Intermittent fasting and caffeine

[dojo]

My diet is super lean as it is (esp during the week) and due to a number of reasons I've started to incorporate it to Intermittent fasting and the 16:8 method.

So how this looks is my eating window is between 13:00-21:00 - I know this isn't ideal but its realistically the only way I can make it work.

The question is:

During the morning when fasting can I have caffeine?

I've read a lot about water fasting and to me it makes sense as you aren't metabolising anything but on the hand I've read that coffee having some physiological effects on mobilising fat in a fasted state??

[Fozziebear]

I do bulletproof coffee at 0430-0500 then don't eat till 1400 earliest, I have coffee during the day and seen no issues. Twice a week I'll fast till 1900 and train twice during that period

[J4CKO]

I seem to be managing, typically finish eating by seven and go to noon the following day, just cracked and had my lunch at 11:45 today, am drinking black coffee drinking the morning and some water and I seem to manage, dropped the milk to save several brews worth of milk and not set me off getting hungry.

[dojo]

That's interesting - Thanks guys. Eventually I want to up it - I have an enforced 48 hour fast coming up but I want to use it as a catalyst to getting more towards what fozziebear is doing.

So does cafefine start your metabolism - I'm not sure how it can? But then on the other hand why is so much made of water fasting?

[Yipper]

There is growing evidence that coffee destroys metabolism (it is a processed food) and contributing to the obesity epidemic as much as sugar, fat and salt, so it is probably best avoided if on a strict diet. Not to mention the caffeine in it, which causes inflammation-spikes.

[FredClogs]

I've heard that digesting anything other than water kicks of the liver functions that produce the enzymes, insulin response, hormones and other st that can fk up fasting diets.

I've also heard that life is too short for this kind of bks, but whatever you need to do man.

[MurderousCrow]

Yipper said:

There is growing evidence that coffee destroys metabolism (it is a processed food) and contributing to the obesity epidemic as much as sugar, fat and salt, so it is probably best avoided if on a strict diet. Not to mention the caffeine in it, which causes inflammation-spikes.

I'd be interested to see references for these claims.

OP, in light of your aims the effect of caffeine on your body composition is likely to be positive, but negligible.

Some of caffeine’s established effects:

- Upregulates fat metabolism (mildly)
- Increases basal metabolic rate (mildly)

It also:

- Suppresses appetite (mildly)
- Enhances mental performance
- Transiently increases blood pressure

Further it’s a well-known ergogenic aid in sport – it enhances physical performance across a variety of parameters in a wide variety of groups. As such, plasma concentrations of caffeine in competitive athletes are monitored, and excessive levels can be penalised with sanctions. I could reference the above, but I'm not going to - there's a wealth of supporting information in the literature for anyone who'd like to look further.

Inflammation is a complex physiological process, and is a part of the normal regulatory mechanisms of the body. Inflammation is not necessarily bad – exercise is inflammatory, for example. Chronic increases in sub-clinical inflammation however are known to be harmful to health, by increasing oxidative stress. Contrary to Yipper’s claim, caffeine would appear to have beneficial effects in this regard (albeit modest):

1.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/91/4/950.short

2.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/83/5/1039.short

3.

http://www.nature.com/nutd/journal/v2/n4/abs/nutd2...

Study 1 finds coffee consumption appears to have beneficial effects on subclinical inflammation and HDL cholesterol levels.

Study 2 finds ‘consumption of coffee, a major source of dietary antioxidants, may inhibit inflammation and thereby reduce the risk of cardiovascular and other inflammatory diseases in postmenopausal women.’

Study 3 finds an inverse association for coffee consumption with high sensitivity C-reactive protein (a major inflammatory marker).

Luke

Edited to add:

Body composition comes down to fairly simple principles. Denying your body of calories is the mode by which all 'fat-loss' diets work. Some deny calories at the plate, some deny calories at the cellular level (Atkins and other ketogenic diets). Caffeine might assist - a bit, and probably most effectively via its action as an appetite suppressant - but it really won't make much difference.

Edited by MurderousCrow on Thursday 2nd March 13:23

[Fozziebear]

dojo said:

That's interesting - Thanks guys. Eventually I want to up it - I have an enforced 48 hour fast coming up but I want to use it as a catalyst to getting more towards what fozziebear is doing.

So does cafefine start your metabolism - I'm not sure how it can? But then on the other hand why is so much made of water fasting?

I messed with fasting and different ratios of food intake for about 10 years now, the human body reacts well to being starved and then fuelled back up.

[Flibble]

Yipper said:

There is growing evidence that coffee destroys metabolism (it is a processed food) and contributing to the obesity epidemic as much as sugar, fat and salt, so it is probably best avoided if on a strict diet. Not to mention the caffeine in it, which causes inflammation-spikes.

In what way is coffee a processed food? It's picked, shelled, dried, and roasted. By that reckoning almost everything you eat is a processed food.

[Halb]

dojo said:

So does cafefine start your metabolism - I'm not sure how it can? But then on the other hand why is so much made of water fasting?

yes