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Comment by mirceal | Hacker News Reader

For people that come into this and think: “wtf is wrong with someone that they want to starve themselves” there is more to this than meets the eye.

There is more than one type of fasting (more than one protocol - thowing this here: IF with 16:8/18:6/omad, ADF, 5/2, Extended) and there is some science backing this up. some of the benefits of fasting are mind blowing but it’s hard to “swim upstream” when some of our beliefs are so entrenched (examples: not eating is going to slow your metabolism down, not eating is going to make you lose muscle mass, it’s a sing of mental health issues, it’s a eating disorder, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you need to eat X time per day to keep your metabolism working)

go to reddit and read the side bar for r/fasting and r/intermittentfasting and do a little bit of research/keep an open mind.

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Agree, keep an open mind and don't be affraid to try. I don't know how to categorize my IF, I've been doing it for 4 years. Tuesday and Thursday a snack at 14 and dinner around 21. Friday night, saturday and sunday I eat whatever I want. All other days just tea or cofee.

I'm 42 and I feel better than ever.

Just to make sure I understand...

Sunday: coffee Monday: coffee Tuesday: snack and dinner Wednesday: coffee Thursday: snack and dinner Friday: three full meals Saturday: three full meals

Are you able to focus by Tuesday? I feel like I would struggle to be productive.

You get used to it after a while. The hardest part I found was social pressure to eat. So much of our culture revolves around eating that it's hard to do IF with any schedule where you leave out dinner time.

So skipping breakfast is super easy (IMHO) and skipping dinner is nigh impossible.

Skipping lunch highly depends on how pressured you feel to eat with your colleagues. I think one meal a day (usually named OMAD) is also not hard if you don't have lunch at work.

Monday coffee (or tea, mostly tea), Tuesday snack and dinner, Wednesday cofee, Thursday snack and dinner, Friday just dinner, Saturday three meals (or more or less) and Sunday three meals (or more or less).

I'm able to focus any day. Some months I do 1 week when I fast Monday, Tuesday and I eat dinner on Wednesday; body reboot.

I began to fast gradually and this is what I consider my optimal IF method.

Dinner around 21 (9 PM) would be quite late for me. What time do you then go to sleep?

I'm from Argentina, wake up at 6.15 and go to sleep at 22.

I feel like the timing of supper is a cultural thing. I prefer to eat later, but it sucks trying to do that in America, unless you want fast food. But I fell in love with Spain because it was honestly the optimal meals times for my body. Wish it was easier to do in America, at restaurants.

it’s a blend of 5/2 and ADF (alternate day fasting)

most people undestand eating all your food for the day in a certain time window (8 hours) to be IF. The 8 hours eat + 16 hours fast is labeled 16:8.

but you know what, you can call it whatever you want as long as it works for you :)

IF seems relatively commonplace at this point. That said, its physiological value over other calorie restrictive diets is dubious:

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/108/5/933/520...

lol. sorry but that’s not true. calories are important but they’re not all that matters (another way of saying this is if you overeat you will get heavier).

i can tell you that when you eat matters a lot. i can also tell you that a calorie from sugar is not the same as a calorie from lean meat.

it’s not the energy value, but the hormonal effect it has on you and the results cravings/hunger/binge eating.

if I’m ever going to become a minimalistic nutrition guru my advice would be this: cut out sugar and refined carbs, sleep, exercise. that is all. good luck pedaling this and makinf money of of it :)

While this is a hotly debated topic, it's not an argument I made. It's also irrelevant to the topic. You can do IF and eat candy for eight hours.

The meta studies show that IF offers no additional benefits over similar caloric deficit approaches

another interesting point is that fasting and intermittent fasting is not a diet.

IMHO all diets fail. If you attack it as a problem, you find a solution, do that, it works and you considered it solved you’re gonna fallback to your own habbits.

the way I look at eating and other aspects of my life is that I want sustainable change. If I see me doing something for the rest of my life and incorporating it into my routine/lifestyle I do it. If not I will not.

Sustainable change is what you want. Not a quick fix. Not a miracle. Not a pill.

So often do I hear "You skip breakfast?? But its the most important meal of the day!".

yes. even corporations that sell breakfast cereal agree. you see you need to start your metabolism. think of your metabolism as a fire that you need to light up in the morning /s

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