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Comment by adam_arthur | Hacker News Reader

Intermittent fasting has been the easiest thing for fine tuning control over weight for me. My Dad always says it's too hard, he gets hangry etc, but once you commit to it for ~2 weeks you don't even get hungry in the fast window anymore.

The body gets very conditioned to eating patterns. Something to ease into.

I'm not sure the average person can succeed on a diet predicated on greatly limiting the variety of foods you eat. It's an interesting idea though!

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Having done both time-based and food-based restrictions, I would say that both can work for some people but won't work for others. And I think the details matter a ton. E.g., I've happily done months of fasting where my eating window is circa 7a-1p. But I spent a month trying a switch to a 12p-6p so I could eat dinner with people and it was hell. I got mean in the 10a-12p range and that did not improve over the month.

You sound like me. I can't do a morning fast. It kinda sucks, as you notice, because it screws around with your ability to have a social dinner. But if I don't have breakfast, I'm not someone to be around before lunch.

What window do you eat during? I've seen lots of focus on eating only in the morning, but much of my life I naturally had low appetite in the mornings and mostly only ate dinner. That also coincided with being young and having an insane metabolism. I haven't actually intentionally implemented intermittent fasting, but I've considered it, and I'm strongly biased towards favoring a "dinner only" window from that experience.

An afternoon window is ok. I’ve done IF eating on a 12pm-8pm or 2pm-8pm schedule and it worked just fine.

I read a study some years ago where they compared two groups of people either skipping breakfast or skipping dinner and found that the group skipping the breakfast had higher inflammation levels. The actual cause was unknown. I also read that when skipping breakfast your metabolism kind of stays in sleep mode (burning less calories) until the first meal.

So not skipping breakfast might be the healthier, more effective protocol.

Unfortunately I cannot provide the sources right now, but I guess a web search will help the interested.

A web search suggests that the "skipping breakfast slows metabolism" idea is actually a myth.

I typically do a Noon to 8 PM eating window, which works for me. I agree with you, much easier to skip breakfast than to skip dinner. Also, I do more social eating for lunch/dinner.

> being young and having an insane metabolism

curious, how young do you mean? Human metabolism doesn't really change during adulthood until old age:

> Fat-free mass–adjusted expenditure [...] remains stable in adulthood (20 to 60 years), even during pregnancy; then declines in older adults.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017

Intermittent fasting works well for some, but could be a danger for others. Like you, I used it to fine tune my weight until I wanted to lose and then decided to lose more via IF.

I'm not going into my life story, but I've had fast that have lasted for more than 2 weeks and have had loved ones ask me to stop. Fasting is not an eating disorder, but it can be a path to one if you are not careful. Sounds like you are. I hope others, who may not be, know this.

Cheers.

Totally agree with what you say OrangeMonkey however I think I understood GP's comment differently. I thought GP was saying once you stick to an IF schedule for 2 weeks (for example only eating 12pm to 8pm), after 2 weeks it becomes easy to only eat within those windows. I don't think they were suggesting prolonged fasting >24 hours.

I agree - it wasn't what they were saying.

I was just stating my own experience without exposing too much personal history. For me, mild intermittent fasting led to deep intermittent fasting, multi day fasting, then week, then half a month. At that point it was anorexia not fasting.

I meant no disrespect to him at all nor the implication he was suggesting it - just wanted to throw a caution out. For some, it could lead to unhealthy excess.

That totally makes sense. I didn't think you were disrespectful or anything and I appreciate you sharing your experience.

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