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Comment by ryanlm | Hacker News Reader

Fasting has messed up my body. I DO NOT recommend doing this. Please consult a doctor first.

In what way has it messed up your body?

Messed up your body how...?

I imagine not eating for long periods of time may have some negative health consequences, potentially even very serious ones.

what kind of fasting did you do?

Just not eating for 2 days. It would throw of my "rhythm" and I would overeat for days until it balanced out again. Maybe my appetite is larger than most people.

Not a doctor and sample size of one.

What worked for me was resetting the rhythm itself, by under-eating over long periods of time, 2 weeks at least, up to 1-2 months. I keep telling myself hungry is the new normal, and in the long run it becomes the new normal. Under-eating is not even that hard if one goes mostly veggie, that is eat fruits / veggies / eggs / cheese / yoghurt / fish and skip sugar / meat / pasta / bread / rice / deep fried *. Few more tricks: always have a bottle of water nearby, take time to have a meal [15 minutes latency for full signal to propagate to the brain], snack lightly on fresh fruits, veggies and yoghurt along the day [never go crazy hungry].

I can do that during the day. How do you prevent yourself from having midnight snacks? I sometimes "sleep eat" -- Very bad habit that I NEED to spare.

Minimize (if you can) the amount of food you keep in your home. Ensure that what food you keep is healthy.

interesting point, this would also make mindless snacking more difficult

It's not entirely deliberate, more a consequence of my somewhat minimalist approach to life, but I do this and it works. In don't have chips or crackers or sweets or whatever in my home often. Typically specifically for a party or small servings for me. The worst is after a party of it didn't get eaten. But that's not terrible, a day or two of overeating quickly offset by my normal exercise routine and getting back to normal (low) levels of food at home.

If I'm fiending for late night snacks, it means I should have eaten a proper healthy meal hours before. It's easier to start from 3 proper meals, with fiber and vegetables, and cutting out sugar, and then go from there to skipping meals. If you are still on sugar, low-fiber carbs, and high calorie meals, then it's just going to be really hard to transition to fasting.

To me the transition order is:

Sugar + Simple carbs + High calorie meals -> No sugar + Complex carbs + Fiber + High calorie meals -> Smaller meals + letting yourself get hungry for an hour before you eat -> Skip a meal -> Skip multiple meals

That's very interesting.

I have done 3 day fasts and never had that problem, I essentially went right back into my normal eating habits. The first meals after the fast were usually much smaller than the usual meals I would eat.

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