I felt good after sending a broadcast message to the small group of us Intermittent fasters and I thought it’s worth sharing here as a post. Here it is:

“Broadcast on Intermittent Fasting.

I hope the group will now be more active with members sharing experiences.

I would like to give this occasional summary.

The basic intermittent fasting is for 16 hours clean fast with only water during fasting. Please ensure at least 16 hours when you fast. For better benefits people do one day, 48 and 72 hours fasting. Some advocate dry fasting which is fasting even without water. 16 hours is not difficult and we get used to it.

There are articles that breakfast should be eaten. My personal take is that it’s okay to skip breakfast as long as minimum 16 hours are ensured. There could be benefits in including breakfast but remember the words of important scientists like Jason Fung and Nobel laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi, they call it ‘starving’. And we can’t completely disregard the lobbies and consumerism influencing articles. Breakfast is the most branded food and lot of money like cereal makers are at stake. I saw one saying dark chocolate eaten during fasting accelerates autophagy (give me a break). If you find it convenient to skip breakfast, skip. And if you can have breakfast and follow clean fasting, it’s even better.

IF is good for reducing inflammation, normalising blood sugar and diabetes, generating new growth hormones, anti ageing. It fights osteoporosis, heart problems, blood pressure, atherosclerosis, cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s- you name it.

The 2016 Nobel Prize winning study of Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi tells us that we should go for autophagy, which activates when we fast and undergo rigorous activities. Autophagy the Greek word means self eating and in the face of acute depreviation repairs and consume even damaged cells. Autophagy is our medium term goal.

The 2018 Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology went to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their separate but identical studies on immunotherapy for cancer treatment. Though much more complicated, there’s probably a link with autophagy and fasting as they also talk about repairing cancer cells.

So friends, we are on the best, easiest and most proven wellness program. Actually we are not depriving ourselves much, but only delaying the pleasures of eating our favourite things.

By the way, weight loss is a good side effect, but need not be the primary objective.

Let’s set autophagy as the goal and work together on it!

(Kurian Jacob).

If anyone is interested in joining this group, send me a whatsapp message on +91 9400056031. It’s a broadcast group and your phone number will be confidential.

We have a small whatsapp broadcast group on Intermittent Fasting. We are now 55 at varying stages of progress. Though member identity is confidential to the group (broadcast group) feedbacks keep everyone motivated.

Here’s such a feedback from me posted in the group this morning.

“Broadcast on Intermittent Fasting:

We’re now a fairly sizeable group of wellness minded people. We should keep each other enthused for attaining better results. Feedbacks and concerns shared with the group (keeping names confidential, unless otherwise desired) will provide additional motivation.

Here’s what I have to say-

IF is a proven wellness program with plenty of options to tailor to personal circumstances.

Two recent Nobel Prizes for medicine and physiology (2016 and 2018) were for related works like autophagy and cells cleaning.

Logically also it has an edge, that food is used up within 12 hours and fasting beyond that will make the stored fat to be used up for energy needs.

Here’s how I do my fasting.

– I do a 16 hours plus fasting for almost all days of the week. Typically it’s from dinner at around 8 pm with the next meal lunch at around 12.30 pm.

– I take only water in the fasting hours, not even medicine or supplement.

– I do 12 full rounds of suryanamaskars and another about 70 minutes of yoga for 6 days in a week. I try and do it after 12 hours into fasting so that maximum stored fat is used up.

– I swim 6 days in a week in the evening before dinner (during eating window). I swim a total of over one kilometre split into 60 laps in the 18 meters pool. I do speed freestyle and breaststroke taking a pause between laps, making it somewhat HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) which is recommend and could even accelerate autophagy.

– I eat well during the eating window, carefully selecting food that I like. Hence the consumption of sweets have gone up. That way there’s no hard sacrifice.

– I have set a seemingly impossible target for six packs. And it may be on the way.

Two recent comments are worth mentioning. ‘Six packs can be seen’ was a comment when I came off after a river swim.

‘I didn’t believe it when you said you are going for six packs, but your recent photo shows it’s now coming’. Another comment said!

And yes, I myself believe that i can have six packs and it’s a major motivator.

– My confidence levels have gone up and I swear by IF

Perhaps the only concern is the strange behaviour of my glucose reading. I was borderline diabetic taking medicine (not insulin)

With IF it came down and I reduced medicine by half. HbA1c of below 6.5 could now be even lower.

But I notice a phenomenon. Fasting glucose reading of 90 becomes 120 during extended fasting without taking any food.

Apparently its called ‘Dawns Phenomenon’ and one researched finding is about body metabolism. The body (liver) is releasing extra energy anticipating my rigorous energy requirement during suryanamaskar. Any advice on this is welcome.

Another concern is, if I am getting enough quality sleep or not.

Your feedback on how you are doing with IF is welcome”.

If interested in joining this active group to know more about intermittent fasting or wanting to be associated with this group to share your experiences and get feedback, please message me on my whatsapp number +91 9400056031 and I will add you to the group.