Who Here Has Gone From Having Belly Fat To Having A Flat Stomach?

baccheion

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True, but has fasting been shown in humans to extend lifespan. Acute short term fasting has been shown to solve health issues, but is regular fasting necessary and/or beneficial? Generally not.


It wasn't meant to be full of assumptions, it's merely based on a large number of anecdotal evidence (as there are no studies on that protocol). Extreme dieting protocols, including fasting, have been shown to be very unsuccessful in the long term. Most people would find fasting for 5 days very tough, not even to mention doing it repeatitively with minimal breaks. Have you personally done this spesific protocol or know of people who did it with great success and maintained that success in the long run (without using anabolics or sarms etc.)?
You said: "Seems to be the best strategy for long term fat loss". I'm sure if it was so successful people would be all over it. I'm not saying it hasn't worked for anyone... it probably has, but I wouldn't bet on it having a positive effect long-term.


Yes, training does encourage muscle mass retention, but during a fast, it might not mean anything. Your body needs glucose from somewhere and if it's not entirely going to come from muscle, it's going to come from organs and other tissue that contain amino acids. Furthermore, training in a fasted state significantly increases the cortisol to testosterone ratio, and given that you won't be eating afterwards it will keep that ratio sky high for days. Ketones might spare protein to a degree but ketones take many days to rise to a meaningful level. Hence, people lose the most amount of muscle in short term fasts. But even if someone eventually reaches their goal weight, they'll be "skinny fat" due to significant muscle loss.

I've done a lot of different kinds of fasts before and some had good short-term effects but non of them were sustainable and non of them came without the cost of losing a bit to a lot of muscle mass. I haven't done an exact fast like this before but I'm sure I wouldn't want to try it either.
Are you saying you're against intermittent fasting (ie, eating in a 1-6 hour window)? A longer fast would/should only be done ~1x/year.
 

olive

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It wasn't meant to be full of assumptions, it's merely based on a large number of anecdotal evidence (as there are no studies on that protocol). Extreme dieting protocols, including fasting, have been shown to be very unsuccessful in the long term. Most people would find fasting for 5 days very tough, not even to mention doing it repeatitively with minimal breaks. Have you personally done this spesific protocol or know of people who did it with great success and maintained that success in the long run (without using anabolics or sarms etc.)?
You said: "Seems to be the best strategy for long term fat loss". I'm sure if it was so successful people would be all over it. I'm not saying it hasn't worked for anyone... it probably has, but I wouldn't bet on it having a positive effect long-term.
Check out /r/fasting on reddit, there’s many on there doing much more extreme fasts then the one I mentioned above with quick, sustained weight loss.

Yes, training does encourage muscle mass retention, but during a fast, it might not mean anything. Your body needs glucose from somewhere and if it's not entirely going to come from muscle, it's going to come from organs and other tissue that contain amino acids. Furthermore, training in a fasted state significantly increases the cortisol to testosterone ratio, and given that you won't be eating afterwards it will keep that ratio sky high for days. Ketones might spare protein to a degree but ketones take many days to rise to a meaningful level. Hence, people lose the most amount of muscle in short term fasts. But even if someone eventually reaches their goal weight, they'll be "skinny fat" due to significant muscle loss.
That’s why I stressed the importance of low volume. With only ~18 repetitions over the course of a week cortisol won’t rise any more significantly than it would otherwise and the glucose needed to perform such a small amount of repetitions is so minuscule that it’s largely irrelevant.
 

baccheion

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Check out /r/fasting on reddit, there’s many on there doing much more extreme fasts then the one I mentioned above with quick, sustained weight loss.


That’s why I stressed the importance of low volume. With only ~18 repetitions over the course of a week cortisol won’t rise any more significantly than it would otherwise and the glucose needed to perform such a small amount of repetitions is so minuscule that it’s largely irrelevant.
Have they done any testing to check/verify where the weight is being lost? DEXA scan, for example, though I'm not sure how accurate it would be when dehydrated.
 

Hans

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Check out /r/fasting on reddit, there’s many on there doing much more extreme fasts then the one I mentioned above with quick, sustained weight loss.
A fast is very tough and hard on the average person which makes it very hard to sustain.
Do they keep the weight off at least one year or five years later?
That’s why I stressed the importance of low volume. With only ~18 repetitions over the course of a week cortisol won’t rise any more significantly than it would otherwise and the glucose needed to perform such a small amount of repetitions is so minuscule that it’s largely irrelevant.
I wasn't referring to exercise using glucose, but the body's general requirements for glucose. When fasted, your intake of glucose is zero thus your body have to break down some kind of amino acid rich tissue to produce it. It's an overall negative. You can't make it a positive by training no matter how low volume you do.
 

ShotTrue

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Belly fat: normalize insulin, cortisol, nutrient levels, and thyroid/HPTA/metabolism.

Causes: low/high estrogen, eating too much, low DHEA, low HGH, low/high cortisol..

I had a larger stomach in high school. It went away after a few weeks of gym class (elliptical).

Inflammation and gut irritation can also lead to a larger stomach.
I concur about the hormones. Too much of something that lowers prog/estrogen and my body becomes stressed and suffer from abdominal obesity
 

ShotTrue

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I exercise because I’m healthy, not too become healthy. When my diet was a lot worse, exercise was very stressful and made my energy, sleep, and moods worse. I usually only exercise after I’ve been well fed and I feel very energetic and strong. The muscular pumps I get feel really good. If I’m feeling low energy then I never exercise , and prioritize resting and feeding to bring my energy state back up. I wouldn’t be as muscular as I am now if I didn’t do those exercises, but I do not think they correlate at all with my belly fat. There are plenty of elite athletes with bellies, or other signs of stress and degeneration, like hair loss or accelerated aging, and their diet is to blame imo. My fat storage is a direct result of the food I eat, and excess starch, meat, and now I’m realizing excess milk are my worst offenders.

Without my diet I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. Pairing diet and exercise produces a very capable human being, but without the diet piece it just doesn’t work out. All it takes is one incorrect meal and I’m bloated, low energy, and Inflamed.

P.S. I’m adding cheese, peanut butter, and roasted almonds to my diet. I ate them today and felt very good. Still have a flat stomach, and feel clear headed too boot. Excess milk will make me happy but foggy.
You're not healthy enough if one meal is doing that to you, not that we shouldn't be avoiding them
 

ShotTrue

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Don't mean to overdo this question as this subject gets brought up a lot, but I think it's important to refine questions for more precise answers. Us lot have a tendency to go off the original topic :p
I am generally suffering from being too thin, the of the times I had bodyfat was from a hormone imbalance or I was eating way more food than I needed, especially with high insulin? reactions like dried mango slices.

First off I would try to eat your fill in food, protein around 1gram per lb of bodyweight or a little less/more. I would add fruits and veggies, and higher glycemic foods around exercise time

I don't think you need to avoid carbs. Lowering carbs is generally how people eat to lose fat in the bodybuilding community, and keeping fats and protein around the same.
Consume things that increase IGF-1 as this is a powerful fat cutting hormone, like Milk. I actually find it easy to keep fat off drinking whole milk

So I guess in general drop carbs while maintaining high protein intake
 

ShotTrue

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Now in terms of exercise, I had the leanest abs doing plyometrics OR when I added swimming to my weight training routine.
For example, swimming for half and hour after lifting for an hour. Your body will shred bodyfat while also helping to maintain muscle mass, I got an 8pack while doing that.

Plyometrics like jump training and sprints, basically HIIT. High impact movements like running seem to help a lot but high impact worse for joints. I notice my body sometimes melts muscle when I do too much running. I only run for cardio health or if I need the athletic endurance.

So in simplest terms, I would start weight training at least 3-4 times a week. This will help burn excess bodyfat, and generally I feel like if I'm fat my body will prioritize losing the fat while weight training instead of building muscle. Adding extra cardio, especially swimming, hiit, or plyo really helps burn it off. Dropping carbohyrdates to a lower amount
IF you're weighttraining eventually the increased muscle mass while increase metabolism and body fat wont reside on your body as much.
And it can be as simple as : high carb = muscle gain, low carb = fat loss
 

Runenight201

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You're not healthy enough if one meal is doing that to you, not that we shouldn't be avoiding them

I think people underestimate how much their mood, strength, energy, inflammation status, mental clarity etc... are all affected by the foods they eat. Attempting to optimize all of them is quite the task, and very few people would meet my definition of healthy.
 

Vinny

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i walk in my room, i have 4% body fat :D
Really???
How interesting...
You must have a hell of a room, to mention first. And, plenty of time, too... good for you, my friend!

But, can I dare to ask you to show us, mere mortals, a pic of you, with those 4% body fat?
 

Vinny

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@Hans is right.
Fasting is extremely difficult.
I would carry my belly anyway. But, I think I,ll find, however, another way to deal with it.
 

tygertgr

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many of us do not have time to do that.

Then you will be fat. Every time I have gotten very lean and also felt great it was with hours of light activity like walking or cycling or gardening almost every day. Exercise is an area where Peat says highly misleading things. Sedentarism is absolutely horrible for humans, no matter what they are eating. We are built to be highly physically active. I even think the PUFA consumption fixation is a bit overblown because it just gets burned up in muscle tissue if you are highly active.

We evolved to exercise and need high levels of physical activity to be healthy
 

ShotTrue

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Then you will be fat. Every time I have gotten very lean and also felt great it was with hours of light activity like walking or cycling or gardening almost every day. Exercise is an area where Peat says highly misleading things. Sedentarism is absolutely horrible for humans, no matter what they are eating. We are built to be highly physically active. I even think the PUFA consumption fixation is a bit overblown because it just gets burned up in muscle tissue if you are highly active.

We evolved to exercise and need high levels of physical activity to be healthy
I really don’t think walking 8 miles compares to weigh training , then again 8 miles a day is a lot!!
I worked at the zoo and sometimes walked up to 12 miles a day, I did better weigh training and just jogging regularly
 

redsun

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Then you will be fat. Every time I have gotten very lean and also felt great it was with hours of light activity like walking or cycling or gardening almost every day. Exercise is an area where Peat says highly misleading things. Sedentarism is absolutely horrible for humans, no matter what they are eating. We are built to be highly physically active. I even think the PUFA consumption fixation is a bit overblown because it just gets burned up in muscle tissue if you are highly active.

We evolved to exercise and need high levels of physical activity to be healthy

A healthy body wants to be active. Putting overweight people on treadmills or making them jog is literally the worst thing for them as it will further degrade their already poor health which I hope you are not suggesting. As for walking many people already walk quite a bit even if overweight, and if someone is really fat/unhealthy even walking long distances will do unnecessary harm.

Fixing the diet so they can drop the majority of their weight is the first step. I will say however that even overweight or unhealthy people can get away with weight training as it doesnt require much endurance and will help with health in the long run through increasing muscle mass which will naturally burn more fat.

Humans do have a capacity for significants amounts of physical activity but a sick body will slow down its metabolism and urge you to be sedentary. If you have an intense inclination to being sedentary it is because you are unhealthy and your body wants to conserve its energy and nutrients that would otherwise be used up faster because you are depleted.

This is not bad though, this is good, your body wants you to be healthy again but exercise puts a greater toll on your body which makes health recovery incredibly difficult(not impossible if done right). Exercise is default unhealthy if you are sick/have poor health/very overweight.

The mainstream nonsense on making everyone exercise is just that, nonsense. More and more people exercise now due to the constant push to do so by our governments, especially in schools in an attempt to prevent childhood obesity, and to get everyone to be more active to prevent disease and yet obesity keeps getting worse and so do the prevalence of health problems.

And this is coming from a guy who was incredibly intense in the exercise department as a teenager. I was very muscular and lean and yet felt unbelievably tired most of the time. Only when I fixed my energy levels did I once again become lean and strong and I did it the right way.

We do have an ability to deal with PUFA consumption as we have been consuming it as long as we have been consuming fats, which is basically forever(all fats have PUFA). But in the modern age Peat is not overexaggerating. We are literally so ****88 as a species because of high PUFA intake combined with low nutrient diet(empty calorie diet) that makes it difficult for us to deal with any modern stressors let alone PUFA.

And even when we transition to a healthy, more nutrient dense diet we are still screwed because we have to deal with the backlog of chronic nutrient depletion(especially B-complex) that has already degraded the organs and all bodily tissues which is why many here(myself including) when increasing nutrient dense foods still feel bad and tired and have health issues.

This is where chronic high dosing(not super high, just well above RDAs for long periods of time) of B-complex and scarcely obtained minerals like zinc, magnesium, manganese(possibly) becomes useful and quite honestly for the majority of people it is the only hope to make up for years of empty calories.
 
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Waremu

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Then you will be fat. Every time I have gotten very lean and also felt great it was with hours of light activity like walking or cycling or gardening almost every day. Exercise is an area where Peat says highly misleading things. Sedentarism is absolutely horrible for humans, no matter what they are eating. We are built to be highly physically active. I even think the PUFA consumption fixation is a bit overblown because it just gets burned up in muscle tissue if you are highly active.

We evolved to exercise and need high levels of physical activity to be healthy

You say PUFA is burned by muscle as if that in of itself is a good thing. Just because some PUFA is burned by LBM does not prove that Ray Peats view on PUFA is “over exaggerated.” Even if your muscle is constantly burning off larger amounts of PUFA, there are unfavorable metabolic consequences to constantly exposing mitochondria to the PUFA oxidation process, again, by eating more PUFA than is necessary (since most people cannot completely avoid all PUFA). Yes, a fast metabolic rate will burn much PUFA off —- until it eventually gets bogged down by the stress of burning PUFA, especially with the other added metabolic stressors that come with aging.

Getting healthy to be able to naturally want to and handle exercise is better than attempting to exercise to ‘get healthy.’ The ability to and desire for exercise should come as the result of good health. Ray Peat said many times that lower stress exercise like walking, some weight exercises, is fine and can help the body to build muscle to better handle the PUFA in the diet/food that is virtually hard to avoid.
 

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