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Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

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21–30 of 204 posts

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#21
post #5

I tried IF for a while. I lost a couple pounds and then plateaued. What I realized is that the main thing it was doing was preventing me from snacking at night. I didn't really eat any more than normal during the eating period, I just didn't eat my usual outside of it. So exactly in line with the study. It just didn't do much for me weight-loss-wise. I was already skipping breakfast most days, so waiting until lunch…

Satchin Panda from UCSD did a round of podcast interviews when his book came out, and the advice essentially boiled down to having a feeding window of up to 8 hours and having it start towards the earlier part of the day rather than later. The weight gain/loss/plateau seems to correlate with the insulin presence in the blood system, and meals eaten later in the day tend to generate higher insulin response compared to…

Yeah I read all that, but there's no way I could get away with skipping dinner. Dinner is our family meal. I'd literally have to sit there watching the family eat, or miss out entirely.

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#22
I've been running on IF for at least a decade. Can only eat twice a day. If i try to have breakfast, I don't feel hungry for the rest of the day and have to skip lunch. People in comments mention plateau effect, but this is kind of the point - my weight is stable for years on easy mode and I only have to correct and tweak it slightly +/- a few pounds from time to time.

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#23
post #12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure your diet did not change? Even your portions stayed the same size?

Can't speak for OP, but my appetite and then weight have steadily decreased for six years since beginning CPAP. As a person with apnea I had no idea that my constant fatigue was causing me to eat so much, or making sustained exercise so impossible, and I really didn't even understand how tired I was. Once I was getting something approximating a good night's sleep, I had more energy, which made me less hungry and more…

How did you get diagnosed?

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#24
I'll often go 3-5 days where I only eat small quantities of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, operating in very much a calorie deficit. This has been a thing for years, and when I'm in this mode I don't really have much craving for food, it's kind of surprising to me. Energy levels are fine, I'm generally pretty physically active, it just seems normal and I enjoy the lightness.

It's not a lack of appetite though, if I decide to pursue a large meal in this condition, my enthusiasm is high and I'll eat enough food to feed a family of four if I let it happen.

But I've noticed if I instead eat more processed foods, especially refined carbohydrates, while trying to exist in this calorie deficit state similarly to my fruits/veggies/nuts mode, I'm miserable, irritable, and constantly craving more food. And it's not some mild craving, it's like craving an addictive drug.

I hadn't considered if timing played any significant part in these experiences, what seems very obviously significant was the types of food.

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#25
post #23
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for OP, but my appetite and then weight have steadily decreased for six years since beginning CPAP. As a person with apnea I had no idea that my constant fatigue was causing me to eat so much, or making sustained exercise so impossible, and I really didn't even understand how tired I was. Once I was getting something approximating a good night's sleep, I had more energy, which made me less hungry and more…

How did you get diagnosed?

Did an overnight study at a sleep clinic. I'd been told for years by friends that I made very weird gasping, snoring noises. After I'd been out of college a few years and realized I was fatigued literally every day despite going to sleep on time, I figured it was time to get checked.

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#26
post #15

11 adults in the experiment. No control group (other than against themselves). Experiment ran 8 days. I mean, I'm interested, but I want to see further research before I call this a real result.

I always appreciate how the HN crowd evaluates the quality of the evidence, not just the quality of the headline. Great filtering function.

There's usually one good post. The rest are almost always people sharing their diet stories. Or if the headline is about exercise, you get reams of stronglifts or 5x5 or whatever, nobody cares. It's what engineers tend to do when they're presented with a topic they don't have actual expertise in.

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#27
post #15

11 adults in the experiment. No control group (other than against themselves). Experiment ran 8 days. I mean, I'm interested, but I want to see further research before I call this a real result.

I always appreciate how the HN crowd evaluates the quality of the evidence, not just the quality of the headline. Great filtering function.

The problem with this is that in many situations, you can have a perfectly valid study done with only 8 people. It entirely depends on who those 8 people are.

You are by far much more at risk of falsely believing something because your heuristic for believability is wrongly associated with skepticism.

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#28
post #5

I tried IF for a while. I lost a couple pounds and then plateaued. What I realized is that the main thing it was doing was preventing me from snacking at night. I didn't really eat any more than normal during the eating period, I just didn't eat my usual outside of it. So exactly in line with the study. It just didn't do much for me weight-loss-wise. I was already skipping breakfast most days, so waiting until lunch…

Could you tell me what IF means please?

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#29
post #5

I tried IF for a while. I lost a couple pounds and then plateaued. What I realized is that the main thing it was doing was preventing me from snacking at night. I didn't really eat any more than normal during the eating period, I just didn't eat my usual outside of it. So exactly in line with the study. It just didn't do much for me weight-loss-wise. I was already skipping breakfast most days, so waiting until lunch…

Could you tell me what IF means please?

Intermittent Fasting

Re: Meal timing strategies appear to lower appetite, improve fat burning

#30
post #13

To add my strictly anecdotal experience: I recently started to diet for the first time ever. Never really needed it, but getting older, I noticed my weight steadily increasing despite regular exercise and finally decided to change. I always skipped breakfast, but I became a bit more strict about timing and snacking at night in order to align with IF. Switched my diet to a lazy keto (basically adkins) diet - still don…

Mind sharing the types of foods and meats you eat?
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