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Comment by hoka-one-one | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't Jason Fung recommend starving yourself to stay lean?

That is an interesting take on his position. He recommends intermittent fasting as a way to keep insulin levels down. There are dozens and dozens of studies on this, many posted here to HN. Highly recommended reading.

Jason Fung is very methodical in his book as he covers all the popular diets, approaches, and studies around them showing efficacy.

He recommends Intermittent Fasting, which is not "starving yourself"

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C6D0LCK/ref=dbs_a_def_r...

I'm sorry, what's the difference? If you want to eat, have food available, and force yourself not to eat until a certain hour, how are you not starving yourself? Especially when you do this many times over a long time

Because that definition would mean that almost every single person in the western world is "starving" at some point during the day. The definition is -

    "suffering or dying from hunger." (Oxford)

Starving is more extreme than hungry, just like suffering is more extreme than uncomfortable.

If you're looking to the Oxford dictionary then it sounds like you're just making a semantic argument. I was hoping to learn what the metabolic difference is.

> I was hoping to learn what the metabolic difference is.

Okay sure. But that's not what you said:

>If you want to eat, have food available, and force yourself not to eat until a certain hour, how are you not starving yourself?

Your argument hinged on food being available and consciously choosing not to eat it. That has nothing to do with metabolism.

We've been talking about metabolism, hunger has to do with metabolism, and you are the only one who has replied with a dictionary argument. Have a great day!

Three people replied to your comment, all correcting you. Several more have "replied" to our exchange with their up/down votes. Might I suggest that you were either wrong, or you accidentally failed in articulating your point? Both are perfectly fine. Mistakes happen.

I'm genuinely confused about why you're trying to prove by engaging me further. There's nothing more to say.

They made nonsemantic arguments, you made a semantic one. Not a big deal

Anyway I'm surprised that you read this all as people "correcting me". This is a mess of people shilling a diet book by a well-known quack, hence why the OP was downvoted to the bottom.

If you have a packed lunch available but your lunch break isn't for another hour, you aren't "starving yourself". Degrees matter.

More like eight hours repeatedly in this case but cool, good to know there's not really a fundamental difference besides "spread it out". I wonder how Jason Fung of Dietdoctor.com judges what an appropriate amount of time is and which biomarkers he monitors besides fasting insulin. He must have some pretty scientifically rigourous methods since the stakes in things like this are high.

Starvation is catabolic to muscle tissue. Fasting is catabolic to primarily fat stores.

It's more nuanced than that. Speaking as someone who has done the diet and had multiple people around me also have results with it when other diets haven't worked (as well).

The hormonal impact of what and when you eat tends to have a larger impact than what a pure "calories in, calories out" model would suggest.

I've taken blood tests before and after 6 months of intermittent fasting (with a similar diet) and saw massive improvement in blood work and hunger pangs.

YMMV but his ideas are worth exploring.

So is it expected that you do this intermittent fasting until you reverse T2 diabetes? If so - how long? Six months, 1 year, more or less? Or does this depend on individual - how long it takes her/him to reverse T2 diabetes? Or is this a lifestyle change that you incorporate until EOL?

This is quantifiable.

Ideally start when you’re only in the “pre-diabetic” range: fasting glucose above ~105ish, A1C > 5.7.

Those are the numbers you’re trying to lower. So how long you go with a dietary change depends on how well you’re able to manage this numbers down, and keep them down.

Surely some of this depends on how rigorously you can decrease your sugar intake, fasting or not, and/or restore better function of your systems (e.g. exercise, fasting).

Fasting is not starving, it's just metabolizing your existing food stores. For people with large body fat stores, you by definition cannot be 'starving'.

He does not recommend that very lean individuals fast.

>it's just metabolizing your existing food stores

These things are a hell of a lot more complex than you're making them out to be.

Even for 2020 that's a pretty obtuse misreading of what he says.

Please let me know what stocks you're long on so I can short them?

Not sure why you're responding in this manner but sorry if I offended you, I really didn't mean to. Maybe you see something in his work that I don't.

I know you haven't read his work because he specifically deals with the starvation thing multiple times.

Whatever, have a nice day! Please come back in five years and let everyone know how you're doing on your "fasting" diet.

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