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Comment by hollerith | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, well, the problem with time-restricted eating (for me) was that I couldn't get enough protein to my muscles: I got weaker and weaker during the 1.5 years or so that I was doing it. I was eating plenty of meat, but cramming all my calories into 2 meals separated by 3 or 4 hours didn't give me enough protein even though I (unlike the average American) I was eating just as much protein in the first meal of the day as the other meals.

I still try to have been fasting at least 12 hours when I wake up in the morning, but I also try to get 40 g of protein 3 times a day and to separate those meals by at least 3 or 4 hours, and my muscles are back to being able to benefit from strength training like they are supposed to be.

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I tried IF for 3 months after hearing all the hype, and also recorded bodyfat and muscle mass figures from weekly scans.

Consistent with your experience I lost weight but it was almost all lean mass -fat was reduced only slightly.

I switched to a ketogenic diet after that and watched the fat melt away. IF clearly works for some people but it sure didn't for me.

> I switched to a ketogenic diet after that and watched the fat melt away.

I can't IF with high carbs. It has to be keto for me. I wonder how many other people who can't make IF work have the same issue. I'd wager it's most of them.

I was eating very low-carb when I ran into the aforementioned problem.

Can you say more about these weekly scans? Specifically, I am curious if they involve any x-rays.

They are probably referring to DEXA scans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-energy_X-ray_absorptiomet...

Aren't those like 100 bucks a pop?

There's a Dexa scan truck in my area that does them for $60, with discounts for multiple scans (e.g. quarterly).

https://www.bodyspec.com/pricing

Were you doing maintenance workouts at the same time? The human body, counterintuitively, consumes muscle mass first before fat when it is not in active use. Thus to maintain musculature you need to maintain not just protein but activity.

A ketogenic diet, from the literature I have read, has no actual benefit in terms of body fat loss. This is due to the fact that the metabolic pathways shift, but towards dietary fats first and foremost. The pathways that eat muscle and then body fat continue to exist, meaning muscle tone is still at risk without a proper workout regime.

However, I am glad to hear it worked for you! At the end of the day what matters is you reached your fitness goals and can maintain them in a healthy lifestyle.

the thing is that IF is a keto diet.

The theory is that during IF period your body depletes all carbs stores and is forced into ketosis o produce energy.

55+ vegan OMAD here. Experienced positive recomposition (17% BF to 11%) according to the DEXA scans: grew muscle and lost fat over the same period (1 year) with the same diet (no bulking and cutting phases). Didn't measure for the previous 6 months period, where I lost ~20kg (probably from 25+% to 17%) with the same diet.

My OMAD is technically 2 sub-meals over 4 hours: 4pm: protein shake pre-workout, 5-6pm, weighted calisthenics, 6-8pm, dinner and dessert (protein ice creams).

Could be newbie gains, as I never exercised consistently before 50s: from zero pull-ups to 20+ (+40kg 1RM) over a year; zero dip to weighted (+30kg) RTO dips. zero full (ATG) squat to 10+ pistol squats.

The vegan OMAD has been easy for me, but I've never done other diet and exercise regimens before for comparisons.

I eat 2-3 hard boiled eggs (very high PDCAAS score) a day (intermittent fasting 16:8). I’ve done this for 7 years. My muscle mass seems to have stayed the same.

What do you do about the cholesterol? I love eggs as well, they're very filling for the calories and I can feel the protein going to my muscles... but when I ate them most days, my blood work showed high cholesterol (and I have a family history of heart attacks), so I felt I had to back off on that.

Everybody’s physiology is different of course but I found that even when I was eating 5 eggs a day, my LDL actually dropped. (HDL is more a function of exercise)

I don’t think it’s that clear that dietary cholesterol is highly correlated with serum cholesterol in everyone. For me my LDL seems to be more correlated with excess carbs and sugar — when I cut back on those while maintaining my egg diet my LDL actually got better. (But this is not medical advice, please consult your doctor. May not be true for people with underlying conditions that require Lipitor)

My experience matches this guy’s (but please discount this type of bro science appropriately — YMMV)

https://youtu.be/1Hh25TRG8p4

  I don’t think it’s that clear that dietary cholesterol is highly correlated with serum cholesterol in everyone.

I thought it was clear, by now? There are 4 types of LDL: Small Dense LDL is the stuff that clogs arteries. This doesn't come from food, it is produced by your liver in response to carbs (and NNTs)!

LDL in eggs is the big fluffy LDL. This LDL does not clog arteries, in fact, it CLEANS them! It grabs on to the small LDL and removes them, reducing clogged arteries and heart disease.

But most health professionals still do not make the distinction. Leading to the wrong advice being doled out to patients.

Come on man you gotta tell us how big they are. I am semi-serious, this doesn't seem like a common problem are you a powerlifter or?

The older you get the harder it is to maintain muscle mass, and I am in my 60s.

I do one meal a day (OMAD).

The guideline is approximately 0.5g-1g per pound of lean body mass. 0.5g minimum to maintain mass, 1g to body build. Anything more than 1 isn't useful unless you're trying to hypertrophy like Arnold and live in the gym 8 hours a day.

Example: I'm 6 foot tall and male and about 180 pounds, with the Hume and James formulas, thats 131 to 142 pounds of lean mass; I should be aiming for 65g to 142g of protein. WHO's formula approximates this, CDC's formula has a slightly wider range at 59-208g.

A pound of raw bone-in chicken thighs with skin on is about 60g of protein, and only about 600 calories. I can base a meal around 1 to 1.5 pounds of chicken thighs easily.

All of that said, I'm wondering what you were doing that you were unable to hit your requirements, since it seems to be alarmingly easy.

Timing matters as much as quantity. If you eat that much protein in one large meal then you may not metabolize it effectively. The latest research indicates that it should be split into at least two meals.

https://peterattiamd.com/donlayman/

Scoop of protein powder here and there can do wonders.

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