Fasting and Programming

> For those of you not familiar with Ramadan it’s an holy for the month for Muslims where they fast from sunrise to sunset

Tying it to sunrise and sunset makes the duration different at different latitudes.

In Iceland, for instance, the length of the day during Ramadan reaches 22:28. Muslims deep into the Southern Hemisphere, on the other hand, get short fasts.

That's for recent past and near future Ramadan fasts. It's based on a lunar calendar, and so the dates drift through on the solar calendar. Eventually Iceland will get short fasts and those far south will get long fasts.

It's even more interesting for Muslims who happen to be at a place like McMurdo Station, Antarctica. I believe that Muslim scholars have said that Muslims there should fast on the schedule of their home country.

Muslim astronauts could also have problems, although I've read that being on the International Space Station is considered to be traveling, and people who are traveling are not required to fast.

I've been eating one meal a day for the past 3 years, usually lunch, and occasionally fasting for a day or two. At first, I would be feel very hungry at dinner and breakfast time, and I'd feel starved by lunch. (I kept going because I kind of liked the feeling when eating that one meal; food tasted so good. Also, I liked the extra time I would have, which I would otherwise spend on preparing food and/or eating.)

My body slowly adjusted, and after the first year or so, it became so normal that I no longer feel hungry at all until my daily meal, and at that time I would feel comparable hunger as before mealtime when I used to eat three meals a day.

It's much easier to delay eating now then it was before. I can easily go 2 or 3 hours after my normal eating time without any build up of hunger at all.

When I hear about how hard it is to fast, and how people have to get "ready" by eating like a pig before their fasting time, I cannot relate to this anymore. I think there is a very universal and very deep mental idea instilled into modern people that they must eat so much. It's ridiculous when you think about how nourishment fits into evolutionary pressure. We wouldn't be able to compete against other species if our bodies and mental capacity weren't equipped to go without food for many days and still perform.

Also, the fact that it took a year before I started to feel normal doing this, makes me think how a human being adjusts itself to different environments, gene expression and all that. My body feels tougher, I have as much energy as I did before, but I'm calmer and less stressed. It's like my body streamlined where it put energy into, so I could still perform just as well as before. Looking back, before I did this, energy was spilling into every random thought and emotion, and I had much more anxiety and angst. Now I can choose to ignore things which before I would obsess over.

An interesting reflection on fasting while trying to work. Curiously, I have had the opposite experience of working while fasting, though it may be very different to fast for one day at a time. Still, I fast between dinner on Sunday and dinner on Monday, which usually amounts to about a 18-19 hour fast. I allow myself all the water I want a a few cups of coffee in the morning.

I'm motivated by a hypothesis of mine that biologically our bodies have spent the last 100,000 not consuming regular high quality, high-calorie meals every day. I am a distance runner, and I've been experimenting with my diet for some time now to see what works best now. My subjective experience so far has been fantastic. I generally feel mentally sharper, and my fast-day runs are usually more focused and satisfying than on days when I eat.

I do roughly a 16:8 split most days 16 hours fasting and 8 hours feeding window. Generally stop eating sometime between 6:30 PM and 8 PM in the evening and don't eat again until noon or later the following day. So some days the fast gets as long as 18 or 19 hours.

I do intellectual work both fasted and during the feeding window. After doing this for 3 years or so it feels completely normal. It is also very possible to exercise intensely (weight lifting and running) after fasting 15 or 16 hours.

I believe that this approach helps me maintain the body weight and fitness levels that I desire without being particularly difficult to do.

My $0.02 on fasting and programming ...

I've been intermittently fasting over the last month or so by not eating from dinner until lunch the next day, every day. I read about a number of health benefits and figured it would be a good way to lose weight for my personality type.

I'm only suffering half the time that the author is (I sleep through the other half) and I drink unlimited water and tea during that time but I find it really helps me focus during that time. I have two big hunger peaks: about an hour after waking up and about 2 hours before lunch. During those times, I find it important to be really plugged into something (usually programming, sometimes writing).

I wonder if eating a lot in the morning kind of primes the body for more food throughout the day, making it worse? I've found I eat a lot less total calories during the day, as though the lost meal makes me use to less food overall. I ea a big lunch but a regular-sized dinner, then the "fast" starts. 100% conjecture.

Question: How bad is it to sleep during most of the day (except for perhaps when praying) and then simply eat and work at night? I realize that the point of Ramadan is humility and not finding loopholes, and that it might be impractical when there are very few hours where the sun isn't up. But is it otherwise wrong to be a nocturnal muslim?

If the most sane solution to The Ramadan Pole Paradox [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/The_Ramadan_Pole_Paradox] is to simply use the schedule of a person's country of origin, then at what geographic point should that happen? And what if a person is born near the poles, or even in outer space?

I'm two coffees away from fasting between sunrise to sunset while programming.

Good conclusions! Fasting and trying to do any kind of work it's like trying to drive a car with the tank empty.

Also fasting and sports do not mix. Fasting is putting a strain on your body and mind so if you are fasting you are already doing hard work and you will not be able to do anything else.

This also puts in perspective all the perks you get at big companies. They are not perks. They are how you write great code.