Six Days without Food: Hacking Your Mind to Make Do with Far Less | Hacker News Reader

Six Days without Food: Hacking Your Mind to Make Do with Far Less

jdbentley.com

102 pointsjdbentley117 comments

I'm going to jump right into the idea of fasting for 6 days and the unfortunate reality that most people in our field(s) don't.

1. know how to lose weight (really) 2. know how to eat 3. know how to workout

Here, if you want to try fasting, which I do recommend, give this a shot. http://www.leangains.com/ or do the Warrior diet (one huge meal a day). A 16/8 fast is great. Heck, I sometimes even do an eat-stop-eat way and skip an entire day after I had a cheat day.

If you want to lose weight, it isn't about a crash diet, it most DEFINITELY is not about cardio and will never, ever be about low fat.

Here it is, in a nutshell, to lose weight and maintain decent muscle mass through life.

Eat whole foods in these categories only. Veggies, organic/grassfed meats (chicken, beef, fish etc), organic eggs. Some fruit (don't go nuts) and, only if you tolerate it, very little dairy.

Some rules: every meal has protein, no exceptions. Fat is your friend. Carbs from veggies and fruit only.

Now, exercise like this: Hard, very, very hard. And short. Think lifting big weights in a complex manner like squats and deadlifts. If someone says you should be doing front shoulder raises, run.....

And sprint...bike REALLY fast for a short period of time, or jump rope really fast...something intense and short. Kettlebell swings in the 150-250 range would be great.

Do that a couple of days a week (2-3) there are awesome programs out there so don't think too much about this, rather just do it. 5x5 programs, strong lifts, or even the leangains guide has some.

There are awesome ways to get lost in details in all this, but that is like a 10 minute guide that I wish someone gave to me when I was 14. It literally took me this long to unlearn all the damage the high-carb, low-fat movement in the 80s did to us.

As someone who managed to lose over 100lbs through trying various techniques and adjusting by trial and error, I largely agree with your advice.

I rely on a diet of yogurt in the morning to get my day going, then one large meal for dinner. As long as you don't go overboard on the dinner, that generally leaves enough room for a "cheat day" each week.

Also, the "sprinting" technique worked wonders for me. I used a stationary bicycle and would do ~5min sprints/~2min breaks while watching TV or listening to music. If you live in an apt building and want to do that on the cheap, I've found running stairs works well too.

[edit: One last thing. The water fasting technique works quite well. If you are trying to drop some weight, get one of those filtered water jugs that fit in the refrigerator. Every time you feel hungry but know that you shouldn't be eating, drink a glass of cold water. ]

I'm about as serious a high-quality protein advocate as probably exists in the leaderboard for this site (neither "organic" nor "grassfed" are particularly important adjectives for me, so much as "local" and "humane"), and I do not understand what this has to do with diet and weight loss.

Do you actually believe you're more likely to lose weight eating organic protein?

"""Do you actually believe you're more likely to lose weight eating organic protein?"""

You are more likely to remain healthy while losing weight eating organic protein.

Do you really believe that? Maybe the antibiotics in the chicken --- although truly healthy chicken is spectacularly expensive, and even products labeled "organic" can still be flooded with antibiotics "to prevent disease outbreaks" which are inevitable in factory farms.

Other than antibiotics, I generally call BS on the health benefits of "organic" and "grass fed" protein. You should eat organic --- or, VERY preferably, local --- but you should do it (a) because it tastes better, (b) to support local family farming, and (c) because it's more humane. Not because of some supposed health benefit.

Do you think

a) chicken fed not with grass/organic food but with whatever's cheaper and convenient (in Europe there were several scandals where they even found that they used machine oil in chicken feed),

b) packed by the thousands in small cages,

c) full off antibiotics and hormones to grow them fatter,

are totally as healthy as organic chicken?

(I used to have a chicken den (sp?), with 10-15 chickens in my backyard (in Europe, that is), raising them organic style. I have also visited a couple of huge chicken "factories". I'd never even begin to compare the two methods, much less the quality of their output.)

I believe antibiotics are a real human health issue.

But otherwise, no, I don't believe there's a real human health difference between Purdue chicken and the Gunthorp Farms chicken I get from my butcher.

I certainly don't believe you're going to lose weight faster eating the better chicken. You might even lose weight slower, since authenticatically humane chicken is extraordinarily expensive, and chicken (that you cook at home) is probably going to tend to be a better dietary option than the alternative.

Sorry.

a) Your wording is weird, but yes, they are just as healthy. All scientific research on the topic has shown no health benefits to organic plants. What makes you think organic chicken is grass fed?

b) Why do you think organic chickens are any different? USDA organic cert is a joke. It doesn't mean the chickens spend their days frolicking in fields. IIRC they can be kept in cages if they have some exposure to outdoors.

c) In the US, hormone use in chickens is illegal. Antibiotics are used in all animals, organic or not.

Chickens are omnivores, not ruminants like cows. They'll eat grass but can't subsist on it. There's no such thing as "grass-fed chicken"; people who say "grass-fed", when they know what they're talking about, mean cows.

Small farms do not flood their livestock with antibiotics to increase yield. It's a bit of a straw man to suggest that people are saying antibiotics should never be used on animals; it's their routinized use in factory farms that's the issue.

Otherwise, I agree: "organic" isn't meaningful, and even the "real" good chicken isn't more healthful (apart, again, from the antibiotic issue), just better tasting.

I'll happily slice up and saute kosher (conventional) chicken breast for a salad or pasta dish. But if I'm serving roast chicken, I use the good stuff.

"""Chickens are omnivores, not ruminants like cows. They'll eat grass but can't subsist on it. There's no such thing as "grass-fed chicken"; people who say "grass-fed", when they know what they're talking about, mean cows."""

Well, re: wording, no native english speaker. With "grass fed" I mean naturally fed, not necessarily grass or solely grass. In my chicken hen I used wheet, corn, wild grass, and something that I don't know it's name in english, but I found a translation here as: " small seed of any of various annual cereal grasses especially Setaria italica millet"

http://www.lexvo.org/uwn/entity/ell/%CE%BA%CE%B5%CF%87%CF%81...

The translation you're probably looking for is "millet". :)

Fats are shown to be qualitatively different in animals which are afforded range space and fed their natural feed than which are fed in CAFO's.

Uh huh. In what way meaningful to human health is the fat from conventional beef better for you than the fat from "organic" beef?

The fat in local protein is way, way better than factory-farmed meat. By which I mean, it tastes much better. The fat from the pork chop of a responsibly raised pig tastes like bacon; the fat from a supermarket pork chop tastes like melting plastic.

Buy local/humane protein. Just do it for real reasons.

Fat is where many toxins accumulate. If the animal you eat has been fed with pesticide-ridden, fattening-rather-than-nutritious crap and pumped up with hormones and antibiotics, I bet its fat is not as good for you.

As an heuristic, taste is supposed to be a measure of nutritional quality. Sure it can be cheated, but when something natural tastes better than something adulterated, I'm pretty confident you can rely on that hint.

Two reasons why this comment might get downvoted (it was light grey when I saw it):

(1) Supplies your intuition about whether organic food is healthier than conventional but no facts to back that up. The world is usually counterintuitive.

(2) Suggests with a straight face that palatability is a good proxy for healthfulness, a measure that suggests health food stores should stock up on Doritos.

(1) having no facts to back the opposite assertion either, I'll take intuition as an heuristic.

(2) I explicitly noted the caveat that taste may be cheated. Now, taste was developed by evolution, and is cheated by the food industry, not (normally) nature. So I wouldn't trust taste of Doritos (artificial) over natural foods, but if I actually like vegetable soup better, I'm not going to look up what's the latest trend on nutrition to assume my choice is healthier.

"Uh huh. In what way meaningful to human health is the fat from conventional beef better for you than the fat from "organic" beef?'

It's the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids that's different. Grass-fed beef is well documented to have a higher Omega 3:6 ratio than grain-fed beef.

Have you ever observed a ruminant's behavior even if it has acres and acres of free range?

It will spend the day milling around in the same area with its friends and then lay down in its own excrement for a nap. How is this qualitatively different from a CAFO operation?

Grass-fed beef is leaner than fattier corn-fed beef.

And? Higher-fat proteins create satiety faster. Eating more fat doesn't make you fat.

If it it's lean beef that you're after, specify "lean beef", not "grass fed beef". There are plenty of retail cuts on a corn-fed cow that are plenty lean. A corn-fed tri-tip is going to be less fatty than a grass-fed chuck. If you're aiming for lean protein, your cut selection is way more important than which cow the cut comes from.

(Incidentally: I eat almost all grass-fed beef these days, since thats what my butcher sources --- but unlike pig and chicken, for which the local versions are clearly superior --- I can go back and forth on whether corn-fed beef is better or worse than grass-fed. Grass-fed is tougher and always seems to have that aged beef funk, which is sometimes welcome and sometimes not.)

It's hard to find reliable sources, but there's evidence that the difference between grass-fed and corn-fed beef goes beyond just having lower or higher fat content to things like fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid. I don't know how much these things matters, if at all.

(Incidentally: I prefer to eat the beef of an animal that is free-range and grass-fed, then finished with some healthy corn feed without drugs.)

Here is an article summarizing research on the nutrition benefits of grass feed vs. grain feed beef http://www.bulletproofexec.com/grass-fed-meat-part-1/

Omega-3's? That's the whole benefit?

That's a huge benefit however, there are few other sources of Omega-3s in our daily diet.

It's 30mg/100g. That's an order of magnitude lower than most fish, two orders of magnitude less than the best fish, and about what you'd get from a turkey sandwich.

Which is unsurprising, because mammals suck at making omega-3s, and plants are a bad source of healthful omega-3s.

Let's not get too excited.

But I bet it has less mercury than fish, especially big fish.

Skip organic, save your money, eat purified mercury free fish oil softgels? I have 3-5 1200mg pills of it a day.

You're probably better off getting the theraputic grade stuff... my dad with Parkinsons has this drop shipped: https://omega-cure.com/

If you have a freezer, you store a 2 month supply for less than 2 months of softgels.

I looked at the pricing, it costs $34 for the '2 month supply'. 100 Softgels are $5 each and last a month, so I can get at least 6 months for the same price as your boutique 2 month version.

Not having read the article provided, grass-fed beef has a much better fatty-acid profile, and that does not necessarily mean "more O-3!" but rather more likely, a lot less Omega-6, so the O-6 to O-3 ratio is closer to 2:1 which is what we're (theoretically) better adapted to, rather than the ratio in grain-fed beef, which can be as high as 14:1. Both types are "essential" as far as we need to consume them, but they way our diet has been distorted of late, with seed-oils and the "war" on saturated fats, the amount of O-6 we as a population get of late is way out of proportion. In general PUFA are easier to oxidize and possibly result in long-term degradation of health. Or you could (over)simplify and just say, hey, I need to eat what I'm better adapted to, and I would similarly insist that my food (the cow) also ate what it's supposed to eat, and they are supposed to eat grass, not grains.

You're kind of restating the premise of the comment that cited the research paper.

In what appears to have been a carefully run study, under the best circumstances, grass-fed beef provides a tiny fraction of the fatty acid benefits of fish.

In other words: even if grass-fed beef has a better fatty acid profile, "better than corn-fed beef" still doesn't mean "good source of healthful fatty acids"; both grass-fed and corn-fed are poor sources. If you believe you need a better fatty acid profile in your diet, take fish oil tablets or eat fish.

I see you've left a multitude of comments in this post going on around the same, yet it seems to my the angle you've taken is that you need more omega 3s, and not for example that, compared to grain-fed beef, if you are going to eat beef, it's qualitatively better, and to me it seems more important that this way you'll get a lot less omega 6 fatty acids, thus eating food with a better fatty acid profile. To supplement O-3 for the purpose of fixing or improving _your_ fatty acid profile (vs. that of the food) well, sure, but it's orthogonal to the quality of grass vs. grain-fed beef. (Edited last sentence)

Your advice to workout hard and short instead of cardio is wrong. Working out at all is better than not working out. But cardio exercise (e.g. running and/or biking) for sustained periods of time will burn much more calories.

And that's what weight loss is all about. Calories in vs. calories out.

I speak from not only the obvious facts but also experience, I lost over 100lbs from January 2009 to July 2010 and got healthy in the process.

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1526539

Summary: resistance training is most effective, then interval training (high intensity and lower intensity), and then steady state high intensity cardio training, and finally least effective steady state low intensity cardio training.

What a shock that a body building website would say that. I can't believe it. Let me ask Microsoft if I should use Linux for my servers or not, hold on BRB.

The reality is that an hour of cardio is going to burn many, many more calories than 15 minutes of lifting. Now, if you hate cardio and can't stand to do it for an hour, but you love lifting, then obviously you're better off lifting. But if you can learn to enjoy cardio, or if you want to do the workout that's the most effective for burning calories, you should be biking/running.

Keep in mind secondary and tertiary effects.

1. How many calories used to rebuild and strengthen the muscles?

2. How many more calories do your bigger and stronger muscles burn even when not in use?

This goes for both cardio and weight lifting.

re. 2: Not many, according to the sources I can find on that. Example: "[M]uscle tissue has been observed to burn roughly seven to 10 calories per pound per day, compared to two to three calories per pound per day for fat. Therefore, if you replace a pound of fat with a pound of muscle, you can expect to burn only approximately four to six more calories a day."

Source: http://www.acefitness.org/fitnessqanda/fitnessqanda_display....

Both are better than doing nothing.

It's generally much easier to find time for 15 minutes of X than 60 minutes of Y.

In HN terms, you are arguing about which type of balanced tree is better but are ignoring the fact the data is only 100 items long and you're much better off just pushing out your MVP than agonizing over the inefficiency of one over the other.

You are right that either is better than nothing. But the bad advice that "lifting is the way to go, cardio doesn't work" is very common and it needs to be corrected.

> What a shock that a body building website would say that. I can't believe it. Let me ask Microsoft if I should use Linux for my servers or not, hold on BRB.

The source of the argument does not take away from the validity of the argument itself. You should be able to evaluate an argument on it's points alone.

You are correct that sustained aerobic exercise burns more calories than an anaerobic activity such as weightlifting. The benefit of weightlifting in particular is that, by building more muscle, you are increasing your body's BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) because more muscles == more energy necessary to run them. This translates to your body burning more calories while at rest.

While this is true it also applies to cardio workouts as well. They also build muscle and increase your metabolism. It's a myth that this is an advantage of weight lifting over cardio.

It really comes down to personal preference. Do the workout you're going to be able to keep doing.

Personal experience, I was running for miles for the last couple of years and still piling it on. Back to weights now 2 days per week and running one, and am burning it off surprisingly rapidly. Note, though, that I wouldn't be exactly beginner level when it comes to weights.

I don't know what your pace was or whether "for miles" means 2 miles or 10. But there are plenty of apps for iOS and Android that will tell you how many calories you burned on your runs, and if it was multiple miles and you were maintaining a decent pace, you probably burned many more calories on those runs than you do lifting.

The likely reasons you kept gaining weight while running, pick one or multiple:

- Not running as often as you lift, so the total calories burned per week (or month) was lower.

- Running too slowly so that your heart rate didn't get up to the point where you were really working.

- Ramping up your carb intake, whether consciously or subconsciously this is really common when people start running -- your body starts craving carbs. Which then results in a calorie increase, which is the real problem (not carbs themselves.)

- Policing your eating better while lifting.

Ultimately if you want to lose weight you have to not only exercise but also keep your daily calorie budget at a deficit. People who have trouble losing weight usually fail at the latter one.

I lost a lot of muscle mass, and I just wasn't running 'enough' to be burning all the fat off. I think the main problem was the muscle mass, which eats food even when I am sitting on the couch.

True also, but you won't build muscle anywhere near as quickly because you need a caloric surplus to fuel the recovery from exercise (recovery in this context means "build muscle").

The body is a complex machine, and "calories in, calories out" is an over-simplified way of looking at energy usage and storage. I hope you didn't write off the T-Nation article just because it's a bodybuilding/musclehead website. There are actually some very good tidbits on why things that don't burn tons of calories themselves end up having a significant effect on weight loss. Of particular interest may be the effects that HIIT regimens have on EPOC.

For context, I have done both steady-state cardio and HIIT before and saw good results from both, even though I have always been of slight stature. Currently, I do Mark Rippetoe's "Starting Strength" barbell program, and, despite eating absurd amounts of food to fuel the increases in strength I'm making (generally eating at a 700-1000 calorie surplus), I have gained very little fat. It's like the T-Nation article says: the most effective weapon against fat loss is correct nutrition.

to be clear, traditional cardio activities DO NOT build muscle. In fact, they do the exact opposite.

I didn't say exercises, I said activities. Sprinting will actually build muscle, jogging 20 miles will not. It is a difference in how your body adapts to the stimulus.

So, with that in mind, no, cardio typically is not a good choice for people with what 80% of people are hoping to achieve. Put plainly, the time/reward tradeoff is just too low. Sprint, bike sprint, row, swimming, they are all better than the elliptical, typical running and the like.

http://www.drkehres.com/2009/06/sprinters-versus-marathon-ru...

If you are a world class marathoner and are running 6 minute miles for a marathon, you will probably have some muscle and look pretty lean. That being said, 99% of the world is not this and are basically working out for hours with very, very little benefit to the time. However, even a recreational sprinter is going to see huge benefits from sprinting in both muscle building and fat reduction.

mark rippetoe of starting strength fame did an AMA on r/fitness yesterday. http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/n13d8/i_am_mark_rip...

Awesome. Thanks for the link!

  every meal has protein

Contrary to popular belief, meat doesn't need to be eaten with every meal. The idea that humans require huge amounts of protein is a popular day myth. Vegetables do contain protein, even an average potato has 3g protein. Almost universally, everyone who is overweight eats entirely too much meat and dairy.

Agreed. You don't need huge amounts of protein if your main goal is weight loss or health (as opposed to muscle gain).... There are way too many of these 'fitness' people out there who think that everyone should eat as much protein as possible and aim their body towards being a mountain of underutilised muscle (apparently this counts as 'fitness' in some circles).....

Protein is fine, but you don't need an awful lot of it to lose weight. A little muscle gain can be helpful to make sure you can exercise more, but you can achieve this on a pretty low-protein diet anyway.

On the other hand, protein and fat increase satiety better than carbohydrates, so if you want to feel fuller on fewer calories, protein is a good bet.

Not exactly. Meat isn't the only thing that causes satiation. A full stomach causes satiation too. Vegetables, especially green, leafy ones with lots of fiber and water them will fill your stomach faster than a fatty piece of meat. The carbohydrates in green beans and lettuce for example are largely fiber which doesn't even get absorbed by your body.

This is generally good advice, but avoiding carbs is unnecessary. There is basically no compelling evidence that avoiding carbs causes people to lose weight faster than other diets, and there is quite a bit of evidence that properly consumed carbs help muscle growth. Carbs before heavy weightlifting make sure your glycogen stores are replenished, i.e. you are more likely to hit your reps.

For some people, compliance with a low carb diet may be easier. I.e., it may take less willpower to stick to a low carb diet than a low fat diet. But that's the only benefit, and that benefit depends strongly on your personal tastes in food.

Making sure that calorie in < calories out is the main thing you need to do to lose weight. Calories in > calories out + sufficient protein is the thing to do to gain muscle. Everything else is small change, only worth thinking about if you are a bodybuilder or boxer.

The fact of the matter is that we were far thinner than today when we had an extremely high carb diet.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usd...

I presume it's a matter of complex vs. simple carbs. Also there is a great factor in the amount of fiber in the food.

Unless you are actually exercising, foods that take long to digest and slowly release energy are better for your mood and concentration. A spike in the blood sugar is followed by a drop in the blood sugar which leads to cravings. I guess the blood sugar analysis in the body is a based on calculus.

Do you have a response to Gary Taubes et al. who have observed in recent years that the "calories in vs. calories out" hypothesis has no basis in the science of human metabolism, and that insulin, the hormone secreted in response to consumption of carbohydrates, has a very well-understood and primary role in fat storage?

You might want to read the conclusion (last paragraph) here, then go back and read how Stephan arrived at it:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...

Thanks for the link! It's cool to see real discussion happening. I'm actually coming more from Robert Lustig's attack on fructose, which I know is much more specific than carb intake in general. I was aware there was controversy about it-- obviously I shouldn't be so quick to name Taubes.

Really, as someone who very easily went from overweight to fit purely by replacing carbs with fats, I'm just very reluctant to accept the thermodynamic hypothesis.

Yes, my response is that Gary Taubes is dishonest, and his criticisms of Calories in/Calories out are misleading and sometimes false.

For example, one of his criticisms of the calories in/calories out theory is that it fails to explain bodyweight stability. Simple calculus shows this to be false.

http://crazybear.posterous.com/the-calories-incalories-out-m...

Another one of his tricks is to focus on calories above maintenance, while completely ignoring differences in maintenance needs, in an attempt at reducto-ad-absurdum. People unfamiliar with the model don't realize he can write 3000 words and never mention the actual caloric gap between fat and thin people.

http://crazybear.posterous.com/how-1-graph-reveals-what-3000...

Gary Taubes is willing to mislead people to sell books.

Also, the calories in/calories out model has been empirically verified on a number of occasions. This is the first of many studies on the topic:

http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6617921M/A_biometric_study_of...

Any textbook on sports medicine will give you a whole lot more references, including specific details on various corrections and second order terms. I'd love to quote a few more, but unfortunately my textbook is in a storage compartment 50 blocks away.

I was just thinking about this, will give the Warrior diet a try (never did a diet, at 211 lbs 5'9") but mostly because I've been eating really little (fish+rice+lettuce salad) in the past 3 months without much effect.

The idea of only eating a nice meal at night is great to me since I hate the food around work (from fast to fancy), and dislike bringing it everyday from home even tho I absolutely love the wife's cooking skills, anyway thanks for the ideas!

Did you already lose your water weight? If not, drink 10 8-ounce glasses of water a day, and you'll lose 10-15 in less than a month.

I don't know about this "one big meal a day" stuff. I used to do that as my normal diet in my early to mid 20s (not trying to lose weight) and it did not keep me in shape. I lost weight when I started eating more, normal sized meals (yogurt or granola for breakfast, sandwich and apple for lunch, fish and rice for dinner).

Thanks Matthew, will pay more attention to the water.

Also, I'm in Brazil and our culture is to eat the big 1000+ calorie meal at lunch and very little in the morning or at night, I eat pretty much what you described but the rice/fish is for lunch and sandwich/apple for dinner, I do go a little off on weekends with the eventual pizza/pasta/barbecue (the Brazilian type, which I think is rather unique) in rational portions.

The one thing I have the most trouble is that I usually drink a can of soda everyday day (10 ounces I think?) and have been trying to move that to weekends only -- this is the thing I have been struggling the most, I don't drink/smoke so it probably counts as my only addiction.

And to everyone trying to hack their diet, internet hugs to them.

Yeah, my experience has always been that it's the seemingly little things that get you. I used to be addicted to ice tea. I'd drink a pitcher a day by myself. It's a liquid after all, you don't get fat from liquids, right? 5 ice-cream scoops of sugar per pitcher. Now I have no desire for it, ever.

Where did you get this idea from? Drinking water isn't going to help you lose much weight, especially not 10-15 lbs in a month.

1-3 lbs a week is a normal rate for people dieting, water alone isn't going to come close to that. It will help keep you satiated but not enough to cut 500 kcal out of your diet a day.

Water retention is definitely a cause of extra weight. We are used to/trained to not drink as much water as our bodies actually need. Fixing that by drinking a lot of water is a quick way to lose some pounds. Of course it doesn't work if you're already properly hydrated and it only works until the problem is remedied; you will hit a plateau early in your diet. And it doesn't work if your consuming more calories than your burning. But if you're already dieting (which the grandparent was), it's absolutely a good way to kick start your diet.

The diet you describe appears to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

(figured a label and link would be good for people who wish to research further)

This is exactly the kind of situation where a little advice can be dangerous. Going from a sedentary lifestyle to sprinting, deadlifts, kettlebell exercises or other intense activities is a recipe for disaster.

I agree with most of your advice and the implicit part that carbohydrates are the enemy and fat/protein your friend. However, the part that's dangerously missing is that your body takes a lot longer to recover from exercise than you think and that overtraining can set you back weeks or even lead to permanent injuries.

You ramp it up then, and go see a doctor first if your really bad/old. Instead of 150 kettlebell swings, you do 20 and add 10 every few days, etc.

"Oh, I'll just ramp up slowly". That's what everybody thinks. It's common sense. But it's terrible advice. Nobody is stupid enough to start on day one with the biggest kettlebell. The point is you have to warn people, over and over again, in order to drive the point home about the dangers of overtraining. Why? Because the first time you start exercising again it feels good and you start full of energy and so forth. So the day after you feel like exercising again, you got that itch, even though you "know" your body hasn't recovered yet and you're still sore in a few spots. This is where it really takes discipline to stick to the plan. Sometimes you'll go to the gym and realize you're still sore from 2 days ago. If you start lifting weights anyway the odds are you're either going to outright injure yourself or you're going to lift in a lopsided pose to compensate for a sore shoulder or something.

It takes discipline to go home and skip a workout just after you've decided to get (back) into shape. If you tell people to just ramp it up and add a couple of swings every couple of days they're still going to make predictable and preventable mistakes and injure themselves.

I've known a few people with Anorexia Nervosa. Not just "skip a few meals, look a bit thin" anorexia, but "detained in hospital against their will in wheel-chairs with forced NG tube feeding BMI of 14" anorexics.

It's pretty scary that they describe very similar feelings as you do, and you only did that for a few weeks.

Also, people with bulimia tend to be overweight exactly because of the cycle of fasting and binging that you describe.

I'm pleased for you that you got a good result, and I'm grateful that you stressed the riskiness.

When I started, I had already limited it to a short-term experiment precisely because I was afraid of developing a fasting compulsion. I certainly don't need to be swinging from one extreme to another.

The risk should definitely be stressed.

Not to be a big nerd, but I couldn't help thinking of the Ted Leo + Pharmacists Song "Me and Mia" while reading this. Particularly the line:

> Sick to death of my dependence, fighting food to find transcendence

> Fighting to survive, more dead but more alive

It's an often under-acknowledged aspect of those who struggle with obesity that many of the same impulses and issues underly over-eating and under-eating.

As someone who has both struggled with obesity my whole life and been drawn to fasting and extremity in fighting that goal, I would add one, very specific warning:

Rarely is self-deprivation the right way to fight addiction, depression, or lack of self-esteem.

Radical, one-time, short-term actions like this aren't lifestyle changes. They're not sustainable, so they don't work in the long term.

If the author said he made sustainable lifestyle changes I'd have some reason to believe he's won his weight battle. If he said he's been getting up an hour early each morning for the past 3 months to walk, or has been learning how to prepare tasty low-calorie meals and has kept that up for the past 3 months, or has taken up cycling and has commuted to the office by bike every day it would be a different story. I know plenty of people who've done these things and successfully kept their weight down indefinitely.

On the other hand, I know plenty of people who've lost weight with short term, unsustainable diets, and who gained every pound of that back.

It doesn't sound like immediate weight-loss is what he's after here. It sounds like it's more about developing self-control in the face of abundant food, and being able to skip the candy bar. A one-time super-fast exercise may actually be able to help with that.

(Disclaimers etc go here.)

I felt that the post concluded better at the end of the fast rather than dragging it on, but since breaking the fast I've continued walking daily, I lift weights 3 day a week, I'm eating far more fruits and vegetables (especially apples) and I'm getting about 100g-150g of lean protein per day (from chicken, turkey, occasionally beef, and protein shakes). My water habit from the fast has carried over into everyday life. Lots of water, no sodas or other sugary drinks.

The fasting wasn't the change I was looking for, but a catalyst for that change. It put me on the right path.

Now that's what we're talking about! Good job.

Sounds like your body transitioned into ketosis during the third or fourth day. You can know for sure by buying ketone test strips and drinking enough water. I've tested out ketosis for myself and experienced some strange effects: salad tasted better, but I had no cravings and no hunger; some days all I had was an egg.

It's not a good idea to stay in ketosis for more than a few weeks, since it's making your liver work harder to convert fat (rather than glycogen) into energy.

You also don't want to stay in it too long because your body will start eating muscle, not just fat.

For fasting, yes that's true. For a ketogenic diet with adequate amounts of protein, no it won't.

I only mentioned it due to the topic of fasting. Yes, you can carefully control the process to ensure you don't burn protein, but fasting doesn't do that.

You should check you gallbladder for gallstones. They are often caused by crash diets and can cause that kind of pain you described.

I had my gallbladder removed in February of 2007 after several attacks, so thankfully it's not something for me to worry about. The pain I experienced lasted only one day and I haven't felt even a hint of it since.

It's a very interesting, very different experience. I'm not sure what we can take from it. I like the point about "I was so obsessed with the tool that the house was neglected entirely", I feel there's some wisdom in there I can learn from.

Thanks for sharing it, I'm just not entirely sure what to make of it.

So true about what you wrote on feeling gratitude. One of the effects of being hungry is feeling alive. You begin to exist because the drive needs you to get off and eat.

One thing about being hungry is how unpleasant it is. And then how unpleasant something unpleasant is. Then the desire to shake off the unpleasantness. If you stay still, it becomes almost interesting to watch. One fathom long body, the master of the universe, can barely hold 4 hours of food supply.

Humans can survive on a meal a day. Just like most animals. My dog puts on weight on a meal a day. But somehow we have conditioned ourselves, through surrounding ourselves with food beyond what we need.

I tried giving up eating for a week and it was a fascinating experience: if you are curious, try it. It won't kill you and it probably won't harm you unless you are already ill. It gives you an interesting insight into ancient man and how well our bodies are made to cope with hunger and starvation.

The first day-and-a-half was the hardest I felt really hungry. Then suddenly the hunger stopped and I felt great: really alive and full of energy. This feeling remained for the rest of the week.

Originally I had intended to drink fruit juice but it gave me a terrible stomach upset and I switched to water only (although I did have an occasional glass of wine).

Somewhere around day two my fat started to melt and began to coat my mouth and skin. I grew some huge spots (edit: pimples).

Day three I felt a little light-headed at times but was never tired: I had read about the dangers of muscle-loss so I chose to visit the gym each night and was swimming for up to an hour, too.

By day 5 I could have kept going without problem: I'm a big guy and could easily do 40 days without food. I stopped only because I had a family celebration to attend (and I'm not sure my mother would have approved).

I can't say I noticed much in the way of weight loss. I had read that you normally lose about a pound a day (which may have been true). I'd been drinking plenty of liquid so I didn't lose water.

The evening when I went back onto food was also interesting: the food tasted different — more intense and satisfying.

The following days I felt great and had meant to repeat the exercise for a longer period, but as I yet I haven't. No matter what anyone says, that first day-and-a-half does not get any easier.

Some of the reported upsides that I cannot confirm from such a short diet are: your digestive system shuts down very early and so it gets a rest for repair (something that modern humans never manage but ancient humans probably did); your gut flora also gets a chance to die-off a bit and regrow — we are a forest of yeast and bacteria and some people think the occasional prune-and-regrowth is healthy; your fat (especially your internal fat) starts to melt and be burned up as fuel (this is a surprisingly kludgy process: it seems to all go liquid at once all over your body). I can surmise that given a longer period of time it would be beneficial to get rid of the stored fat (and other chemicals stored in it—fat in animals stores feed flavours after-all). There are reports that stopping, clearing out and restarting your digestive/fat/fat storage/liver system can have other surprising health benefits most notably with Type 2 diabetes; there are also reports of benefits to allergies and food intolerances (again I can't verify).

My father has been discussing doing something similar with his doctor in the hope of curing his Type 2 diabetes.

So, in summary, I found the experiment interesting, informative and fun and would recommend it to anyone (with sufficient fat store) who would like to see what it is like (and can get through the initial wall).

If you do: keep exercising so you don't lose muscle; don't eat anything as then you will become hungry again; don't operate heavy machinery (and probably avoid driving) as you do get light headed; don't expect to lose a large amount of weight in such a short amount of time; avoid fruit juice; don't expect your world-view to change or for it to make you a stronger/wiser/more spiritual person; do expect it to give you newfound respect for ancient man and those forced to starve through drought and war.

Thanks for the interesting read but I'm confused about this statement: "I grew some huge spots." What kind of spots?

I believe "spots" is a Briticism for pimples.

Yes. Pimples. Almost boil-like in their size (is Boil a Briticism, too?)

The problem I have with fasting or reducing calories below maintenance is that I have a really hard time focusing mentally on anything. I'm reduced to TV watching. I can't program, study or do any other sort of mental work with any sort of effectiveness. Any suggestions on dealing with this?

Try switching to a ketogenic (ultra low carb / high fat) diet for a week or two beforehand.

The reason you have no focus or energy is due to a lack of glucose (sugar). When you fast your glycogen stores (carbs) will deplete and your body will start running on fat. During the transition, before adjusting, you'll feel slow, weak, and have trouble focusing.

Did you keep exercising? I found that the combination of fasting & exercise meant I was alert and reasonably focused

This reminds me a little of giving up smoking. That was definitely mind hacking. Obviously the endpoints are different (giving up tobacco forever good, giving up food forever bad).

Although it's great you have felt a sense of empowerment through this, extreme measures I feel are never the best options. I guess it's how you define extreme, but if you ever feel that urgency to rack up the degree of action, ask around for help. Shit, in the right places even internet people are about nice enough.

Reading this blog I was reminded of Epicurius's statements (According to Cicero) about the impact of fasting on smell and taste (largely exactly what are described in that blog posting).

Out of curiousity, what is the best way to end a multiple day fast? It would seem to me that eating too much at once or eating the wrong thing would make someone feel sick.

Start simply with water boiled potatoes, then carrots, then slowly things like bread. My parents are doing a one week fast every year and this is what they do. It takes time to go back to normal food as the bacteria in your intestine need to grow again.

The first time you do a one week fast, do it with people who are used to do it. In Europe you can find a lot of associations/clubs/whatever offering a one week seminar to do it.

What if you don't wish to introduce carbohydrates into your diet (à la Paleolithic diet)?

There's nothing about eating paleo that forbids carbs. For example, many eating paleo eat large amounts of sweet potatoes

I did a 3.5 day water only fast a few years ago, I remember reading somewhere that going longer then 3 days wasn't that safe.

If you fast, when you stop fasting you will gain 20 pounds because your brain and body will be in "famine mode" and you will store everything to fat. Go ahead and try it.

I've been hovering around 155 to 160 my whole life, that is until the day I fasted for about 2 1/2 days, at which point I immediately started gaining weight after. It's been a daily battle since to not overeat. My subconscious mind says: "Eat, consume, gorge, because tomorrow there will be none" and my conscious mind has to say "no".

As someone who fasts for a full month of the year, I can chime in. It is true that you probably shouldn't do it for the weight loss alone, as you tend to compensate, or over-compensate, once fasting is broken.

That said there are many other benefits, as acknowledged by the author. Most people feel a heightened sense of awareness and clarity during fasting (the opposite of the lazy feeling after a meal). There is a reason most spiritual traditions include an element of fasting. Besides this there is a range of proven health benefits (Wikipedia cites reduced risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, insulin resistance, immune disorders, slowing of the aging process, and the potential to increase maximum life span).

Just like exercising, it is 'unpleasant' for the mind to be forced into, but feels 'right' once you get it done and you actually grow fond of it in spite of the hardship.

A long time ago I tried fasting for ten days on nothing more than water with a little lemon juice and cayenne (the plan was courtesy of a stupid book). After ten days, when I was ready to break my fast all nice and slow, I happened to pass by some fresh baked apple pie, which smelled like the best apple pie I'd ever smelled in my life. What do you think happened?

I don't want to discount your experience, but as with a post advocating for fasting, you need to put a personal experience/your mileage may vary disclaimer on here, because your experience isn't going to be what everyone will experience.

I've done fasting in pretty varied ways. The longest was for eight days. What I usually do now is a 24-hour fast: dinner, skip the following breakfast and lunch, and then dinner.

When I fasted for eight days, I dropped about ten pounds. On a 24-hour cycle of fasting, I will drop between 1 and 2 pounds a day depending on activity level. I have never had the experience of gaining 20lb after fasting, nor have I ever felt like I was in famine mode. I think I gain weight a bit quicker than before I started doing the 24-hour fasts, but at the same time, it drops off quicker, too (it's true that fasting changes how your body stores and uses fat).

If you go from fasting back to junk food binges three or four times a day, yes, you will (unsurprisingly) gain the weight back. If you're putting 6k calories a day in, nothing about the effects of that are going to go away after your fast. If you go from fasting back to a reasonably balanced diet, the weight isn't coming back--if you aren't overeating, how could it?

This has been my experience. Your mileage may vary. I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice.

During my six-day fast, I dropped from 252lbs to 228lbs. After the fast, I leveled out at 233lbs and then continued to drop because I didn't return to my old eating and exercise habits.

Hacker diet: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html

Fasting is really bad for you. Does fasting even count as hacking?

Abuse of fasting usually has bad consequences, but when it's done for the purpose of studying one's emotional relationship to food and consumption, such abuse is unlikely.

Fasting isn't hacking, but I'd say the mental changes and introspection that went along with it in this case is hacking.

Fasting is most definitely NOT bad for you. You literally fast every night.

Extreme, stupid, idiotic fasting is, however, bad.

Fasting when you sleep hardly counts.

True, though there is a reason why breakfast got its name.

Damn, I've never realized that before. It's weird how combined words eventually "evolves" into a single word you never realized was a meaningful combination of multiple words.

Most people think that fasting is about not eating and drinking. This is wrong. It is about rethinking the life you live. It could be anything from not eating to stop using internet for a week of so.

So why not call it hacking.

Fasting has real and proven health benefits. I have heard physicians state that it is the single most benficial thing you can do for your health. From Wikipedia:

Research suggests there are major health benefits to caloric restriction. Benefits include reduced risks of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, insulin resistance, immune disorders, and more generally, the slowing of the aging process, and the potential to increase maximum life span.[3] According to Dr. Mark P. Mattson, chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the US National Institute on Aging, fasting every other day (intermittent fasting) shows beneficial effects in mice as strong as those of caloric-restriction diets,[4] and a small study conducted on humans at the University of Illinois indicates the same results [5] According to the US National Academy of Sciences, other health benefits include stress resistance, increased insulin sensitivity, reduced morbidity, and increased life span.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting#Health_effects

Calorific restriction is not the same as fasting. Calorific restriction is eating less.

During fasting you will lack vital nutrients that cannot be stored by the body. When you end a fast your blood sugar level will sky rocket, which is also bad for you.

He didn't quote the full paragraph, which was about alternate-day fasting, which is a form of calorie restriction.

> Fasting is really bad for you.

Do you have any data on that? Many nutritionists and healthy people are big fans of intermittent fasts.

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