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Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#21

Post by Florin_Andrei »

nabla9 wrote: post #12

I read from somewhere that even 16 hours is enough for the benefits of Intermittent fasting. Has anyone done studies with Buddhist monks in Vipassana tradition? They have rule not to eat after midday. Obviously many of them cheat different ways but if you can find the hardcorce monks and monasteries, you would have several thousands (possibly tens of thousands) subjects who have already been following the regime for…

I think it's a lot easier if you just flip that rule. Don't eat before 1pm or something like that. Basically, skip breakfast. Seems a lot easier, and the fasting interval should be about the same.

Perhaps I'm biased because this is what I naturally do.

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#22

Post by dualogy »

rubicon33 wrote: post #7

I have long believed, due entirely to anecdotal evidence, that restricting calories and eating less is one of the best ways to add years to your life. It seems that eating is inherently stressful for the body. Though obviously necessary, eating is something that we should strive to minimize. Any more than necessary, and the stress induced from digestion, and inflammatory molecules, damages the body and undermines our…

Another point to highlight here is that it helps to contrast acute stressors vs. chronic stressors. I'd characterize decades of insulin-raising (or roughage/indigestables-heavy) overfeeding as a chronic stressor, and a 3-week fast every month or other month too, whereas intermittent fasting is probably more of an acute stressor --- somewhat akin to "the right amount, not too little not too much" of exercise, the kind of stressor that rapidly mobilizes heightened repair and protection mechanisms, as well as stored excess resources to pay for this. Not a bad deal.

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#23

Post by flat6turbo »

hourislate wrote: post #19
nabla9 wrote: post #12

I read from somewhere that even 16 hours is enough for the benefits of Intermittent fasting. Has anyone done studies with Buddhist monks in Vipassana tradition? They have rule not to eat after midday. Obviously many of them cheat different ways but if you can find the hardcorce monks and monasteries, you would have several thousands (possibly tens of thousands) subjects who have already been following the regime for…

Joe Rogan had Dr Rhonda Patrick on and they spoke about Time restricted eating and she referenced some studies that if you keep your eating within a 10 hour window without doing anything else, you will lose weight and gain lean muscle mass. You will also improve long term memory recall. Facinating stuff, it's toward the end of the interview around 2:27. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxM_CLsvieE He also had Gary Tau…

yes, it's all very fascinating.

there is starting to emerge a small, fringe group of people that believe calories-in-calories-out is a complete myth (or, more specifically, calories-out is a complete unknown given current understanding of metabolic science), which pretty much sends people into apoplectic fits of rage when they hear about it. even if it turns out to be a complete troll, it's great entertainment watching the science develop/debate.

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#24

Post by KSS42 »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #15
jackvalentine wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having tried implementing calorie counting... how exactly do you do it? You either cook everything yourself and weigh every ingredient. Or you buy totally packaged meals (Lite 'n Easy, etc), or you buy fast food (And even then, the calorie counts in fast food are... inaccurate at best). If I go to the corner shop and get a sandwich I have no idea what's in it and there is no accurate way to estimate. While it's good…

If you go to the corner store and get a sandwich, just put a rough estimate of a sandwich based on the sandwich options in your app and what you think seems right. You learn to make smart estimates when you start counting the calories on everything. Even then, washy estimates are just fine, just put them on the conservative side (ie, overestimate when you have to estimate). Calories are never an exact numerical scien…

The Fitbit app is great for counting calories. Very easy to use and it has a great database.

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#25

Post by Florin_Andrei »

rubicon33 wrote: post #7

I have long believed, due entirely to anecdotal evidence, that restricting calories and eating less is one of the best ways to add years to your life. It seems that eating is inherently stressful for the body. Though obviously necessary, eating is something that we should strive to minimize. Any more than necessary, and the stress induced from digestion, and inflammatory molecules, damages the body and undermines our…

> It seems that eating is inherently stressful for the body.

It seems that eating 3 meals a day, every day, like clockwork, is not the best strategy overall (to say nothing of perpetual snacking in between). I think some signal starts to show above the noise in the data, indicating that our metabolism is optimized for a less regular schedule - or at least a schedule interspersing times of abundance with intervals of constraint.

If that's the case, then we have to simulate and replace the external constraints of Stone Age yore with voluntary restraint.

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#27

Post by randlet »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #21
nabla9 wrote: post #12

I read from somewhere that even 16 hours is enough for the benefits of Intermittent fasting. Has anyone done studies with Buddhist monks in Vipassana tradition? They have rule not to eat after midday. Obviously many of them cheat different ways but if you can find the hardcorce monks and monasteries, you would have several thousands (possibly tens of thousands) subjects who have already been following the regime for…

I think it's a lot easier if you just flip that rule. Don't eat before 1pm or something like that. Basically, skip breakfast. Seems a lot easier, and the fasting interval should be about the same. Perhaps I'm biased because this is what I naturally do.

I've been doing this for a couple years now (only coffee/water before 12pm and no food after 7-8pm). It's a very effective method of calorie restriction for me.

Only eating before 1pm would be absolute torture for me!

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#28

Post by thomasahle »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #21
nabla9 wrote: post #12

I read from somewhere that even 16 hours is enough for the benefits of Intermittent fasting. Has anyone done studies with Buddhist monks in Vipassana tradition? They have rule not to eat after midday. Obviously many of them cheat different ways but if you can find the hardcorce monks and monasteries, you would have several thousands (possibly tens of thousands) subjects who have already been following the regime for…

I think it's a lot easier if you just flip that rule. Don't eat before 1pm or something like that. Basically, skip breakfast. Seems a lot easier, and the fasting interval should be about the same. Perhaps I'm biased because this is what I naturally do.

The monks appear to use this eating pattern mostly to fit their meditation schedule and not annoy the people giving them food ( http://www.vipassanaforum.net/forum/index.php?topic=1993.0 ), but there seems to be some evidence that skipping dinner is more healthy than breakfast ( https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/skipping-breakfas... ). I don't know if it is enough to balance the social aspects.

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#29

Post by scottharveyco »

wapz wrote: post #8

Does anyone have experience with this? I can't imagine eating a "similar amount" with one day being healthy, low-calorie foods and the other day being junk food can be good for your health.

The idea is to still eat healthy food on both days but one day you just eat less. So one day you might only have dinner and the next day you will have 3 or 4 meals all of which are still made up of healthy foods.

Re: Eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life (2006)

#30

Post by randlet »

jackvalentine wrote: post #9
zeamaize wrote: post #5

This sort of result has been showed repeatedly. We really need more (and better) nutrition education. The level of obesity and overeating in our society is astounding. I'd be surprised if most people could even implement basic calorie counting.

Having tried implementing calorie counting... how exactly do you do it? You either cook everything yourself and weigh every ingredient. Or you buy totally packaged meals (Lite 'n Easy, etc), or you buy fast food (And even then, the calorie counts in fast food are... inaccurate at best). If I go to the corner shop and get a sandwich I have no idea what's in it and there is no accurate way to estimate. While it's good…

Spend a couple of weeks/months preparing your own food and weighing everything. Use an app like MyFitnessPal to record and count your calories. It doesn't take very long to develop an intuition that's "good enough" about how many calories a deli sandwich contains.
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