Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health • Hacker News Board

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#71

Post by bonoboTP » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 8:59 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #23

dingaling wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Skipping breakfast is a psychological trick Perhaps, but for some people it's also a physiological risk. I eat about 1200 calories for breakfast as my body otherwise cannot function for the day. Whether fasting is appropriate depends on one's body composition, daily exertion routine and physiological factors. For most people I'd recommend exercise instead of fasting.

> For most people I'd recommend exercise instead of fasting. "You can't outrun the fork." Metabolic studies show that you have to be damn near Olympic calibre in your exercise routine to cause a significant change in caloric consumption by increasing metabolism through exercise. Your body pretty much holds a constant level of metabolism and shunts it around to whichever systems it deems most important right now . Exe…

I know this is the standard advice and surely people need to pay attention to their diet, but exercise is not so marginal.

For example running or swimming for an hour seems to be around 8-900 kcal based on various websites.

Now that's not nothing, but also people won't do it daily for sure. I think nutrition advice is really hard because people already (have to) factor in the likelihood of following the advice by a general average person, their propensity to lie to themselves to be in denial, etc. If you actually (not just in your daydreams) do a lot of daily exercise (not just drive to the gym and read Facebook), it will matter in terms of calories.

I'm not saying this to counter your advice. Advice is hard, it is tangled up in motivational systems etc. but sometimes people may get the wrong idea in the other direction. It is true that exercise cannot make up for bad eating habits especially if you eat back more afterwards because you believe you earned this. I think that whole type of relationship to food is unhealthy (junk binge is reward, fast and exercise is punishment). A few sit-ups won't undo a chocolate chip. Etc etc. But regular exercise all else equal does have a significant effect. Yes, nothing is all else equal, but then we end up making so many assumptions on how people will react that the whole debate is infused with assumptions like, but then you will lie to yourself and actually follow the opposite advice and so I need to tell you this other thing.

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#72

Post by dvdkhlng » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:02 AM UTC

wahern wrote: post #54

HiddenCanary wrote: post #53

At university I used to intermittent fast as a side-effect of laziness to cook breakfast. Nowadays I've read the benefits of it and trying to replicate that but I just get severe headaches when trying to do it. Anyone got any tips for avoid thing that?

Two of the most common culprits to rule out would be 1) caffeine withdrawal and 2) dehydration. People often don't drink as much, or not at all, when they're not eating, and many don't even realize it. When I work an all-nighter (36+ hours without sleep) I don't have much of an appetite the next day and so tend not to eat anything. Because I'm not eating I'm also not drinking much, which I like because I'm prone to s…

And don't forget that maybe more than 20% of the normal water intake are due to food, not just drinking [1], so if you eat less you need to compensate water intake accordingly.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5084017/

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#73

Post by barry-cotter » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:03 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #41

Roritharr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done keto for a long time I can only recommend two options besides Tea. 1. Become a weird coffee person and put some nerd energy into it so black coffee doesn't taste disgusting on it's own. James Hoffman on YouTube is a great way into this. 2. Eschew the coffee and take a teaspoon of MCT Oil before your can of zero-calorie Energy Drink (Coke Zero Energy is my favorite atm). It may be dirty and people are goin…

If your black coffee tastes disgusting on its own, you need to buy better coffee.

Yeah, and neat alcohol tastes lovely.

I’m an enthusiastic drinker of coffee and alcoholic drinks and when I started drinking them they tasted vile and needed lots of other flavors to disguise how awful they tasted. The first time I had coffee of any kind, quite milky, I wretched. Some people just hate the flavor of coffee enough never to get over it, same as some people can never find an alcoholic drink they like.

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#74

Post by barry-cotter » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:07 AM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #66

blunte wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And use good water, and follow best practices for whatever brewing method you prefer. Failing any of these (including getting quality beans that are recently brewed), and your coffee may be much worse than it needs to be. I despise Nestle business and social practices, but a Nespresso machine with Nespresso pods is probably the best coffee that most people could hope to make.

That's what I mean, if you don't intend to become a weird coffee person black coffee is just not a pleasurable experience for most people. Starbucks made coffee appealing for a vast amount of the population by legitimising to drink 350ml of milk with lots of sugar by adding an espresso. If you are part of this crowd, the sad truth is that zero carb energy drinks are the more realistic morning beverage alternative for…

> if you don't intend to become a weird coffee person black coffee is just not a pleasurable experience for most people.

Black coffee is the bomb. Don’t care if it’s Starbucks, Peet’s, FamilyMart, 7-11, it is the superior method of caffeine consumption, whether you like espresso, Americano or some other variety. I do not care about coffee snob stuff but coffee is best served black. Speaking personally.

De gustibus non est disputandum.

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#75

Post by renw0rp » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:10 AM UTC

elric wrote: post #28

doubleunplussed wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not have breakfast but skip dinner? Eating close to bedtime can cause reflux and FWIW I had less reflux when I fasted after 4pm.

I suspect the reason why it's common to skip breakfast in 16:8 and not dinner, is because of social pressure. It's much more common to have dinner with friends than breakfast. Skipping breakfast is way easiet for many people.

I did try IF before and I'm getting back to it now. Social aspect is the main reason for skipping breakfast, not the dinner for me

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#76

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:12 AM UTC

jasonlfunk wrote: post #22

My experience with IF has taught me that I’m much better at complete denial, rather than moderation. So if I want to reduce my caloric intake it works better for me to say No to everything for 16 hours and only eat for 8, then to try to just eat less and in moderation all day. It also applies to carb and other reductions. If I allow myself any bread, sweets, etc, I will eat too much. It’s easier for me to eat 0, then…

Agreed. The rules of the 5:2 diet that I do are easy. There's no calculation or fudge factor. Just one simple rule:

If it's a Monday or Wednesday, no I can't eat it. Else, I can.

This works so much better for me than counting calories every day, the "cheating" is eliminated.

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#77

Post by bonoboTP » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:13 AM UTC

For years I haven't been eating breakfast long before the IF craze. Mostly out of laziness. Buying all the ingredients, making sure they don't expire, preparing the food etc. is quite some time, so I gradually dropped the habit with no adverse effect. I live alone, but oh boy when people learned that I don't eat breakfast they'd get so defensive and try to tell me how unhealthy it was and how I must be underperforming because of that etc... I even got back to eating breakfast and intellectually felt good that now I'm more of a healthy normal person who does the socially acceptable normal things.

After all the IF articles I immediately went back to no breakfast with no guilt.

It's crazy how much of this stuff is in our head. The body is really really adaptive! If you get used to eating breakfast and suddenly skip it, you will feel like shit. But that doesn't mean your friend who never eats breakfast also goes through that every day. Or, if you always wake up at 9 AM, you may be shocked at those morning people who wake up at 4:30 AM. But probably if you followed their exact routine incl the evening routine, you'd find after a few weeks that it's not too bad. Surely there is a genetic component to it as well, but we underestimate the power of adaption and habits.

And most importantly, don't be so defensive when someone tells you about a strange habit of theirs while they are visibly healthy and well adjusted. Eating disorders and sudden drastic changes are of course cause for concern, but many people have a crabs in the bucket mentality and feel personally attacked when someone does something for their own health.

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#78

Post by Broken_Hippo » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:16 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #41

Roritharr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done keto for a long time I can only recommend two options besides Tea. 1. Become a weird coffee person and put some nerd energy into it so black coffee doesn't taste disgusting on it's own. James Hoffman on YouTube is a great way into this. 2. Eschew the coffee and take a teaspoon of MCT Oil before your can of zero-calorie Energy Drink (Coke Zero Energy is my favorite atm). It may be dirty and people are goin…

If your black coffee tastes disgusting on its own, you need to buy better coffee.

To be fair, if you are used to coffee with milk and sugar, black coffee tends to taste badly, in no small part because of simply eating how one is used to eating. This isn't special to coffee, just very noticeable in it.

If this is one's issue, though, the solution is pretty easy: Wean yourself off. I did such a thing, and it has probably been one of the best things I've done. The cream was the first to go, as I was putting so little in that it was a pain. Sugar eventually went the same way: less than a spoonful or a packet in a standard coffee cup. This was a more difficult transition, honestly, and the coffee tasted weird for a couple of weeks.

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#79

Post by SergeAx » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #77

For years I haven't been eating breakfast long before the IF craze. Mostly out of laziness. Buying all the ingredients, making sure they don't expire, preparing the food etc. is quite some time, so I gradually dropped the habit with no adverse effect. I live alone, but oh boy when people learned that I don't eat breakfast they'd get so defensive and try to tell me how unhealthy it was and how I must be underperformin…

Delicious breakfast gives me great mood boost for the rest of the day, so I prefer to skip dinner, or at least have it early enough to have at least 7 hours before sleep.

Re: Intermittent fasting works – not only for weight loss but also for heart health

#80

Post by psexec » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

nerder92 wrote: post #68

globular-toast wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's true for me too. I've been practising 16:8 IF for almost ten years now and this is definitely one of the reasons it works. I eat big meals consisting of traditional foods. I see others people's "diets" that don't work and they are always weird foods that aren't actually nice and weird portion sizes that aren't satisfying. The other thing I've realised is it doesn't have to be about watching the clock ever…

I'm doing exactly the same since almost 1year, but still I'm not seeing much benefit from it. Like I still have belly fat, I wonder how do you eat when you break the fast and how do you avoid binging? I'm not gonna lie, after 15-16h I start to feel hungry and as soon as the fast finish I tend to eat something pretty caloric & fatty (ie: cheese or nuts)

I've been doing IF for the past five years or so (after "discovering" it by myself) and lost about 30 kg in the process. I am a bulk eater and I still "binge" periodically. The kinds of food that I binge on have changed greatly though, and that's what worked for me. I switched to simpler food: non-starchy grains like buckwheat, kidney beans, vegetables and fruit, and this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(dairy_product) . I dropped almost every kind of processed food (I am not an American though, and we never had the same level of dependence on processed foods anyway). I can't even eat sugar and candies anymore, they overflow my senses and taste like crap.