Rapamycin + Intermittent Fasting

What do you think about combining intermittent fasting with rapamycin?

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I incorporate 16-8 eating pattern (16 hours fasting, 8 hours eating) even though I am taking rapamycin. I have also done the Fasting Mimicking Diet (aka. Prolon) while taking rapamycin. Hard to tell if this is accomplishing anything but there have not been any negative side effects from doing so.

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Many people here do it. Its probably complimentary I think. For even more benefit, I think full fasting (for multiple days) early after dosing rapamycin would provide more benefit. But you have to watch and make sure you have / maintain your muscle. More discussion here: Rapamycin and fasting

Other related discussions:

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Right now I’m doing 18-6. I’m sedentary all day and work out everyday after work. So I’ve pushed my first meal to 3pm, I workout around 6:00pm, and then eat again after. I know they say eating early in the day is better, but this doesn’t seem to make sense with my work schedule. They also say you should eat during more active periods and mine happen to be in the evening.

Anyone tried Prolon Fast bar during fasting window?

Just from my research it shows that consuming ample protein after a fasted workout develops more beneficial effects. I work out fasted (depleted) and refeed after.

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I agree and is what I do. I follow a 2 hour feed / 22hr fast TRF. Even with that small single meal window and longer fast time the 3-4 day water fast I can notice more effect. Not just immediate, which is expected, but over the last 6-months. I have been following IF for years but only added regular extended water fasting 7m ago. I try to do one in every 4 wk block but sometimes its been up to every 6wk at times.

I have had no issues with LBM but I am a lifetime (since 12yr old) weightlifter. I have a genetic predisposion to hold and gain LBM easily as well. But I do think my keto diet with ample complete protein is also helpful.

I believe when looking at protein intakes effect on mtorc1/inflammation/autophagy etc and downstream effects, limiting daily protein intake frequency vs daily total protein amount is a good choice. Also ensuring you get different sources for protein to include various organ meats so its not simply skeletal muscle source as well as various animal species.

I try to time my fast with my rapa dose. I dose every 2 weeks. This works well for me as I mod my workouts using lifts that stretch the muscle group and max range of motion. Example would be swapping flat bench 5-10 rep for db flies 10-15 reps. All my weight workouts are lower vol. I also increase my steady state cardio but at a lower VO%.

Every two weeks I think is most effective, at least for me. For me it allows better functional modulation of fasting/diet, workout, cardio. Minimizes negative immune system effects.

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That would defeat the purpose of the fast. Just look at the ingredients list and the macro profile. Consumings nuts honey etc no matter what prolon states about ketones fat loss etc is going to increase BG and create a insulin spike etc all the same as when you eat food as that is what it is just expensive processed food.

What “effect” are you noticing more of?

I’m not seeing this in the research. Can you point to references?

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I had the same reaction just looking at the list of ingredients! Then I called Prolon and discussed this with one of the scientists/marketing people. I was reassured that Dr. Longo and the company found such a combination of ingredients which allows the bars to prevent breaking fast. I was also reassured that they evaluated these bars in patients with diabetes and they caused no increase in blood sugar. They claim that the bars don’t break fast after 15 hours of fasting. I asked if there is an information of breaking the fast after less than 15 hours and was told that less than 15 hours was also OK and this additional information is about to be published.

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If a fast is defined as not eating, how can eating not break the fast? There is an issue here of what the word fast means. If one wants the benefits of a fast, I think one has to fast. The whole point of a fast is to cease food intake, stopping digestion. If you’re eating food and your body is digesting it, that’s not fasting. Perhaps I am missing something.

Maybe it is terminology indeed : isn’t Prolon a fast - mimicking program ( mimicking a fasting state without actually fasting : in this sense , their specific bar may be considered not to “ break “ the fast mimicking state ? )

I loved the idea of Prolon (and the time efficiency and ease of having 5 days of food ready) and I bought 3 times their 5-day program boxes but as someone else already wrote in other thread, being all industrially pre-packaged foodstuffs ( the “ minute” soups being the worse) I did not finish once :woman_facepalming:t2:

It would be nice if Dr Longo could provide info on which ( real) foodstuffs to eat ( and what quantity) in such a 5 day window (blueprint style detailed info) , keeping this fast mimicking state without having to eat industrial stuff.

Good points. Actually I’d love the idea of having 5 days of food ready! I hate food shopping, cooking and cleanup, what a soul-draining time suck that is. I can definitely see the appeal of this program.

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I thought exactly the same and sometimes there are discounts so I believe I calculated costs around 35 euros / day; also, the food is all packed and in tiny format so super easy if you are busy working and not at home and too busy to spend much time eating BUT
I always ended up “cheating” (“stealing “ from the day2 box on day1; “ stealing ” the “ nicest” things from a new package etc :sweat_smile: or just eating other real foods aside like fruit etc … after eating packaged foods, a simple piece of fresh fruit became just a real obsession :face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth:) NB when I say “ nicest ” things , I mean the tiny package of crackers you get on one day and the nutbar :joy: I still have leftovers ( the soups and the herbal teas) from those packages…
So my advice would be to buy only one package (which contains 5 numbered boxes for each day) at a time and don’t cheat at least the first time, since I managed to repeat the same mistakes another two times

Below a picture of my boxes of Shame


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The Prolon Fast Bar is a part of Prolon fast-mimicking diet and hopefully does not create problems with elevated glucose or loss of ketones. I have never measured ketons, but there is no spike in glucose post the bars.

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Is it the same as those in the 5 day packages ? I.e. nuts and honey bar or the choco bar ?

It is utter foolishness to believe consuming nuts and honey could have the same effect as consuming nothing. Its oxymoronic and only exisits in the world of matketing where nothing is real or grounded in fact.

There are three types of intermittent fasting bars: nuts and honey bar, chocolate chip bar and coconut/makademia. Looks like they are the same bars which are included in the 5-day pack of the fasting mimicking diet.

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i mean we don’t even know if “breaking a fast” is a real thing.

humans eating and “cells having atp” are 2 asynchronous things happening totally in parallel. If you’re lost in the wilderness and eat a blade of grass, are you still fasting? I’d say yes if you ate like 3 molecules of carbs total :slight_smile:

having atp at the cellular level is never “waiting on the human to eat”. fuel exists now or it doesn’t. The human will eat based on “feelings and common times of day”. It has nothing (directly) to do with fuel availability.

And rapamycin is the signal certain cellular components use to spread the word that "fuel ain’t here now and likely won’t come for some time so get to recycling and tossing out and using energy to get any scraps we have laying around (low grade fuel).

So it seems to me (again, all we can do is guess) that rapamycin during a REAL fast (intermittent fasting - just eating during an 8 hour window or whatever - NOT a real fast) will get you to the final fasting stage (when things are getting really dicy - food might be GONE out there in the human world thinks the cell).

So that could lead to rapamycin sticking around longer in your system making the fast pretty hard-core-ish.

But who knows if that’s an important thing or a helpful thing or whaaaatever…

We know so little about how we work. Pretty cool that we found rapamycin (and paid attention) then found it’s oooone (or 2 whatev) protein complexes. and put together the whole anabolism / catabolism switch idea.

it’s obvious we get little catabolism in modern times. rapa is kinda our catabolic cheat code it seems to me. but again. just guessin. that’s all we can do. there are only a handful of people actively trying to solve this puzzle. i have no idea why - if i didn’t get bit by the computer bug at a young age this stuff woulda bit me eventually for sure.

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