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Comment by iplaw | Hacker News Reader

I abstain from food between 8PM and 12PM Monday - Friday, adjusting for training schedules and such. It really helps me keep my GI tract clear, reduces inflammation, resulted in weight loss, etc. without any effect on my cycling fitness.

IF (or IMF as some people call it) is amazing.

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I've fasted from ~8P to ~3P every day for coming up on 2 years and apart from making me more mindful of what I eat and drastically reducing my appetite I've experienced basically no other health benefits. IF is increasingly well studied and it is not especially amazing.

(I like it a lot. Just saying.)

What's the trick? I wake up starving. If I go to bed starving I sleep horribly and eventually wake up to eat.

My understanding is that it doesn't work the same way for everyone. My theory is just that if you're insulin sensitive, then concentrating your eating to one small part of the day levels your blood sugar and hormones out for the rest of the day. My experience is: once I start eating during a day, I will be hungry for the rest of the day. If I just don't eat, I basically don't ever get hungry: I'll know it's time to eat when I start getting headaches and dizziness.

> My experience is: once I start eating during a day, I will be hungry for the rest of the day. If I just don't eat, I basically don't ever get hungry

Same experience for me. I wake up late in the morning and it's common for me to fast all day until the evening. I find that if I have breakfast or lunch, then I'm hungry throughout the day, and require several more meals to feel satiated. If I wake up and have only coffee, then I feel OK until the evening meal.

Strange how the body works.

I'm in this boat as well. Usually awake for ~6 hours before eating, and do not ever feel hungry in the morning, ever. That's not to say I can't wolf down a big breakfast, though...

Ever try bulletproof coffee? I had a pretty good experience with it. Especially because I don't like coffee black, and with bulletproof I was able to have coffee and still not add any sugars.

Huh - I feel that way with regards to food, in that once I eat I keep wanting to the rest of the day. Maybe I'll give this a shot...

That's why you shouldn't skip breakfast entirely when you're dieting (at least that's what I've read). The stomach 'wakes up' when you first eat something, and uses more energy from that point on. If you eat something small, you'll feel hungry for more of the morning - because the extra activity from your stomach puts you in energy debt.

Like most things, you get used to it. Eat dinner, and then don't eat again until lunch the next day. Have some water and black coffee in between.

Water and black coffee are my staples. I don't get hungry until 11:30AM or so, when my body is starting to expect food.

Eat low carb when you're feasting. I.e. stop eating sugar and grains that make your body crave and depend on them for energy all the time. Get off the insulin rush rollercoaster.

I do the same as well. It pretty much has changed my life.

The only thing I have noticed is that it seems not work well for females (my wife is annoyed about that).

Also strangely my blood sugar has been above normal lately which is strange because I don't eat a carb heavy diet and I have never had blood sugar problems. Last time it was checked it was ~105 mg/dl or so (and I was fasted of course).

I have had some theories about this but curious if anyone else seen this.

I thought the literature suggested it worked better for women.

I'm basing this on my experience and numerous conversation with others which albeit is anecdotal and sort of worthless.

A quick googling shows mixed "feelings" (I stress feelings because I haven't seen/found an adequate reference yet).

Maybe later I will investigate it.

Interestingly, I have a similar problem. I eat low carb diet with an even protein and fat mix. However, my fasting blood sugar level still seems to linger around 100.

What's your theory about the blood sugar?

I have the same issue. Hovers around 100 when not eating. What's weird is it drops to 85 within 20 minutes after eating a meal. I'm not sure what that could mean.

blood sugar is mostly regulated by hormones: glucagon and insulin. Not really by what you just ate. Hence why you can go days without eating and still have a normal blood sugar. Eating causes your pancreatic beta cells to release insulin (in response to elevations in blood glucose). Diabetics have spikes in their blood sugar right after they eat because they have impaired insulin sensitivity and so their tissues (muscles mainly) don't take up the sugar in the blood (a process mediated by insulin receptors).

Stress and lack of sleep can dramatically raise blood sugar. I don't have diabetes but I check my blood sugar fairly regularly with a $30 glucose monitor. Bad sleep raises my fasting blood sugar to a level I would normally have after a bowl of ice cream.

I have the opposite experience. My body and mind function best with regular small meals every 3 or 4 hours.

With that regime I have constant energy without ups and lulls. It's great.

When I do go too long without eating, I feel fine and I don't feel particularly hungry. But people around me say that I become uncommunicative, quarelsome, and that I tend to just kind of sit there and stare in front of me unmovingly.

People particularly notice this at group dinners/brunches. Before food, I reply with 1-word answers and mostly don't engage in conversation. After food I'm the life of the party.

So yeah, fasting does not work for me. But I do tend to have very small breakfast. At 10am regardless of when i wake up.

Might be eating too many carbs, which spike blood sugar, and tend to produce the symptoms you mention.

Still, don't need to fast all day to fix the problem.

Funnily only about 30% of my calories come from carbs.

Except on half marathon days. I can't digest enough food to recover from a 2000 calorie run without carbs

I've tried going below 30% carbs but it makes me unstoppably crave chocolate.

I eat the ghirardelli dark chocolate (72 and 86%) often, it is healthy and low sugar. It's not the enemy. ;)

https://www.ghirardelli.com/chocolate-and-gifts/flavors/dark...

There are similar European varieties of course.

Classic example of being low-level "hangry": hungry/angry. Beware of it in children when simple lack of food can spill over into full-blown tantrums!

Is that time a typo? Are you saying that there is only a 5 hour block of the day when you eat? (From 3pm to 8pm.)

Correct. That's what IF means.

^ IF == Intermittent Fasting

I'm not the person you replied to but I'll churp in. I only eat once a day, at dinner time, so I eat in about a half hour block a day. I've been doing it for years. It's not really that odd once you get used to it. My appetite and food consumption has decreased dramatically and I am full much quicker. My food bill has decreased and it's very, very freeing to only have to worry about eating once a day. It's absolutely amazing for me though certainly not for everyone.

I eat in an 8 hour block. It started years ago when I wanted to hit "race weight". I stopped eating anything after 8PM (usually 7PM) so I wouldn't go to bed with food on my stomach. I slept better, and I am active after eating (walk with the family around the neighborhood), which reduces storage of calories. I was already skipping breakfast most days due to convenience.

I've experimented with IF a few times and the big drawbacks for me are I have to choose between eating after I excercise (in the morning) and having dinner with my family.

The former means I'm ravenous the latter is a trade off I don't like for bonding reasons.

How much do you work out?

I like IF a lot too, but when I'm in a heavily active phase of my life--say lifting 3x week, climbing 1x, jiujitsu 3x, and full on dance rehearsals 3x a week--I find I start to crumble unless I eat more to keep fueled.

I was 5x5 when I started, for about 6 months, then hurt my ankle and don't do much more than walk a couple miles now. I worked out in fasted state and then would eat shortly after, because I'd be so ravenous that I could eat just protein and still enjoy the meal.

I should get back to lifting (I'm just lazy), and it's possible that some of the other purported IF effects would kick in if I did so --- but the literature isn't encouraging, at least what I've read (I may be reading the wrong stuff!).

I should add: I'm in pretty terrible shape! I joked on Twitter about how, in the post-AHCA US, my wife Erin will have trouble getting insurance despite her constant exercise and diet regime, while I, subsisting on pork fat, nicotine, and whiskey, will have no trouble. I mean, I eat a green bean here and there, but for the most part I'm not joking. :)

I don't have a lot of health objectives with IF; it's just mostly painless and imposes some structure over what I eat and when I have to take time out of my day to eat.

I ride 6 days a week for 1 to 5 hours per ride. 4 training rides, 2 recovery rides, and one off day per week. In terms of energy expenditure, it averages 700-900 calories/hour. A weeknight training crit and/or weekend races often replace the training days mid-season, and the schedule is tweaked for peaking at my A events.

For major events, I'll eat differently. But for general training, I am fine fasting until lunch.

That's a really fancy way to say "I skip breakfast".

That's an interesting idea. I've been on calorie restricting diets non-stop for over a year with good results. My latest experiment is a kind of limited alternate day caloric restriction. I was having great results with full ADF (toggling food intake at 4pm each day), but I started to feel strange after a week or two, so the new diet is a little less extreme. I might try something like your schedule, if the current plan doesn't produce results.

If anyone is experimenting with calorie restriction or intermittent fasting near Berkeley, send me a message via my profile. I'm working on some self-tracking experiments with a group of people.

Train while fasted, you'll feel amazing trust me. I do a 16:8 daily fast too and do regular HIIT and strength training while fasted (in the morning). In the fasted state your body is producing more adrenaline and HGH which helps with performance and gains. It also trains your muscles to burn fat instead of sugar (since there's none available), which is incredible for endurance (run a half marathon or more on just water? no problem).

I think training in completely fasted state is ok, but not optimal; you should be cautious not go dogmatic regarding that, as at given point it might halt your progress. From my relatively modest experience (as former client of Martin Berkhan) - BCAA and/or MCT oil prior the workout might yield substantial positives.

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