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Comment by Cyph0n | Hacker News Reader

How about skipping breakfast and lunch, as done by Muslims during Ramadan? In general, Islam recommends voluntary fasting for 2 days every week (traditionally Monday and Thursday).

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Are there longitudinal studies of comparative Muslim-population health outcomes for people who follow this precept vs. people who don't?

That's a good question actually. I'll try to do some digging. If I find anything, I will update this comment.

I found nothing unfortunately. Studies in both languages seem to be focused on Ramadan rather than long term intermittent fasting.

It's probably better to skip breakfast and dinner, and eat only at mid-day. You're still generally active for hours after the mid-day meal, so you don't have the tendency to gorge and then curl up on the couch or go to bed.

In my experience the only intermittent fadting pattern that works is to eat your food later.

If you try to eat 2000 calorie lunches, you'll have major lethargy in the afternoon and insomnia from hunger in the evening.

Better to use hunger as a driver during the day, then gorge and go to sleep at night.

> Better to use hunger as a driver during the day, then gorge and go to sleep at night.

Is this just a guess you are making, or do you have research or citations to back up this advice?

OP wrote "in my experience".

The issue with Ramadan is that they eat at night. It is indeed intermittent fasting, but it is not as good as intermittent fasting where you eat during the day, because eating is related to peripheral oscillators of our circadian rhythm.

I heard about that a few weeks ago while listening to this podcast by Dr. Rhonda Patrick: http://tim.blog/2017/05/04/smart-drugs-fasting-and-fat-loss/

This article might also be of interest: http://minimalwellness.com/mealtiming/

As well as this video interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R-eqJDQ2nU

What about it?

Ramadan is popularly associated with gaining weight, because people tend to binge before dawn and after sunset and are more sedentary than usual.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/cairo-the-...

Middle Eastern cuisine doesn't help either. Most of our food is high in carbs and fats, and we eat a ton of bread!

But that's all the time, not just ramadan.

But during Ramadan, it's basically all at once. Am I wrong to conclude that more unhealthy food in a shorter time period = more weight problems?

That's the current wisdom, yes.

To lose weight, it's recommended to eat many times a day (like 5-6), but limit yourself to small portions.

This hasn't been popular, or accepted, wisdom for a very long time.

Intermediate fasting (discussed elsewhere in this thread) is much closer to being a modern understanding.

No, they haven't found this to help people lose weight.

But so good. :(

So damn true haha! Have you tried Tunisian cuisine? The food we are mostly known for is couscous. It's actually popular among North African countries, but I prefer the southern Tunisian variant to the rest.

Spoiler: I'm a Tunisian.

Is there a great restaurant that you could recommend that serves Tunisian food?

There are some assertions that the wheat-based carbs we eat today are deficient in something (allegations vary depending upon who you speak with) that is missing from modern wheat grains and especially flours. It would be interesting to find a micro-culture or community that sources and exclusively uses freshly-stone-ground (not roller milled), whole, heirloom grain varieties for its flour, and compare the incidence of metabolic diseases with the general population.

That means a population that only uses a flour that is ground locally, then immediately used within 12-48 hours after grinding. The mill grinds the entire wheat grain, under cold temperatures, sourced from older strains of grain (e.g., einkorn or emmer), without separating and then adding back in bran, etc. Before milling, the grains are held in cold or even freezing, dry, dark storage.

If such a population can be found and studied, it could support or refute these assertions that modern hybrid grain strains and modern processes for even "whole wheat" flours is causing deficiencies in our diet that are contributing to various metabolic disorders.

Whole wheat is a poorly-regulated term [1]. Baking with whole, heirloom wheat might benefit from deep learning algos, automation, and appropriate sensor tech, considering how finicky the variables are [2]. If we can solve that, then we might be able to deliver industrial-scale baked goods with all the asserted benefits, without the high prices of artisan production. There are a lot of claims surrounding the adverse effects of industrialized grain and its affiliated production [3] [4], but I don't know of anyone coming at the other end, showing populations that eat heirloom grains that are freshly-processed differ from the general population in significant ways. I'm curious if an analogous condition exists for rice.

[1] https://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/08/16/the-whole-grain...

[2] http://www.thekitchn.com/chad-robertsons-5-essentials-for-wo...

[3] https://paleoleap.com/what-is-wrong-with-grains/

[4] https://authoritynutrition.com/modern-wheat-health-nightmare...

Has it been also tested by proponents of IF? That is, skipping breakfast and lunch some days of the week.

I have no idea. That would be a good thing to test, though.

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