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Nutrition Alternate Day Fasting = Less Fat Loss Than Continuous Caloric Restriction

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silveraw said:
Wouldn't standardizing food and fluid intake before the DEXA scan reduce the impact of that? Although I suppose that would only apply to the shorter study where the LBM didn't rebound.
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If they did, sure.

But Occam's Razor:

People (who aren't on juice) don't have giant leaps in genuine LBM in short time frames while on calorie restriction.

It's metabolically improbable absent serious PEDs.

Ergo, I'm left with glycogen is the likely catalyst, especially in the case of carb feeding people who were previously either in a deficit or low carb.
 
pood_swinger said:
I was listening the podcast Don Fairbanks posted and he used as an example a person that gained body fat from 18% to 30% and lost muscle mass doing some type of fasting. The person wasn't doing resistance training, only some walking and yoga.
right away I would have questioned the guy about his diet, you can time restrict your meals all you want but if you get papa john's for dinner that would do the trick to make you gain body fat.
he's also talking about 7 to 10 days of fasting he used to do, starving for 10 days would also explain the loss of muscle mass.
just can't see people losing muscle mass by doing 16/8 or even periodic 24-48h fasting if they do some type of resistance training and eat healthy when they actually eat
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I'm not sure what one has to do with the other.

Peter Attia wasn't talking about a patient who was doing alternating 150%/0%.

He was talking about a guy who was doing typicaly daily IF and doing no strength training.
 
watchnerd said:
If they did, sure.

But Occam's Razor:

People (who aren't on juice) don't have giant leaps in genuine LBM in short time frames while on calorie restriction.

It's metabolically improbable absent serious PEDs.

Ergo, I'm left with glycogen is the likely catalyst, especially in the case of carb feeding people who were previously either in a deficit or low carb.
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That is kind of why it is frustrating to be at the mercy of people making YT videos about the study instead of being able to just read the whole thing. It is too easy to assume things based off our own biases of why it doesn't show what I think it should show.

According to Dr. Norton's video they controlled for that pretty well. But I can't really know without giving someone money for the hard work they did to produce this knowledge.
 
silveraw said:
That is kind of why it is frustrating to be at the mercy of people making YT videos about the study instead of being able to just read the whole thing. It is too easy to assume things based off our own biases of why it doesn't show what I think it should show.

According to Dr. Norton's video they controlled for that pretty well. But I can't really know without giving someone money for the hard work they did to produce this knowledge.
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Yeah -- I'm finally getting to watch his video and see him quoting from the paper.

But my next question is, "How?"

That being said, I'm glad they took it into consideration as it is a real issue -- including with my own tracking.
 
pood_swinger said:
just can't see people losing muscle mass by doing 16/8 or even periodic 24-48h fasting if they do some type of resistance training and eat healthy when they actually eat
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If they're in a deficit it could happen. Also might happen if we're talking about very slight drops.

Some form of breakdown might be acellerated in the absence of anything to mitigate it. With all the people doing IF there should be a broad concensus on what happens under stable calorie load over several days.

How easy is it for IF folks to pack on muscle?
 
watchnerd said:
IF in a deficit, maintenance, or surplus?

One can do time-restricted eating and still be in a caloric surplus.
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That's what I meant. Say you take 100 people and put them on a 400cal a day (average) surplus - 1/2 on IF, 1/2 on 3 square a day. At end of 60 days who gained more lean mass?

Put another way how many people who have done both in a bulking phase can comment on personal experience? My guess is that IF will at best be a slow ride to the same destination with possible greater % gain of non lean mass.
 
North Coast Miller said:
That's what I meant. Say you take 100 people and put them on a 400cal a day (average) surplus - 1/2 on IF, 1/2 on 3 square a day. At end of 60 days who gained more lean mass?

Put another way how many people who have done both in a bulking phase can comment on personal experience? My guess is that IF will at best be a slow ride to the same destination with possible greater % gain of non lean mass.
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I guess I can comment, as I do time restricted eating whether in a surplus or deficit.

Over a 6 week period while in a surplus and doing time restricted eating, my LBM readings increased by 4.7 lbs.

Fat mass remained the same.

But I don't have a control version of me who ate differently.
 
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North Coast Miller said:
Put another way how many people who have done both in a bulking phase can comment on personal experience?
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One of the things that convinced me IF is significantly different in reality than how it was portrayed by the Lean Gains/ ESE crowd was "Cheat Mode" dieting. (link to the original plan here Author changed it somewhat through the years .)

Basically fast until a heavy workout and then binge on protein and carb heavy foods afterwards. Off days eat "paleo". The creator's poster meal was the KFC doubledown if that gives you an idea.

Unsurprisingly I gained a significant amount of fat. Probably about the same ratios as the people who did GOMAD and SS. Can't say specifically any LBM gain, but it was certainly not an ideal ratio. This was 10 years ago and my notes didn't cover caliper readings from that time.
 
I think I must be one of the least enthusiastic IF / time-restricted eaters around.

I've been basically avoiding breakfast, except when traveling, for so long I can't even remember. 10 years+?

It has been entirely driven by lifestyle preferences, not health or body composition goals.
 
From a quick read through it doesn't sound like you can make any conclusions about muscle synthesis or breakdown from this study. Consistent caloric deficit works better for fat loss, which simply implies there is possibly a higher BMR when food is eaten on a regular, even at a deficit. If you want to maximize fat loss, IF might not be as effective as one might assume.

Reading into it further it is very difficult to separate whole body protein breakdown and muscle specific breakdown.
 
North Coast Miller said:
From a quick read through it doesn't sound like you can make any conclusions about muscle synthesis or breakdown from this study. Consistent caloric deficit works better for fat loss, which simply implies there is possibly a higher BMR when food is eaten on a regular, even at a deficit. If you want to maximize fat loss, IF might not be as effective as one might assume.

Reading into it further it is very difficult to separate whole body protein breakdown and muscle specific breakdown.
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You can conclude *TDEE* is different between them, prima facie, which also matches the finding that the alternate day fasters became less active.

Also, I thought the thermic effect of food was not included in BMR?
 
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watchnerd said:
I think I must be one of the least enthusiastic IF / time-restricted eaters around.

I've been basically avoiding breakfast, except when traveling, for so long I can't even remember. 10 years+?

It has been entirely driven by lifestyle preferences, not health or body composition goals.
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Skipping breakfast was pretty much my eating schedule while I grew fat in my 20s. :D I rarely ate past 21:00 and rarely before lunch at work so I got pretty close to the LeanGains 16 hour fast during the work week. I don't know if black coffee cancels out whatever benefits you get from fasting but I usually only ate lunch+desert, more desert close to going home and then snacked on junk food+beer at home before eating dinner.

At least I ate my veggies and leaf salad.

While losing weight I had to start eating breakfast because I was hungry all the time and couldn't stop thinking about food at work :)
 
Just to inject a simple point. Pavel told Rogan he basically does Hofmeckler's Warrior Diet...a 20-4 IF. I'm not sure what his LBM or Bf percentages are, but he looks lean and is damn strong for his BW.
Good enough for me.
 
CMHoward said:
Just to inject a simple point. Pavel told Rogan he basically does Hofmeckler's Warrior Diet...a 20-4 IF. I'm not sure what his LBM or Bf percentages are, but he looks lean and is damn strong for his BW.
Good enough for me.
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As it relates to this study, 20-4 would not be alternate day fasting, but just a type of CCR.

Also, regardless of what Pavel might or might not be doing, it's a sample size of 1, so not statistically significant.
 
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