Very useful data as to food consumption patterns. Nowadays we ruin our body with unnatural eating cycles.
Basically fasting for around 16 hours a day is good for health. From the evolutionary perspective--that invested in a human body 200K years--the way we eat today is broken. And our body can't adapt to a new pattern--evolution is a slow process that requires many thousands of years. Not to mention like adapting to changes in a food consumption we see in the last 50 years. A human body during 200K years of evolution was not prepared to eating a lot. Viceversa--it was build to eat less. It needs to store energy and to use stored energy and only after that to store again. That's a natural cycle and functions that our body needs to execute. Nowadays we just store energy 24/7:
"Emerging findings from studies of animal models and human subjects suggest that intermittent energy restriction periods of as little as 16 h can improve health indicators and counteract disease processes. The mechanisms involve a metabolic shift to fat metabolism and ketone production, and stimulation of adaptive cellular stress responses that prevent and repair molecular damage."
Here is also an interesting patterns of daily and weekly food consumption from this research including the common eating pattern of food consumption upon which the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and associated chronic diseases has emerged.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250148/figure/...
To elaborate, this weaker principle seems sufficient to support the existence of a "Naturalistic Effect", where the Naturalistic Fallacy would be the assumption that the NE will dominate any other relevant effects. The NE suffices to justify evolutionary-perspective argument, though care must be taken not to overstate the case.
Where are you getting this arbitrary "200k years of evolution" from? Yes I know anatomically modern Homo Sapiens have been around for around 200k years, but I don't understand that figure in context of what you're saying.
> our body can't adapt to a new pattern--evolution is a slow process that requires many thousands of years.
Humans have many adaptations to the 'modern' diet, consisting of large quantities of farmed animals products and cereal grains. Lactose tolerance is one of several well-known examples. In some cases these have only come about in the last 200-300 generations. The point is that evolution of large, complex polygenic adaptations may be slow but adaptive phenotypic change can occur very rapidly and it has likely accelerated in humans over the last 10k or so years.
> A human body during 200K years of evolution was not prepared to eating a lot.
We can't go back and ask detailed dieting questions of hunter-gatherer humans 200k years ago, but I'd guess the basic mechanisms of eating were similar to us: they ate when they were hungry and when food was available. For some groups, it seems likely that could often be several times per day.
What we do know about pre-agricultural humans is that there is no such thing as a 'typical' diet, and what was eaten and when could vary significantly by geography. Humans have thrived in every region and ecosystem on earth, and our body is highly adaptable and not designed to subsist on a single, perfect diet or eating cycle.
Pre-modern humans did one thing very differently to what we do today: when they wanted to eat, they had to move and work to get their food. It could very well be that the 'what' and 'when' of our modern eating is less of an issue compared to the high caloric intake and sedentary lifestyle.
>our body can't adapt to a new pattern--evolution is a slow process that requires many thousands of years.
Humans have many adaptations to the 'modern' diet, consisting of large quantities of farmed animals products and cereal grains. Lactose tolerance is one of several well-known examples. In some cases these have only come about in the last 200-300 generations.
200-300 is 6000 years (assuming 30 years per generation), so that's already consistent with the parent's "many thousands of years".
Besides that, we've changed our nutrition and its ingredients more in the last 50 years that we had in the last 20000 years. Adaptation takes much more than that (if it's not even harder to adapt to an ever changing list of factory-produced BS substances that weren't ever co-evolved along with humans, but on some food chemist's and big food corporation's whim).
>Pre-modern humans did one thing very differently to what we do today: when they wanted to eat, they had to move and work to get their food.
Not really. Hunter gatherers are said to have been able to gather food for several days in a few hours in a single day.
Even the agrarian revolution that happened 10K years ago resulted in health decline since a human body for 190K years before that evolved with a different diet. It is after the agrarian revolution that we faced many diseases connected to suboptimal diet and food. Even the last 10K years didn't change that. Humans had an absolutely different diet and evolution finetuned our bodies to survive in different conditions and with different food than we have now:
"When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: the height and health of the people declined."
It's not exactly a study, more of a review of other papers. The authors state that the timing of the food we eat isn't really that great for us. The provide some evidence based meal timings, and discuss ways that they could implement these changes and the pressures against those implementations.
The biggest spokesperson for intermittent fasting, Martin Berkhan, just released his long awaited book. https://leangains.com He also has tons of blog posts dating back many years on his site that should be a bit more easily accessible than reading the research papers directly.
I guess a TL;DR is that fasting is good for health in most animals.
I find fasting very easy on weekends, very difficult during the week, because the 9-5 routine implicitely stipulates when you should eat. Solving the situation where people need to spend 70% of their waking hours in a job would have huge flow-on effects allowing people to exercise regularly, cook at home more, and eat/live on their own body's schedule.
I just skip breafast. Lunch around midday, dinner as soon as I got (I not longer work full-time) home around 7pm. Fits inside the 8hr window and I honestly found skipping breakfast quite easy. I'd have a couple black coffees throughout the morning, and that's it.
“Examples of such prescriptions include fasting or caloric restriction (e.g., 500 calories) on alternate days or 2 d each week, or forgoing breakfast and lunch several days each week”
They do however state that there is no single prescription yet and that various timings should be studied further to find an optimum method.
My personal anecdote here. I recently started eating dinner only and shooting for a 16 hour fast daily with only coffee, tea or water during the day.
I haven't noticed a real drop in energy, however I have noticed significant brain fog, lightheadedness and irritability in the afternoon. I also have significant feelings of hunger all day, to the point where it's distracting.
I realized I needed to be adding some kind of salt to my intake during the day to prevent the lightheadedness. The only zero calorie solution is basically adding basic electrolyte to my water, which means I end up drinking a weak salt brine most of the day which is not very pleasant.
I'm not sure if this is sustainable because it takes up so much of my mental energy. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of good resource for doing this kind of diet, so I'm excited to see what comes out in the next few years. Perhaps it's just a transition period and it will work out.
I don’t know if this relates but I switched to a low carb diet a month ago (no fasting) and the first 2-3 weeks were terrible. I felt noticeably more depressed and my wife noticed it too. She recommended stopping the diet but I kept on and added electrolyte water. After adding electrolytes, I feel as good as ever. I started working out more and have lost 15 lbs but plateaued since. I want to try the fasting diet described in the article with no breakfast and no lunch but I am not sure if I’ll be able to. Since I do not eat carbs at dinner, often I’ll feel hungry around 9pm and it feels like an eternity to breakfast if I don’t go to bed soon there after. I can’t imagine skipping breakfast AND lunch on this type of routine without adding back the carbs. Anyway, I guess my point is that it gets better as you follow whatever diet you embarked on.
My personal experience is as follows:
1. Eat meals, breakfast, lunch and a light dinner - end at 4pm.. You begin your fasting after this - no eating or snacking after you have dinner. YOu should eat breakfast around 8am the next day - so between 4pm to 8am, this is when you are fasting.. that's why they call breakfast - BREAK the FAST. You can do this every day.
Not sure if this is helping my stage 4 colon cancer, but it's doable :)
Peace
If I do that sort of eating schedule, I'm miserable. Absolutely miserable. I wind up so hungry in the evening that I can't help but to eat. I can't concentrate on things that aren't food. I tend to overeat and on occasion, binge on a lot of food at once. This is especially so when hormones are fluctuating (i'm female). I tend to gain weight eating like this.
It truly isn't worth it.
However, if I eat most of my food later in the day, I'm fine. I skip breakfast. I sometimes eat lunch or a snack - cold food, something like a piece of bread with cheese or something. If I'm a little hungry later, I might eat a few nuts. I eat a hearty dinner, and eat until I'm happily full. Sometimes I have an after dinner snack. I eat chocolate and candy sparingly as I want it. The main change with hormone fluctuations is that I tend to eat more snacks (but less food at dinner). I'm mostly vegetarian with a bit of fish.
Unlike the schedule you describe, I'm not miserable this way. I don't think about food all day and I do not tend to overeat. I can control my weight pretty easily and generally always have being full to look forwards to. Warding off hunger until later is so much different than having to go without until tomorrow.
I understand it probably works well for you: My mother is much the same way with her eating. But folks are wired a bit differently (including their insulin responses to different foods) and adjusting such things makes sense.
You do a 16 hour fast, but only eat dinner? When are you eating your other food/meal? I do a similar length fast most weekdays, I just don't like eating soon after waking up so I only have water/black coffee until lunch. But I have a BIG lunch (1200-1600+ cal) and then something else around 7-8 or occasionally skip dinner. I think it's much easier to deal with not having eaten for awhile during the evening, you're usually doing something low-energy by then and if you start getting really hungry you can just go to sleep.
No other meal, but I may snack later in the evening depending on what was for dinner.
Anywhere from 12-2AM until 5-7PM is my fast period.
Yesterday for example, I didn't eat after 1 am but dinner was around 7PM so the fast was about 18 hours that day.
Today I didn't eat after 1230 last night but dinner was at 5, so 16 1/2 hours.
I'm the opposite actually, I geared my eating to be in the evening as I stay up late. I know I can distract myself with work or kids etc... during the day, but night is where I would naturally eat/graze anyway, so might as well just move my whole eating period to then.
I think for IF you'd want to be fat-adapted/low-carb. I don't know what IF practitioners recommend in general, but I don't think feeling hungry all day is 'doing it right'.
I did a one meal a day plan. Lasted maybe 6 months. Reason I stopped was I started working nights and the combo of 4 hours of sleep and no food just made me a person you didn't want to be around. Had to drop something so I dropped the diet.
While I was on it, however, it was great. Really made me evaluate why I eat food and helped me stop eating to satisfy non hunger related needs.
Interview for a day job this week, if I get it I think I will switch back to this diet.
>I did a one meal a day plan. Lasted maybe 6 months. Reason I stopped was I started working nights and the combo of 4 hours of sleep and no food just made me a person you didn't want to be around.
Almost always, yes. If you are referring to intermittent fasting, then the 8 hour eating window starts at your 1st meal of the day. So if you wake up and eat breakfast, then 8 hours from that is when you stop, and then sleep. If, on the other hand, you have your 1st meal as dinner in the evening, then also, you have slept for 8 hours and spent another 8 hours - morning through afternoon fasting.
So either way, 8 hours of sleep covers half the fasting. Which is why it's somewhat intimidating cos there's a chance you wake up feeling hungry and can't fall asleep...
I do intermittent fasting on week days, but like someone else has mentioned it's kind of difficult to keep up with considering the 9 to 5 work schedule dictates our eating routines (for most people). I did notice an improvement in my digestion and in sleep quality. On days that I do work out, I sometimes wake up and have trouble falling asleep as I feel hungry... that's always annoying.
"
Our agrarian ancestors adopted a three meals per day eating pattern, presumably because it provided both social and practical benefits for the daily work and school schedules."
Isn't it surprising that school is considered an important factor weighting on the evolution of early farmers?
I find fasting for a week easier than for 12-16 hours.. eating makes me hungrier; whereas fasting for a few days, the extreme hunger goes away after 3-4 days.
Ironically, a friend of mine whom runs a restaurant and works long hours eats like the suggested diet unintentionally: one normal-sized meal a day in the evening because of working nonstop since 5 am.
The downside of fasting is that it stimulates the SNS and increases stress and cortisol... which may well cancel out any "good" effects.
I've kind of personally adopted a IF regime automatically for the past couple of years. Incidentally I kind of think it started during a bout of depression where I didn't eat enough at all and lost a lot of weight and just looked horrible.
Since then I've gotten better at eating, but for the most part I still don't eat until the afternoon or even dinner, and for the most part don't eat anything afterwards(sometimes a late night snack).
This has had my friends react and tell me I'm crazy and express their disbelief at how it's possible to go to work or some such and not eat anything all day.
I literally have no problems wrt being tired and experience 0 reductions in cognitive ability. I haven't had to take a nap in the afternoon for several years and maintained the same-ish weight while retaining a good deal of muscle mass from my weight training days without having to do much for it.
For me, it just works out better. it's just really nice not having to be constantly focused on getting something to eat every few hours and since I'm not stuffing my face with calories all day I've been able to eat basically whatever I want without gaining any weight.
I've no plan to stop doing it this way since it's just become the natural way to do things for me. The only issue I experience is the occasional loud stomach rumbles for which my coworkers give me odd looks sometimes.
For me, it just works out better. it's just really nice not having to be constantly focused on getting something to eat every few hours and since I'm not stuffing my face with calories all day I've been able to eat basically whatever I want without gaining any weight.
This captures my thoughts exactly on it as well. It's just so convenient - the health benefit seems like a bonus.
I have the same thing. Preople look at me like i'm crazy and tell me that I should be careful not to hurt myself. I make a half hearted effort yo poiny them in the direction of some studies like the above, but mostly people arent smart/knowledgable enough to understand.
It's amazing how doing something different is automatically viewed as bad for you. I'm guessing you don't look unhealthy? Are the people who say you're crazy healthy?
I haven't regularly eaten breakfast in about 5 years with no ill effects. I never liked eating breakfast (eating the same shitty food every morning kills me) so I just kind of stopped eating it after I moved out of home.
Usually I'll have lunch around 1 PM, then dinner around 7 or 8 PM. I usually don't eat any snacks either. I very rarely feel hungry in the morning, if I do it's because I ate nutritionally empty food like fries for dinner.
Due to a change in life circumstances I'm not currently exercising, but I used to go to the gym just before lunch and never had any negative effects from not eating beforehand, I never felt faint or lacking in energy.
Some days in the weekend I only eat one meal, and sometimes even just don't eat for the whole day. It's not unusual for me to go 40 hours without eating (Saturday dinner to Monday lunch) just because I don't feel like eating.
After one month of keto diet (less than 20g of carbs and less than 15g of sugar, 75-80% fat), I started IF very easily for 18-20h. I break mostly for social reasons as I'm never very hungry.
With the keto diet you loose the cravings, and you are not very hungry, I think it should be achieved before starting IF.
I'm also in a deficit and I keep lifting and rowing. Never felt better in my life, I am motivated to the journey for a 10% bodyfat body.
I recommend eatthismuch.com to help with meal planning.
Just give it a try, the first week is hard and after it's a new life. I feel always good with a very clear mind (I dropped alcohol as well)
I started eating one meal a day a few weeks ago. At first I had huge dinners but they’ve tapered off a bit and are now substantial but not crazy, and usually a small snack an hour or so later depending on how I feel. Combined with morning body weight training / running (which feels awesome when fasted) I’m really enjoying it. The few days when I’ve eaten during the day have left me feeling heavy and bloated and the hunger during the day has gone. It’s very doable.
Almost any lifestyle or diet change can be held for a few weeks. Most studies that show participants losing weight after a diet change don't hold up over longer periods (subjects are back to their old weight after a year).
I’ve been paying attention to my diet and exercise routine for a few years now and am quite happy with where I am, so I’m really not sure how relevant your comment is. I have no intention of losing weight. I’m more interested in how enjoyable this routine is, how it helps me keep an eye on my macros and how they impact training, and how much I enjoy food too.
So far I’m quite happy with it. I’m more interested in creating varied and interesting dinners, I’m still performing well with the workouts and I feel I have more time during the day as I’m not preparing and eating food so often.
65 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadBasically fasting for around 16 hours a day is good for health. From the evolutionary perspective--that invested in a human body 200K years--the way we eat today is broken. And our body can't adapt to a new pattern--evolution is a slow process that requires many thousands of years. Not to mention like adapting to changes in a food consumption we see in the last 50 years. A human body during 200K years of evolution was not prepared to eating a lot. Viceversa--it was build to eat less. It needs to store energy and to use stored energy and only after that to store again. That's a natural cycle and functions that our body needs to execute. Nowadays we just store energy 24/7:
"Emerging findings from studies of animal models and human subjects suggest that intermittent energy restriction periods of as little as 16 h can improve health indicators and counteract disease processes. The mechanisms involve a metabolic shift to fat metabolism and ketone production, and stimulation of adaptive cellular stress responses that prevent and repair molecular damage."
Here is also an interesting patterns of daily and weekly food consumption from this research including the common eating pattern of food consumption upon which the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and associated chronic diseases has emerged. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250148/figure/...
Humans have many adaptations to the 'modern' diet, consisting of large quantities of farmed animals products and cereal grains. Lactose tolerance is one of several well-known examples. In some cases these have only come about in the last 200-300 generations. The point is that evolution of large, complex polygenic adaptations may be slow but adaptive phenotypic change can occur very rapidly and it has likely accelerated in humans over the last 10k or so years.
> A human body during 200K years of evolution was not prepared to eating a lot.
We can't go back and ask detailed dieting questions of hunter-gatherer humans 200k years ago, but I'd guess the basic mechanisms of eating were similar to us: they ate when they were hungry and when food was available. For some groups, it seems likely that could often be several times per day.
What we do know about pre-agricultural humans is that there is no such thing as a 'typical' diet, and what was eaten and when could vary significantly by geography. Humans have thrived in every region and ecosystem on earth, and our body is highly adaptable and not designed to subsist on a single, perfect diet or eating cycle.
Pre-modern humans did one thing very differently to what we do today: when they wanted to eat, they had to move and work to get their food. It could very well be that the 'what' and 'when' of our modern eating is less of an issue compared to the high caloric intake and sedentary lifestyle.
200-300 is 6000 years (assuming 30 years per generation), so that's already consistent with the parent's "many thousands of years".
Besides that, we've changed our nutrition and its ingredients more in the last 50 years that we had in the last 20000 years. Adaptation takes much more than that (if it's not even harder to adapt to an ever changing list of factory-produced BS substances that weren't ever co-evolved along with humans, but on some food chemist's and big food corporation's whim).
>Pre-modern humans did one thing very differently to what we do today: when they wanted to eat, they had to move and work to get their food.
Not really. Hunter gatherers are said to have been able to gather food for several days in a few hours in a single day.
"When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: the height and health of the people declined."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615094514.h...
Sincere request: Can someone who understands do a TL;DR please?
( Usually when I make this request I get downvoted, but happy to take the risk for this one as I am really curious)
I guess a TL;DR is that fasting is good for health in most animals.
They do however state that there is no single prescription yet and that various timings should be studied further to find an optimum method.
I now so just one big meal a day, and the occasional snack, and have settled into a pretty stable groove.
I haven't noticed a real drop in energy, however I have noticed significant brain fog, lightheadedness and irritability in the afternoon. I also have significant feelings of hunger all day, to the point where it's distracting.
I realized I needed to be adding some kind of salt to my intake during the day to prevent the lightheadedness. The only zero calorie solution is basically adding basic electrolyte to my water, which means I end up drinking a weak salt brine most of the day which is not very pleasant.
I'm not sure if this is sustainable because it takes up so much of my mental energy. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of good resource for doing this kind of diet, so I'm excited to see what comes out in the next few years. Perhaps it's just a transition period and it will work out.
For July I was doing a once weekly 24 hour fast which was terrible in it's own way.
It truly isn't worth it.
However, if I eat most of my food later in the day, I'm fine. I skip breakfast. I sometimes eat lunch or a snack - cold food, something like a piece of bread with cheese or something. If I'm a little hungry later, I might eat a few nuts. I eat a hearty dinner, and eat until I'm happily full. Sometimes I have an after dinner snack. I eat chocolate and candy sparingly as I want it. The main change with hormone fluctuations is that I tend to eat more snacks (but less food at dinner). I'm mostly vegetarian with a bit of fish.
Unlike the schedule you describe, I'm not miserable this way. I don't think about food all day and I do not tend to overeat. I can control my weight pretty easily and generally always have being full to look forwards to. Warding off hunger until later is so much different than having to go without until tomorrow.
I understand it probably works well for you: My mother is much the same way with her eating. But folks are wired a bit differently (including their insulin responses to different foods) and adjusting such things makes sense.
No other meal, but I may snack later in the evening depending on what was for dinner.
Anywhere from 12-2AM until 5-7PM is my fast period.
Yesterday for example, I didn't eat after 1 am but dinner was around 7PM so the fast was about 18 hours that day.
Today I didn't eat after 1230 last night but dinner was at 5, so 16 1/2 hours.
I'm the opposite actually, I geared my eating to be in the evening as I stay up late. I know I can distract myself with work or kids etc... during the day, but night is where I would naturally eat/graze anyway, so might as well just move my whole eating period to then.
While I was on it, however, it was great. Really made me evaluate why I eat food and helped me stop eating to satisfy non hunger related needs.
Interview for a day job this week, if I get it I think I will switch back to this diet.
So why didn't you just shift the meal time?
So either way, 8 hours of sleep covers half the fasting. Which is why it's somewhat intimidating cos there's a chance you wake up feeling hungry and can't fall asleep...
I do intermittent fasting on week days, but like someone else has mentioned it's kind of difficult to keep up with considering the 9 to 5 work schedule dictates our eating routines (for most people). I did notice an improvement in my digestion and in sleep quality. On days that I do work out, I sometimes wake up and have trouble falling asleep as I feel hungry... that's always annoying.
Isn't it surprising that school is considered an important factor weighting on the evolution of early farmers?
Ironically, a friend of mine whom runs a restaurant and works long hours eats like the suggested diet unintentionally: one normal-sized meal a day in the evening because of working nonstop since 5 am.
The downside of fasting is that it stimulates the SNS and increases stress and cortisol... which may well cancel out any "good" effects.
Since then I've gotten better at eating, but for the most part I still don't eat until the afternoon or even dinner, and for the most part don't eat anything afterwards(sometimes a late night snack).
This has had my friends react and tell me I'm crazy and express their disbelief at how it's possible to go to work or some such and not eat anything all day.
I literally have no problems wrt being tired and experience 0 reductions in cognitive ability. I haven't had to take a nap in the afternoon for several years and maintained the same-ish weight while retaining a good deal of muscle mass from my weight training days without having to do much for it.
For me, it just works out better. it's just really nice not having to be constantly focused on getting something to eat every few hours and since I'm not stuffing my face with calories all day I've been able to eat basically whatever I want without gaining any weight.
I've no plan to stop doing it this way since it's just become the natural way to do things for me. The only issue I experience is the occasional loud stomach rumbles for which my coworkers give me odd looks sometimes.
This captures my thoughts exactly on it as well. It's just so convenient - the health benefit seems like a bonus.
(Of course such a period is much more precarious for some people, but a generally healthy person would barely notice except for being hungry at first)
Usually I'll have lunch around 1 PM, then dinner around 7 or 8 PM. I usually don't eat any snacks either. I very rarely feel hungry in the morning, if I do it's because I ate nutritionally empty food like fries for dinner.
Due to a change in life circumstances I'm not currently exercising, but I used to go to the gym just before lunch and never had any negative effects from not eating beforehand, I never felt faint or lacking in energy.
Some days in the weekend I only eat one meal, and sometimes even just don't eat for the whole day. It's not unusual for me to go 40 hours without eating (Saturday dinner to Monday lunch) just because I don't feel like eating.
----
related ( 1 day ago )
"Eating in 10-hour window can override disease-causing genetic defects, nurture health" https://www.salk.edu/news-release/eating-in-10-hour-window-c...
HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17889591
When I'm hungry, I eat.
With the keto diet you loose the cravings, and you are not very hungry, I think it should be achieved before starting IF.
I'm also in a deficit and I keep lifting and rowing. Never felt better in my life, I am motivated to the journey for a 10% bodyfat body.
I recommend eatthismuch.com to help with meal planning.
Just give it a try, the first week is hard and after it's a new life. I feel always good with a very clear mind (I dropped alcohol as well)
I like fried eggs personally. Anything similar?
So far I’m quite happy with it. I’m more interested in creating varied and interesting dinners, I’m still performing well with the workouts and I feel I have more time during the day as I’m not preparing and eating food so often.
Just my 2c.