When We Eat, or Don’t Eat, May Be Critical for Health

Not saying that's true for you but I thought I couldn't go without breakfast until I actually tried it.

Here's what I did:

   1. Make sure you eat late in the evening (I like to eat a snack at 11pm or later)
   2. Lower your carb intake
   3. Up your protein intake
   4. Up your fats
   5. Generally have a large dinner instead of a large lunch

Part of this shifting schedule was that I gradually reduced the size of my breakfast and eventually removed it. In the mornings I'm not doing anything physically demanding so I don't need that much energy and my large evening intake is still good enough.

That said, I always wake up with a growling stomach and sometimes even hunger pains. They go away after I have some morning tea (warm liquid) and my body generally forgets its hungry if I make it wait like 20 or 30 minutes before I give in.

As a bonus, my bodyfat percentage has gone down to a stable 11% while maintaining the same weight.

Oh yeah, I also drink 2 to 3 cans of Coke Zero per day to help with my sodium intake. Especially with the amount of working out I do I get leg cramps when I forego soda.

Taking a short nap might not necessarily be a bad thing I think. I usually take a 10-20 minute nap in the afternoon if I can.

Pretty common in some European countries and there are plenty of studies showing the positive benefits of "power napping". Shame it's so frowned upon where I'm from (UK).

What does a typical lunch consist of for you?

I have done this for about six years without damaging my digestion in any detectable way. I would bet money your friend has or had a Helicobacter pylori infection; treatment is antibiotics.

Instant coffee tends not to be as acidic same goes for cold brews and there are other ways to neutralize the acidity.

If you produce too much acid then intermediate fasting is not a good idea to begin with unless you also take supplements to control your stomach acidity.

His diet is low in protein and fat; he gets furious when he sees doctors advocating the opposite, a trendy practice he believes speeds aging.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/13/fasting-diet-valter-long...

I do 16/8 I.F fasting on a HCLF diet and have never experienced any of those issues.

There is plenty of evidence showing the benefits of ketosis on the body, and benefits from people switching from SAD to Keto reversing diabetes and the likes - but that's more down to calorie restriction. With regular keto you're raising your risk long-term for diabetes, heart-disease, cancer and stroke due to increased meat/dairy/egg consumption.

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/what-causes-insulin-resista...

You're far better just eating a varied diet with as little animal produce as possible and doing I.F which releases 5x the amount of ketones than the keto diet.

Fast forward to a new, leaner, me and I try exercising properly. On Keto there's no way I can exercise. Whilst I felt fine day to day and had a clear head, anything more energetic than walking was a huge effort.

Years later, having dropped keto, a friend and I were very heavily into mid-distance running (10k and half marathon). We weren't particularly fast, but we were doing probably 50k per week training and several events per year.

We decided to do a burst of keto to try to drop a few more pounds whilst maintaining the running since we'd seen some blog posts claiming it was possible to avoid the lack of energy.

First run post keto went from us running routine 55minute 10k to me abandoning the run altogether part way through at 64minutes because I was in agony.

tl;dr keto + exercise may not work for everyone

Because, like most skeptics, we have seen this pattern before. Supposed scientific support and loads of anecdotal evidence are common to all popular fad diets. The scientific support of IF is also much less solid than it's advocates would have you believe.

> IF can actually be a useful enforcement mechanism for the first two parts of "eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables"

I agree with this - so can basically any other fad diet. People that recognize IF as a method of enforcing a basic CICO diet, I agree with. There are plenty of people that, like any other fad diet, think that IF is somehow special in ways unrelated to it's restriction of calories. That's what makes it the same as any other fad diet to me.

> I've actually experienced weight loss, less hunger, better focus, more stable energy levels, lower blood pressure, better sleep

People report this from atkins, vegan, paleo, keto, juice cleanse, weight watchers, south beach, etc. I am happy that you've found a diet that works for you. I hope that everyone finds a healthy diet that works for them.

I just want people to realize that CICO will always be the key to weight loss regardless of how it is achieved, and "eat food. not too much. mostly plants" will (probably) always be the key to a health diet.

Happy to share before/after pictures if you're interested, through I'd prefer not to post them publicly.

What else do you want to know?

On the contrary, it started a discussion.

> For starters, a 60 day fast will lead to a very large loss of weight

Approximately 80 lbs in my case.

I started the fast at 37% bodyfat, according to my somewhat reliable Omron scale which uses Bioelectrical Impedance to measure body fat.

> so unless the faster is exceedingly above the ideal weight at the start, it sounds dangerous.

From my experience, fasting is the opposite of dangerous.

If you're a healthy adult, you can easily fast for 7 days. But yes, you do need the fat stores, though I'm counting that 7 days of fat stores as implicit in 'healthy adult'.

I'd say 65 lbs lost and kept off for over a year is very sustainable. Far better than any of the alternatives I'd tried.

Awesome. You should be able to do that no problem. Just make sure you're supplementing plenty of sodium, potassium and magnesium.

> The emotional benefits are almost bigger. After 3 days without food my mind stops racing and my anxiety melts away. It feels like zen no-mind, and much stronger than I've been able to achieve by meditating.

This was my experience as well. Somewhere between day 7 and day 10 everything just got easier.

Yes! this is a common misconception. "listen to your body" is not the same as "eat whatever you feel like eating". Your tongue/appetite/addictions can tell you many harmful things. Listening to your body requires a lot of training and sensitivity, otherwise my body keeps telling me to eat cakes ;)