Ask HN: Have you experimented with diet/food? what was the result?

Yes, I believe strongly in the gut biome and I take probiotics daily and have been doing IF for about 6 months. I lost weight for a while, but it seems to have rebounded in quarantine :). The main effect was actually on my mood - I feel happier subjectively and seem to have more energy. YMMV.

Fasting. I started out with the 16:8 IF protocol and worked my way up over time to 1 day fasts , 3 day, 5 day, 7 day and my longest was a 12 day. I have also done eating every other day or every two days (in a 4 hour window) for 3-4 months.

My diet is basically Meat, Eggs, Coniferous Vegetables, Salads when I do eat. I never eat anything processed, I have only had a handful of Berries every few weeks as a treat otherwise I avoid all fruit, bread, pasta, rice, sugar, dairy and drink water, coffee and tea.

I have lost over 100 pounds, and completely eliminated every ache, pain, sleep problem and some other health issues. I feel like I'm in my early 20's again.

If you are interested in Cancer and diet, this book came highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Starve-Cancer-Jane-McLelland/dp/0...

I did the potato hack for a while, which is a mono diet that uses potatoes. I definitely lost weight, but lost muscle too. I might try it again as a 1-2 day "plateau buster" for some excess fat I'm trying to lose.

I also did IF (16:8) as a way to curb snacking. I think both approaches are a really good way to reacquaint yourself with eating to sate hunger rather than eating for stimulation/pleasure.

Ultimately the "experiment" that has played out the best for me has been this old saw: 3 meals a day, 0-2 snacks. No ultra-processed foods and very few processed foods (based on the NOVA classification system). 5+ servings of veggies a day. 1-3 servings of fruit. Keep added/refined sugar intake under 15 grams a day and no sweets, period. I'm very slowly but steadily losing fat, while maintaining plenty of energy for my exercise regimen.

A while ago I switched to a habit of eating only one big meal a day to get the bulk of my nutrition. The timing doesn't matter that much, just whatever is convenient and what feels good for me any given day. It is flexible though. It might be one big meal and a second smaller meal. Or one big meal and small healthy, nutritious snacks throughout the day to make up for whatever the big meal lacked. This works a lot better for me as I do not have to plan for 3-4 meals every single day. Being human, I might not want to eat the same dish more than once, so I have to figure out different things for each meal which really stresses me out. 3-4 meals a day might work for me if I was always eating prepared food though. With one meal a day, I simply cook 3-4 servings of whatever I felt like eating and eat all or most of it in one sitting until I feel satisfied. My intuition also tells me that digesting one meal only at a regular time every day is better than digesting 3-4 different meals spread across the day. The concept of fasting is to give your body a break from digesting and stuff right, giving it time to naturally release any bad stuff through the natural processes. If one day I've eaten too much junk and feel bloated, I give myself the next day a break from eating at all. Like a 24 hour fast. Or you could just do a 16 hour fast and only eat a small healthy dinner. What's valuable to me is this flexibility. I've read that before farming, food was harder to come by, so humans back then didn't really get to eat 3-4 meals every single day. They might catch something or whatever and eat all of it that day like a feast, and then it might be another 1 or 2 days before they can eat that much again.

The number one benefit of one meal a day perhaps for me, is that you can organize/plan your digestion, if you know what I mean. Imagine being able to control and plan for when you need to poop. I can do that with this diet. I basically never have to use public restrooms except for urination. It's a blessing really.