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fame in the mid-2000s for research on yeast and mice that suggested the red wine ingredient resveratrol mimics anti-aging effects of calorie restriction.

Far be it from me to preach to anyone else about their health maintenance strategies, but I can't help noticing that you can enjoy all the apparent benefits of caloric restriction by simple expedient of limiting your food intake and engaging in periodic fasting. People seem obsessed with the ability to have their cake and eat it, rather than put up with feeling hungry some of the time.

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Why would anyone put up with feeling hungry any of the time, if you could get similar benefits without doing so? For the character building experience of it?

I forget to eat meals regularly, so it's all kinda working out organically it would seem.

I used to forget to eat all the time as well... but more recently, I've found I'm far less productive when I'm hungry... consequently I've gained few lbs

THIS COOKIE IS FOR THE CODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For years, I assumed the same thing, that "fasting" meant experiencing significant hunger. I always associated it with going entirely without food for some vague amount of time that was probably some consecutive number of days. But three weeks ago, after some Googling, I began what is called 'intermittent fasting'. Since it's only been three weeks, all I can say personally about the benefits is that I'm still doing it and have no plans to stop in the future, but I can say that by the third day, the hunger issue was negligible.

The first Google result on the term is pretty good: http://jamesclear.com/the-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fa...

At its simplest, for men it means eating all your food for the day in a roughly eight-hour window, often noon to 8pm. (There is apparently some scientific thought that women may have significantly different needs; I really can't speak to that.) In practical terms, this translates to "skipping breakfast" and avoiding midnight snacks. This turns out not to be that difficult, but has definitely had an positive impact on me, so far. Discomfort-wise for me, I tend to get a bit of a rumbly tummy around 10am, but generally it subsides pretty quickly and even by 11am I can easily go for another couple of hours without even thinking about lunch if I get busy. It is far from constant hunger. (But I won't lie and say it's zero... just, negligible. Literally. It can easily be neglected and it will in fact go away.) I can also say that I'm hardly watching the clock in the evening and trying to judge whether it's the crack of 8pm yet or not... I often eat at noon-thirty or 1pm and then dinner at 6pm and am done thinking about food for the day, without any willpower expended. It just happens.

I say this mostly to point out to people that there is something to investigate that they may have misconceptions about, as I did. I will fully and up-front admit once again I am not in a position to extol its benefits particularly. (I like to do something like this for at least a couple of years before I do that.)

(But I will go slightly out on a limb and say that I would not be all that surprised to discover that "intermittent fasting" has somewhere between 80-120% of the benefit of the scientifically-studied high caloric-restriction diets, with much lower willpower and discomfort costs. It turns out that if you dig into those, we've really only studied "normal (modern) diet", "heavily calorically restricted", and sometimes a particularly unrealistic fasting schedule (see link), so if you're interested in a point in the middle of the two we've studied, you're sort of scientifically on your own. Hence the possibility I cite of 120%; currently it would fit the two data points we have just fine for it to turn out that "caloric restriction" isn't the optimum and is in fact overshooting.)

I've lived my life this way since I was a teenager, as does the rest of my close family. I've never liked breakfast, and late-night snacking has never been my forte. At this point in my life, I don't experience hunger unless I've gone a full 24 hours without eating, which basically never happens. I struggle to understand when people talk about having intense "cravings" for food, to the point where they throw away their health trying to satisfy that. Modern society's relationship with food seems to be broken (consider that 2/3rds of our population are overweight or obese), and I have to thank my parents for giving me a leg up on that one.

Cravings for food are not hunger. It's more like addiction. And that's the main reason we find it hard to lose weight - not the feeling of hunger, but cravings that are there whether we're hungry or not.

I wonder about food cravings. I get them sometimes and they are less of a craving for food and more of my mood suddenly being extremely unstable and an inability to focus. This is something of a problem that I have had for several years I don't know if maybe I have something medically wrong with me. I am in excellent shape and work out regularly but I am very heavy (240 lbs) so it might be I just need a very large caloric intake and I don't eat enough at each meal.

Cravings are very much related to what you eat and don't eat. Cut out all sugar from your diet and pretty soon you'll be dreaming of cake and frosting. Overdose on sugar and you'll be hungry again two hours later.

I accidentally stumbled into this by just being too lazy to eat in the mornings (also a lot of anxiety that, at the time, reduced my general appetite). I've found that the morning stomach rumblings can usually be resolved with a glass of water every hour or so. Since I'm also trying to be active, the extra emphasis on hydration is doubly beneficial.

With regards to this form of diet, I've found it to be successful for keeping me from overeating, and I rarely run into days when I think, "Man, I should've had more to eat." (NB: These days do happen, but they're usually days when I'm unusually physically active, like going for a run and two 1+ hour martial arts classes in the same day. That is, things that most people won't encounter and that an extra serving of protein at lunch probably would've resolved.)

So I'll go out a bit more on a limb, and observe that A: I had some lightweight metabolic illness (ate bad as a child, ate better as an adult but definitely had lingering effects) and B: I really don't seem to anymore, noticeably so even after three weeks. I can eat a lot more carbs and even a bit of outright junk, and I'm still losing weight right now. (While successfully exercising for strength gain.) That was not true two months ago; I had to rigidly stick to my low-carb regime, and any deviation plumped me right back up. Again, I'm still not ready to call it after three weeks, but the thought is certainly stirring in my head that this could be a nontrivial element of the obesity problem, and a nontrivial reason why dieting often seems to hit a plateau early and often, before it really should. In theory, even in our current food environment, it ought to be possible to get pretty close to our natural, optimal weight without having to torture ourselves, precisely because it is the natural weight for us. In practice, it's quite hard.

(There's a blog post bubbling in my head about how Everything I Was Told About Health As A Child Was Entirely Wrong. Not just sort of wrong, but "everyone needs to eat three meals a day"-is-also-wrong levels of absolutely, positively everything I was told is wrong. The only thing I can think of that was true is that exercise is important, but even then, there was a radical overemphasis on aerobic exercise when I now believe the correct focus for most people is strength training.)

> For the character building experience of it?

Are you seriously suggesting that it builds character? Honest question, because if you are, it would seem that fasting for that purpose alone would be a good idea.

It does.

I find it taught the idea just because you're hungry didn't mean you have to eat.

A lot of people seem to think their hunger has the right to control actions. It doesn't. Being hungry is ok and normal.

Like air conditioning making people less tolerant to the heat.

Character building benefit / Cost, I'm not so sure, lots believe it does though.

With health benefits, definitely worth it IMO. But it takes willpower.

Why stop with plentiful food and air conditioning? Maybe we should get rid of electricity, central heating, and modern medicine, too. Imagine how strong our characters would be then.

I used to do this all the time growing up, at least once a month I'd spend a few nights out in the woods camping from sometime around age 11 to 17. Granted, modern medicine was rarely more than a short hike and a car ride away (except for multi-week trips).

I'd say it helped build character. Regarding going hungry, when you're out on the trail and have 10 miles left to hike and no time to stop for lunch because you know a storm is coming in and you need to set up camp, you learn that you really don't need to eat every time your stomach growls. You also learn how to be dependable for those in your group, and how to depend on others without becoming dependent on them.

> when you're out on the trail and have 10 miles left to hike and no time to stop for lunch because you know a storm is coming in and you need to set up camp

I miss this feeling... and wish to echo your sentiment. Hiking with 'just enough' is a great way to discover just how little we truly need to be alright.

"I used to do this all the time growing up, at least once a month I'd spend a few nights out in the woods camping from sometime around age 11 to 17"

That's nice. I lived that way throughout large chunks of my childhood.

Camping is fun. Living it as a lifestyle sucks.

You got down voted for the sarcasm I presume. But in truth it would make your character stronger. However, it might have some downsides.

See above. Been there.

My character is strong enough, thanks.

I should have used scare quotes around "character building". I do recognize that lots of hardships you could impose on yourself do build character. Yet in this case, I wouldn't suppose the benefit outweighs the hardship.

Two effects I've noticed:

1. It's broken my 'boredom' eating habit.

2. I wanted to comfort myself with food when stressed. It's broken that habit too.

I think this is a case of Poe's law.

How would anyone know if you could get the same thing as some other thing when you can only do one?

Because it's not that big of a deal and you already know it has health benefits? You might as well ask 'why exercise and have to feel tired afterward.' I'm not suggesting anyone starve themselves.

>Because it's not that big of a deal and you already know it has health benefits?

Feeling hungry usually kills my concentration especially in early stages (I remember first day being the worst and later you sort of get used to it). And in general I feel weaker and drained.

Although sometimes when I "get in the zone" I actually forget about food for the entire day - usually when I need to do work and I'm not particularly motivated being hungry would make me irritable - I would probably do 1/3 of the work I would normally do.

Feeling hungry usually kills my concentration especially in early stages (I remember first day being the worst and later you sort of get used to it). And in general I feel weaker and drained.

This is the point, isn't it? For me, not only fasting does not make me weak or unconcentrated - quite the opposite. My fasting days are the days I'm feeling the best. And the added benefit is that I have so much more time because I don't need to worry about cooking and eating. Oh and the opposite too ... :)

Why is it though? I think it is just because I came over the initial obstacle, became used to fasting and now it is just as natural to me as normal eating pattern.

Was it worth it, though? After all, there is little chance I will actually experience real shortage of food so my "skill" is useless in practice. Well, one thing is that there is a growing number of studies that show health benefits. The other is that I am sure it carries over to other aspects of life - i.e. being trained to voluntary restrain from food, it's easier to restrain from impulse purchases or apply any other restrictions. Plus, I believe (with no studies that I know of to support that) that having a body that is more "robust" - that can operate equally well both during feast and famine - is a positive thing.

I agree. Last month I went 11 days while only drinking water. No food. And the first 7 days I barely noticed. I had no hunger at all. On the 7th day I went for a 12 kilometer walk. I had plenty of strength.

After the 7th day I did start to suffer weakness, and I had a busy schedule at work, which put a limit on how long I could fast. The night of the 10th night I slept for 16 hours. The 11th day (a Saturday) I walked 10 kilometers, but it was much more difficult than walking 12 kilometers 4 days earlier.

I doubt I'll ever again do 11 days when I'm working. Maybe on vacation, but not when I have work to do. However, doing 7 days is something I plan to do this month. Because 7 days without food imposed no limits on me, at all.

It has health benefits, it imposes no burden, and it's easy to do. I don't think we need to wait for a drug to be invented, when the solution is so easy and available.

(Disclaimer: I am not a doctor)

It's great that you're seeing benefits, but I wanted to bring this to your attention (and anyone else doing long-term fasting) in case you hadn't already heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome. In particular, "any individual who has had negligible nutrient intake for more than 5 consecutive days is at risk of refeeding syndrome".

I don't know in practice _how_ big the risks are - I've been meaning to get an official medical opinion for some time - but I've started trying to take it into account for my fasts (usually two or three days) and plan accordingly (drinking rehydration salts while fasting, and breaking the fast slowly, with plenty of milk for phosphates).

Apologies if you already knew about this.

That's awesome.

My longest fast was 5 days. My personal experience was that starting from day 3 I was a little "lethargic" or basically slow in the morning, but that feeling went away fairly soon, and by 10 AM I was operating as normal.

But things like climbing up the stairs got noticeably more difficult, even though I'm a physically active person. I would not dare walking 12 kilometers while fasting, except maybe shortly before breaking of the fast.

Anyway - no noticeable hunger, no nausea or vomiting and the bowel movements also stopped on day 1 or 2, so quite a fun experience overall.

Recently I decided to go as long without food as I can (just mineral water). The first 3 days were fine, but the following night I was feeling nauseous, and ended up vomiting something bile-like at 3am. Tried eating a small piece of an apple, vomited again. After that, I felt slightly better, but my desire to continue with the fast disappeared, so I started eating again in the morning.

My advice for anyone interested in fasting would be to go slow. If never tried it before, start with a 24 hour fast - i.e. eat dinner, then nothing until dinner time the next day. If that went fine, next week try a 36 hour fast - i.e. dinner, no food the next day, and eat breakfast the day after. If that goes well again, continue extending the fasting time, but also allow yourself time in between. Eventually you will get a grasp and some feeling about how long is too long, or how often you can do fasts - I don't think there is much science on the topic.

I did 36 hour fasts, then I did 48 hour fasts, then I went for 3 days, then for 4, finally for 5 - over a course of several years actually. May try a longer fast in the future, but my current schedule is to have a weekly 36 hour fast - at least, most weeks.

I agree that fasting hits everyone differently, but then, the same can be said of drugs. It's ludicrous to think that one day we will have a drug that mimics the effects of fasting, but without any negative side effects. Whatever drug they come up with in the end, it will have its various effects that hit different people in different ways. Which brings up the obvious point, if the drug does no more than fasting, with whatever side effects fasting raises, then what is the advantage of the drug?

> Which brings up the obvious point, if the drug does no more than fasting, with whatever side effects fasting raises, then what is the advantage of the drug?

That it could be patented and sold, as could be the drugs that combat the side effects of the drugs invented to combat side effects.

if the drug does no more than fasting, with whatever side effects fasting raises, then what is the advantage of the drug?

Well, it's kinda obvious - the drug would let you avoid feeling hungry - the main reason most people never try fasting.

Where does your body get electrolytes when you're fasting? Did you take a multivitatmin?

You do have a point here, but I don't think you're "spot on" regarding the motives.

Although I agree that "the ability to have the cake and eat it" (i.e. the gluttony motive) can be prevalent, I'd say that the most important factor is the conception of eating, not only as a physiological need, but as a social ritual.

My personal experience is that while I can (very) easily restrict calorie intake, I'm less inclined to do so with friends and colleagues when invited to share meals. Take a "protocol" such as the "Internet-popular" intermittent fasting; if I'm invited to lunch with colleagues and if my girlfriend wants to have dinner somewhere, my fasting period for the day will be seriously harder to achieve. I could juggle with the scheduled hours for the meals, but then I'd be "imposing". It's doable, but not something I actually want. I don't share that many meals, so I can be compliant with my diet; but this is just not true for many people.

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