Eat, drink and lose weight with IF & ADF

Known variously as Intermediate Fasting (IF), Alternate Day Fasting (ADF) or the 5:2 diet the principle is the same: you can lose weight and get healthier by alternately fasting and then eating normally the next day.
By: www.teacargo.com
 
Sept. 6, 2012 - PRLog -- Dr Krista Varady of the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been testing Alternate Day Fasting (ADF) on human volunteers.  On fasting days you are allowed about 600 calories a day if you are a man, 500 if you are a woman, plus unlimited `clear fluids’.  On `feed days’ you can eat exactly what you want.

What sort of clear fluids are best?  Water – warm or cold - works well for some people but others crave taste.  Black coffee has plenty of taste but some nutritionists feel that it can interfere with the dieting process and the caffeine effects all of use to a greater or lesser extent.

Green, oolong or puerh tea can all help.  Many commentators suggest green tea but even better results can be obtained with oolong tea.   Physiologist Dr.William Rumpler, of the US Agriculture Research Services' Diet and Human Laboratory, has investigated the ancient Chinese belief that oolong tea is effective in controlling body weight.   He found, inter alia, that participants burned an average of 67 more calories per day when drinking the full strength oolong tea.

But does ADF work?  Dr Varady has finished a trial in which she took two groups of volunteers doing ADF for 10 weeks. One group were put on a low-fat diet on their feed days, while the other were encouraged to eat lasagnes, pizza — a typical American high-fat diet. As Dr Varady explained, the results were unexpected.

“When they signed up for the study, the people randomised into the high-fat group weren’t happy because they assumed that they wouldn’t lose as much weight as those randomised to the low-fat diet. But they did. People on the high-fat diet were losing as much and sometimes more weight, week after week.”

And it wasn’t just weight loss: the groups saw similar falls in LDL cholesterol — “bad cholesterol” — and blood pressure. Dr Varady is running a year-long trial to assess the longer-term effects of ADF on weight loss and health. She is keen to see how much her volunteers lose and how many will still be on the diet after a year.

The idea is not particularly new.  Since early last century scientists have known a nutrionally rich but calorie restricted diet can extend life dramatically, especially in mice which can live 40% longer on such a diet.  Now this idea is being adopted by people seeking to lose weight or keep slim while still enjoying food and drink most of the time.

Professor Valter Longo, the director of the University of Southern California’s Longevity Institute has been studying fasting for many years.

One of the links between fasting and longevity seems to be a hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). Prof Longo believes that IGF-1 and other growth factors keep our cells constantly active.  We need adequate levels of IGF-1 and other growth factors when you are growing, but high levels later in life appear to lead to accelerated ageing.

Fasting lowers levels of IGF-1 and also appears to switch on a number of DNA repair genes. The reason seems to be that when we run out of food our bodies change from “growth” to “repair” mode. But Prof Longo warns that fasting is not for the faint-hearted, and is safest done in a specialised centre or under supervision. “There’s going to be a drop in blood pressure, a drop in glucose levels and metabolic reprogramming,” he says. “Some people faint. It’s not common but it happens.”

But for the rest of us the diet is easy and needs no special equipment, books or meetings.  High quality organic oolong tea is available from Tea Cargo by return of post http://teacargo.co.uk/allproducts/tc-organic-oolong.html .

For more about ADF and IF see:  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/22/alternate-day-...

The 5:2 diet: what is it and how does it work?

• With the 5:2 diet, you can eat whatever you like five days a week — so-called feeding days. On the two “fasting days” you eat 500 calories if you are a woman, or 600 calories if you are a man.

• It doesn’t matter which days are spent “feeding” and which “fasting”, as long as the fasting days are non-consecutive and you stick to the 5:2 ratio.

• On fasting days you can consume your calories in one go, or spread them through the day — there is no medical research into whether filling up at breakfast or snacking throughout the day is more effective for weight loss.

• A typical fasting-day breakfast of 300 calories might consist of two scrambled eggs with ham (good sources of protein), plenty of water, clear tea or black coffee. For a typical 300-calorie lunch or dinner, try grilled fish or meat with vegetables.

• On feeding days you can eat whatever you like. Most dieters, rather than feeling a need to gorge, found that they were happy to consume around 2,000 calories — the recommended daily intake for women (2,600 for men) — and did not crave high-fat foods.

• Contrary to popular opinion, fasting can be a healthy way to lose weight. It can reduce levels of IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1, which leads to accelerated ageing), switches on DNA repair genes and reduces blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels.

• According to current medical opinion, the benefits of fasting are unproven. As a diet, it is not recommended for pregnant women or diabetics on medication. Anyone considering a diet that involves fasting is advised to consult their GP first, and to do it under medical supervision.
End
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