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Comment by 1_player | Hacker News Reader

> Have you eaten in the last four hours?

Apparently this is a reason to feel like shit, according to this site. If you feel crap after only 4 hours since your last meal, quit eating so much sugar and eat decent food that keeps you filled and energised for a while. In fact, I reach my peak productivity at least 4 hours after a meal, when my body isn't spending much energy digesting food. Have you ever experienced the mental clarity of 12 or 24 hours of fasting?

The idea that we need to eat many small meals is such a Western, privileged world wife's tale that keeps being repeated. We're designed to function and hunt after some prey after days of starvation. We're not designed for the modern blood sugar seesaw. Not eating for 4 hours isn't gonna kill you, and if it is, stop eating Mars bars for lunch, and ingest some proper food.

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Did you get any further and find something else to feel weirdly personally attacked by? Not all of this has to apply to you and while I think the whole thing is a bit overwrought and silly this is a pretty visceral reaction to a relatively innocuous question.

Personally I actually can use a reminder to eat because I have little appetite and won’t realize I haven’t eaten anything until the headache kicks in, which is a potential migraine trigger for me as well. To be clear I don’t want/need to eat something every four hours but that doesn’t make the question less valid for the purposes of reminding me to consider when I last ate.

Well, I also stopped after the first question, because the options to choose from, made me go away as it implies I MUST have eaten in the last 4 hours to feel good, which is BS. So why should I see whats more, if it starts so bad?

If it would have been worded differently, to suggest that eating something might be a good idea - then I probably would have clicked further. But it has this absolute tone, that puts me off.

The tone also straight up encourages snacking, and if you click through there it says: "When you need a snack, just pop some easy food in your mouth."

It's an incredibly unhealthy thing to teach and that is just the first question.

Would be better if it recommends fruit as a snack. A small citrus fruit can be really good.

Blood sugar is blood sugar. You can do a lot worse than fruit, but that doesn’t make it harmless.

Low blood sugar is not harmless either. It simply depends on the person, of whether they should eat something right now or not.

I believe I read that sugar from fresh fruit enters slower because the fibers as opposed to processed products.

It also tells you to drink something at question three.

So yeah...

There's no option to get further. It asks have you eaten in the last four hours.

    Yes! Next question.
    I could use a snack...
    No, I need a meal.

There is no option for "No, and I'm not hungry".

Heaven forbid you explore a noncategorical perspective and consider that the usefulness of the website is not contingent on your experiences alone nor on your insistence that it completely encompasses you.

I'm sure these people had the guts to click on the wrong answer out of curiosity. The problem is that this site gives very inadequate lifestyle advice from the first question.

It reminded me to take my meds which I legitimately forgot to take this morning. Ymmv.

I also think that the use of the shit emoticons should've been enough hint that this is primarily a joke website

Um,

If it is asking him actual questions and gets the first question wrong in terms of him I kind of see his point that is doesn't seem to apply to him very well?

Imagine a questionnaire that starts with

Do you currently program in:

Cobol, fortran pascal or basic?

Maybe it wouldn't be aimed at you...

Oh please. This website is supposed to offer advice, it’s worth criticizing that advice.

And it asks if you need a nap I need a nap. Okay, I'm well-rested now.

But there is no option for "I did and I'm still tired" :/

> overwrought that's a word I needed in my vocab

Maybe he's upset because he hasn't eaten yet.

the response is not super surprising. Fasting dogma is pretty prevalent on HN from my experience

> Have you ever experienced the mental clarity of 12 or 24 hours of fasting?

I have never experienced a difference between eating more or less frequently (apart from hunger), only between quality of food (i.e., after a few days of not eating well, I feel less sharp).

> We're designed to function and hunt after some prey after days of starvation.

Natural arguments are not valid arguments. We're also "designed" to walk barefoot and yet I bet you wear shoes when you go out. It isn't like someone designed humans to work for a certain use case: we reached some adaptations to the environment, but it doesn't mean that original environment is the optimal one.

Edit: specified "eating more frequently"

> Natural arguments are not valid arguments.

When half of western country inhabitants are overweight, obese and have the physical strength/endurance of a 12 years old I think this argument holds a lot more than you think

You can eat normally and swim or go on a bike, neither of those are things "humans were designed for", and yet they help.

If you think something is good/bad for you, the argument must be about the thing itself, not the fact that primitive humans did it or did not do it.

> and swim or go on a bike, neither of those are things "humans were designed for"

You mean, exercising ? We very much have body designed for that. Not exercising and poor diet choices are the leading cause of death in the west...

Is your body designed for swimming? Or for going on a bike? I don't think so. These are modes of exercise we invented (even when we aren't optimally designed for them) and yet they are good for us. If you followed the "primitive people did it/did not do it" argument you'd have to say that going swimming must be bad for you.

It's not about eating less. It's about eating less frequent. Each meal triggers an insulin reaction that make many tired and depressed.

I started eating to cover up my depression. Worst mistake of my life.

> It's not about eating less. It's about eating less frequent

Well, that's what I meant. I haven't found a difference between eating more or less frequently, other than hunger, of course.

peole are different. I loose appetite and forget to eat enough and regularly enough when depressed, found the "last 4 hours" prompt to be a useful reminder and it would definitely not serve me well if I was told to eat less frequently

I think shoes are mostly aesthetic. We would do fine walking around bare foot.

In a lot of cases I think natural arguments are correct. Our environment has changed far more than we have in recent times.

I don't think shoes are aesthetic. Temperature, grip, protection against injuries, hygiene...

> In a lot of cases I think natural arguments are correct. Our environment has changed far more than we have in recent times.

Precisely because we can adapt to that environment by means other than evolution. If you think something is bad/good, you need a real argument for it, not just "we did it this way before".

Oh boy. Have you tried walking barefoot on snow? Or on a rocky path that has been in the summer sun for the past 6 hours? On gravel? In an area with thorny bushes?

Avoidance is key when barefoot, otherwise a self trance state will bring you across most terrain.

If you are used to it, you build up callus and it's mostly fine. Except for broken glass, but that's not exactly "natural" either.

Lol, no. Walking barefoot in snow is something you can use to, so that you walk for short time. Eventually the cold gets you, even if you trained. Frostbite is a thing, no matter how much you train.

Yes agreed, frostbite is one of the things that's not fine.

My sister in law got blood poisoning from walking barefoot, if not for modern antibiotics would be dead or alive minus a leg.

It’s just natural to die from stepping on something nasty. Too bad for her but it makes the population stronger right?

The more we rely on an instrument of protection, the more we need it. I went barefoot through a particularly thorny patch of land the other day. I expected hurt but because of that I was more ginger and careful and intuitive where to step as I walked, I didn't stop, I kept moving & trusted my instincts to avoid pain, it worked.

In some instances you'll be able to walk barefoot, but at a certain cost (attention to terrain that you wouldn't need to pay so much attention with shoes). In other instances you won't be able no matter how much you train: go walk in roads or large stones in the summer, and you'll burn your feet. Walk in the snow, and you'll get frostbite. Walk in a forest full of fallen branches and sticks, and you'll get an injury.

People didn't invent shoes because it was aesthetic, it was a necessity when adapting for certain terrains.

As a person that regularly fasts this question just made me exit the site immediately.

This is a general diagnostic, one of many that may help, not a prescription that you are expected to meet.

Same, it's only 10:30am - a meal would make me feel worse.

It actually continues on in this direction suggesting it's fine to drink soda if you don't like water... I'm pretty sure the site was designed specifically to annoy me.

Does that always mean lemonade in the US, or does soda also include soda water (carbonated water)?

Soda in the US refers to "pop" in british english. Americans don't usually say "soda water" for carbonated water, in my experience.

> "pop" in british english

It might be regional, but I think "soft drink" or ""fizzy drink" are far more common. I can't recall the last time I heard "pop" used in this sense.

When I was a child in Yorkshire I used to hear pop all the time. My parents and grandparents would say it. Nowadays it seems to have faded in favour of soft/fizzy drinks, but my grandma still says "pop".

North of England was what I had in mind. I guess "soda pop" (US) and "fizzy pop" (UK) might have a common root.

Was about to write the same. I've lived in the UK 21 years and I can't recall ever having heard "pop" other than from Americans.

An entirely unscientific search on some sites (Deliveroo, Ocado etc.) shows "pop" either not returning any drinks (Deliveroo near me) or returning pretty much the same as "soda", with Ocado returning the "fizzy drinks" category for both searches.

Regional variation in the US:

A 1996 linguistics study inspired a map [...] showing “soda” prevalent on the coasts, while “pop” held sway in the Northwest and Midwest, and the generic “coke” took the South. There must be some electoral significance to this.

https://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/the-soda-vs-pop-m...

In US, soda is a catch-all term for all types of carbonated drinks. Though, sugary types, especially coke, come to mind before the plain carbonated water.

This question is so strange to me! What dialect of English do you speak? Soda generally means like Coca Cola or some other sweetened, carbonated beverage. It doesn't mean soda water (though I can understand the confusion), which we can seltzer or sparkling water.

It absolutely does not include lemonade! I never in a million years would think of lemonade as remotely related to "soda". Our lemonades are not carbonated, and are just lemon juice, water, and sometimes sugar.

The question is so surprising to me. Where are you from? To you, what does "soda" mean? What does "lemonade" mean?

Lemonade in the UK is carbonated, so it is very similar to what we in the US call soda.

What does "mean" mean?!

I love your sense of wonderment at different cultures, wait until you hear about what "chips", "pants", and "fanny" mean in the UK!

They might be in Australia. Lemonade here is carbonated (like 7Up). Soda would be soda water. Sweetened, carbonated drinks are generally called "soft drinks". Lemon squash would be more like a homemade lemonade, but still sweetened and carbonated (can't remember if you have Solo in the US).

Hehe, sorry for the language confusion and derailing the topic! I'm not a native speaker and have always assumed that "lemonade" can be used as a generic term for all carbonated soft drinks, cola drinks included. I think my confusion comes from the Finnish loan word "limonadi" which is an umbrella term for carbonated sweet drinks.

And now checking what real lemonade looks like -- I think we'd call that lemon soda but it wouldn't definitely belong in the "limonadi" category. So a bit confusing inversion of terms during some cultural adoption!

Edit: I see the usage is closer to UK naming convention, so maybe that's the history.

Fascinating, thanks!

Yeah, here in the US, I don't think you can call a carbonated beverage "lemonade", even if it has lemons in it. That would be "lemon soda", I suppose, though I don't think I've ever seen that. Lemonade is a mixture of still water and lemons, sometimes sweetened, with ice, that you drink out on the porch during summer in the afternoon.

Your question hit me like: "does 'wine' always mean 'beer', in Finland, or only sake (rice wine)?" I knew there must be a culturally different usage of language somewhere but I had no idea where! Turns out it was lemonade that was different. TIL that other places have carbonated lemon drinks.

Good! Is there anything that can be done to let you refrain from posting comments as well?

On a more serious note, your comment would be a lot better if it had a constructive tone (like "good concept, but for many people going 4 hours without food will not make them feel bad").

Why does everything need to be said in a positive tone for it to be useful? Some things simply suck.

It's not the tone, it's the content, or lack thereof.

Yup, like getting people offended because some webpage suggests that might or might not be good to eat if you haven't had food in four hours.

Lest you learn something further down?

"Learning" incorrect information is not beneficial to me.

It was a simplistic pop quiz site, but your answer to that is as simplistic. People eat different amount, digest things differently.

If with the little info you get your first thought was to blame sugar, it feels to me you’re on a journey against some giants/windmills, because really life is more complicated than that.

Some people feel good after fasting (me, slightly overweight and too much sugar consumption), some people feel like shit (my gf, her hands tremble after 8h without food, but she had problems with thyroid).

I was going to comment same thing. Apparently if you are feeling like shit and didn't eat in last 4 hours then you should eat something. I am wondering if the website is HAES propaganda in disguise

People are unusually angry about fat activism. I mean, it promotes unhealthy habits, but so does pro-ana (which targets vulnerable younger girls, too), careless discourse on psychedelic mushrooms (even on mainstream media like Rogan) and even marijuana (it’s really not for everyone, and people do experience psychotic breaks from time to time).

Probably related to effect size? Two thirds of the US are overweight or obese.

> The idea that we need to eat many small meals is such a Western, privileged world wife's tale that keeps being repeated.

I am very curious. I have always lived in the West and I have never heard that once. I have always been told to eat 3 meals a day : Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

There was a diet fad that stated you should eat many small meals. I don't know of anyone who ever took it seriously.

In the US a lot of people seem to think they will die if don't constantly eat something. I have had quite a few discussions with people who wanted to lose weight. They had huge resistance when I told them to cut out the snacks and eat only three (or two) times a day : "this is not healthy"

It used to be said. The origin is supposed to be in diabetes medicine - small regular portions made insulin management easier when technology sucked. Somehow it became general advice. I think it kinda sounded like common sense too, you add fueal as it is needed instead of in one bang.

I was annoyed by the limited answers. Why can I not skip the question with "No, and I don't need to eat right now".

You know, I read it as completely different: a lot of people who feel like shit will put off making meals. This can lead the person to feeling worse. The app is talking about self care, and a lot of depressed people can be helped by being reminded to eat.

And then, I’m on a whole food plant based diet. I eat lentil curry and brown rice, salads, nuts, and two liters of veggie and fruit smoothie a day. I have maybe a tiny amount of sweets in the evening. And I eat a little bit constantly throughout the day.

I think you’ve read way in to that question in the wrong way.

Check out the Author of this site. Its an obese american women. I'll omit the joke...

The author of the website looks to have experience in using food and soda as a feel better method, like the website encourages. There’s also advice on taking aspirin for an ache rather than the more common advice around my culture of identifying the source of the symptom.

I don’t think this is a very healthy website.

I agree. The recommendation for cooking is (one could say) interesting:

> Here are some ideas for easy foods > you can eat right now:

-Pasta with butter, sauce, cheese, vegetables, and/or meat -Ramen noodles -Sandwiches -Rice -Grilled cheese (This can have meat on it, if you want!) -A smoothie or milkshake -Baked or fried potatoes -Eggs, pancakes, and/or bacon -Macaroni and cheese -Canned soup -Salad. -Boxed mashed potatoes

You have to say you need a meal and need help to see it. It isn't for you if making a meal doesn't feel overwhelming right now.

Ah yes, the "how many carbs can you eat in one sitting" standard American diet.

So not likely to see this one then?

Did you use your squat rack in the last 24 hours?

No: Go do some lifting.

(That's a sure fire way to lift my spirits.)

I wish I could upvote this more than once. For me nothing else I have ever found is nearly as effective as lifting.

The zyzz way out of depression!

Absolutely. For me the mental health benefits almost outweigh (sorry) the physical ones - however of course it also demonstrates just how connected the two are.

On top of that my thinking is so much clearer too; it doesn't even have to be a big session for this to take effect, so I often sneak a quick one in if I have two meetings with only a small gap.

Exercise is recommended in the mental health part.

Exercise is such a wonderfully vague term.

For example I get nowhere the same effect from 10 minutes of walking as I do 10 minutes of squats - perhaps lights for reps superset with shoulder presses, very short breaks.

You're free to do squats. Any exercise has benefits though. Walking is something almost anyone can do anywhere without special equipment. And most people can spare more than 10 minutes.

I would recommend just some occasional fasting, whatever kind of fast is appealing or easy for you. Doesn't even have to be often.

For me, the biggest benefit is just breaking up the habits... especially the habit of panicking when peckish.

That said, this question set isn't wrong. It's about basics of what might be making you feel shit. Hungry, thirsty, pained, tired, etc.

Resilience in the face of these is great, but it ignorance of these is not.

I’m bipolar and fasting is a mania trigger. Even just skipping lunch because I’m late for work. (In the bad old days I used to work in a noisy open office and lunchtime was the best time to work.)

Edit: not everyone experiencing their first manic breakdown notice it; pdocs tell me people usually go to them after the crash. I encourage everyone experiencing unusual feelings or omnipotence and euphoria (or, on the contrary, a restless kind of angry anxiety) that can’t be explained by drugs to take the Young Mania Ratings Scale, there are several copies online.

Good information. Noted.

To my previous comment: my experience/my body/ my neurotendencies/ etc.

> Have you eaten in the last four hours?

This site is laughable. At least for anyone knowing a little bit about nutrition.

I am pretty good at restricting my intake.

I very rarely eat before noon, and I have been like this my whole life. Also, I am a small eater in general - so I very often, when eating out at a restaurant ask for a to-go container at the same time as I order my food. THen I immediately put half or more in the container before I eat it.

And I am very active, for example, I rode nearly 1,000 miles on my 29" mtn. bike in the month of August alone (26 miles a day for almost the entire month)

and I eat very healthy, and well (My GF works at the french laundry and we are big foodies...)

BUT - we both do crave sugar a lot...

I want to do a water fast but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

The real culprit is carbs and for my GF, gluten - she has ciliac and gluten is extremely hard to avoid in the 'modern' food world.

One distinction: Reactive Hypoglycemia. Even with low GI carbs, it may still happen. Small meals or keto is the fix.

When it comes to health, things are rarely that simple. Even medical professionals have knowledge gaps, let alone someone who isn't one. I'd be careful to make assumptions.

Heck, many people assume the other person's a snowflake, when in fact their patience and pain tolerance may be miles above yours.

It's the same as reductionists advice on complex health issues where you advice someone to try X based on your 5-mins reading material, when surely someone suffering for years have tried all of that in thousands of hours of searching for the magic fix.

I need to learn not to eat anything in the evening. I always used to, but lately it's started to upset my stomach (or maybe I'm just more aware of it now) when I go to bed. As long as dinner is the last thing I eat, I'm fine.

That said, when my wife gets cranky, it's usually because it's been too long since she are something. Either dinner is too late or she skipped lunch. My oldest son might have the same issue; he prefers to skip breakfast and sometimes even lunch, and then becomes unbearable. So eat something healthy at set times, not unhealthy crap at every hour of the day.

To add to this, for the last year I've been sticking to a low-carb, one-meal-a-day diet with intermittent 5 day fasts every couple of months. I've been feeling great and I've foud although I really look forward to my daily meals I don't feel like I need a meal to function either mentally or physically any more.

Over Christmas my family brought me quite a lot of chocolate and as it was Christmas I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to take the week off my diet and allow myself to enjoy some sweets and carbs over the holidays. However after consuming a few bars of chocolate on Christmas day I felt terrible... I'm not sure exactly what was going on, but I felt similar to how I feel after fasting for 5 days. Weak, light headed, a little nauseous, etc... I read online somewhere that when you're very insulin sensitive spiking your insulin levels with sweets and chocolate can cause your body to quickly pull out excess sugar from the blood and this can then cause a temporary dip in blood sugar levels. Not 100% sure if this is correct, but apparently there are other people who practise low-carb diets who experience a similar thing to me. That experience really highlighted to me how bad sugar probably is for us, it's just that most of us don't realise it because our bodies have adjusted to being bombarded with sugary, high-carb foods for so long.

It's also crazy how many people think I'm doing some radical diet too... I get it's extreme compared with Western norms, but it seems kinda obvious for most of our evolution we wouldn't have been eating and snaking on sugary, high-carb foods throughout the day... The fact it's considered extreme for me to eat a large single meal consisting of vegetable, fruit and meat once a day probably goes to show how bad diets considered "healthy" by Western standards is. My parents for example genuinely just think eating a varied diet is all you need to be healthy, and sure, that might help mitigate nutritional deficiencies, but it really doesn't matter what you're eating, over-eating simply isn't good for your health. They refuse to accept this though saying a normal person needs at least 3 meals a day to function well, but again I think this just goes back to how broken our diets are and how dependant most people are on carbs to function optimally.

Eh it's funny you say "wife's tale"

I thought exactly the way do you until I get together with mine. I got her oh my exact diet and ... she still need to eat every four hours or she would feel like shit

For how long was she on this diet? It takes a while to adjust.

> Have you ever experienced the mental clarity of 12 or 24 hours of fasting?

Unfortunately I haven't although I fasted many times for more than 16 hours and only once 24 hours. I'm always lethargic, irritable and I cannot do anything other than thinking of food. I fasted 16 hours with most hours during the day, during the night, same result.

Some people actually need that reminder. Particularly if they're on a keto diet and don't get glucose withdrawl.

I'm a bit absent minded and some days I start to feel tired and a bit anxious around ~3-4pm. I feel awful, and I'm wracking my brain for what I'd forgotten to do that day. Oh wait, it was breakfast and lunch...

> The idea that we need to eat many small meals is such a Western

Western!? If anything, having only three meals a day is very western.

Yes eating high quality nutritious food is good advice, but you don’t need to be a dick about it. Sometimes you don’t have time or resources to eat properly. Sometimes you just forget to eat. Maybe 4 hours is in the shorter end, but I often feel like shit and then remember that I haven’t eaten since yesterday.

First, there's no evidence humans were designed.

Second, humans have clearly evolved to be omnivorous. What do omnivores generally do in favorable environments? Hint, "hunt after days of starvation" is a obligate carnivore pattern -- and not one that all obligate carnivores share.

It depends on your routine. If you skip a meal when you usually have that meal, you might experience some discomfort. You could eat one meal a day and be fine if that's what you're used to. It's the breaking of the routine that causes you trouble.

My muscles get tight if I don't eat roughly every 4-6 hours. (8am/12pm/6pm meals for instance).

I stretch and walk every day. Maybe "peak productivity" isn't at a desk for hours where your primary energy expenditure is digestion, for most people

> In fact, I reach my peak productivity at least 4 hours after a meal, when my body isn't spending much energy digesting food.

Maybe you dont eat correct food? If eating tires you for 4 hours after meal, there is something wrong.

Some people (like my step daughter) don't have an internal hunger alarm.

She has never had one. Remembering to eat is a conscious activity. If she's occupied or stressed then she doesn't remember to eat.

Perhaps the first question should be "when was the last time you had a proper meal?" And if it was too long, say "Make sure the next thing you eat is a proper meal".

Indeed. Studying obesity rates and historical dietary habits find a strong correlation between snacking and obesity even when the total number of consumed calories is the same.

An addendum to this is don't eat carbs. Go Keto. I'm practicing intermittent fasting and low-carb dirty keto and it still produces amazing benefits. I sleep better, I'm not bloated anymore and my energy doesn't crash a few hours after eating. Get a breathalyzer to measure acetone to learn your specific metabolism (this helps decide if a meal you habitually eat triggers an insulin response).

I think in the fullness of time we will see literature about how misreading data from a study on diet lead to the worst public policy decision on nutrition in history.

> If you feel crap after only 4 hours since your last meal, quit eating so much sugar and eat decent food that keeps you filled and energised for a while.

I can feel like shit four hours after eating a proper meal, esp. if I'm stressed and working non stop.

Another reason I can feel like shit 4 hours after eating is vitamin B deficiency. I burn through that stuff like a broken engine digests its own oil, and it creates a bunch of problems with energy, clarity, and body weight regulation.

> Have you ever experienced the mental clarity of 12 or 24 hours of fasting?

Yes, esp. if I'm not redlining my brain to work on full capacity for 8 hours straight, with no breaks.

> We're designed to function and hunt after some prey after days of starvation.

Yes, similarly we're not designed to sit in front of a computer and sweat your brains off designing software and stuff, and making our brains burn much more energy than they're designed and accustomed to do so, we need to return to that lifestyle immediately.

> Not eating for 4 hours isn't gonna kill you, and if it is, stop eating Mars bars for lunch, and ingest some proper food.

I'm not eating Mars bars or similar stuff for a year now, and I can still go through a sizeable meal under 4 hours when I'm working under load. See above.

TL;DR: Brain can consume a lot of energy. Much more than a normally active homo sapiens' muscle system, and not all humans are created equal. Genetics is a huge number of d20 rolls.

> Not eating for 4 hours isn't gonna kill you, [...]

Nobody ever claimed that. What's your point?

That tripped me up as well but it get‘s worse. Apparently you either know why you’re in a bad mood or not. Being in a good mood is not even an option.

I think the assumption is that you're taking this quiz _because_ you're in a bad mood.

You are visiting a website called You Feel Like Shit. What did you expect?

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