM (next day).

Also don't worry about whether you'll have energy for your workout. You get used to it.

That information would help me decide whether I have to be strict about no eating. Much of the advice I've seen amounts to allowing some leeway in small caloric inputs.

Most people allow for coffee and tea without sugar or cream.

If there are no calories you're not breaking a fast in my opinion.

BCAA's do have calories so I would say they would break a fast though.

I wasn't aware it could be called fasting.

Am I close?

Modern usage of "fast" tends to mean not eating at all. Historic British usage would be most associated with the Lenten fast I'd imagine.

Now I have a cool name for it though. Thanks!

It seems to make sense: first, American breakfast is essentially a giant dessert, optionally with a pile of fat on top, so it doesn't seem particularly healthy.

But mostly, eating in the morning seems to get my body thinking about food, so I'm actually hungry for lunch a lot earlier than if I had skipped it. Normal days I eat lunch around 1pm if I remember. "Breakfast" days, I'm starving at 11:30am.

I never realised I got to describe myself as "fasting" though.

Then I have a healthy lunch with low carbs. This was the original reason for changing my diet-- I was getting really sleepy in the middle of the afternoon and I realized it was the carbs.

Then I have dinner, which I try to keep reasonably healthy but I'm not too stressed about it.

Benefits are better energy throughout the day, no "hangry" episodes where my blood sugar falls off a cliff, better mood, and it's much easier to insist on being healthy for one meal a day than 3. I can even work out right before lunch and be fine. YMMV.

P.s. Also cool that I now can call skipping breakfast a fancy health term. ;-)

And yet it is[1]. To borrow from Nassim Taleb, humans have a terrible habit of undervaluing small incremental change and overvaluing large sweeping change.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/

Edit: your linked article is a study on rats which intermittently fasted for periods of 24-48 hours. That is a very far cry from what you have described.

If you snack at night or until midnight (or drink any sugary drinks at night), as many casually do, no you haven't. You'd need to make sure that calories are completely restricted when the feeding window closes.

Check out this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8238506 done on adult men -- with that said, IF hasn't been studied much. My original post is purely anecdotal. YMMV.

We're already used to an 8-hour fast (sleeping), so it's really not a huge lifestyle change. I don't do anything fancy with calories or macronutrients, anymore. I did when I was going to the gym more regularly, but it's really time-consuming measuring everything, so I just eat basically whatever. I do, however, try to limit my intake of processed foods and red meat.

If you regularly eat until midnight, you'll have to skip lunch as well.

[1] My figures are probably wrong. Someone feel free to correct me.

According to Jason Fung the sweet spot is 18 to 24 hours of fasting for fat loss and autophagy benefits. A 48hr fast shows better results for autophagy but the question of sustainable life style then emerges for the 48 hr schedule.

I fast for 20 hours everyday eating once in the evening. My anecdata confirms that it works for fat loss and improved morning concentration and better sleep.

I am small framed (68 kg), what they'd call at the gym "skinny fat". I'm in my mid-forties with noticeable fat around the abdomen. I have never been obese to be concerned about fat accumulation but I have vowed to never grow older AND fatter. :-) I've been doing IF as habit now with some success not only because of my work schedule primarily being in the morning but also because I have to dash out of the house for school runs after the emotionally exhausting work of herding cats out of bed (food in the throes of such trauma doesn't appeal to me). Also, I can get 6 hours of concentrated work done when I know I have no breakfast to think about before fetching the boys from school.

I have noticed accelerated loss of fat (I have fat calipers to measure) when I remove bread, pasta, rice and nuts for three consecutive days of the week.

For me, I simply eat one meal a day, it's really that simple. For me it's almost always dinner, but if I'm super hungry during the day I'll eat lunch and skip dinner.

I might give IF a try, but am afraid that I will be in eternal hunger.

Even if it doesn't work for you, it's easy enough to try for a couple weeks.

And now that I'm trying to eat 160-200 grams of protein every day, eating all of that in a small window is kinda tiring.

  I only eat from 12PM to 8PM.

Intermittent fasting generally refers to periodic fasts of 1600 kcal/day or less spanning multiple days, such as the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD).

EDIT: See you answered that question. I should get back on this.

I imagine one has to force feed quite a lot in in that period.

It's 8 hours, so I have plenty of time to eat two, three, or even sometimes four times. What IF cuts out is the late-night snacks that I think are most detrimental.

The idea that late night snacks are bad for you is based on the idea that nutrient timing is important, that you are sedentary at night so you don't want to eat then. (This idea has lost most of its support recently and now eating at night is seen the same as eating during the day -- your body doesn't care when you eat).

These two ideas are fundamentally at odds with each other. I find the IF people to be a strange bunch with a lot of contradictory ideas.

What? No, IF is based on the premise that periods of fasting are physiological beneficial and/or it decreases total calories consumed overall.