The remarkable ADF!
I am now two months into a new phase of my health drive, which is based on a concept known as Alternate Day Fasting, or ADF.
The theory is that you observe a day of virtual fasting, where you restrict calorie intake to no more that 30% of normal intake, which is roughly 600 calories for men. That's the bad news!
The good news is that on the following day, you can eat whatever you want to! (although it is suggested that one should avoid particularly "bad" stuff, like burgers, sweets etc).
Then the cycle repeats itself. The theory is that, although it might be expected that one would naturally eat 1.7x normal on the up day, to compensate for the fast day, the reality is that this isn't the case. The fact is that there is a net deficit of calories over each pair of days, resulting in significant weight loss.
The weight loss alone would be a great outcome, but research has shown that ADF also delivers an extraordinary array of other health benefits, most of which seem to be linked to the activation of the SIRT1 gene, which delivers greatly improved resistance to a range of cancers, asthma, heart disease and diabetes. Pretty much a complete checklist of the most common ailments that afflict the modern world!
I have settled into a routine on my fast days of taking nothing but coffee until noon, when I then have a cup-a-soup for lunch. A couple more coffees in the afternoon, are then followed by a single boiled egg on a slice of toast for dinner. This totals around 350 calories for the day. Is it easy? No. Is it do-able, definitely!
The secret seems to be that one is only fasting for a single day, which is followed by the "reward" of an unrestricted, normal eating day. This seems to avoid the cumulative willpower fatigue which comes from a series of consecutive low-calorie days.
So far, I have lost 10Kg on the ADF diet, to add to the 8Kg that I had already lost earlier in the summer. That is very nearly 3 stones, for those of you scoring in old money!
I am at the lowest weight that I have been for at least 20 years, and I feel great!
The theory is that you observe a day of virtual fasting, where you restrict calorie intake to no more that 30% of normal intake, which is roughly 600 calories for men. That's the bad news!
The good news is that on the following day, you can eat whatever you want to! (although it is suggested that one should avoid particularly "bad" stuff, like burgers, sweets etc).
Then the cycle repeats itself. The theory is that, although it might be expected that one would naturally eat 1.7x normal on the up day, to compensate for the fast day, the reality is that this isn't the case. The fact is that there is a net deficit of calories over each pair of days, resulting in significant weight loss.
The weight loss alone would be a great outcome, but research has shown that ADF also delivers an extraordinary array of other health benefits, most of which seem to be linked to the activation of the SIRT1 gene, which delivers greatly improved resistance to a range of cancers, asthma, heart disease and diabetes. Pretty much a complete checklist of the most common ailments that afflict the modern world!
I have settled into a routine on my fast days of taking nothing but coffee until noon, when I then have a cup-a-soup for lunch. A couple more coffees in the afternoon, are then followed by a single boiled egg on a slice of toast for dinner. This totals around 350 calories for the day. Is it easy? No. Is it do-able, definitely!
The secret seems to be that one is only fasting for a single day, which is followed by the "reward" of an unrestricted, normal eating day. This seems to avoid the cumulative willpower fatigue which comes from a series of consecutive low-calorie days.
So far, I have lost 10Kg on the ADF diet, to add to the 8Kg that I had already lost earlier in the summer. That is very nearly 3 stones, for those of you scoring in old money!
I am at the lowest weight that I have been for at least 20 years, and I feel great!
posted by robracing at
4:24 pm
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