Skip to main content

Intermittent Fasting: My Foray into Binge Eating

I've long thought that eating as our ancient ancestors did has some keys to health. The latest research in paleontology suggests that they didn't have a constant supply of food, they might have gone for short periods (like a day or so) without eating. Having read the benefits of intermittent fasting, I decided to give it a try. Today, I put off eating until 6 p.m., consuming nothing but water.

The upsides:
My blood sugar was in the 70s during the fast(that's the low end of normal). And I had no nasal congestion.

The downsides:
I was hungry all day! If one of the points of fasting is to avoid thinking about food, it didn't work. I took a nap in the afternoon and dreamed about food. Then I got up, prepared a feast, and ate for two hours. I had two plates of sausage and vegetables, eggplant with cheese, tossed salad and goat cheese. Then a tablespoon of honey, low-carb hot cocoa, low-carb ice cream, and coffee. After taking a break to talk on the phone, I went to the grocery store and got some more food, even though I was full: two nut/coconut bars. My day from 4:30 to 9 p.m. was devoted to cooking and eating--no time saved there. This, even though I've never, ever been a binge eater.

An hour after I finally stopped eating, my blood sugar was 146--the highest reading I've ever had. Since starting low-carb, I've never had a triple-digit reading until now. So if the point is to control blood sugar, it didn't work out. And I ate more today than I do on a typical day. Normally, I stop eating when I'm full; even now, I could put away another bowl of ice cream. So if another point is to eat less, that didn't work out either.

I also had a headache during the late afternoon.

Conclusion
Even though I wasn't trying to lose weight, for me, it was true what they say: you can't starve off weight. I ended up eating more than I would have.

However, I've read several comments on various blogs that people have had good experiences doing this. As for me, I find it easy to stop eating when full if I don't start out ravenously hungry.
Labels:

Comments

Kikilula said…
It's easyer to fast when you are in ketosis for a while and well ketoadapted... Ketosis supresses hunger. And to break your fast you should start with the most fatty part of your meal, preceed with the protein and eat whatever arbs you choose at the end of your meal, so you won't overshoot with eating. Fat and protein satiate much faster...
May 31, 2011
Lori Miller said…
I'm sure that's true for many people. However, I'd been on a low-carb diet for about seven months when I did this, and broke my fast with sausage and cheese. I'd like to see an end to the generalization that if you're doing low-carb right, you won't have any trouble fasting.
May 31, 2011
Katherine said…
Hi,
First time commenter, but I love your blog.

Just wanted to say that I had a similar experience the first time I tried intermittent fasting. I borrowed the IF plan from Mike Eades' blog, proteinpower.com. It was basically 24 on / 24 off. So, I ate Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and fasted on Tuesday and Thursday. I committed to do two days of fasting during that week.

That Tuesday, I was absolutely obsessive about food. It was ridiculous. I found, however, that Thursday was a much easier fasting day. I wasn't uncomfortably hungry, and I didn't obsess. I didn't gorge either, once I was done with the fast.

My notes on the experience are on my own blog, www.getfitkatie.blogspot.com, they are dated from June 13 - June 17.

The most surprising (and unexpected) result of my IF experiment was the dramatic improvement to my existing psoriasis issue.

In fact, I would continue to do IF, but just found out that I am expecting and it is not recommended during pregnancy.

Kate
June 30, 2011
Lori Miller said…
Katie, I'm very happy that your psoriasis is gone--I understand it's really painful. And congratulations on your pregnancy--such a lucky baby to be fed right from the very beginning.

I see from your blog you had a bad experience eating bread. Last year, I had a cookie after I'd been off wheat for awhile, and it made me miserable.

http://relievemypain.blogspot.com/2010/04/homage-to-low-carb-cookie-god.html
June 30, 2011
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here .  * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...
1 comment
Read more

Fermented bread and butter pickle recipe ft. L. Plantarum

After Dr. Davis said the other night that  L. plantarum  may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have  L. plantarum  bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with  Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color.  Special equipment Quar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cardio: A Waste of Valuable Dance Time

"I'd rather hold a girl in my arms than a football." -Joe DeCicco, friend and dancing fanatic Have you heard that it takes a woman 77 hours of exercise to lose a kilogram of fat? (For us Americans, that's half a pound.) That's according to a study cited by Dr. John Briffa .(1) The women who huffed and puffed three hours a week for a year ended up 4.4 pounds lighter than the sedentary women. That doesn't surprise me: my own weight loss involved a lot less exercise than what I'd been doing. I did no cardio workouts, just strength training . I had more time and energy for dancing, which is a stress reliever, helps keep me in shape, and it's a ton of fun. It's not expensive to dance (as long as you stay away from the studios). I've found excellent lessons at clubs where the teachers really care about the students getting it. Here in Denver, there are dancing clubs that are run by nonprofit organizations, where the prices are reasonable and...
1 comment
Read more

Avoiding a Nightmare by Using Math

The answer lies in trigonometry. -Sherlock Holmes Don't worry if you never learned trigonometry--the answers here lie in arithmetic. Medical test results often come back positive or negative, as if the result were a certainty. Of course, there is the accuracy, but if the accuracy is 99% or so, what does that really mean? That you should get your affairs in order? Before you call your probate attorney, let's take an example from the book Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. Let's say you're a 40-something year old woman with no symptoms of breast cancer. You have a positive mammogram. What are the odds you have breast cancer? Using some assumptions about test accuracy and rates of disease based on real data, the odds that you'd have breast cancer are one in eleven according to Gigerenzer. (If you were way off, don't feel bad--most of the physicians Gigerenzer tested were way off, too--and they had the data in front of them. Not that that's comforting in every...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...
6 comments
Read more