I found myself doing only one meal a day after LCing while on Metformin because eating when I wasn't hungry (thank you ketosis) made me horribly nauseous. Of course I was concerned because 'they' say you shouldn't do that, but it worked for me, and after doing research online I found it works for a lot of other people as well. I've also done it unintentionally several times in my past and have memories of intense fat/weight loss.
I love doing IF on purpose now.

Good thing too, because we're doing such a good job managing it.

Read Ishmael. Please. Pretty please? I mean, I get the whole kid/parent/protective thing, I really do, but dude...earth belongs to man? Doesn't man belong to earth, like everything else?

Oh, and I like eating two meals a day. Sometimes one. Sometimes three. (just to stay on topic here)

Something interesting that I saw on FitTV last night. Dr. Oz stated that back-in-the-day when man had to hunt to provide food on the table, one might need to go for a week without food. He said that the body was well equipped to go for long periods of time without food. If this is the case, you can easily see how the onset of obesity, diabesity, heart disease and zits became mainstream today. I have been doing IF for a year. The benefits have been tremendous, I just wish that I could go longer without food. I would prefer to be able to eat once a day as opposed to the present 2xs daily.

I do not believe that the body will hold on to fat stores...the reason body fat exists is to burn as fuel. I have been testing this hypothesis since last year and the more that time passes the more I believe this to be true. I burn more body fat when I eat fewer meals...although my meals are hearty and filling. Once upon a time the body used far less food than what we feed it today. It is equipped to do this.

Naw, we're just renting it from some Galactic Landlord, and boy is he going to be pissed when it sees how we have trashed it. I bet we don't get the security deposit back.

I looked up the data on true foraging societies on energy taken in and expended. And we have some very good data that was collected in the 1960s when all the hippie anthropologists went to live in the field for 5 or more years with people who were practicing pretty much 100% foraging.

The average caloric intake was 2700 calories. They walked from 1200 to 2800 miles per year in order to obtain that food. They seldom went hungry because they ate on the average 200 different plants and 100 unique animals (including insects). In tropical climates, they pretty much eat non-stop while they are foraging. I could see the scenario of semi-starvation in cold climates, but it doesn't happen in warm ones.

:rofl: (tears from laughing too much)

Beautifully done.

I'm eating only one meal a day, Dinner. I will be honest I don't feel hungry. I did feel alittle weak on days I have my cycle, other than that. I'm good. Also I eat probably 1.5 times the meat that I normally would eat and twice the veggies... that's it and alot of liquids(water, diet soda etc)

According to Eades, the very act of eating is inflammatory. From that perspective, eating only once per day would be healthy.

Along those lines, low carb eating is also anti-inflammatory...so put the two together explains a lot to me. From my experience, I begun Atkins with achy joints. Before Atkins, I had a very difficult time walking and I was in my early 40s. I felt much older than I was. Soon, after beginning Atkins my joint pain improved significantly. I can tell you that the weightloss had nothing to do with the alleviation in my pain because 3 years later, I began to regain all of my weight plus and extra 2-4 lbs. Yet, my joint pain did not increase. I still had a little pain but it was so much better than before. In continuation of that story, I began IF last April and the remaining joint pain vanished. I have made a bad turn on occasion and will get a slight flare up but that's it.

Food for thought:

They call it binge eating, but it perfectly describes one meal IF. It's a small, short term study but raises a couple of concerning issues, particularly the drop in leptin and the rise in fasting blood glucose. I would really like to see a longer study.

Free text

From the Clinical Research Centers

Impact of Binge Eating on Metabolic and Leptin Dynamics in Normal Young Women
Ann E. Taylor, Jane Hubbard and Ellen J. Anderson

Reproductive Endocrine Unit and National Center for Infertility Research (A.E.T.), and the Mallinkrodt General Clinical Research Center (J.H., E.J.A.), Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114

Abstact:

Well defined eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia are associated with significant known health risks. Although binge eating behavior is increased in unsuccessfully dieting obese women, other health implications of this common eating pattern are unknown. We hypothesized that ingestion of an entire day’s calories at one time in the evening, a common eating practice among Americans, would lead to disruptions in glucose, insulin, and leptin metabolism and in menstrual cyclicity, even in healthy young women.

Seven lean women without a history of eating disorders were studied on two occasions separated by one or two menstrual cycles. During one admission, they ate three regular meals plus a snack on each of 3 days. On the other admission, they ate the same number of calories, macronutrient matched to the normal diet, in a single evening meal. Glucose, insulin, and leptin were measured frequently for 12–14 h beginning at 0800 h on the third day of each diet, and an insulin tolerance test was performed while the subjects were fasting on the fourth day. Daily blood samples were obtained until ovulation was documented to assess any impact on menstrual function.

Ingestion of an entire day’s calories at dinner resulted in a significant increase in fasting glucose levels and a dramatic increase in insulin responses to the evening meal. The diurnal pattern of leptin secretion was altered, such that the gradual rise in leptin from 0800 h observed during the normal diet was abolished, and leptin did not begin to rise during the binge diet until at least 2 h after the evening meal. No changes were demonstrated in insulin sensitivity, follicular growth, or ovulation between the two diets.

We conclude that 1) ingestion of a large number of calories at one time (binge eating) impacts metabolic parameters even when total calories and macronutrients are appropriate for weight; 2) the timing of energy intake is an independent determinant of the diurnal rhythm of leptin secretion, indicating a relatively acute affect of energy balance on leptin dynamics; 3) the mechanism of exaggerated insulin secretion after a binge meal remains to be determined, but may be related to the altered diurnal pattern of leptin secretion; and 4) as most binge eating episodes in the population are associated with the ingestion of excess calories, it is hypothesized that binge eating behavior is associated with even greater metabolic dysfunction than that described herein.

My expectation is that if more people do IF that there will be research done on it that will make people pause. If merely eating is an inflammatory process one wonders how intense that inflammatory process is when a single giant meal is eaten every day, and how long the length of time that those inflammatory agents are produced. You can't simply extrapolate to that from the effects of a much smaller meal.

I can only speak for myself.....I will not do IF....I would end up face down in a plate of pasta...for sure!!

I do very well with my 5-6 small/mini meals daily. It works just fine for me! As far as I'm concerned, if it aint broke, don't fix it!!

I'd like to know why the Eades have stopped doing IF? anyone care to share?

I do not judge those who do IF...if its working well for them and not just weight loss wise.

What I do take issue with is when its presented in such a way that if you are not on that "wagon", then you are doing "it" wrong!

The Eades were not doing IF the way people here do it, or at least their goal was different. They were doing IF to see if this would allow them to eat more carbs. I read the explanation of why they thought that would work but thought it was a little... out there.

People here are doing it for entirely different reasons, and I don't think what Mike Eades said has a lot of relevance to them.

I don't have anything against IFing in general. For me it's a no way -- I spent too much time and effort learning to not want to eat very large meals to change that. I don't think it would take many of those meals to make me pick up the habit again.

I've had nice success with IF'ing as a way to trick my body into losing when I've hit a stall. I could never do that small of a window though, I did more of an 18/6, which allowed me two meals , usually breakfast and lunch.

I wish I could follow more of the adage: "Breakfast like a king; lunch like a queen; dinner like a pauper" -- that seems to make the most sense for my body.

However, I must say, when I would do a "normal" IF (eating at evening), I could never get enough calories. Who can eat that much and why would one want to??

The most reassuring thing from the IF camp for me was gaining the knowledge that I would throw myself into starvation mode if I missed lunch a few days a week (which happens when I get crazed at work).

But, yet again, we are not one-size-fits-all and whatever works, works, right?

I talked it over with my Dad, and we've agreed to eat the next rattlesnake he kills. (This wouldn't fly in a Peta forum, but I figure it'll work with most people here.) He's 63 and this is the first rattlesnake he's killed, the second he's seen killed, so it might not come up. On the humanity owning the earth thing, I did say "like it or not." Never said we were good at it.

It seems to me, if you were doing an up calorie, down calorie type thing, extra calories one day, less calories the next day, the lower calorie day might be the day to try to get away with a higher carb intake. You can only store so much carbohydrate, anyways, which sort of makes me think going higher fat might make more sense anyways.

Intermittent fasting didn't really work for me, but I think it's just a scheduling thing. I exercise at 430 on weekdays, and if I cram all that food in after that, I can't seem to get to sleep afterwards.

Personally, my meals aren't "giant" or a huge overstuffing or anything like that. I eat twice a day. Lunch is LC and dinner includes a carb (per CAD/the Hellers).

This carb-y meal is satisfying, but it isn't a huge smorgasboard or anything. For instance, last night I had taco meat (about one hamburger's worth) over cut up cucumber with a little ranch dressing; LC cole slaw; carrot cake and a drink. Yes, it was enough for me to feel full. And it's not like the meal was tiny, surely. But OTOH a meal like that isn't exactly sitting on a picnic blanket surrounded by bowls and plates and using two hands to stuff it in. (My meals are logged in detail each day in my journal for anyone who is curious.)

Regarding the inflammatory response, if merely eating is inflammatory, then it is. I have to eat so there you have it. I may be giving up three years of my life this way, but it's three years spent enjoying myself rather than earn three extra years of misery. (I know this is a gross oversimplification...sorry, it's early.) Not everyone feels this way about it, and that's fine. There have been no studies (to my knowledge) of whether the the presumably less "inflammatory" response of low carb multiple times a day outweighs, numbers-wise, the potentially "more" inflammatory response of eating larger meals only once or twice a day. So I'm hedging my bets and inflaming my gut twice a day and so be it. But I did want to let people know that not all forms of IF involve plates and plates and plates of pies, fake whipped cream or McDonald's.

Re: not all people doing IF for weight loss...I am partially doing what amounts to IF for weight loss, but more so for the fact that the fewer times a day I eat, the less hungry I am. It's a wonderful feeling to be in control of my eating and to not be thinking about food, food, food, food all day long. This isn't everyone's issue so perhaps not everyone will understand this, but I eat infrequently more for the binge-control factor than anything else, ironically enough. (I mean the Hellers do have their own science behind it, but I can't argue that here as I don't know enough about the alternate POV science to know what I'm talking about.)

I really eat twice rather than once a day for the sensual aspect; I just like eating. I think it's fun. I like the taste of food. I like preparing food. I hope I'm treating my body healthfully; but if I'm not doing the most up-to-the-minute A-number one fantabulously healthy things in not keeping my body from responding in an "inflammatory" way, then I'm not. Nutrition science and data (and opinions) change almost daily so we have no way of knowing that the current research we're reading tells the whole story anyway. This may be a fatalistic POV, but I don't believe I'll really have "it" all wrapped up on what the most incredibly healthy way of eating really is. So I'm just coming close, while cutting a compromise by making sure my WOE is enjoyable and adds to my happiness rather than subtracting from it.

ETA: I also wanted to add that my IF "big" meal is really no larger than one of my former (years ago) typical Atkins meals, certainly not calories-wise, at least. I added up my numbers for my latest "big" IF meal and they came to about 900. WOW. That's a lot, isn't it? But then I recall making myself two cheesburgers on Atkins for one meal; not huge burgers, just regular patties. Two cheeseburgers (bunless, obviously) really are not huge or stuffing anything in or gluttonous, particularly if you're low-carbing. But at 350 calories per burger patty plus 80-100 calories per piece of cheese or per grated cheese topping, well, there you have it...about 900 calories. And that's just for the burger...not the dressing in my little low-carb-WOE approved side salad.

And let's not forget that that was one of three meals a day, not two, and that I'd have a snack here or there as well; usually something small, such as an egg...but, even the calories factor aside, the bulk of total food I ate on Atkins certainly exceeded what I eat now, and even during individual meals the calories and bulk could easily be roughly comparable to one of my IF meals today (think of the heavy, filling factor of meat...not talking meat down; I think that's one of meat's finest qualities).

So again...people's ideas of "stuffing" oneself when one IFs may not be entirely accurate. I'm glad people concede that if it works for one person, then it's all good...but the general tone in which that's stated in regards to IF is typically more like "Well...I can't even imagine stuffing myself to death, but if it works for you, then...okay." For point of reference, an IFer hearing this is very very similar to an Atkins person hearing "Well, if eating pounds of bacon a day works for you, then okay." Notice how your back immediately went up and you wanted to shout out how inaccurate, condescending and backhand-complimentary that felt? Well...same with the whole "If stuffing once a day works for you" feeling for IFers. I more than give Atkins the benefit of a doubt, and in fact have seen it work miracles in people's lives and health, and I suppose I'd just love that same latitude when it comes to people not on IF observing IF...if that makes sense.