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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

I was once participated in a diet program where I was given some pills to eat to suppress my appetite (in addition to other generic mediterranean diet principles).

Being skeptical, I immediately scanned the ingredients and they all seemed like harmless/filler so I figured it was some placebo to placate those who needed pills as a confidence/mechanic. However, upon taking the pills for a few days, I did notice a marked decrease in appetite.

Re-examining the ingredients, the first one was "silica". Sand. Dirt. I've since come to the belief that our modern diet is too clean, and we are evolved to eat some amount of dirt - even if it's inhaled, so we may need to reintroduce some to control weight/allergies/disorders.

That dirt also contains other beneficial ingredients other than silica doesn't surprise me one bit.

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This is interesting, but my nonscientific counter might be:

What if "dirt" is harmful, and causes your body to degrade appetite in attempt to overcome the irritants?

I agree we've evolved perhaps, but sometimes modern is better (e.g. portion control). Is it harmful to "feel" hungry and not sate your appetite?

> Is it harmful to "feel" hungry and not sate your appetite?

This is something that most people don't understand, given that we live in a world where food is cheap and plentiful.

As many people who have gone through fasting-based diets have discovered, there's a difference between "I'm hungry" and "I need calories, I'm getting weak and tired." Learning that difference is how you discover the actual amount of food your body requires, not just checking off three meals per day.

The feeding patterns of our ancestors were very far from "eat as much as you want all the time with no physical effort required," and that was normal for 15,000+ years, so it'll probably take longer than the 100-200 or so since industrial food production began for our brains and bodies to adjust to the new normal. That, or we'll just have to start teaching our kids about cravings vs hunger vs actual food-need.

> As many people who have gone through fasting-based diets have discovered, there's a difference between "I'm hungry" and "I need calories..."

This is so true and it absolutely blew my mind to discover. Like a scifi plot where the air is "poison", you go outside, and... nothing happens.

It was uncomfortable at first, but it's mostly mental. So much of the "hunger" signal is conditioning that, once you decondition it, it just goes away.

Even when I'm fasted to the point where I'm mentally and physically sluggish, there are still no hunger pangs as severe as the ones I used to have between lunch and dinner when I never went more than 8 hours between meals.

I can't recommend it enough. I don't enjoy any particular clarity boosts or lightness like some purport to have, but I do enjoy spending less money, dealing with fewer errands, and being less fat.

I try to not eat after ~8PM, and to go for as long as I can without eating after waking up. In practice, this is usually ~1130 but sometimes as late as ~230. Then I just eat smaller meals, 50-70% of normal size. In this way, I can eat basically whatever I want, on the same schedule as anyone else.

I had a similar experience when I tried intermittent fasting a few years ago.

Most of us are so sedentary but eating like construction workers (at least I was). I also cut my food intake by something like 30-40% with nothing more than a week or two of discomfort.

You guys might be interested in this [0] classic study where a guy fasted for 382 days. He only took multi-vitamins during this period. His weight decreased from 456 to 180 lbs (0.72 lbs/day).

[0] https://pmj.bmj.com/content/postgradmedj/49/569/203.full.pdf

So, fasting this long is only possible if you have a lot of weight for your body to somehow cannibalize?

Well, yes. Basic daily activities, maintaining your internal body heat, and keeping your organs functioning all require energy. The only way humans can get that energy is through food or burning fat. So to keep living without food, you need to be burning fat

You need to be careful not to lose weight too quickly, since that has risks of its own. It is a risk with extreme diets such as extended fasting.

Excessively fast weight loss can cause liver injury. Most obese people will already have some degree of fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and while gradual weight loss is beneficial in reversing that liver disease, excessively fast weight loss can have the opposite effect and promote liver disease progression.

Say why.

Not only is it throwing off hormone/endocrine production, the toxins that have been stored in the fat cells are all being filtered through the body at the time of breakdown.

I'm not clear on what "I'm hungry" means, other than "I need calories, I'm getting weak and tired." I don't experience anything until I experience that; being tired (after not eating all day) is the first sign my body gives me that I should eat something.

What are the qualia of non-hypoglycemic hunger?

My understanding is that you feel "I'm hungry" when your blood sugar drop below its typical level. The typical level can be increased by eating a lot of sugary processed food over a long period of time. In other words, sugary processed food change your body chemistry to make you addicted to them. If you largely eat healthy food and are at a healthy weight, then "I'm hungry" is a reliable signal for "I need more calories". If you are not, then it becomes a one-sided biased signal.

I'm referring specifically to hunger pangs, or hunger contractions - a mild to moderate pain or cramping in the stomach that occurs when you've gone for a while without food.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_(motivational_state)#...

I've met others who simply don't experience hunger pangs, but I've always felt them and I didn't know how fully in-my-head it was until I tried intermittent fasting a few years ago.

>so it'll probably take longer than the 100-200 or so since industrial food production began for our brains and bodies to adjust to the new normal.

Do people with bodies that are better adjusted to industrial foods reproduce at a faster rate? If not then I don't see any kind of evolutionary pressure that would cause people's bodies to adjust over the generations. My impression is that evolution in humans has stagnated since modern society came about.

Silica was probably sourced as a refined product and was likely pretty pure and free of things like bacteria.

Yeah, no way it'd be actual 'dirt', it's going to be food grade silica at the very least.

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