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Comment by MrDresden | Hacker News Reader

I've noticed that my 'first' brain acts faster and better if my 'second' brain is feeling good.

Probiotic foods, plenty of water and movement have been key factors there.

There's also a strange satisfaction when skipping one or two meals. Even though you feel craving food for a little while, there's a feeling of being light, lean and sharp, even mentally.

That is for certain! Some of my best days are often just one large early dinner, and nothing all day except lot of fluids and sleeping on six or seven hours. There's something synergetic about not sleeping way too much and not eating that awakens the inner "animal" and keeps the mind alert.

I think so. "Alert" is probably the proper idea, when you're hungry but cannot eat, your brain will seek satisfaction elsewhere, and all this mental energy can be channeled into another activity (a bit like how people get very very active for a few days when they stop smoking cigarettes)

I have a theory that our natural state is “hungry”. We haven’t evolved past a time where getting enough food to be “full” would be a pretty rare occurrence. Everyone’s obsession with being perfectly comfortable at all times is why such an incredible amount of people die of obesity and its comorbitities every year in America.

Yeah I think so too. We were not made for comfort (especially not that amount, not that often), there needs to be a cycle between getting satisfaction and waiting/working for it.

Plenty of people lived entire lives without being hungry most of the time, but also without obesity being common.

My theory is fairly broad and vague, but your comment has taken those two things to an extreme.

I'm just pointing out that your theory is trivially disproven.

An excess of comfort is probably still bad, but I doubt it's the main cause of obesity.

It all hinges on how we define comfort. A comfy villager 500 years ago, with fruits and meat nearby was probably never really hungry, but, I'd argue:

- never the amount of processed calories at hand - had to consume these calories on a regular basis.. no vehicles, no powered tools except the occasional mill, most things required walking of lifting

Obesity in the US didn’t really start taking off until the 1970s. There are plenty of people still alive from the before times. I believe that studies have been done, and people aren’t generally less active now than they were then.

But the generations prior didn't necessarily have a car. And a lot of jobs were manual labour.

I know that since I dropped using a car I'm living very different days. Less fat, better cardio, more calm.

Skipping meals also helps counter jetlag. Something about not eating keeps you alert.

This just isn't the case for me. I don't wake up when I skip breakfast, and if I don't eat throughout the day, I invariably end up exhausted by 3pm only to wake right up 45 minutes after dinner. I don't doubt your experience, but I certainly don't share it.

No problem, biology is so complex and vast, we're all gonna have differences. Thanks for replying.

God I wish all internet discussion was like this

[God denies your wish]

I use emacs AND vi.

facetiousness aside, it's really cool to have others return on experience. Even though I kinda made a blanket statement originally, I wasn't trying to enforce my opinion, it was more of a regular result I tried to share.

Try fasting for a day or 2, after reading up on it. It will reset the 'need to eat' training. Humans eating more than once or t2ice a day os a rather recent phenomenon.

Caveat; fasting functions differently for women and men. Women may actually damage their hormones if they aren’t careful fasting in a way that doesn’t happen with men.

Source please? I have looked and nothing I have found suggests damage, and more research is needed.

What kind of exercise do you get?

I’m not OP, but:

1. Food intake varies for me, but generally I don’t eat until noon, or sometimes even until 6pm. I generally don’t force this; I’m hungry right now, I’ll often eat right now. 2. (1) has been the case for years, both when exercising regularly and when not. Right now I happen to be exercising regularly. On Saturday I woke up feeling good, so I drank some water and got on the rowing machine to do a half marathon. That was with no food since the evening before, and no water during — it took 1:45, which is a moderate pace for me. After that I still wasn’t very hungry.

I have a high metabolism but a low desire to eat sometimes. I force myself to eat three meals a day. Could be a mental problem I don't know. But my point here was that I feel the complete opposite to this.

You should get into weightlifting.

I do and I do get stuff like OP, overeating for weightlifters that aren't professionals is stupid really long term strategy, you just expose your body to much more toxins in food and degrade whole body faster (without even going into supplements part).

Ie today I skipped breakfast since I was too busy with work and kids, no ill effect mentally. But if for example my wife would do the same, her sugar levels would drop low and she would be easily irritable, and generally would suffer quite a bit.

Good point. I've been working out more often. Lifting weights, calisthenics. It definitely does help me get in three meals a day more often, but not consistently.

> There's also a strange satisfaction when skipping one or two meals.

Is this a fact or your personal experience?

On reddit there was post where a group of gastroenterologists answering questions. One comment from the doctors was, paraphrasing: "let your stomach growl it's needed for the health of your gut".

what kind of probiotic foods have you successfully included in your daily life?

L Reuteri supplements made the biggest difference for me after about 3 months.

What were the specific benefits you experienced?

I was able to cease taking a gut motility drug (prucalopride) which I also had to combine with a fiber supplement to get manageable bowel movements (which is to say: no bloating, cramping and other non-specific pain most weeks).

I still have issues from time to time, but I'm now also off the fiber supplements entirely as well (some dietary changes probably helped there as well - I cut out almost all sugar).

To explain the change: I had weeks where I'd have to take 2-3 movicol satchets a day to try and alleviate the pain: after about 3 months.

Ruteri is a patented strain that secretes a protein which helps other good bacteria colonies your gut. That plus a more complete probiotic plus another product Candex can really help your gut biome. Candex is enzymes that dissolve yeasts, which have become a big gut health issue over the last 80 years. Two major brands of probiotics are primadophilus, who have ones with Reuteri and another Jarro-dophilus, which is a collection claimed to reduce putrative bacteria. Finally the ancient Japanese super food Miso prepared at temperatures which keep it alive help colonize with a biome that digests all vegetable protein nearly fully.

Probiotics are fiber or long sugars which yeasts can't digest. The big issue nowadays is yeasts and leaky gut. The herbicide Roundup is suspected as a cause of leaky gut syndrome. Avoiding non organic wheat and non organic oats can help while you heal. Going to spelt bread or at least organic can help the gut heal. Using other grains like rice and others can help. Unless diagnosed as gluten intolerant or actually having Celiac disease skip the gluten free breads just avoid non organic wheat & non organic oats while you heal. Once your gut heals you can slowly relax those restrictions.

Going to need a citation for.. everything in this post.

Sorry half personal experience and other half from nutrition business journal. Final tip, be careful with bagged salad mix especially at restaurants. Redleaf lettuce is high in nutrients but yeasts love that. Next time you're near that stuff look closely at any breaks in the leaves, if you see dark especially black avoid. The dietary suggestions from my earlier comment helped me recover from painful hives from boarder line lupus. Totally recovered and still eat white bread sometimes, but more spelt bread, rice and pasta.

I have a high powered blender. I try to get the fiber and the probiotics at the same time. Fruits and vegetables have probiotics inside the flesh, not just on the skin. The science is less clear on supplements. [1]

The night before I soak:

* chia seeds (1 tsp)

* psyllium husks (1 tsp)

* quick oats (1 tsp)

* almonds 17g

In the morning I add in:

* a frozen banana

* kefir / fermented yogurt drink (1/2 cup)

* frozen berries

* protein powder

* kale / spinach / broccoli

* cinnamon (a lot)

* creatine

* collagen

* water

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/probitoic...

How much creatine, if I may ask?

You don't need more than 3-5g per day (about 15mg per pound of body-weight) to see the maximal effects. There is a loading period where you take 2-4 weeks to saturate, many take an increased dose to get there faster but if you're going to be doing this consistently, after a month of daily usage 3-5g is all you need.

There’s been some studies for 20g per day to help with chronic migraine. (0)

40g/220lbs, 0.4g/kg. Prevention of traumatic headache, dizziness and fatigue with creatine administration. (1)

Similarly, a review of 6 studies found that doses of 5–20 gram of the compound may improve short-term memory and intelligence in healthy people. (2)

0. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03331024209310...

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583396/

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29704637/

Be sure to check the timeframes involved. Creatine is a naturally produced in your body, and you also get some from diet. Your body reaches saturation at a rate that varies by person. Some people will see near to 0 benefit from creatine as their body is already producing a near maximal amount of it. But even for those with low creatine levels, a brief loading phase (of ~25g a day for a week) and then 5g a day maintenance will generally see them at peak levels.

There's probably minimal risk of meaningful damage going overboard for a healthy person, but large doses can cause stomach issues for some people, and it seems unlikely to provide benefit beyond going beyond complete saturation. It looks like, of the studies you showed, the only one where they went for a large dosing for a long period of time was when experimenting with it on children with traumatic brain injuries. That's probably because the risk:reward skewed heavily towards reward there.

The 0 one is a meta study. It goes deeper into Huntington's 30g, Parkinson’s, elderly with cognitive decline, and supplementing for help with memory related tasks. I didn’t dive deep into all either because I saw what applied to me and decided to see the results.

I think dividing the dosages throughout the day would help offset the stomach issues some and there have been 5 year long studies showing creatine doesn’t have any major risks with 5-7% people experiencing GI issues during loading phases.

https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/6-side-effects-of-creat...

Somewhere between 3-5 grams.

*[Notice: diarrhea warning]*

For those that don't know, if you aren't used to creatine then taking more than a few grams has a good possibility of giving you the shits (or sometimes even strong abdominal discomfort). This will (mostly) go away fairly quickly and varies drastically from person to person, but you've been warned. Best to take it on a weekend or something, and slowly build up to your max dose.

The effect is pronounced if taken with only water, all at once.

Instead you can take it throughout the day be adding it to your water bottle. Taking it with meals also typically subdues the effect.

The effect I suppose is comparable to something like magnesium citrate. I suspect they are doing similar things osmotically.

I take 3 grams in juice on an empty stomach and have never had any problems. Maybe the juice is key.

I usually take it with just water on a empty stomach and never had any issue.

Does it taste good?

Yeah, the almonds, cinnamon, and vanilla in the protein powder really even out all the weird stuff.

What’s the point of eating collagen when you’re already eating protein powder? Why do you think your gut would process it differently from any other protein?

Collagen is made out of mainly 3 amino acids:(hydroxy)proline, lysine, and glycine. So in theory collagen powder is giving you very high levels of those specific amino acids which would help promote collagen formation. I can’t say I’m familiar with the literature and if there is any data behind that - but thats your reason

I've tried collagen powder before, because it's very easy to take since it easily dissolves in drinks (and I think actually improves them), and I think it made my hair and nails grow faster but didn't do much else.

Just eat some pork rinds/chicarones. Cheap and delicious fat collagen rich bites. They get a bad rap but are quite healthy if mimimally processed.

I’m always on the lookout for chícharones cooked in a healthy fat, but I’ve never found them cooked in anything but vegetable oils.

As mentioned by the other buy, something like whey powder or meat will have a very different amino acid profile compared to collagen. Like fatty acids and carbohydrates, amino acids get lumped together as a group, but they all have very different effects in the body (including competition).

Most people don't need to care, but amino acid balance can sometimes be a significant factor to health issues because of all the interactions involved, especially if intake has been tilted by a particular way of eating. It's reasonable to balance out whey protein with collagen.

Honestly the topic is so convoluted that with my current grasp of if, I can't currently make a useful or broadly applicable statement beyond "some people find collagen or glycine supplementation beneficial for their X". Individual trial and error basically, much like neurotransmitter affecting medication.

I hope you use Ceylon Cinnamon.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coumarin

I think probiotic foods (i.e. insoluble fiber) are about as good as probiotic ones if you're already good and looking to stay on track. Start slow though, shocking the system with fiber can be problematic.

I am in no way an expert and only have experiments on myself to go off, but I've been experimenting on this particular question for a decade or so my anecdata might be thicker than average.

Probiotics to recover from antibiotics, prebiotics to maintain.

Fermented veggies.

I ferment my own sauerkraut and kimchi for instance (most store bought brands do not have active cultures due to risk of the containers exploding).

Greek yogurt with active cultures and sour milk with lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacterium lactis. Unripened bananas.

Some whole grains; rye and sourdough breads, whole grain oats.

I also stay away from fast food or anything deep fried, avoid most processed foods and rather do home cooked meals each day.

This isn't probiotic, but I've noticed that my system is much happier with fish than red meat. So there is plenty of that each week.

A shot of apple cider vinegar each day.

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