Hey Dr. Mercola! I listened to you on Jimmy Moore's podcast. I just defended you on sparkpeople, when one of the moderators said you were a "known quack", but I totally disagree with you on this IF-for-everybody thing. But I know you and your team comb the literature, so I hope you will visit this here blog and read up.
My Anecdote
After I turned 50, I scheduled a colonoscopy. Then I started the longest fast so far in my life. My first day without eating started with several hours of gardening, followed by several hours of hard volunteer work. Later that day, I was blessed with an orchard windfall, and I spent the rest of the day and evening in a hot kitchen making and canning jelly and grape juice. The heat got to me a bit, but my hunger wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
The next day I felt miserable (drinking that vile stuff didn't help) and couldn't wait for the procedure to BE OVER so I could eat again. I had a can of soda waiting for me in the car, for the ride home. As miserable as a colonoscopy is, the really neat thing is that during the process I got rid of all my allergies, and many of the aches and pains I associated with aging.
A few weeks later, something else happened. I got a stomach bug. Predictably, it cleaned me out. I ate very little for a couple of days, and then a bit of food every other day into the next week because I was still feeling nauseous. But again, the really neat thing is that during all the vomiting and thinking I was going to die, I got rid of all my allergies and the aches and arthritis-like pains.
Thinking, Hey! this is interesting, I started reading about fasting and found Dr. Johnson's Up Day Down Day Diet. I started it. I lost several pounds rapidly, and started to feel much better. This went on for a month or so until the holidays hit. Then, I found that the diet was difficult to stick to after a few days of regular eating. But, I continued, and told several friends about it. Some went on the plan. One friend lost about 30 pounds.
I continued this plan off and on for a few years, usually returning to it after the holidays and dropping a few pounds. After awhile, life and lack of motivation got in the way, and I just gave up on dieting.
After finishing menopause I was shocked at my weight gain. I started a plan to lose weight. You can read about it here. I went on the Sparkpeople diet (carby, low-fat), and then started with IF again. My typical plan was to eat a fairly large meal in the evening of the "up day", and then the next morning, I would skip breakfast and lunch, starting to eat my reduced calories in the afternoon. Then I would attempt to eat a couple of small meals in the evening.
But, this time it wasn't working for me. I found that when I quit eating, I didn't want to start up again, but when I finally did start eating, I couldn't stop. I found myself not hungry and didn't eat until 1 or 2 pm EVERY day, not just on the down days. When I did start eating again, I headed for the more carby/low-fat choices, and started going for the mini-meals every couple of hours or so, all the way until midnight. I was still hungry, but since my stomach was so full, I couldn't sleep. It started to look just like nighttime eating syndrome.
After a couple of months of this nonsense, I stopped the IF, and went on the straight sparkpeople diet, and continued to fail miserably for another month or so until I switched to a lower-carb diet.
So, Paleo boys, the plan that worked earlier certainly did not work after menopause, and until you-all actually go through menopause or some similar hormonal disruption yourself, I don't really expect you to get it. Just please don't declare that what works for you works for everybody. Yep, I'm dissing IF, and it's not because I'm full of BS.
Hopefully, Dr. Kruse will be able to explain what happened to me in his Quilt. Read about it here. I am hopeful that he has the best explanation I have seen on why IF worked so badly for me. Now that I am low carb, I am still very wary of trying any type of IF.
Here's more on some of the problems with IF:
http://chriskresser.com/blog/to-intermittent-fast-or-not-to-fast-that-is-the-question/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/meal-timing/
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