16/8 Intermittent Fasting Worth It?

[cornivore]

Another thing to be aware of when doing something other than absolute fasting is that the potential for water intoxication may be higher, so moderating water consumption would be in order too (I was naturally doing this though, because I'd pee more often than normal if I drank water all the time—I actually looked up how often a normal amount of peeing was too).

Water intoxication mostly occurs when water is being consumed in a high quantity without adequate electrolyte intake.

[cornivore]

Another thing I was reading about had to do with what's called a very-low-calorie diet, 800 calories or less per day, though I'm not sure if 1600 calories intermittantly is considered very low calorie too.

Health effects
In about one in four individuals following a VLCD for a few months, gallstones develop. However, these gallstones may be small enough to not cause discomfort, and often disappear when a normal eating pattern is resumed. Gallstone formation is facilitated by the more concentrated bile fluid and reduced flow as a result of a VLCD. Another potential side effect is constipation (depending on the fiber content of the diet). Unmonitored VLCDs with insufficient macronutrient and mineral intake have the potential to cause sudden death via ventricular tachycardia.

Well I'm not counting calories, because it's a feast and famine routine for me, and I couldn't really eat more when I do, but it's interesting to know what kinds of complications there could be if one were being more extreme about it (like fasting longer and eating very little in between, although as I've already noted about refeeding syndrome, eating a lot after fasting too long would be extreme too). They say the very low calorie diet is for rapid weight loss of 3 to 5 pound a week. My weight can fluctuate up or down that much in a day, but I hadn't been testing the scale before using it until recently. Now I'm setting a couple of dumbells of a known weight on it before and after weighing myself more than once to have a better idea when it's accurate (because sometimes I'll get different numbers when I stand on it twice in the same time frame).

Let's see, this last week I weighed 195 lbs on the 3rd, 199 on the 4th, 196 on the 6th, 192 on the 7th, 193 on the 9th, and 197 on the 10th, so it looks like I'm not on a rapid weight loss diet, even though it can fluctuate a few pounds in one day, that just goes to show that I eat a few pounds every other day (and I typically weigh myself 8 to 12 hours after eating or 24 hours after that when not eating).

Anyway, I wasn't talking much about the so-called 16/8 fasting, which I'd think of more like 8/8, as far as really experiencing it, because usually people sleep for 8 hours too, but then again since the first meal of the day is called a "break fast", I guess not eating for 8 hours is considered one, even if you're sleeping. I don't know, do people get hunger pains after 8 hours? My guess is that hunger pains are some kind of side effect of an imbalanced diet or certain types of food, because I don't experience that when not eating for periods several times longer. I think I have in the past, so maybe it was due to what I was or wasn't eating on a regular basis. Okay well for that matter I don't think I'll continue discussing this on a regular basis (I was just looking into it more for the sake of learning a few things in the process, and think it's going to go fine). I was basically doing a 16/8 before, except I'd eat at the end of that 8, not throughout it, and didn't feel like that was enough of a rest from eating my little feast, so I extended it. Now it's good I think, and could always eat more often if that was actually necessary. I'd say that I enjoy not eating as often at this point, after experiencing it for a while, especially since I cook everything from scratch (well I still cook a small platter for my dog and serve it to him while I'm fasting, no sweat).