3 ms·

> Lots of people claim to see a significant difference, usually positive, in energy, strength, mood, sleep, etc. I'm very skeptical of people's dieting claims

> Lots of people claim to see a significant difference, usually positive, in energy, strength, mood, sleep, etc. I'm very skeptical of people's dieting claims in general. First, lots of people, more or less unconsciously, omit their previous condition/background. A typical example of this (that tragically gets always attention on HN) is an obese person making a post about how they made change X and lost Y kgs. When you're obese because of bad habits, any minimal healthy change will lead to weight loss. Second, every [not seriously into sports] person I ever spoke to who applied a change in his/her nutrition, reported the same symptoms (more energy, better sleep, etc.etc.), independently of how absurd the change was. Considering also how extremely variable between samples (=people) lifestyle is, the only reasonable way I accept is just to set emphasis on personal metrics and disregard other people's experience (I actually assume the vast majority of them to be inaccurate to the point of being false, for the above reasons).

lhl 8y ago
At the end of the day I agree that it's pretty important to try things out for yourself and see how it goes - intermittent fasting is one of those things that's pretty easy/safe to do (and has shown some insane health, longevity, disease prevention/treatment results in the experimental research lately) - I will say that having never purposefully fasted before, the first couple days of 16:8 sucked but now is fine. I also agree that while research can point you towards general guidelines, personal factors will be an issue. For example, from SNP analysis I carry rs1695(A;G) which reacts poorly to supplemental vitamin E, rs1801282(C;G) which may metabolize saturated fats differently, rs1535(A;G) which is associated with decreased ALA->EPA conversion efficiency, etc. (Which isn't even addressing the lifestyle/epigenetic aspects that are even more importantly, but largely unexplored, harder to test for.)

lhl 8y ago

At the end of the day I agree that it's pretty important to try things out for yourself and see how it goes - intermittent fasting is one of those things that's pretty easy/safe to do (and has shown some insane health, longevity, disease prevention/treatment results in the experimental research lately) - I will say that having never purposefully fasted before, the first couple days of 16:8 sucked but now is fine. I also agree that while research can point you towards general guidelines, personal factors will be an issue. For example, from SNP analysis I carry rs1695(A;G) which reacts poorly to supplemental vitamin E, rs1801282(C;G) which may metabolize saturated fats differently, rs1535(A;G) which is associated with decreased ALA->EPA conversion efficiency, etc. (Which isn't even addressing the lifestyle/epigenetic aspects that are even more importantly, but largely unexplored, harder to test for.)