5 ms·
Why would anyone put up with feeling hungry any of the time, if you could get similar benefits without doing so? For the character building experience of it?
by hughw 11y ago
Why would anyone put up with feeling hungry any of the time, if you could get similar benefits without doing so? For the character building experience of it?
- jsprogrammer 11y agoHow would anyone know if you could get the same thing as some other thing when you can only do one?
- jerf 11y agoFor years, I assumed the same thing, that "fasting" meant experiencing significant hunger. I always associated it with going entirely without food for some vague amount of time that was probably some consecutive number of days. But three weeks ago, after some Googling, I began what is called 'intermittent fasting'. Since it's only been three weeks, all I can say personally about the benefits is that I'm still doing it and have no plans to stop in the future, but I can say that by the third day, the hunger issue was negligible. The first Google result on the term is pretty good: http://jamesclear.com/the-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting http://jamesclear.com/the-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fa... At its simplest, for men it means eating all your food for the day in a roughly eight-hour window, often noon to 8pm. (There is apparently some scientific thought that women may have significantly different needs; I really can't speak to that.) In practical terms, this translates to "skipping breakfast" and avoiding midnight snacks. This turns out not to be that difficult, but has definitely had an positive impact on me, so far. Discomfort-wise for me, I tend to get a bit of a rumbly tummy around 10am, but generally it subsides pretty quickly and even by 11am I can easily go for another couple of hours without even thinking about lunch if I get busy. It is far from constant hunger. (But I won't lie and say it's zero... just, negligible. Literally. It can easily be neglected and it will in fact go away.) I can also say that I'm hardly watching the clock in the evening and trying to judge whether it's the crack of 8pm yet or not... I often eat at noon-thirty or 1pm and then dinner at 6pm and am done thinking about food for the day, without any willpower expended. It just happens. I say this mostly to point out to people that there is something to investigate that they may have misconceptions about, as I did. I will fully and up-front admit once again I am not in a position to extol its benefits particularly. (I like to do something like this for at least a couple of years before I do that.) (But I will go slightly out on a limb and say that I would not be all that surprised to discover that "intermittent fasting" has somewhere between 80-120% of the benefit of the scientifically-studied high caloric-restriction diets, with much lower willpower and discomfort costs. It turns out that if you dig into those, we've really only studied "normal (modern) diet", "heavily calorically restricted", and sometimes a particularly unrealistic fasting schedule (see link), so if you're interested in a point in the middle of the two we've studied, you're sort of scientifically on your own. Hence the possibility I cite of 120%; currently it would fit the two data points we have just fine for it to turn out that "caloric restriction" isn't the optimum and is in fact overshooting.)
- Jtsummers 11y agoI accidentally stumbled into this by just being too lazy to eat in the mornings (also a lot of anxiety that, at the time, reduced my general appetite). I've found that the morning stomach rumblings can usually be resolved with a glass of water every hour or so. Since I'm also trying to be active, the extra emphasis on hydration is doubly beneficial. With regards to this form of diet, I've found it to be successful for keeping me from overeating, and I rarely run into days when I think, "Man, I should've had more to eat." (NB: These days do happen, but they're usually days when I'm unusually physically active, like going for a run and two 1+ hour martial arts classes in the same day. That is, things that most people won't encounter and that an extra serving of protein at lunch probably would've resolved.)
- jerf 11y agoSo I'll go out a bit more on a limb, and observe that A: I had some lightweight metabolic illness (ate bad as a child, ate better as an adult but definitely had lingering effects) and B: I really don't seem to anymore, noticeably so even after three weeks. I can eat a lot more carbs and even a bit of outright junk, and I'm still losing weight right now. (While successfully exercising for strength gain.) That was not true two months ago; I had to rigidly stick to my low-carb regime, and any deviation plumped me right back up. Again, I'm still not ready to call it after three weeks, but the thought is certainly stirring in my head that this could be a nontrivial element of the obesity problem, and a nontrivial reason why dieting often seems to hit a plateau early and often, before it really should. In theory, even in our current food environment, it ought to be possible to get pretty close to our natural, optimal weight without having to torture ourselves, precisely because it is the natural weight for us. In practice, it's quite hard. (There's a blog post bubbling in my head about how Everything I Was Told About Health As A Child Was Entirely Wrong. Not just sort of wrong, but "everyone needs to eat three meals a day"-is-also-wrong levels of absolutely, positively everything I was told is wrong. The only thing I can think of that was true is that exercise is important, but even then, there was a radical overemphasis on aerobic exercise when I now believe the correct focus for most people is strength training.)
- girvo 11y ago
- deciplex 11y ago> For the character building experience of it? Are you seriously suggesting that it builds character? Honest question, because if you are, it would seem that fasting for that purpose alone would be a good idea.
- argonaut 11y agoI think this is a case of Poe's law.
- aaron695 11y agoIt does. I find it taught the idea just because you're hungry didn't mean you have to eat. A lot of people seem to think their hunger has the right to control actions. It doesn't. Being hungry is ok and normal. Like air conditioning making people less tolerant to the heat. Character building benefit / Cost, I'm not so sure, lots believe it does though. With health benefits, definitely worth it IMO. But it takes willpower.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoWhy stop with plentiful food and air conditioning? Maybe we should get rid of electricity, central heating, and modern medicine, too. Imagine how strong our characters would be then.
- geomark 11y agoYou got down voted for the sarcasm I presume. But in truth it would make your character stronger. However, it might have some downsides.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoSee above. Been there. My character is strong enough, thanks.
- Jtsummers 11y agoI used to do this all the time growing up, at least once a month I'd spend a few nights out in the woods camping from sometime around age 11 to 17. Granted, modern medicine was rarely more than a short hike and a car ride away (except for multi-week trips). I'd say it helped build character. Regarding going hungry, when you're out on the trail and have 10 miles left to hike and no time to stop for lunch because you know a storm is coming in and you need to set up camp, you learn that you really don't need to eat every time your stomach growls. You also learn how to be dependable for those in your group, and how to depend on others without becoming dependent on them.
- anigbrowl 11y agoBecause it's not that big of a deal and you already know it has health benefits? You might as well ask 'why exercise and have to feel tired afterward.' I'm not suggesting anyone starve themselves.
- moonchrome 11y ago>Because it's not that big of a deal and you already know it has health benefits? Feeling hungry usually kills my concentration especially in early stages (I remember first day being the worst and later you sort of get used to it). And in general I feel weaker and drained. Although sometimes when I "get in the zone" I actually forget about food for the entire day - usually when I need to do work and I'm not particularly motivated being hungry would make me irritable - I would probably do 1/3 of the work I would normally do.
- Evgeny 11y agoFeeling hungry usually kills my concentration especially in early stages (I remember first day being the worst and later you sort of get used to it). And in general I feel weaker and drained. This is the point, isn't it? For me, not only fasting does not make me weak or unconcentrated - quite the opposite. My fasting days are the days I'm feeling the best. And the added benefit is that I have so much more time because I don't need to worry about cooking and eating. Oh and the opposite too ... :) Why is it though? I think it is just because I came over the initial obstacle, became used to fasting and now it is just as natural to me as normal eating pattern. Was it worth it, though? After all, there is little chance I will actually experience real shortage of food so my "skill" is useless in practice. Well, one thing is that there is a growing number of studies that show health benefits. The other is that I am sure it carries over to other aspects of life - i.e. being trained to voluntary restrain from food, it's easier to restrain from impulse purchases or apply any other restrictions. Plus, I believe (with no studies that I know of to support that) that having a body that is more "robust" - that can operate equally well both during feast and famine - is a positive thing.
- TrevorJ 11y agoI forget to eat meals regularly, so it's all kinda working out organically it would seem.