I'm about 6 hours away from ending a 5 day fast. I can't confirm all of the benefits from the article (I'm neither a diabetic, spiritual person, nor suffering from cancer), but I can attest to the power of the final quote in the article: "'Anyone can reach his goals if he can think, if he can wait, if he can fast.'”
Two main takeaways I've gained from fasting (I've done multiple 24 hour fasts prior to this 5 day one):
1. You don't need to eat nearly as often as you think. Hunger pangs are usually just food cravings, and drinking lots and lots of water, water you should probably be drinking anyway, will mask them more easily than one would expect.
2. The successful self-deprivation of food (in a healthy, reasonable way) and the almost exclusively positive benefits that it brings makes you wonder how much of an economic and nationwide health impact the USA would see if everyone practiced some form of fasting.
By the way, the phrase "if he can think, if he can wait, if he can fast" comes from the book Siddartha by Hermann Hesse[0] which is (roughly) about Buddhist philosophy.
I really don't think you should be giving vague advice like this -- it could be dangerous for some people.
> drinking lots and lots of water
People who are sedentary and probably drinking more water than someone who finished a marathon does not sound like a good idea to me. I was drinking a ton of water throughout the day based on ideas like this and got sick from it. I feel much better now having cut my water intake. Could the converse also be true, that we're overestimating how much water we actually need?
> Hunger pangs are usually just food cravings
Are you sure? For me cravings and hunger pangs are entirely different feelings.
I don't doubt there are benefits to some forms of fasting, but people should consult their doctors first and tread carefully.
I'd like to add something to 1). Often a food desire is really just boredom/anxiety speaking. As if your brain decided it needed to feel good, and right now food was the closest thing to fulfill the goal. When I force myself to do something else, I feel .. let's say a bit manic, but I can often work on other things deeply, and the hunger vanishes rapidly.
I do intermittent fasting since a couple of months, initially started with 16:8 and then moved to 18:6 after the first 4 weeks.
It took around 3-4 weeks until I noticed results which seems in line what I was told by others.
What stood out beside the weight loss (I was very close to my ideal weight anyway) was my ability to concentrate. I noticed a huge improvement after around 5-6 weeks. When I try to come up with the right words in a conversation it feels I have immediately in mind what I want to say.
I struggle to gain weight (always have), and fasting sounds incredibly easy to me - all you have to do is not do something. On the other hand, eating to gain weight if you have no/little appetite is hard work - you actually have to take the time to do it.
Is there a relatively easy way to boost one's appetite? Drinking a gallon of full fat milk a day on top of one's usual meals is the easiest option I have found, but even that is a lot of hard work.
Hunger pangs are caused by a hormone called Ghrelin. It's more of a reminder to eat than an actual signal that you need more food. But it makes you feel like you're starving.
> drinking lots and lots of water, water you should probably be drinking anyway, will mask them more easily than one would expect.
I've recently started intermittent fasting (22:00 - 12:00, still cheat too often, but it's a start) and I've noticed this too. Two cups of coffee and a couple of glasses of water really keeps me alright until lunch. That's when I really start feeling hungry.
I wasn't afraid to start IF either, because I often used to skip breakfast because I couldn't get out of bed on time.
Another related point is to increase eating raw/uncooked food. I'm noticing how much less I eat as I decrease cooked food portions. It may be easier or better than outright fasting.
Of course, I am only referring to certain veggies or soaking things like peas/beans/lentils in water overnight (instead of cooking). Please don't eat raw meat or anything after you see my message!
I inadvertently started fasting during college due to my class schedule, living off campus, and not being able to afford eating out. I'm now at a point in my life where my schedule is more flexible, I'm not spending as much time commuting, and I can afford to eat out if I choose to, but I've continued to maintain a one meal a day lifestyle. I don't feel the sensation of hunger anymore though I still have an appetite. My coworkers get noticeably anxious and antsy if they don't have their lunch by 11 AM while hunger no longer affects my ability to concentrate. I've also been able to maintain a healthy BMI as I age; I'm neither overweight or underweight.
I will say that when I was younger I often wanted a bodybuilder physique, but I didn't have the discipline to eat enough to support proper muscle growth. Now I'm just glad I'm not going the seemingly inevitable route of becoming an overweight middle-aged office worker that morphs into their chair.
Edit: To be clear, I still go to the gym regularly to lift weights and do cardio even with fasting, but I never have and never will compete in any bodybuilding competitions (which I'm OK with).
> I will say that when I was younger I often wanted a bodybuilder physique, but I didn't have the discipline to eat enough to support proper muscle growth. Now I'm just glad I'm not going the seemingly inevitable route of becoming an overweight middle-aged office worker that morphs into their chair.
This can't be reiterated enough. Fasting helped me NOT eat all day while sitting at a desk. I eat no breakfast during the week and have a light salad for lunch and then have a regular dinner. The only byproducts I've come across is a slightly higher sensitivity to caffeine and I'm more alert.
I was forced to a fasting schedule in college too since I could only afford a 14 meal a week plan during college, luckily it was all you could eat once you were inside!
> when I was younger I often wanted a bodybuilder physique
As someone who has competed in both bodybuilding and powerlifting, I can attest that you don't want that physique. It's not worth the pain, time, and effort for it. Plus, anyone you see with rock-hard abs looks like that for maybe a 3 hour window. Almost no one looks like that year-round all of the time.
Instead of gaining 15 pounds my freshman year, I lost it. I wasn't consciously fasting--I was just too lazy to leave my dorm room to grab snacks. I didn't keep up the habit as I got older and put on weight. Now I'm consciously fasting every day since the start of the year. I'm about 25 pounds down so far and I don't see myself ever giving up this lifestyle.
I did read the recent research in support of intermittent fasting, but a lot of the quotes in this article seem like pseudoscience.
> It also reduces the time spent each day processing food and lengthens the period devoted to cleansing and restoring the body’s cells, both of which have positive health effects.
So "cleansing and restoring" the body's cells only happens when one isn't eating?? Gonna need a citation for that one.
I've been doing IF (18:6) for 6 months and OMAD (23:1) for 2 months, while I've lost a decent amount of weight, slowly but surely, I've mostly plateaued. I don't weigh myself and I'm very active (ice hockey 3-5 times a week) but I've noticed a difference in body fat qualitatively.
But... that's not why I am doing it. I've suffered for years from migraines. 2-4 times a week, I've been to half a dozen doctors with no solid recommendations besides medication.
Now, not only do I take zero medication, but I get migraines about once a month, and way less severe than I used to. Ive also correlated the migraines with times followed by poor fasting behavior (for instance, eating all day on a weekend with family and friends).
I also need less sleep, am less groggy, and have far fewer stomach issues.
Do you grind your teeth at night? I used to have severe migraines at least once a month until I got a night guard from a dentist that prevented grinding. Now I get a migraine maybe once a year.
I have a guard from a company called NTI. It’s a small piece of acrylic that sits on my upper front teeth and has a sort of “shelf” that my lower incisors rest on. This apparently tricks the brain into refusing to clench down because at a deep level it knows not to bite when it’s incisor on incisor.
I recall reading that this style of night guard, while certainly better than a whole tooth guard that still allows you to grind but just protects your teeth, is not great for long term. However I can’t recall why and I need to research more. In any case I’ve been using mine for over 10 years and I would never go back to not using it.
Anyway, a bunch of unsolicited info that will maybe help you or anyone suffering from migraines who stumbles across this post.
Just an idea, but the migraine might be coming from inflammation in the brain. Eating less food causes less inflammation. You could try something like Aspirin or Glycine to bring inflammation down, it might help that last bit.
Glad you've found what works for you! Just wanted to comment that I love that you abbreviated OMAD. I've done it too and after a week or so of feeling a little dizzy around 3pm, my body fully adapted to OMAD. I just find it funny that the strategy may be well known enough to use an acronym.
Fasting has changed my life. I put a ton of weight on in B-school (yes not afraid to admit I went to b school on HN) that plus my consulting lifestyle (lack of good quality sleep for days at a time) really started to take a toll on my health (lines and bags under my eyes, poor health and energy levels in general).
My wife is due with our second in august, so I decided to get in shape as a gift to my baby girl. I’m not a gym goer, so fasting looked appealing. There’s so much research around IF, circadian rhythms, effect on anti cancer factors, autophagy, anti Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc, definitely a lot more to motivate people now than before when it was likely for spiritual reasons.
I dropped forty pounds in the last three months, and probably look almost ten years younger, I feel like my body has almost reversed the damage I did to it from school and over work. I was addicted to eating and I’ve broken through that, and now I can just work non stop all day for 12-18 hours as needed, whereas my colleagues are still fixated on six small meals, which I’ve now realized is so disruptive to work and concentration. No more after lunch coma, I haven’t even had to set foot in a gym. I don’t do Omad but will do 48h and 72h fasting, and I feel fine, have not felt a huge drop in muscle that everyone freaks out about. All in all I will keep going with this fasting focused lifestyle, and would definitely recommend anyone who is struggling with this to try it.. first week is toughest, once you break through the addiction, you won’t even think about it.
Don't fool yourself thinking that after few weeks or even months of dieting/fasting you've broken the addiction. That was my mistake the first time I began IF.. after 8 months I decided that eating normally for a few weeks will not change anything.. 10 months later I'm back at my pre-diet weight trying to restart the whole process again.
Another anecdote, but others might find it useful: I have been doing intermittent fasting for years now. I currently eat once per day. My eating window is usually an hour or less. I eat dinner, have dessert, go to bed. I run five miles every morning on an empty stomach. During the day I drink only water and I put an electrolyte fizzy tablet in my first glass.
It works great for me for maintaining my energy level and managing my weight. It probably does not work for everybody, but I think more people should try it.
Most humans currently living and who have lived didn't eat three meals every day. It's a recent phenomenon driven by those marketing food and snacks. Observing obesity rates, more people should try hunger and learn how to manage it.
I should add: I do occasionally have breakfast and lunch meetings or social engagements at which I feel compelled to eat or have a treat. I find that once I break my fast for the day, my hunger is awakened and it is harder to abstain.
Fasting has a side-benefit of saving lots of time. Less time planning meals. Less time shopping. Less time preparing food. Less time eating. For me, the extra N hours a day I save is very noticeable.
I also notice more easily how food is pushed on us. Food advertising is pervasive. In the city, you cannot even walk 50m without seeing a signboard enticing you to eat something. Everywhere people are eating, carrying food, talking about food. When I am in a more natural setting, thoughts about food come from within. I get hungry, and then I think about eating. If I am not hungry, I do not think much about eating (aside from having basic food security). The desire for food is not broadcast to me.
I did the CRON diet in the early 2000s, and our motto was that we eat to live, rather than living to eat. I don't deliberately restrict calories anymore, but it gave me a unique perspective in a world of celebrity chefs.
Mostly I agree with the idea of limited eating to a window of roughly 12 hours; however I disagree with skipping breakfast.
I never use to eat breakfast until a recent hockey injury where I damaged 6 teeth including losing 2. My weight dropped rapidly because I couldn't eat solids so I started to eat eggs and tofu a lot (mostly eggs). The byproduct of all this was I would wake up so hungry I was dizzy so I started having 3 eggs for breakfast.
I'm mostly over the injury now (still waiting for the implants to be implanted), however I've continued to eat a large breakfast and my weight has remained the same - roughly 20 pounds lower than before the injury. I had already gotten in the habit of not eating at night, and if I have anything it's a little bit of yogurt.
Long/short I think it's a mistake to skip breakfast, I had done that for most of my life and now I'm sharper and more productive in the AM than I have ever been.
Just an anecdote as proof to the opposite. If I eat breakfast, I ruin my entire day.
It seems for me digesting a meal early in the day makes me lazy and sleepy. In high school, I use to eat a very light breakfast to avoid terrible hunger just before lunch. Even then, I'd get a bit sleepy. As I've gotten older, it just gets worse.
My solution is to skip breakfast, but eat lunch an hour earlier than most people.
There is an interesting twitter thread [0] that relates to your experience of difficulty eating while in need of enough food for recovery. It is about a treatment using large quantity of eggs (35 per day) for severe burn victims where 7 out of 8 survived.
Also my 2c about breakfast, it is important to have a diet that works for you and I don't think skipping breakfast for me is a mistake simply because I'm not hungry at that time. IMHO forcing yourself to eat for breakfast because you have been told otherwise would be a mistake is the mistake, and listening to your body is more important.
It would be interesting to get more information. Having a severe appetite while your body rebuilds seems reasonable. And needing more of a particular kind of food during that time (calcium? protein?) also seems reasonable. I wonder if you moved the three eggs to lunch time what would happen? In other words, is it now the three eggs or the skipping breakfast?
My own experience is that unless I have been strenuously active skipping breakfast does not have any negative effects.
From what I've heard/read, time-restricted feeding works best when you skip dinner versus skipping breakfast. So I'm not surprised that's been your experience.
But it's also socially difficult to maintain a no-dinner lifestyle, so I still choose to skip breakfast instead. I'll take the 80% benefit I can maintain versus the 100% I can't.
Gonna join the anecdote club. Before I started doing IF, I had a lot of stomach problems. I was taking omeprazole and eventually pantoprazole (more powerful) but still frequently had heartburn overnight and woke up with a horrible taste in my mouth. I had some bad flareups where I'd wake up puking bile and felt horrible all day long. Prior to that even I had two endoscopies and got tested for Crohn's disease (my dad has it, I tested negative). I was seriously considering that I'd never be able to eat Indian food again (my favorite!). On top of that, I would get EXTREMELY hangry every day, multiple times a day.
Then I tried IF.. after just a couple weeks I was able to stop the pantoprazole and my heartburn problems went away. The first two weeks were hard, I had a constant dull headache and the hunger at night (I'm 'skipping dinner' in my 16/8 schedule) was pretty hard. But after I got used to it, I felt much better over all. No more getting hangry, no more heartburn, no more trouble sleeping, no more groggy mornings, better mood overall.
It's ridiculous how much food and your eating patterns can affect you. I've seen it multiple times now when I've 'fallen off the [IF] wagon'... my mood deteriorates, and often other symptoms come out: headaches, upset stomach, all sorts of stuff. I don't think it's absurd to think that the stuff you're putting into your body "for energy" actually has a lot of other affects on your system.
Oh, and I dropped some of the weight I started gaining in my 30's when I did IF, too, which is a benefit of course, but not my reason for doing it.
For a diabetes/obesity focus on this point, read anything by Jason Fung. For instance, "The obesity code" is thoroughly researched and persuasive.
As a diabetes researcher myself, it makes sense. While I do not investigate type 2, I understand that having a decent stretch of time where the body's insulin levels drop is a really good thing.
For anyone who wants to go a bit into the weeds, I really enjoyed this episode of Peter Attia's podcast where he interviewed Jason Fung: https://peterattiamd.com/jasonfung/
I've been doing intermittent fasting on and off for years now. In the past few months, I have become more extreme and am doing OMAD (One Meal a Day). I typically do a 23/1 fast where I only eat within a 1 hour period (dinner). The Keto diet + OMAD has enabled me to lose more than 100lbs and keep it off.
I haven't been perfect but I have noticed that it (obviously) has cut my mindless snacking and has made me more mindful as to what I'm actually eating. After about a week your body adjusts and you're hungry during the day.
What I've been doing now is during lunch, instead of eating I go for a 30-45 minute walk.
I did an over-the-top version of intermittent fasting for about two months last year where I would fast (no calories, just water and black coffee/tea) for at least 24 hours and then would eat normally the following day and then fast again. So alternating >24 hr fasts with a day normal eating (3 normal meals).
During this experiment I felt mentally fantastic. Mood was improved. Energy was higher. Not to mention I spent way less money on food, spent way less time thinking about or having to find food on my fasting days, and felt more in control of my hunger.
I tried increasing my fast from 24 hrs to 48 hrs, it went fine. But when I broke my fast with a large bean rice and cheese burrito, I felt like I was dying about 30 minutes later (lightheadedness, tachycardia, nausea). Ended up being hospitalized with refeeding syndrome or something similar, which was surprising to physicians because they only saw refeeding syndrome (had critically low phosphate) in people who had gone without significant caloric intake for weeks or months at a time.
I’ve never been the same since then. I think Ive developed gastrocardiac syndrome because I frequently (1-2x week) get less severe episodes of nausea, lightheadedness and tachycardia that generally self resolve but still feels like I’m dying for about 30 minutes. It’s been about a year now, so seems somewhat permanent damage.
So, I definitely recommend intermittent fasting but if you have a tendency to take things to the extreme, just don’t. It’s not worth it.
Have you heard of POTS? I wonder if electrolyte imbalance was/is driving some of your symptoms. Doing low-ish carb (nowhere near keto) and IF 18 hours a day, I have to supplement electrolytes or else I have very similar symptoms to you. YMMV of course.
What they're describing here is close to the popular 16:8 variant of intermittent fasting. I found that it doesn't really work for weight loss for me.
Instead, I'm using the Every Other Day Diet variant of intermittent fasting which arguably is the best researched one. It helped me drop weight significantly in 2015 with little trouble (details: http://lukasz.langa.pl/9/i-lost-26-pounds-in-3-months/).
Sadly, since I stopped cycling regularly two years back and dropped the diet a year ago, I regained what I lost and then some. So I'm back on intermittent fasting now.
Recommendations based on my experience:
- weigh yourself daily in the morning, as the very second thing you're doing
- a Withings scale or similar helps putting this in a database efortlessly which helps seeing trends
- observe your moving average of 7 days
- eat just a light lunch (circa 500 kcal) every other day; it's easy to skip breakfast knowing there's going to be lunch soon and it's possible to skip dinner knowing "it's Eat Day tomorrow!"
- eat what you want on Eat Day but do it slowly, your body will quickly adapt to your fasts, the stomach will shrink and it's going to be easier to get full
- let people know you're losing weight and how, they will probably tell you you're more grumpy on Non-Eat Days
Anecdata: I've tried fasting of various kinds over the last few years, both IF (18:6) and 5-day fasts. Personally, I found great cognitive benefits from fasting, starting day 3 or 4 in the 5-day fast. That said, I found the most benefit from:
1. Maintaining a very low-carb diet (~20 net carbs spread out through the day, mostly from lemons) which I have sustained for a year so far. I occasionally cheat but not often as it takes me about 8 days to get back into ketosis after each cheat and never feels worth it after the fact
2. Exercising (weight lifting and cardio) 3 times per week
3. _Never_ eating anything with 'added sweetener', so pretty much no desserts of any kind. This includes 'neutral' sweeteners with no calories (e.g., monk fruit). It has been almost 2 years since I have eaten any kind of dessert and I very rarely miss them at this point
Doing the above, I feel amazing almost every day. I have no known bodily ailments, never get sick, have sustained energy levels all day, every day, and am my ideal weight with little fluctuation. The hardest part of sticking to my rules has been maneuvering through incessant social expectations and demands to eat particular foods, like breads, desserts, etc.
I've written previously of how I got sick after a tick bite, and how I stayed sick for a very long time, even after taking antibiotics, and how, in the end, fasting helped bring about a permanent cure:
I've never fasted, but I HAVE lost 62lbs and counting over the past 18 months or so. All I've had to do is eat a lot less, and work out a lot more! It's primarily down to meal tracking, so I know what my inputs and outputs are. It's easier than ever with apps to do all this stuff, and fitness watches that can estimate how much you burn in your daily activities and workouts. Once you start getting that feedback loop of something that works (rather than "I ate healthy for a few weeks and my weight stayed the same, so fuckit, I give up"), I find it so much easier.
It's interesting to me that the author proposes skipping breakfast, which is generally considered to be "the most important meal of the day". Most folks say your smallest meal should be dinner, but I think for most of us, it's the biggest. You have more time for it, and you're worn out and hungry from the day. I do it all wrong; I eat 3 meals a day plus a few snacks, and after getting off work, doing a workout, going home, showering, prepping dinner, it seems like it's 9pm before dinner most days, and in bed within 90mins.
I actually did have a period where I probably stuck fairly close to the proposed schedule; for several years I didn't eat breakfast at all, because I was too lazy to bother. By 11:45 I'd be aching for food, and annoyed that my coworkers took forever to decide where to go. I started eating breakfast, and found that it delayed my hunger pangs by only 15 minutes -- that is to say, it was a habit, rather than purely food driven.
But I wasn't light back in the days when I was skipping breakfast, and I didn't gain weight when I started eating breakfast.
I think the key here is that you have to be skipping breakfast intentionally, as part of a method of restricting ourselves, of being mindful about what you eat. And you can do that in any number of ways.
I've been curious about intermittent fasting for awhile but I think it's important to keep in mind what the literature has to tell us. I've linked to a NCBI article from 2016 which I recognize is a little old but I think it's worth reading the conclusion section if you are thinking about giving intermittent fasting a try. I think the jury is still out on whether or not the "Fasting Cure is No Fad"
For those who want to try extended fasting but are worried that this might be too hardcore, It's helpful to know that the fasting mimicking diet can be approximated by simply eating ~700 calories (around 16oz) of avocado/guacamole per day. I often extend a fast by eating avocado. Research suggests that you extend the benefits of autophagy with less stress.
I would recommend reading "The Circadian Code" by Dr. Satchin Panda and judging for yourself. My takeaway was that it is more than fasting, it is about getting your body's cycles to sync up (sleep cycle, digestive cycle, repair cycle, etc.).
Also, I think it is interesting that a lot of religions have a fasting component.
[+] [-] brayhite|6 years ago|reply
Two main takeaways I've gained from fasting (I've done multiple 24 hour fasts prior to this 5 day one):
1. You don't need to eat nearly as often as you think. Hunger pangs are usually just food cravings, and drinking lots and lots of water, water you should probably be drinking anyway, will mask them more easily than one would expect.
2. The successful self-deprivation of food (in a healthy, reasonable way) and the almost exclusively positive benefits that it brings makes you wonder how much of an economic and nationwide health impact the USA would see if everyone practiced some form of fasting.
[+] [-] yojex|6 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/431428.Siddhartha
[+] [-] ahallock|6 years ago|reply
> drinking lots and lots of water
People who are sedentary and probably drinking more water than someone who finished a marathon does not sound like a good idea to me. I was drinking a ton of water throughout the day based on ideas like this and got sick from it. I feel much better now having cut my water intake. Could the converse also be true, that we're overestimating how much water we actually need?
> Hunger pangs are usually just food cravings
Are you sure? For me cravings and hunger pangs are entirely different feelings.
I don't doubt there are benefits to some forms of fasting, but people should consult their doctors first and tread carefully.
[+] [-] agumonkey|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DyslexicAtheist|6 years ago|reply
It took around 3-4 weeks until I noticed results which seems in line what I was told by others.
What stood out beside the weight loss (I was very close to my ideal weight anyway) was my ability to concentrate. I noticed a huge improvement after around 5-6 weeks. When I try to come up with the right words in a conversation it feels I have immediately in mind what I want to say.
[+] [-] agent008t|6 years ago|reply
Is there a relatively easy way to boost one's appetite? Drinking a gallon of full fat milk a day on top of one's usual meals is the easiest option I have found, but even that is a lot of hard work.
[+] [-] RobertRoberts|6 years ago|reply
I would argue that perhaps you aren't "depriving" yourself but more like adjusting your intake to meet your actual needs.
In other words, most of us overeat, and it just feels like deprivation when we eat less. (until we get accustomed to it)
[+] [-] sp332|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donkeyd|6 years ago|reply
I've recently started intermittent fasting (22:00 - 12:00, still cheat too often, but it's a start) and I've noticed this too. Two cups of coffee and a couple of glasses of water really keeps me alright until lunch. That's when I really start feeling hungry.
I wasn't afraid to start IF either, because I often used to skip breakfast because I couldn't get out of bed on time.
[+] [-] sjg007|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deshpand|6 years ago|reply
Of course, I am only referring to certain veggies or soaking things like peas/beans/lentils in water overnight (instead of cooking). Please don't eat raw meat or anything after you see my message!
[+] [-] o10449366|6 years ago|reply
I will say that when I was younger I often wanted a bodybuilder physique, but I didn't have the discipline to eat enough to support proper muscle growth. Now I'm just glad I'm not going the seemingly inevitable route of becoming an overweight middle-aged office worker that morphs into their chair.
Edit: To be clear, I still go to the gym regularly to lift weights and do cardio even with fasting, but I never have and never will compete in any bodybuilding competitions (which I'm OK with).
[+] [-] nesky|6 years ago|reply
This can't be reiterated enough. Fasting helped me NOT eat all day while sitting at a desk. I eat no breakfast during the week and have a light salad for lunch and then have a regular dinner. The only byproducts I've come across is a slightly higher sensitivity to caffeine and I'm more alert.
[+] [-] roland35|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acconrad|6 years ago|reply
As someone who has competed in both bodybuilding and powerlifting, I can attest that you don't want that physique. It's not worth the pain, time, and effort for it. Plus, anyone you see with rock-hard abs looks like that for maybe a 3 hour window. Almost no one looks like that year-round all of the time.
[+] [-] tvanantwerp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RobertRoberts|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|6 years ago|reply
> It also reduces the time spent each day processing food and lengthens the period devoted to cleansing and restoring the body’s cells, both of which have positive health effects.
So "cleansing and restoring" the body's cells only happens when one isn't eating?? Gonna need a citation for that one.
[+] [-] Duhck|6 years ago|reply
But... that's not why I am doing it. I've suffered for years from migraines. 2-4 times a week, I've been to half a dozen doctors with no solid recommendations besides medication.
Now, not only do I take zero medication, but I get migraines about once a month, and way less severe than I used to. Ive also correlated the migraines with times followed by poor fasting behavior (for instance, eating all day on a weekend with family and friends).
I also need less sleep, am less groggy, and have far fewer stomach issues.
Overall its a massively net positive change.
[+] [-] jakemauer|6 years ago|reply
I have a guard from a company called NTI. It’s a small piece of acrylic that sits on my upper front teeth and has a sort of “shelf” that my lower incisors rest on. This apparently tricks the brain into refusing to clench down because at a deep level it knows not to bite when it’s incisor on incisor.
I recall reading that this style of night guard, while certainly better than a whole tooth guard that still allows you to grind but just protects your teeth, is not great for long term. However I can’t recall why and I need to research more. In any case I’ve been using mine for over 10 years and I would never go back to not using it.
Anyway, a bunch of unsolicited info that will maybe help you or anyone suffering from migraines who stumbles across this post.
[+] [-] mpol|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sorenn111|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wycy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uptownfunk|6 years ago|reply
Fasting has changed my life. I put a ton of weight on in B-school (yes not afraid to admit I went to b school on HN) that plus my consulting lifestyle (lack of good quality sleep for days at a time) really started to take a toll on my health (lines and bags under my eyes, poor health and energy levels in general).
My wife is due with our second in august, so I decided to get in shape as a gift to my baby girl. I’m not a gym goer, so fasting looked appealing. There’s so much research around IF, circadian rhythms, effect on anti cancer factors, autophagy, anti Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc, definitely a lot more to motivate people now than before when it was likely for spiritual reasons.
I dropped forty pounds in the last three months, and probably look almost ten years younger, I feel like my body has almost reversed the damage I did to it from school and over work. I was addicted to eating and I’ve broken through that, and now I can just work non stop all day for 12-18 hours as needed, whereas my colleagues are still fixated on six small meals, which I’ve now realized is so disruptive to work and concentration. No more after lunch coma, I haven’t even had to set foot in a gym. I don’t do Omad but will do 48h and 72h fasting, and I feel fine, have not felt a huge drop in muscle that everyone freaks out about. All in all I will keep going with this fasting focused lifestyle, and would definitely recommend anyone who is struggling with this to try it.. first week is toughest, once you break through the addiction, you won’t even think about it.
[+] [-] 6d6b73|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfmode|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcculley|6 years ago|reply
It works great for me for maintaining my energy level and managing my weight. It probably does not work for everybody, but I think more people should try it.
Most humans currently living and who have lived didn't eat three meals every day. It's a recent phenomenon driven by those marketing food and snacks. Observing obesity rates, more people should try hunger and learn how to manage it.
I should add: I do occasionally have breakfast and lunch meetings or social engagements at which I feel compelled to eat or have a treat. I find that once I break my fast for the day, my hunger is awakened and it is harder to abstain.
[+] [-] oftenwrong|6 years ago|reply
I also notice more easily how food is pushed on us. Food advertising is pervasive. In the city, you cannot even walk 50m without seeing a signboard enticing you to eat something. Everywhere people are eating, carrying food, talking about food. When I am in a more natural setting, thoughts about food come from within. I get hungry, and then I think about eating. If I am not hungry, I do not think much about eating (aside from having basic food security). The desire for food is not broadcast to me.
[+] [-] jgsimmerman|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evo_9|6 years ago|reply
I never use to eat breakfast until a recent hockey injury where I damaged 6 teeth including losing 2. My weight dropped rapidly because I couldn't eat solids so I started to eat eggs and tofu a lot (mostly eggs). The byproduct of all this was I would wake up so hungry I was dizzy so I started having 3 eggs for breakfast.
I'm mostly over the injury now (still waiting for the implants to be implanted), however I've continued to eat a large breakfast and my weight has remained the same - roughly 20 pounds lower than before the injury. I had already gotten in the habit of not eating at night, and if I have anything it's a little bit of yogurt.
Long/short I think it's a mistake to skip breakfast, I had done that for most of my life and now I'm sharper and more productive in the AM than I have ever been.
[+] [-] SkyPuncher|6 years ago|reply
It seems for me digesting a meal early in the day makes me lazy and sleepy. In high school, I use to eat a very light breakfast to avoid terrible hunger just before lunch. Even then, I'd get a bit sleepy. As I've gotten older, it just gets worse.
My solution is to skip breakfast, but eat lunch an hour earlier than most people.
[+] [-] zolphe|6 years ago|reply
Also my 2c about breakfast, it is important to have a diet that works for you and I don't think skipping breakfast for me is a mistake simply because I'm not hungry at that time. IMHO forcing yourself to eat for breakfast because you have been told otherwise would be a mistake is the mistake, and listening to your body is more important.
[0] https://twitter.com/mangan150/status/1156697355875307520?s=2...
[+] [-] talkingtab|6 years ago|reply
My own experience is that unless I have been strenuously active skipping breakfast does not have any negative effects.
[+] [-] tvanantwerp|6 years ago|reply
But it's also socially difficult to maintain a no-dinner lifestyle, so I still choose to skip breakfast instead. I'll take the 80% benefit I can maintain versus the 100% I can't.
[+] [-] navigatesol|6 years ago|reply
I'm not sure your experiment of n=1 is enough for anyone else to take the advice that contradicts empirical evidence. But, do what works for you.
[+] [-] amiantos|6 years ago|reply
Then I tried IF.. after just a couple weeks I was able to stop the pantoprazole and my heartburn problems went away. The first two weeks were hard, I had a constant dull headache and the hunger at night (I'm 'skipping dinner' in my 16/8 schedule) was pretty hard. But after I got used to it, I felt much better over all. No more getting hangry, no more heartburn, no more trouble sleeping, no more groggy mornings, better mood overall.
It's ridiculous how much food and your eating patterns can affect you. I've seen it multiple times now when I've 'fallen off the [IF] wagon'... my mood deteriorates, and often other symptoms come out: headaches, upset stomach, all sorts of stuff. I don't think it's absurd to think that the stuff you're putting into your body "for energy" actually has a lot of other affects on your system.
Oh, and I dropped some of the weight I started gaining in my 30's when I did IF, too, which is a benefit of course, but not my reason for doing it.
[+] [-] eterps|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnw21cam|6 years ago|reply
As a diabetes researcher myself, it makes sense. While I do not investigate type 2, I understand that having a decent stretch of time where the body's insulin levels drop is a really good thing.
[+] [-] tvanantwerp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zachruss92|6 years ago|reply
I haven't been perfect but I have noticed that it (obviously) has cut my mindless snacking and has made me more mindful as to what I'm actually eating. After about a week your body adjusts and you're hungry during the day.
What I've been doing now is during lunch, instead of eating I go for a 30-45 minute walk.
[+] [-] outlace|6 years ago|reply
During this experiment I felt mentally fantastic. Mood was improved. Energy was higher. Not to mention I spent way less money on food, spent way less time thinking about or having to find food on my fasting days, and felt more in control of my hunger.
I tried increasing my fast from 24 hrs to 48 hrs, it went fine. But when I broke my fast with a large bean rice and cheese burrito, I felt like I was dying about 30 minutes later (lightheadedness, tachycardia, nausea). Ended up being hospitalized with refeeding syndrome or something similar, which was surprising to physicians because they only saw refeeding syndrome (had critically low phosphate) in people who had gone without significant caloric intake for weeks or months at a time.
I’ve never been the same since then. I think Ive developed gastrocardiac syndrome because I frequently (1-2x week) get less severe episodes of nausea, lightheadedness and tachycardia that generally self resolve but still feels like I’m dying for about 30 minutes. It’s been about a year now, so seems somewhat permanent damage.
So, I definitely recommend intermittent fasting but if you have a tendency to take things to the extreme, just don’t. It’s not worth it.
[+] [-] mcfunk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ambivalence|6 years ago|reply
Instead, I'm using the Every Other Day Diet variant of intermittent fasting which arguably is the best researched one. It helped me drop weight significantly in 2015 with little trouble (details: http://lukasz.langa.pl/9/i-lost-26-pounds-in-3-months/).
Sadly, since I stopped cycling regularly two years back and dropped the diet a year ago, I regained what I lost and then some. So I'm back on intermittent fasting now.
Recommendations based on my experience:
- weigh yourself daily in the morning, as the very second thing you're doing
- a Withings scale or similar helps putting this in a database efortlessly which helps seeing trends
- observe your moving average of 7 days
- eat just a light lunch (circa 500 kcal) every other day; it's easy to skip breakfast knowing there's going to be lunch soon and it's possible to skip dinner knowing "it's Eat Day tomorrow!"
- eat what you want on Eat Day but do it slowly, your body will quickly adapt to your fasts, the stomach will shrink and it's going to be easier to get full
- let people know you're losing weight and how, they will probably tell you you're more grumpy on Non-Eat Days
Good luck!
[+] [-] errantmind|6 years ago|reply
1. Maintaining a very low-carb diet (~20 net carbs spread out through the day, mostly from lemons) which I have sustained for a year so far. I occasionally cheat but not often as it takes me about 8 days to get back into ketosis after each cheat and never feels worth it after the fact
2. Exercising (weight lifting and cardio) 3 times per week
3. _Never_ eating anything with 'added sweetener', so pretty much no desserts of any kind. This includes 'neutral' sweeteners with no calories (e.g., monk fruit). It has been almost 2 years since I have eaten any kind of dessert and I very rarely miss them at this point
Doing the above, I feel amazing almost every day. I have no known bodily ailments, never get sick, have sustained energy levels all day, every day, and am my ideal weight with little fluctuation. The hardest part of sticking to my rules has been maneuvering through incessant social expectations and demands to eat particular foods, like breads, desserts, etc.
[+] [-] lkrubner|6 years ago|reply
http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/how-i-recovered-from-...
[+] [-] rconti|6 years ago|reply
It's interesting to me that the author proposes skipping breakfast, which is generally considered to be "the most important meal of the day". Most folks say your smallest meal should be dinner, but I think for most of us, it's the biggest. You have more time for it, and you're worn out and hungry from the day. I do it all wrong; I eat 3 meals a day plus a few snacks, and after getting off work, doing a workout, going home, showering, prepping dinner, it seems like it's 9pm before dinner most days, and in bed within 90mins.
I actually did have a period where I probably stuck fairly close to the proposed schedule; for several years I didn't eat breakfast at all, because I was too lazy to bother. By 11:45 I'd be aching for food, and annoyed that my coworkers took forever to decide where to go. I started eating breakfast, and found that it delayed my hunger pangs by only 15 minutes -- that is to say, it was a habit, rather than purely food driven.
But I wasn't light back in the days when I was skipping breakfast, and I didn't gain weight when I started eating breakfast.
I think the key here is that you have to be skipping breakfast intentionally, as part of a method of restricting ourselves, of being mindful about what you eat. And you can do that in any number of ways.
[+] [-] viburnum|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skadamou|6 years ago|reply
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/
[+] [-] nazgulnarsil|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phaedryx|6 years ago|reply
Also, I think it is interesting that a lot of religions have a fasting component.