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Comment by RobertRoberts | Hacker News Reader

I ate one meal a day last July, for the entire month. (drank distilled water during the non-eating time) I documented my progress in a spreadsheet and I lost .5 pounds a day on average. I increased (easily, fasting makes you stronger) my run from 1 miles to 2 miles, got up to 3 at one point. I started running 6 days (about) a week during this time. I went from 202lbs (average weight) to 186lbs in a month.

I gained some back quickly to even out at 190lbs, and now I maintain 192-194 easily, but have replaced fat with muscle. Also, I stopped running in the winter (started doing strength work), I suspect I will get below 190 in the spring. But also I don't do the timed structure for eating, it'd likely help with the small amount of extra weight I keep. :P

I know many people that have made incredible changes doing this, I hope it catches on more.

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I'm on the 16/8 schedule right now (usually 2 meals and a snack), how did you mange to cram in enough calories in a single meal? Or were you just seriously calorie deficient?

>...were you just seriously calorie deficient?

I had extra fat on my body, not a lot, but plenty to sustain me for a long time. Our bodies are amazing at survival, you can fast for a very long time, and for a few weeks at first you will actually gain strength (no food at all).

Also, I changed my mindset about being hungry. I decided it was ok to feel hungry. I learned to appreciate it, what it meant, and it made my one meal very satisfying. Also, one time we went to a party (graduation) and I ate like 6 cupcakes, and I still lost weight that day. :P

This taught me that so much common teachings on losing weight aren't helpful, but are in fact discouraging.

How is your weight management going? Are you hungry a lot? Is it hard or easy to maintain the 16/8 schedule? (I've haven't tried it yet)

Also, after doing this for a month, it's permanently altered my concepts of hunger, eating schedules and the such. (that was over 6 months ago that I did this) I simply don't eat now unless I am truly hungry, in fact I find I really don't want to eat, unless I'm hungry, I feel bloated if I do.

Have you found that you need to eat smaller meals as well? I found that the best time to exercise was before a meal. If I did it early in the day, I was a lot more hungry during the day. But if I did it right before dinner, I didn't experience the same discomfort.

See the problem with a severe calorie deficiency isn't the calories themselves... it's the fact that it's very easy to hit malnourishment via micronutrient deficiency. Eating a handful of multivitamins will help, but it won't solve the problem in the long run -- there are a lot of micros! (I use Cronometer for diet tracking, highly recommended, they track around a hundred nutrients)

The hunger goes away once your body realizes your feeding schedule, I've found. For instance, I skipped breakfast (no food till noon) for a few months. For the first week, there was hunger in the morning, but afterwards by body just stopped requesting food before noon. This is probably similar to how keeping a consistent sleep schedule helps you not feel like garbage when you get up in the morning.

Regarding exercise, I completely agree, but I start my feeding cycle early -- I do my cardio (running/swimming) first thing in the morning, fasted, then eat my first meal immediately after. The routine works great and has a major impact on my energy levels for the rest of the day.

Why distilled water?

My filtered water didn't taste good after a couple of days of intermittent fasting. Also, I grew up with distilled water being around, my dad would bring it back from the lab. To many people it tastes "off", but I am used to it. Can't get any more "pure" than distilled water. (I know there's likely still stuff in it, but close enough)

Distilled water is unhealthy for regular intake. Not only it's more acidic that spring/mineral water, but it also leads to mineral depletion.

Distilled water comes to atmospheric normal pH - 5.8 - after any exposure to the air. Is that different from any other water?

Well, google why it's not good - there are tons of resources. Anyway, we humans have been drinking water not only because of its H2O but also because of the plethora of electrolytes in it.

Isn't rain distilled water? My understanding is that it has a single dust like particle that turns it into a rain drop. (generally speaking, grade school weather knowledge here)

Doesn't it seem reasonable that distilled water's lack of electrolytes can be balanced quite easily from other sources? (a quick google search seems to indicate 'yes')

Scientific questions:

1. How much electrolytes are there in a single bite of any particular food, compared to a gallon of water? (anyone have a real number?)

2. How long do electrolytes stay in the body (being usable) after being ingested?

3. How much water will a certain amount use after being ingested. (ie, the difference in electrolytes in distilled vs other sources. Do they even get "used up"?)

4. What is the effects of low electrolytes? (is it pain, body deterioration, something we can feel and detect?)

I am sure I could google this, but I suspect the answers are really hard to find with any true accuracy because they would vary greatly by diet, body size, composition, health, age and many other factors. And I'd argue that it's possible we can tell our electrolyte levels by how we feel? (this seems reasonable)

Edit: Did some research on distilled water, in a previous comment, some interesting finds. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16432024#16449986

Obviously, there are enough minerals given pH changes from 7 to almost 9 pH with some popular spring waster brands. Also, rainwater is not distilled water - you oversimplify things, which is the root of many evils!

Unless you have no other water source, drinking rainwater has never been a practice.

>you oversimplify things

How can you oversimplify something by asking questions?

This is interesting, that water absorbs carbon dioxide after being distilled. I didn't know that. (source google stuff)

Doesn't this mean that distilled water re-mineralizes itself? Hard to call it out on not having minerals if it does... So either it's acidic and has minerals, or it's neutral and doesn't. Either way it doesn't seem bad at all and seems self correcting... (which is very interesting)

But is it still safe to drink? Evidently it's still the closest to ph neutral as water can get, says this source at least.

>"According to doctors like Andrew Weil, distilled water is generally as close to a neutral pH as people can get, and it is perfectly safe to drink."

https://www.reference.com/science/ph-distilled-water-7-0-46e...

> So either it's acidic and has minerals

Carbon dioxide isn't a mineral. When water absorbs CO2 there is an equilibrium reaction where (H2CO3) carbonic acid is produced (the percentage depends on things like the concentration of CO2 and the temperature of the water, among other things).

> But is it still safe to drink?

It's safe to drink, but it's more acidic than normal water (which is slightly alkaline). Not to mention it's missing a bunch of minerals (and things like Fluorine which is a good idea to have) which could negatively impact your health -- there are a lot of minerals your body needs that come from "trivial" sources like tap water or table salt.

> Evidently it's still the closest to ph neutral as water can get, says this source at least.

This doesn't make sense -- if something is acidic you can always add a base (like NaOH) to make it more alkaline (or neutral).

Not to mention that the quoted pH of 5.5 is considered "strongly acidic", as opposed to tap water which is in the 6-8 range that is between "neutral" and "mildly alkaline". Which means that according to their own information, distilled water is not the "closest to pH neutral water can can".

Reference.com isn't a particularly good source either.

>Carbon dioxide isn't a mineral. When water absorbs CO2 there is an equilibrium reaction where (H2CO3) carbonic acid is produced (the percentage depends on things like the concentration of CO2 and the temperature of the water, among other things).

Fair enough, my point wasn't clearly stated. It seems the single opposition to distilled water is that it's "acidic".

1.) Do you believe ingesting anything slightly acidic is inherently bad? (is distilled water worse than fruit juice?)

2.) Is there more carbonic acid in distilled water vs soda water or coke/pepsi?

I would certainly agree that Reference.com is not a good source. My father is a chemist, he's the one who brought home the distilled water we all drank from as our daily drinking water my entire childhood... he didn't seem to think it was an issue.

My response was commenting on your comment about minerals and seemingly confusing CO2 (or acidity in general) with minerals. Distilled water is acidic, but it doesn't contain a significant amount of minerals (especially compared to tap water) which most people need.

> 1.) Do you believe ingesting anything slightly acidic is inherently bad? (is distilled water worse than fruit juice?)

Fruit juice has its own problems, but no. Our bodies have several buffers[1] that mean your blood pH (and other fluids) remain the same even if you add acidic or alkaline chemicals to it. This is required for enzymes in your body to function normally because they stop working outside very strict pH regions. (Of course this is a massive over-generalisation of the human body, and acidity can cause problem with people who have acid reflux or other stomach issues.)

In short, I agree that drinking something slightly acidic is generally as safe as something slightly alkaline (and a lot of the recent "take in more alkaline stuff" health trends are really stupid). My point was that (by the data given in the source you linked) that distilled water isn't "closer to neutral water" than tap water -- it's more acidic than tap water is alkaline.

> 2.) Is there more carbonic acid in distilled water vs soda water or coke/pepsi?

No, because soft drinks are carbonated (more dissolved CO2, more carbonic acid). If you made them flat it might be about the same (though there's plenty of other acidic crap in soft drinks).

> My father is a chemist [...] he didn't seem to think it was an issue.

Well, maybe he didn't know of or consider the importance of minerals. The point isn't that distilled water will kill your or anything, it's just that drinking nothing but distilled water (when you have access to clean tap water) is not a great idea because you're missing out on a several minerals that you now have to get from elsewhere.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution

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