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Breakfast is Overrated

117 points by jeff18 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
wccrawford 16y ago
By his same logic, breakfast should be essential, provided you don't eat a large breakfast. You need to be on the edge of hunger to be creative, not into full-blown hunger. Eat a small breakfast and you'll start to get hungry before lunch. Eat a reasonable lunch, and you'll start to get hungry before dinner, etc.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >Eat a small breakfast and you'll start to get hungry before lunch. Eat a reasonable lunch, and you'll start to get hungry before dinner I usually go without breakfast (only coffee). When I do eat it then I'm ravenous by lunchtime. I put it, completely unscientifically, down to waking up your metabolism. Breakfast for me would be cereal of some sort with raisins and milk or granola with milk.
anon-e-moose 16y ago
This ignores all research already done on the brain and nutrition, and also common sense. Its pretty well understood that the brain runs on glucose. Now of course if you eat too much or eat shitty food, you're going to have an insulin spike and sugar crash, and if you're eating too much you probably have other health problems that aren't helping. Healthy eating, good body weight, and regular exercise sharpens the brain. Edit: The number of people jumping on board with this "theory" in his blog comments makes me despair for the state of nutrition and health education. Learn you a physiology: http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html
- napierzaza 16y ago
  I'll probably be voted down for this, but Scott Adams is constantly making unfounded and usually wrong statements on his blog. He tries to push out big ideas on his blog and usually overreaches. But he has a big following.
  - vidar 16y ago
    I am pretty sure he is aware of this.
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    Adams is a great observer and he has great talent of bringing things to attention of the rest of the world. His analysis may be lacking. Well, that part is cheap, you may do it yourself. Edit: i didn't mean that he is unable to analyze. I meant that analysis, whatever he presents, if any, isn't the primary thing in his blogs, and isn't really there for the analysis purposes per.se. It is more of unspecified association lines thrown in to hyperbolise the possibility of real and interesting connections between the things and to trigger you to look for them yourself.
  - mrtron 16y ago
    I found the blog post unique and an interesting perspective from someone sharing their honest thoughts. There is no hidden motive here, he is just sharing an observation he has. Everyone has crazy ideas that are often unfounded and incorrect - I find it interesting to see them shared. What point are you trying to make with your comment? Yes, he is making an unfounded and probably wrong statement. He readily admits this in the post. What is the problem?
  - smithbits 16y ago
    Has anyone got a convenient phrase for this style of blogging? I love having these kinds of BS sessions with my friends, propounding crack-pot theories and generally playing fast and loose with the facts, but it often bugs me when I see it in a blog post. There's absolutely no reason it should bug me, blogging is whatever the blogger wants it to be, but I think if I had a name for it I could quickly go "Oh, this is just a [blank] post" and not feel the need to take it seriously. Sort of like the way Godwin's law helps you filter the worst comment threads into /dev/null. I bet it would be all kinds of fun to have dinner with Scott Adams, I just don't want to mentally peer review his after-dinner conversation.
    - dgallagher 16y ago
      I'll throw this one out there: "Barstool Blogging" It's like conversations you have with some random person in the barstool section of a bar. Subject matter varies, but generally it ends with you both talking like "experts" about some random subject neither of you really knows much about, besides maybe a few "factoids" here and there.
- unignorant 16y ago
  > Its pretty well understood that the brain runs on glucose Actually, most of the brain's energy needs can also be met with ketone bodies, which come from fat (either stored or dietary). So it's possible that he may be running on ketones in the morning, after a night's fast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#Diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#Diet That said, I agree with you that his theory is based almost entirely on speculation, and should be treated as such.
  - anon-e-moose 16y ago
    Farther down in that diet you can see that its not considered healthy as a general practice: "The ketogenic diet is not a benign, holistic or natural treatment for epilepsy; as with any serious medical therapy, there may be complications." "Long-term use of the ketogenic diet in children increases the risk of retarded growth, bone fractures, and kidney stones. " In other words, it does not seem that the body should be run this way long term.
    - icegreentea 16y ago
      Indeed. In fact, this was the whole deal with the Atkin's diet (remember that??) a while ago. Zero carbs, but craploads of protein and fat will force the body into long term ketone usage. Basically, your body runs on glucose. Everything else is a stop gap for you to get more glucose.
      - Evgeny 16y ago
        Basically, your body runs on glucose. Everything else is a stop gap for you to get more glucose. But don't forget that the body can make quite a lot of the glucose using a process called gluconeogenesis. And substances like amino acids, glycerol or products of fatty acid oxidation are used as precursors. So, in essence - yes, it runs on glucose, but glucose does not necessarily come from dietary carbohydrates.
    - robchez 16y ago
      I believe that study of the diet was also severely caloric restrictive, and the food the kids were given were vegetable franken-oils etc. You can go on a ketogenic diet and eat plenty of healthy fats and some vegetable produce.
- fharper1961 16y ago
  Adams' theory on this may be completely wrong. But I completely agree with his observations. On a an empty stomach I'll be alert and loaded with energy. After a carb laden lunch it'll be nap time.
  - anon-e-moose 16y ago
    You make a good case for trying a lunch that isn't (simple) carb laden then. =)
- Evgeny 16y ago
  Learn you a physiology: http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html I searched this page for "gluconeogenesis" but did not find it. So basically they completely ignore the fact that the body can produce glucose from amino acids, products of fatty acid oxidation etc? Edit: Also, the brain only needs a certain amount of glucose - somewhere in the 30-60g per day area. And if the blood sugar is low, the brain will have priority uptaking glucose from blood. So yes, it needs glucose, but one does not need to consume half of his calories or more from carbs - a mere 100g per day or even less would probably be enough.
  - robchez 16y ago
    Exactly right. 100g (or about 400 calories) should be the upper limit of your carbohydrate consumption. Your body will run fine on it.
- terra_t 16y ago
  Let's put it this way. If people wanted something naturally, the government and industry wouldn't have to run ads incessantly promoting it. Personally, I've made the discovery that breakfast is the only meal of the day I can skip. By the morning, my body is adapted to running off my stored energy reserves and it's not screaming at me that I need to eat. The fact that so many authorities are constantly screaming "eat breakfast", "eat breakfast" suggests to me that there's a hidden agenda to push breakfast foods, just like the U.S.D.A tries to push cheese on people.
  - anon-e-moose 16y ago
    I must not consume enough advertising, as I haven't noticed this campaign =P I personally tend to have trail mix and a low calorie sports drink for breakfast, but I'm weird like that.
- dgallagher 16y ago
  Edit: The number of people jumping on board with this "theory" in his blog comments makes me despair for the state of nutrition and health education. Most people on the internet have no idea what they're taking about when it comes to food, nutrition, and diets. The same applies to medical advice. Many people read one thing and repeat it elsewhere, which is an issue if the source was incorrect. Also people love talking about their personal experiences. That's a problem seeing as it's not scientific (no control experiment, only one individual involved, etc...). A big part of this is that the nutritional industry is not regulated by any body, such as the FDA. You end up with lots of products and advice that adds up to little more than snake oil. Hence fad diets. What's the best advice to take? That from a doctor, dietitian, or nutritionist. Not some yahoo on the internet.
  - Evgeny 16y ago
    What's the best advice to take? That from a doctor, dietitian, or nutritionist. Not some yahoo on the internet. Well, that's a good advice in theory, but did you notice how many doctors, dietitians and nutritionists have contradicting points of view?
    - dgallagher 16y ago
      Good point. I'm not sure how many do, but it does happen. I'd love to see data regarding this (e.g. how widespread is it?). Most doctors are essentially statisticians doing something like this: 1) Formulate a list of patient symptoms, ensuring credibility (e.g. are you lying/hiding/unaware-of something?). 2) Match those up with whatever diagnosis is statistically most likely. 3) Take "medicine X" and see what happens. 4) Cured? If not, go to step 2, repeat. Step 2 can be subjective, especially if there are several likely causes. This can lead to different doctors giving different diagnosis. The more times a doctor has seen the same problem, the more likely he/she will be correct the first time. Specialists come in handy here, gathering lots of experience regarding only specific conditions. For rare diseases, hard to diagnose, or those which aren't fully understood, repeating steps #2 - #4 is going to be more likely. This is where you'll find the greatest differences of "opinion". Step #1 can be repeated too if conditions change, of course. -------------------- Regarding dietitians/nutritionists, I'm not sure how they work. I'd imagine most of their disagreements come from studies contradicting one another. Results of studies can be questioned as well. There is some overlap with the statistical nature of doctors, though. Pinpointing food allergies/intolerances requires eliminating foods, one-at-a-time, from your diet and seeing what happens. I'm sure there are blood tests which can be done too. -------------------- In general though, it's not wise to discredit professionals just because they may disagree on certain things in their field. Unless the field is fully understood (I'm not aware of one which is!), you'll see that. Perhaps I should rephrase my advice: What's the best advice to take? That from "multiple" doctors, dietitians, or nutritionists. Not some yahoos on the internet. A second or third opinion reduces the likelihood of errors, while limiting received advice only from those educated and qualified to give it.
- robchez 16y ago
  This ignores all research already done on the brain and nutrition, and also common sense. On Common Sense: The human brain/body evolved to run on minimal glucose. Of the past 2million years of human evolution, only 10,000(from the agrarian revolution) of those years have we consumed excess carbohydrates in the forms of grains etc. Prior to that we were hunter gatherers and ate copious amounts of fat and meat with some vegetables (very low in carbohydrates) and every now and then fruits when they were in season. We also didnt have the luxury of eating as soon as we woke up, we had to hunt for our food, so missing breakfast would have happened more times than not. Again our bodies adapted to that. On All Research: As mentioned in comments below our bodies run perfectly well in states of ketosis. With ketone-bodies providing a much more efficient longer energy burn than carbohydrates. (Think of carbohydrates as kindling and ketones as the logs). Many athletes (particularly the CrossFit athletes) run on ketogenic diets and get better performance. Here are some papers/articles etc. I dug up quickly, but there are many more. [1] Your brain on ketones [2] Weston price Foundation, Lots of references [3] Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance [4] The metabolic effects of low-carbohydrate diets and incorporation into a biochemistry course [5] Report picking apart the latest dietry guidelines. [1] http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-brain-on-ketones.html http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-brai... [2] http://www.westonaprice.org/ http://www.westonaprice.org/ [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524027/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524027/ [4] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.2005.494033022445/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.2005.49403302... [5] http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/PIIS0899900710002893/fulltext http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/PIIS0899900710002893/fu... edit: formatting
  - anon-e-moose 16y ago
    Very interesting. However, the time frame doesn't work in this example, those studies showed reduced performance for a week, and then back to baseline or slightly above.
    - robchez 16y ago
      You are right, for the first week or two, your do feel like crap. As your body switches to using ketone bodies as energy, you go through a real down phase. However when you come out, you feel great. Anecdotally (I hate anecdotes about health, but argh) I used to need to eat constantly to keep my energy up. I'd have breakfast, and by the time lunch came around I had to eat, or face passing out. These days I can skip breakfast (or just have a coffee with lots of cream) and that will keep my going until 2-3pm where I will have a lunch. You have no idea how liberating it is not to always be thinking about food.
- Qz 16y ago
  To be fair, the article starts off with: I have many crackpot theories. Today is no exception. Let's test today's theory, unscientifically.
- beagle3 16y ago
  > makes me despair for the state of nutrition and health education. You should despair for it. It's mostly a religion somehow connected to pseudoscience, and definitely a far cry from science. The two basic axiom that almost everything is founded on (weight diff = calories in - calories out; and prot=4Kc/g, carb=4Kc/g, fat=9Kc/g, alc=7Kc/g) are disproved every other day, in the sense that even though they do apply in many cases, there is at least one robust study in which they do not apply to every 4 in which they do apply. Something fundamental is being totally ignored. It's like saying "it is scientific that people go to work and school every day", and ignoring the existence of weekends.
seanalltogether 16y ago
I don't know if this is a creativity trait, maybe more to do with addictive personalities. The addiction I feel and the lack of food I experience when I'm in a marathon coding session feels exactly the same as when I was trying to tackle some epic dungeon in World of Warcraft. Hunger would end up fueling the addictive focus I was feeling in both cases.
VladRussian 16y ago
Human brain, being a very recent, and thus highly un-tuned, product of evolutionary development, is very energy inefficient machine. It consumes disproportionally significant amount of resources when it really works. Thus highly creative brain activity quickly burns through glucose and may quickly make you feel hungry (please don't mistake with a pure psychological trick of switching to snack in situations when your brain is forced to work intensely, and it tries every escape route to avoid/delay the task )
- gwern 16y ago
  Energy inefficient? You have no idea what you are talking about. Estimates for how much computation a human brain is doing start at 10^14 flops and only go up from there (Kurzweil, known for his optimism, puts the brain at 10^16). Current record-holding supercomputers, BTW, are just barely at 10^15 or so. And the brain does this on a watt or two, not 1.3 megawatts (http://www.top500.org/lists/2008/06/highlights/power http://www.top500.org/lists/2008/06/highlights/power).
  - icegreentea 16y ago
    Voted the OP back up, cause I think it's really just a poor choice of diction. The brain DOES consume a lot of your body's total energy budget. Like roughly 20% when resting, and it goes up when thinking harder [1]. Granted, compared to supercomputers, we might have godly energy efficiency, but when our source of power isn't a 240V outlet, but food, then we have to evaluate the actual energy consumption a bit different. [1] http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml
    - VladRussian 16y ago
      thanks for the link. "Einstein's brain weighed only 1,230 grams, which is less than the average adult male brain (about 1,400 grams). .... However, the density of neurons in Einstein's brain was greater. In other words, Einstein was able to pack more neurons in a given area of cortex." Personally for me, that completely confirms my theories. Moore's Law for the brain :)
StavrosK 16y ago
I know he said it's not scientific, but what dreck. Even if the premise holds, it's more likely that creative people are too busy creating to eat...
mian2zi3 16y ago
This is summed up in the old adage, "The hungry hound hunts best."
- fharper1961 16y ago
  Hey, I didn't know that one, thanks! The equivalent French saying has a bit more more innuendo... "A good rooster is never fat"
slowpoison 16y ago
I have my creativity spikes when I'm feeding on a specific source of calories - beer!
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  I'm about 270lb construction worker. I have never seen a design in my life. At 15 I got a job as a reviewer because I lived in the sticks I couldn't get anywhere to work to be able to pay for video games and movies - plus I was too overweight and lazy to be up to do a paper route. I did however use ingenuity and talent to start writing reviews, getting free games and movies and trading for what I wanted. I worked as an electrician at 17 with a licensed electrician. We never did new construction so all our work was after-fact and involved a ton of creative work arounds (I was like 200+lbs, you think I'm crawling in loft space in the eave of a house? No fucking way - genius kicks in fast). I currently work doing siding, windows, soffit and eavestrough. Not only do you have to be able to make your own cappings, but our instructions are literally - "[x] inch insulation, and [x] type siding" for a full house with windows, vents, gas and hydro stacks, pipes, and all sorts to work around. Seen a badly sided house? It looks horrible, and worse you get leaks in your house. I'm 22, in 5 years the only thing I'm unsure about doing in making a house is the foundation. I've done everything else or know I can without a doubt without ever doing it - roofing for example, cover your nails and stagger, I've worked with roofers and they literally aren't that smart. If you can't roof - find a god and pray for help. In my free time I still write, on a nearly daily basis. Either blogging, or working on a novel or short stories. This writing is usually fed with beer, sometimes rum, always a sugary liquid like pepsi or coke on my non-alcohol nights. I'd feed my other work with booze if I could, but a drunk guy up a 32ft ladder is a bad idea. I think creativity involves the ability to jump to tools you barely know and to still excel.
pdx 16y ago
I found this interesting and appreciate people who think about things instead of regurgitating what "experts" say with a pompous little whine in their voice. In this case, however, I wonder what is the tail and what is the dog. For me, when I'm in the zen of creating something, I can't be bothered to take time to eat. So, I am hungry when I'm creative, but I've always assumed it was an effect, not a cause.
samd 16y ago
Breakfast may be overrated, pending double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies corroborated by multiple, independent research teams.
- drdo 16y ago
  While those studies are useful, you can't argue with results, even if you have only tested it on yourself, it at least is true for you, even if you don't fully understand the mechanism.
  - anon-e-moose 16y ago
    This seems reasonable, until you consider that there might be other factors at play. Maybe he eats food that is hard to digest or causes a sugar rush and then sugar crash, and simply not riding the sugar roller coaster felt better, but he'd feel the same or even better by eating meals with less simple carbohydrates. The point of these studies is to remove these other factors and test one thing at a time.
    - drdo 16y ago
      Then you have only proven that not eating results in feeling better than eating exactly what you used to, keeping everything else the same, not that not eating is better than eating independently of what you eat.
  - gcheong 16y ago
    Unless he's kept detailed records then he's working only from memory which is much less reliable than people think and apt to find patterns in mere coincidences.
seigenblues 16y ago
While i don't buy his explanation of the causal mechanism at work, he's almost perfectly described my work cycle: I'm most productive in the morning, get the usual post-lunch valley, and have a nice productivity rise after my (usually light) dinner. I'm also stick thin. It's so stark that i usually will put off lunch as long as possible, and try to schedule meetings/etc for the 3p-6pm area. I always assumed this was a side effect of being really involved, like pdx writes, but maybe i had causality backwards. I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but i'm volunteering to be a datapoint :) Also, w.r.t. the eagerness to write off how half-baked Scott Adams is: There's empirical observations of a black box, and there's the attempt to explain what's inside. You might get causality backwards, or explain the correct behavior in the wrong way, but who cares if the real goal is to maximize the behaviors of the box, right? I mean, who cares if the explanation for putting off lunch is ridiculous, as long as the behaviors it explains really exist. [edit to clarify -- i don't really care if his explanation is accurate. He so accurately described my mental cycles and my diet that it was interesting to read his hypothesis]
Evgeny 16y ago
Not quite relevant, but I do not have a practice of skipping breakfast. I am trying however, once in a week or two, to fast for 24-36 hours. This is called "intermittent fasting" and has been shown to produce positive effects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting has some links to studies.
samatman 16y ago
The key may be in the casual mention of 'coffee consumption'. Many creative caffeine users do their best work while all jacked on caffeine. I know I do. That's often first thing in the morning, and sometimes even before I eat. Caffeine is anorexic, as well, causing loss of appetite as part of the effect. It's still a better idea to eat. Many years ago, when I took prescription amphetamines, I would force myself to eat at noon, grimly and efficiently munching down a sandwich or burrito. Otherwise I would start hating life. Normally, I eat a piece or two of fruit with tea for breakfast, followed by second breakfast (often a bagel with hummus and avocado) a few hours later. This gets me through the creative rush I think Scott's referring to, without the obligatory post-lunch hard crash.
trustfundbaby 16y ago
I think its an interesting piece, but his leaps of logic are a bit alarming ... in a funny sort of way. I just think that people who are creative or actively creating stuff don't have time to eat much or sleep for that matter. Not to put myself in that category, but I often forget to eat and when I do, I wolf down my food so I can get on to more 'interesting' things ... also ... sleeping annoys me ... it seems like such an inefficient way of recharging my body/brain (inactivity for 30% of the day ... wtf?!?!), at one point I'd only get 5 hours of sleep because it felt like such a waste of time ... after having some health issues because of it, I'm closer to 6/7 now ...
deleted 16y ago
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aho 16y ago
Is it possible that digestion uses resources that could otherwise be used for thinking?
geoffc 16y ago
The old saying "hungry dog hunts best" sums it up as was already pointed out in another comment. The hungrier I get the sharper my focus becomes, whether it is writing code or hunting, it works!
radioactive21 16y ago
For me this is true. Again, can't speak for everyone, but for myself I eat when I am hungry, but never over eat. I dont eat breakfast unless im hungry, and I eat in moderation. Not trying to yank anyone's chain, but I know people who make a huge deal out of breakfast. They make a huge meal out of it, from which they also add a large lunch and diner, and then question why they cant lose weight.
jasondavies 16y ago
"Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous." -- Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

117 points by jeff18 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

By his same logic, breakfast should be essential, provided you don't eat a large breakfast. You need to be on the edge of hunger to be creative, not into full-blown hunger. Eat a small breakfast and you'll start to get hungry before lunch. Eat a reasonable lunch, and you'll start to get hungry before dinner, etc.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>Eat a small breakfast and you'll start to get hungry before lunch. Eat a reasonable lunch, and you'll start to get hungry before dinner I usually go without breakfast (only coffee). When I do eat it then I'm ravenous by lunchtime. I put it, completely unscientifically, down to waking up your metabolism. Breakfast for me would be cereal of some sort with raisins and milk or granola with milk.

anon-e-moose 16y ago

This ignores all research already done on the brain and nutrition, and also common sense. Its pretty well understood that the brain runs on glucose. Now of course if you eat too much or eat shitty food, you're going to have an insulin spike and sugar crash, and if you're eating too much you probably have other health problems that aren't helping. Healthy eating, good body weight, and regular exercise sharpens the brain. Edit: The number of people jumping on board with this "theory" in his blog comments makes me despair for the state of nutrition and health education. Learn you a physiology: http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html

napierzaza 16y ago
I'll probably be voted down for this, but Scott Adams is constantly making unfounded and usually wrong statements on his blog. He tries to push out big ideas on his blog and usually overreaches. But he has a big following.
- vidar 16y ago
  I am pretty sure he is aware of this.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  Adams is a great observer and he has great talent of bringing things to attention of the rest of the world. His analysis may be lacking. Well, that part is cheap, you may do it yourself. Edit: i didn't mean that he is unable to analyze. I meant that analysis, whatever he presents, if any, isn't the primary thing in his blogs, and isn't really there for the analysis purposes per.se. It is more of unspecified association lines thrown in to hyperbolise the possibility of real and interesting connections between the things and to trigger you to look for them yourself.
- mrtron 16y ago
  I found the blog post unique and an interesting perspective from someone sharing their honest thoughts. There is no hidden motive here, he is just sharing an observation he has. Everyone has crazy ideas that are often unfounded and incorrect - I find it interesting to see them shared. What point are you trying to make with your comment? Yes, he is making an unfounded and probably wrong statement. He readily admits this in the post. What is the problem?
- smithbits 16y ago
  Has anyone got a convenient phrase for this style of blogging? I love having these kinds of BS sessions with my friends, propounding crack-pot theories and generally playing fast and loose with the facts, but it often bugs me when I see it in a blog post. There's absolutely no reason it should bug me, blogging is whatever the blogger wants it to be, but I think if I had a name for it I could quickly go "Oh, this is just a [blank] post" and not feel the need to take it seriously. Sort of like the way Godwin's law helps you filter the worst comment threads into /dev/null. I bet it would be all kinds of fun to have dinner with Scott Adams, I just don't want to mentally peer review his after-dinner conversation.
  - dgallagher 16y ago
    I'll throw this one out there: "Barstool Blogging" It's like conversations you have with some random person in the barstool section of a bar. Subject matter varies, but generally it ends with you both talking like "experts" about some random subject neither of you really knows much about, besides maybe a few "factoids" here and there.
unignorant 16y ago
> Its pretty well understood that the brain runs on glucose Actually, most of the brain's energy needs can also be met with ketone bodies, which come from fat (either stored or dietary). So it's possible that he may be running on ketones in the morning, after a night's fast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#Diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#Diet That said, I agree with you that his theory is based almost entirely on speculation, and should be treated as such.
- anon-e-moose 16y ago
  Farther down in that diet you can see that its not considered healthy as a general practice: "The ketogenic diet is not a benign, holistic or natural treatment for epilepsy; as with any serious medical therapy, there may be complications." "Long-term use of the ketogenic diet in children increases the risk of retarded growth, bone fractures, and kidney stones. " In other words, it does not seem that the body should be run this way long term.
  - icegreentea 16y ago
    Indeed. In fact, this was the whole deal with the Atkin's diet (remember that??) a while ago. Zero carbs, but craploads of protein and fat will force the body into long term ketone usage. Basically, your body runs on glucose. Everything else is a stop gap for you to get more glucose.
    - Evgeny 16y ago
      Basically, your body runs on glucose. Everything else is a stop gap for you to get more glucose. But don't forget that the body can make quite a lot of the glucose using a process called gluconeogenesis. And substances like amino acids, glycerol or products of fatty acid oxidation are used as precursors. So, in essence - yes, it runs on glucose, but glucose does not necessarily come from dietary carbohydrates.
  - robchez 16y ago
    I believe that study of the diet was also severely caloric restrictive, and the food the kids were given were vegetable franken-oils etc. You can go on a ketogenic diet and eat plenty of healthy fats and some vegetable produce.
fharper1961 16y ago
Adams' theory on this may be completely wrong. But I completely agree with his observations. On a an empty stomach I'll be alert and loaded with energy. After a carb laden lunch it'll be nap time.
- anon-e-moose 16y ago
  You make a good case for trying a lunch that isn't (simple) carb laden then. =)
Evgeny 16y ago
Learn you a physiology: http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html I searched this page for "gluconeogenesis" but did not find it. So basically they completely ignore the fact that the body can produce glucose from amino acids, products of fatty acid oxidation etc? Edit: Also, the brain only needs a certain amount of glucose - somewhere in the 30-60g per day area. And if the blood sugar is low, the brain will have priority uptaking glucose from blood. So yes, it needs glucose, but one does not need to consume half of his calories or more from carbs - a mere 100g per day or even less would probably be enough.
- robchez 16y ago
  Exactly right. 100g (or about 400 calories) should be the upper limit of your carbohydrate consumption. Your body will run fine on it.
terra_t 16y ago
Let's put it this way. If people wanted something naturally, the government and industry wouldn't have to run ads incessantly promoting it. Personally, I've made the discovery that breakfast is the only meal of the day I can skip. By the morning, my body is adapted to running off my stored energy reserves and it's not screaming at me that I need to eat. The fact that so many authorities are constantly screaming "eat breakfast", "eat breakfast" suggests to me that there's a hidden agenda to push breakfast foods, just like the U.S.D.A tries to push cheese on people.
- anon-e-moose 16y ago
  I must not consume enough advertising, as I haven't noticed this campaign =P I personally tend to have trail mix and a low calorie sports drink for breakfast, but I'm weird like that.
dgallagher 16y ago
Edit: The number of people jumping on board with this "theory" in his blog comments makes me despair for the state of nutrition and health education. Most people on the internet have no idea what they're taking about when it comes to food, nutrition, and diets. The same applies to medical advice. Many people read one thing and repeat it elsewhere, which is an issue if the source was incorrect. Also people love talking about their personal experiences. That's a problem seeing as it's not scientific (no control experiment, only one individual involved, etc...). A big part of this is that the nutritional industry is not regulated by any body, such as the FDA. You end up with lots of products and advice that adds up to little more than snake oil. Hence fad diets. What's the best advice to take? That from a doctor, dietitian, or nutritionist. Not some yahoo on the internet.
- Evgeny 16y ago
  What's the best advice to take? That from a doctor, dietitian, or nutritionist. Not some yahoo on the internet. Well, that's a good advice in theory, but did you notice how many doctors, dietitians and nutritionists have contradicting points of view?
  - dgallagher 16y ago
    Good point. I'm not sure how many do, but it does happen. I'd love to see data regarding this (e.g. how widespread is it?). Most doctors are essentially statisticians doing something like this: 1) Formulate a list of patient symptoms, ensuring credibility (e.g. are you lying/hiding/unaware-of something?). 2) Match those up with whatever diagnosis is statistically most likely. 3) Take "medicine X" and see what happens. 4) Cured? If not, go to step 2, repeat. Step 2 can be subjective, especially if there are several likely causes. This can lead to different doctors giving different diagnosis. The more times a doctor has seen the same problem, the more likely he/she will be correct the first time. Specialists come in handy here, gathering lots of experience regarding only specific conditions. For rare diseases, hard to diagnose, or those which aren't fully understood, repeating steps #2 - #4 is going to be more likely. This is where you'll find the greatest differences of "opinion". Step #1 can be repeated too if conditions change, of course. -------------------- Regarding dietitians/nutritionists, I'm not sure how they work. I'd imagine most of their disagreements come from studies contradicting one another. Results of studies can be questioned as well. There is some overlap with the statistical nature of doctors, though. Pinpointing food allergies/intolerances requires eliminating foods, one-at-a-time, from your diet and seeing what happens. I'm sure there are blood tests which can be done too. -------------------- In general though, it's not wise to discredit professionals just because they may disagree on certain things in their field. Unless the field is fully understood (I'm not aware of one which is!), you'll see that. Perhaps I should rephrase my advice: What's the best advice to take? That from "multiple" doctors, dietitians, or nutritionists. Not some yahoos on the internet. A second or third opinion reduces the likelihood of errors, while limiting received advice only from those educated and qualified to give it.
robchez 16y ago
This ignores all research already done on the brain and nutrition, and also common sense. On Common Sense: The human brain/body evolved to run on minimal glucose. Of the past 2million years of human evolution, only 10,000(from the agrarian revolution) of those years have we consumed excess carbohydrates in the forms of grains etc. Prior to that we were hunter gatherers and ate copious amounts of fat and meat with some vegetables (very low in carbohydrates) and every now and then fruits when they were in season. We also didnt have the luxury of eating as soon as we woke up, we had to hunt for our food, so missing breakfast would have happened more times than not. Again our bodies adapted to that. On All Research: As mentioned in comments below our bodies run perfectly well in states of ketosis. With ketone-bodies providing a much more efficient longer energy burn than carbohydrates. (Think of carbohydrates as kindling and ketones as the logs). Many athletes (particularly the CrossFit athletes) run on ketogenic diets and get better performance. Here are some papers/articles etc. I dug up quickly, but there are many more. [1] Your brain on ketones [2] Weston price Foundation, Lots of references [3] Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance [4] The metabolic effects of low-carbohydrate diets and incorporation into a biochemistry course [5] Report picking apart the latest dietry guidelines. [1] http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-brain-on-ketones.html http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-brai... [2] http://www.westonaprice.org/ http://www.westonaprice.org/ [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524027/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524027/ [4] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.2005.494033022445/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.2005.49403302... [5] http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/PIIS0899900710002893/fulltext http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/PIIS0899900710002893/fu... edit: formatting
- anon-e-moose 16y ago
  Very interesting. However, the time frame doesn't work in this example, those studies showed reduced performance for a week, and then back to baseline or slightly above.
  - robchez 16y ago
    You are right, for the first week or two, your do feel like crap. As your body switches to using ketone bodies as energy, you go through a real down phase. However when you come out, you feel great. Anecdotally (I hate anecdotes about health, but argh) I used to need to eat constantly to keep my energy up. I'd have breakfast, and by the time lunch came around I had to eat, or face passing out. These days I can skip breakfast (or just have a coffee with lots of cream) and that will keep my going until 2-3pm where I will have a lunch. You have no idea how liberating it is not to always be thinking about food.
Qz 16y ago
To be fair, the article starts off with: I have many crackpot theories. Today is no exception. Let's test today's theory, unscientifically.
beagle3 16y ago
> makes me despair for the state of nutrition and health education. You should despair for it. It's mostly a religion somehow connected to pseudoscience, and definitely a far cry from science. The two basic axiom that almost everything is founded on (weight diff = calories in - calories out; and prot=4Kc/g, carb=4Kc/g, fat=9Kc/g, alc=7Kc/g) are disproved every other day, in the sense that even though they do apply in many cases, there is at least one robust study in which they do not apply to every 4 in which they do apply. Something fundamental is being totally ignored. It's like saying "it is scientific that people go to work and school every day", and ignoring the existence of weekends.

seanalltogether 16y ago

I don't know if this is a creativity trait, maybe more to do with addictive personalities. The addiction I feel and the lack of food I experience when I'm in a marathon coding session feels exactly the same as when I was trying to tackle some epic dungeon in World of Warcraft. Hunger would end up fueling the addictive focus I was feeling in both cases.

VladRussian 16y ago

Human brain, being a very recent, and thus highly un-tuned, product of evolutionary development, is very energy inefficient machine. It consumes disproportionally significant amount of resources when it really works. Thus highly creative brain activity quickly burns through glucose and may quickly make you feel hungry (please don't mistake with a pure psychological trick of switching to snack in situations when your brain is forced to work intensely, and it tries every escape route to avoid/delay the task )

gwern 16y ago
Energy inefficient? You have no idea what you are talking about. Estimates for how much computation a human brain is doing start at 10^14 flops and only go up from there (Kurzweil, known for his optimism, puts the brain at 10^16). Current record-holding supercomputers, BTW, are just barely at 10^15 or so. And the brain does this on a watt or two, not 1.3 megawatts (http://www.top500.org/lists/2008/06/highlights/power http://www.top500.org/lists/2008/06/highlights/power).
- icegreentea 16y ago
  Voted the OP back up, cause I think it's really just a poor choice of diction. The brain DOES consume a lot of your body's total energy budget. Like roughly 20% when resting, and it goes up when thinking harder [1]. Granted, compared to supercomputers, we might have godly energy efficiency, but when our source of power isn't a 240V outlet, but food, then we have to evaluate the actual energy consumption a bit different. [1] http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    thanks for the link. "Einstein's brain weighed only 1,230 grams, which is less than the average adult male brain (about 1,400 grams). .... However, the density of neurons in Einstein's brain was greater. In other words, Einstein was able to pack more neurons in a given area of cortex." Personally for me, that completely confirms my theories. Moore's Law for the brain :)

StavrosK 16y ago

I know he said it's not scientific, but what dreck. Even if the premise holds, it's more likely that creative people are too busy creating to eat...

mian2zi3 16y ago

This is summed up in the old adage, "The hungry hound hunts best."

fharper1961 16y ago
Hey, I didn't know that one, thanks! The equivalent French saying has a bit more more innuendo... "A good rooster is never fat"

slowpoison 16y ago

I have my creativity spikes when I'm feeding on a specific source of calories - beer!

electromagnetic 16y ago
I'm about 270lb construction worker. I have never seen a design in my life. At 15 I got a job as a reviewer because I lived in the sticks I couldn't get anywhere to work to be able to pay for video games and movies - plus I was too overweight and lazy to be up to do a paper route. I did however use ingenuity and talent to start writing reviews, getting free games and movies and trading for what I wanted. I worked as an electrician at 17 with a licensed electrician. We never did new construction so all our work was after-fact and involved a ton of creative work arounds (I was like 200+lbs, you think I'm crawling in loft space in the eave of a house? No fucking way - genius kicks in fast). I currently work doing siding, windows, soffit and eavestrough. Not only do you have to be able to make your own cappings, but our instructions are literally - "[x] inch insulation, and [x] type siding" for a full house with windows, vents, gas and hydro stacks, pipes, and all sorts to work around. Seen a badly sided house? It looks horrible, and worse you get leaks in your house. I'm 22, in 5 years the only thing I'm unsure about doing in making a house is the foundation. I've done everything else or know I can without a doubt without ever doing it - roofing for example, cover your nails and stagger, I've worked with roofers and they literally aren't that smart. If you can't roof - find a god and pray for help. In my free time I still write, on a nearly daily basis. Either blogging, or working on a novel or short stories. This writing is usually fed with beer, sometimes rum, always a sugary liquid like pepsi or coke on my non-alcohol nights. I'd feed my other work with booze if I could, but a drunk guy up a 32ft ladder is a bad idea. I think creativity involves the ability to jump to tools you barely know and to still excel.

pdx 16y ago

I found this interesting and appreciate people who think about things instead of regurgitating what "experts" say with a pompous little whine in their voice. In this case, however, I wonder what is the tail and what is the dog. For me, when I'm in the zen of creating something, I can't be bothered to take time to eat. So, I am hungry when I'm creative, but I've always assumed it was an effect, not a cause.

samd 16y ago

Breakfast may be overrated, pending double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies corroborated by multiple, independent research teams.

drdo 16y ago
While those studies are useful, you can't argue with results, even if you have only tested it on yourself, it at least is true for you, even if you don't fully understand the mechanism.
- anon-e-moose 16y ago
  This seems reasonable, until you consider that there might be other factors at play. Maybe he eats food that is hard to digest or causes a sugar rush and then sugar crash, and simply not riding the sugar roller coaster felt better, but he'd feel the same or even better by eating meals with less simple carbohydrates. The point of these studies is to remove these other factors and test one thing at a time.
  - drdo 16y ago
    Then you have only proven that not eating results in feeling better than eating exactly what you used to, keeping everything else the same, not that not eating is better than eating independently of what you eat.
- gcheong 16y ago
  Unless he's kept detailed records then he's working only from memory which is much less reliable than people think and apt to find patterns in mere coincidences.

seigenblues 16y ago

While i don't buy his explanation of the causal mechanism at work, he's almost perfectly described my work cycle: I'm most productive in the morning, get the usual post-lunch valley, and have a nice productivity rise after my (usually light) dinner. I'm also stick thin. It's so stark that i usually will put off lunch as long as possible, and try to schedule meetings/etc for the 3p-6pm area. I always assumed this was a side effect of being really involved, like pdx writes, but maybe i had causality backwards. I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but i'm volunteering to be a datapoint :) Also, w.r.t. the eagerness to write off how half-baked Scott Adams is: There's empirical observations of a black box, and there's the attempt to explain what's inside. You might get causality backwards, or explain the correct behavior in the wrong way, but who cares if the real goal is to maximize the behaviors of the box, right? I mean, who cares if the explanation for putting off lunch is ridiculous, as long as the behaviors it explains really exist. [edit to clarify -- i don't really care if his explanation is accurate. He so accurately described my mental cycles and my diet that it was interesting to read his hypothesis]

Evgeny 16y ago

Not quite relevant, but I do not have a practice of skipping breakfast. I am trying however, once in a week or two, to fast for 24-36 hours. This is called "intermittent fasting" and has been shown to produce positive effects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting has some links to studies.

samatman 16y ago

The key may be in the casual mention of 'coffee consumption'. Many creative caffeine users do their best work while all jacked on caffeine. I know I do. That's often first thing in the morning, and sometimes even before I eat. Caffeine is anorexic, as well, causing loss of appetite as part of the effect. It's still a better idea to eat. Many years ago, when I took prescription amphetamines, I would force myself to eat at noon, grimly and efficiently munching down a sandwich or burrito. Otherwise I would start hating life. Normally, I eat a piece or two of fruit with tea for breakfast, followed by second breakfast (often a bagel with hummus and avocado) a few hours later. This gets me through the creative rush I think Scott's referring to, without the obligatory post-lunch hard crash.

trustfundbaby 16y ago

I think its an interesting piece, but his leaps of logic are a bit alarming ... in a funny sort of way. I just think that people who are creative or actively creating stuff don't have time to eat much or sleep for that matter. Not to put myself in that category, but I often forget to eat and when I do, I wolf down my food so I can get on to more 'interesting' things ... also ... sleeping annoys me ... it seems like such an inefficient way of recharging my body/brain (inactivity for 30% of the day ... wtf?!?!), at one point I'd only get 5 hours of sleep because it felt like such a waste of time ... after having some health issues because of it, I'm closer to 6/7 now ...

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aho 16y ago

Is it possible that digestion uses resources that could otherwise be used for thinking?

geoffc 16y ago

The old saying "hungry dog hunts best" sums it up as was already pointed out in another comment. The hungrier I get the sharper my focus becomes, whether it is writing code or hunting, it works!

radioactive21 16y ago

For me this is true. Again, can't speak for everyone, but for myself I eat when I am hungry, but never over eat. I dont eat breakfast unless im hungry, and I eat in moderation. Not trying to yank anyone's chain, but I know people who make a huge deal out of breakfast. They make a huge meal out of it, from which they also add a large lunch and diner, and then question why they cant lose weight.

jasondavies 16y ago

"Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous." -- Shakespeare's Julius Caesar