Comment by ilitirit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilitirit | Hacker News Reader

I don't think you really need keto, but I think many people could benefit from just training themselves to eat fewer times a day, and developing an aversion to sugar and unhealthy food in general. I don't eat breakfast - haven't done so for more than 20 years. It doesn't affect my enerygy levels or mood. It always made me wonder why we even had it in the first place. All I have is a cup of black coffee, no sugar. Sometimes tea with no milk. And that's only when I start work, which is around 2 hours after I wake up.

These days I only eat after 5pm. My body is so used to it that I don't really get hungry during the day. Even if I go to gym in the morning. Do I notice a difference if I change my eating schedule or diet? Absolutely. If I eat during the day, I tend to want to eat more during the day. If I eat a lot of carbs and junk food, I tend to want to eat more. Also I feel like shit and my skin looks horrible. I think somewhere in all this mess there are mental health concerns as well, but I can't really quantify them in a meaningful way.

You must realize the world and humanity is bigger than you. Some people with low blood sugar would be very weak without breakfast (ie my wife and most of her family, tested repeatedly under various real world situations ie in wilderness). Some thrive like that. Some, like me, don't care if they have or don't have breakfast, nothing visibly changes for me (unless I want to bulk a bit from ie weightlifting or generally doing very strenuous activity especially if its multiday).

Another case point for each' uniqueness - you mention you just drink black coffee on empty stomach. On university one of my classmates went through mandatory military service back then and he did exactly this. He utterly and forever destroyed his stomach lining (as per doctor's findings it was due to that coffee habit, even sugar or milk would help but he didn't know) and till end of his days. Tons of basic food that would make him cramp painfully or shit badly for hours. That he achieved within 1 year while you did 20 years of same seemingly without any issue.

It's not really clear that black coffee causes inflammation in the stomach; some believe so, others don;t.

That's why they said 'many'.

> as per doctor's findings it was due to that coffee habit,

This doesn't mean much. It's not like the doctor put your classmate under a "causo-scope" and that indicated beyond any shadow of a doubt that it was the black coffee which caused the issue.

It's more like the doctor performed tests for a few things it could be and when found no other alternative explanation he just said something. At best the doctor was thinking about a study showing correlation between black coffee drinking and stomach problems. At worst he just propagated some old wives tale.

This is no dig on the doctor. And certainly no opinion on what caused your classmate's problem. It's just sometimes the answer is that we do not know and cannot know. And the "as per doctor's findings" makes it sound more authoritative than it truly is.

> You must realize the world and humanity is bigger than you.

That's exactly why I said "many people could", not "everyone will".

> I don't eat breakfast - haven't done so for more than 20 years. It doesn't affect my enerygy levels or mood. It always made me wonder why we even had it in the first place

I noticed it is closely related to habit. When travelling I usually eat breakfast, lunch and dinner while I usually skip breakfast and sometimes lunch outside of travel. After travelling is done I feel a hunger pang in the morning where I would have taken breakfast as my body starts to "expect" it. Few days after ignoring it, it goes away...

well, "you don't think" but it'd be nice to know. the article discusses a lot of problems that may or may not linked to each other and keto might have positive effects, but the "why" and "how" isn't completely proven. there's a mention of reduced insulin sensitivity, where insulin medication has the same effect as keto. this you probably wouldn't get from just eating less if the diet choice doesn't take insulin levels into account. some improvements might come from the weight loss, that often - but not necessarily - comes with keto. a big part of the ketogenic diet are leafy greens (i mean, besides meat, what else is there to eat?) which might have a huge impact on the microbial landscape in the gut, which also affects the immune system, etc.

so the question isn't "keto is the cure-all so why don't you do it?" but "the ketogenic diet results in curious effects, so what part of the diet affects which issues and why" and "how do the effects of the ketogenic diet differ from (pure weight-loss effects of) other diets"?

Newphew of Freud invented breakfast (:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfa...

According to the Guardian.

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