Time-Restricted Eating in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome: Study | Hacker News Reader

Time-Restricted Eating in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome: Study

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40 pointsvo2maxer25 comments

I'm of the notion that there is no better weight loss method than counting calories, that all other methods are either deleterious or gimmicks which merely shroud eating less calories. The problem is that people want an easy (and fast) way of losing weight. well, counting calories is easy, but it's not fast. I believe (although I have nothing nothing but personal anecdotes and reasoning to back this up) that it's more sustainable too. I believe it's more sustainable because you're building a habit of eating healthier foods. It encourages you to eat more filling, nutrient dense foods and opens your eyes to foods that aren't. Whereas with IF 'eat whatever you want is such and such window' doesn't teach you what foods to eat, it doesn't show you what you're putting into your body, and it definitely doesn't teach you portion control. And as another commenter pointed out, it risks putting your body's metabolism into shock because you are literally starving yourself. Of course you will lose weight when you starve yourself! But you can't starve yourself forever, and once you stop, the weight will most likely come back.

Calorie counting on the other hand, is a knob to turn, it's a parameter that you can adjust. The more data you track, the better. You can weigh exactly what you want to, you just need to be persistent. View it like washing your hands after using the restroom: log every thing you eat, right after you eat it. The rest will follow.

This. Tried many diets, patterns, IF, etc... Only calorie counting worked and managed to lose 18kg (40 lbs). Calorie counting builds habits, makes you aware of what you eat and is a long term solution (rather than quick fix).

Someone once told me that if you want to lose weight but you tried and failed that means you haven't reached the right mindset yet.

We're complicated objects and there's no one answer for everyone. Counting calories works for those who can stick to the regime, and many can't, fail, and end up worse off. IF offers a very simple alternative if it's between the hours of 12 and 8, eat, else don't eat.

Counting calories isn't often healthy either, as not all calories are the same. Sure, you could live off eating only rice cakes, and lose weight. Would you be more healthy? My 'almost fits everyone' diet advice as someone who lost a lot of weight is:

-Eat less frequently, take longer brakes between meals.

-Don't eat unless you feel hungry

-Eat a varied diet, mostly plants

-Eat things with few ingredients, preferably only one

-Avoid alcohol

I do not count calories, I went for the "just eat half" diet (what half is depends a bit on the day) + no sugar crap (I will have a good cake but nothing industrial) + fruit + vegetables.

I lost 16 kg, gained them back because I was dumb and stupid to do the above and I am now on the way to slowly loose 25 kg and keep at that.

The meta coming out of scientific experimentation has been showing that intermittent fasting is an effective tool for a number of dirt related disorders, including obesity. To see experimentation in this space is really exciting, along with further experimentation in actual dietary intake (such as vegetarian/vegan diets), it appears that a major source of energy expenditure, the Ford we eat, can be massively scaled back while improving our health and quality of life.

I've anecdotally watched the practice of intermittent fasting in the way described (but using a 8 hour window) improve the love of those around me and for preparation for athletic events otherwise. I hope that more analysis in this space allows people to live healthier and more meaningful lives.

I somehow have the feeling this comment was written by an AI.

It's what you would get if you trained a prediction model exclusively on HN threads relating to nutrition.

It wasn't, but I get it.

Too many mistakes in it now that I read it again. I shouldn't use my phone for text entry.

I am a physician and you may have hit on something with those “dirt related disorders.” I’m thinking of doing a meta-analysis.

Just kidding. Good comment overall and the phone thingy happens to me all the time: “Phone thingy disorders.” ;-)

Or voice entry without checking the result.

Years ago I just accepted being "hangry", and "that 3PM feeling" as a consequence of being thin. With low body fat, of course I can't skip a meal and I need to drink a bottle of Gatorade while I sit at my desk and code. And I certainly need that late night snack to ensure I don't wake in the middle of the night in hunger.

But in reality, thin with ~10% body fat equates to enough calories for 20+ days for most people. What I lacked was metabolic flexibility and that's what I gained after praticing TRE (10:30AM - 5:30PM M-F) for the past months. A few times a month I go 24hours with just 100 calories from a Keto coffee drink and feel fantastic. And I am actually gaining weight / muscle mass for the first time in a decade.

I wish I had started doing this sooner. Being able to skip meals and being free from the leash of food feels like a super power.

This is more promising than many "intermittent fasting" findings, since this paper's 10hr feed window is simpler to adjust to than every-other-day-eating that some papers call "intermittent fasting".

Since I eat only brunch and dinner, I already qualify under this paper's definition.

So when you got into that habit, did you feel any noticeable change?

I did intermittent fasting for 2 months, did >36hr fasts at a time about 3 times a week. I felt amazing and saved a bunch of time and money on food. But then I tried doing a 48 hr fast and broke my fast with a big burrito and got refeeding syndrome and was hospitalized for a day.

This is likely not what happened. Metabolic syndrome is not a thing that occurs after such a short fast unless you were absurdly thin to begin with and/or drank copious amounts of water and flushed electrolytes away. But even a basic level of research would have alerted you to the trivial ways of avoiding electrolyte depletion.

Well it happened. I had critically low phosphate which is the hallmark of refeeding syndrome.

And it’s not necessarily an absolute deficiency in electrolytes, it’s that when you break a fast with a carb rich meal, it drives the electrolytes into the cells so there is deficiency of electrolytes in the blood even if total body amount is normal.

I have fasted first significant periods for 5+ years and many times I’ve broken fasts with extremely carb heavy meals. I also participate in a number of fasting social networks (both on and offline). I am just saying you might want to investigate this further as a (relatively) short 48 hour fast, broken with a carb heavy meal, should not have led to what you are describing. Something seems very unique about this and shouldn’t act as a deterrent to others. For you personally, if it is related to the fast, you might want to try Snake Juice [0] which you can make at home and keeps your electrolytes up without the sugar of Gatorade and others.

For anyone interested, Dr Jason Fung’s book [1] is an excellent primer on how to fast safely. On reddit /r/fasting and /r/intermittentfasting and /r/fastingscience are great resources for more info.

[0] For 2L water: 1tsp potassium chloride (NoSalt / SaltFree) 1/2tsp Himalayan pink salt 1tsp sodium bicarbonate (Red Mill. Not processed Arm & Hammer) 1/2tsp magnesium sulphate (Epsom Salt. West Point. Must be Food Grade)

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32670670

I think I was fasting too often. I was literally fasting every other day, zero calories only water and black coffee. I probably was slowly losing total body electrolytes.

But I didnt mention this to deter people from fasting, just to be careful. If that fiasco didnt happen to me I'd still be fasting as I felt amazing while fasting. My dad is still doing it for more than a year after I recommended it to him

> broke my fast with a big burrito and got refeeding syndrome and was hospitalized for a day.

How is this possible? Is that common?

Edit: looked it up. This is a real thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome

How I wonder how to avoid triggering this. Are there metabolic ramp up guides?

Ya you have to break your fast slowly. Maybe start with a salad, then keto foods, then carbs if you're into it

Umm, that isn't what is usually considered intermittent fasting (IF). IF is typically less than a day, basically 12-20 hour fasts by skipping a meal or two.

Depends who you follow. As I understand it, restricted feeding window is not IF. IF is ~20-24 hours no more than ~once a week (cf "Eat stop eat"), any less than 20 hours you don't get the benefits.

I don't have access, but it sounds like they're comparing against ad libitum, not food-matched (or even just calorie matched)? The interesting question to me is whether it has benefits beyond making calorie restriction / avoiding junk snacks easier to adhere to.

https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/ is a great place for IF information and inspiration.

Conveniently left this off of the title of the article:

> in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome

19 whole people, too! Another big scientific win for the IF crowd. Can’t argue with that.

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