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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

It's definitely anecdotal as-in based on my own personal experience.

I fast for a few reasons:

1. Breakfast is not necessary, so skipping this meal saves me time in the morning. I already gotta worry about getting ready, feeding the dog+antibiotics, taking him out to pee, etc... one less thing to worry about.

2. Fasting for extended periods while in a ketogenic state accelerate fat loss. (the primary reason I fast)

3. I have noticed performance benefits with skipping the meal. (the cherry on top)

Really excellent guide: http://burnfatnotsugar.com/intermittent-fasting.html

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What do you mean breakfast is not "necessary"? No single meal is necessary, obviously, but why skip it?

> skipping this meal saves me time in the morning. I already gotta worry about getting ready, feeding the dog+antibiotics, taking him out to pee, etc... one less thing to worry about.

I really can't understand how you can put "getting ready" and feeding your dog above your own nutrition. Maybe you don't enjoy food the same way that I do. How do you not have 10 minutes to eat something in the morning? It just boggles my mind

> Fasting for extended periods while in a ketogenic state accelerate fat loss

Why not just eat 3 meals per day but smaller portions? Isn't that more sustainable psychologically (and maybe physically)?

Basically there's a lot of health benefits to intermittent fasting.

This video covers a lot of it quite well & links to sources. Longevity & Why I Eat Once Per Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKfR6bAXr-c

Please correct me if I'm mistaken but your comment seems to rely on the assumption that it is not reasonable if someone chooses to not make 10 minutes of time for breakfast.

While I do not wish to state my position on the "making time for breakfast" matter, I do, however, wish to state that if you _are_ indeed starting from that assumption, you are not really trying to understand where the other person is coming from.

>I really can't understand how you can put "getting ready" and feeding your dog above your own nutrition.

>Maybe you don't enjoy food the same way that I do.

First, these are two separate thoughts, unless you have some confusion between 'proper nutrition' and 'enjoyment of food'.

Second, 'proper nutrition' and 'enjoyment of food' often conflict since what provides the best nutritional value to your body is not often aligned with what tastes the best.

I think the different between you and OP's position is that you see a link between 'nutrition' and the breakfast event. What's your reasoning for believing that breakfast is important with regards to your body's nutrition/health? Do you understand it to be of short-term (i.e. energy levels before lunch) or long-term importance?

Actually "proper nutrition" and "enjoyment of food" are closely related. Although our bodies are selfish. For example, we like sugar so much because it's good yet used to be scarce. Now we finally can get plenty of it, but our body gets greedy and we overeat it.

> Actually "proper nutrition" and "enjoyment of food" are closely related.

I don't think that is the case for the vast majority of people. If I would only eat according to my "enjoyment of food" I would probably only eat cake and chocolate.

I don't do that, of course, because I value "proper nutrition" for my body above my "enjoyment of food". I see relatively few people around me that would take broccoli over cake if they are eating for "enjoyment of food".

That's what I said in 2nd part of my comment. We still crave for sugar which was hard to get. And our bodies are greedy and abuse it. Yet historically it was needed for proper nutrition.

Broccoli may suck, but there are lots of tasty veggies. I love to snack on fresh carrots or cucumbers. Don't get me started on how tasty nuts or berries are...

For me, it's the opposite. Of course I enjoy snacks, but I'd rather prefer to eat something both tasty and healthy. I'd prefer carrots and hummus to a cake 99% of the time

> First, these are two separate thoughts

Sure they are, sorry for mixing them up. Food for me represents both. Eating an avocado toast in the morning both makes me happy and gives me energy that I will use until around 12-13

> Do you understand it to be of short-term (i.e. energy levels before lunch) or long-term importance?

Both: short term as in energy needed during the day, and long term from a psychological point of view. This is subjective, of course.

You've been socially conditioned to believe 3 square meals per day are vital, and that breakfast is the most important one. That's simply not the case. Once you start to remove that bias, you'll have an easier time understanding where I am coming from with my lifestyle.

I'm not choosing my dog's nutrition over my own. Rather, I find that skipping breakfast is a win for me for fat-loss goals as well as mental clarity, and has the pleasant side effect of saving me time in my morning routine.

Funnily enough, breakfast is kinda important for fat-loss. What you eat in the morning will be burned throughout the day. Meanwhile a significant chunk of what you eat in the evening is not going to be burned and will be stored in fat.

Eating a lot in a single go is not healthy either. Thus you do need several meals throughout the day. 3 seems to be rather good balance. Although I personally prefer 2.

> Funnily enough, breakfast is kinda important for fat-loss. What you eat in the morning will be burned throughout the day. Meanwhile a significant chunk of what you eat in the evening is not going to be burned and will be stored in fat.

Meal timing is pretty much irrelevant for fat loss. The amount you consume and expend in the long run is far more relevant. Unless you're a top-level athlete, meal timing is the wrong thing to focus on.

Not being most important, doesn't mean it's irrelevant. I'm not saying to focus on it alone either. But it certainly does play a role how our metabolism work.

For example, snacking throughout the day is worst. Your body gets used to easy food and you feel hungry all the time. What you need is longer stretches of a day without food to make your body take energy from body fat. So you definitely need good timing to avoid snacking but don't overload your system with massive meal.

If you eat sugar late, you will get calories, but miss the energy boost. Meanwhile in the morning you'd use it productively.

While calories balance ultimately is the goal, different ways to achieve it are harder or easier.

> You've been socially conditioned to believe 3 square meals per day are vital, and that breakfast is the most important one

Where I come from, dinner is considered to be the most important meal, while breakfast is just a quick snack to give you some energy to "last" until lunch :)

> mental clarity

Can you expand on this?

This has nothing to do with enjoyment of food; one can enjoy food without worshiping it, ritualizing it, or being a gluttonous. Someone who enjoys video games isn't under any obligation to devote time to it each morning.

Either way, your body isn't going to be negatively affected by a 3-7 hour delay in getting nutrients. Many people aren't hungry when they wake up, and coffee is pretty good at pushing that feeling off for a couple hours more. Eating breakfast every morning when you don't need it is a waste of resources.

>Why not just eat 3 meals per day but smaller portions?

Why do you care about 'meals'? What's a meal? Do you think you evolved to consume food in meals? Whether you eat 'meals' - and how many of them you eat - was never a relevant question.

> one can enjoy food without worshiping it, ritualizing it, or being a gluttonous

I didn't mention any of those? I'm not talking about eating a full English breakfast every day. My breakfasts rarely involve more than 500-700 calories.

> Eating breakfast every morning when you don't need it is a waste of resources.

And the same is true for lunch and dinner. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

> Why do you care about 'meals'? What's a meal?

Come on, there's no need to be so pedantic :)

Would you have liked it more if I said "Why not just eat 3 times per day but smaller portions"?

+1 on the fasting, say what you would like about the products that HVMN (formally nootrobox) sells, but they have an awesome blog that covers keto/ketosis and nootropics use in general.

Update: didn't link.

https://hvmn.com/blog/

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