7 ms·

This is a weird title. Isn't this basically just trying to eat regularly with a reminder to avoid really bad habits such as eating right before going to bed? F

by nickjj 7y ago

This is a weird title. Isn't this basically just trying to eat regularly with a reminder to avoid really bad habits such as eating right before going to bed? For example, eat dinner at 6-7pm and that's your last food intake for the day and then eat breakfast around 7-9am. That's roughly a 10/14 set up. In my mind this isn't "fasting". It's just living life normally based on your sleep schedule.

jackmodern 7y ago
There's subtle differences here. What this title refers to is commonly referred to as "time restricted feeding" or in humans "time restricted eating" if you are curious to learn more, google for a pod cast with Sachin Panda and Rhonda Patrick. They get into the details of this style of dieting at a mechanistic level really well. Basically doing this over the long run will make you live longer, have a healthier metabolic system, lose weight, have healthier glucose levels, etc. I'm on a mixture of TRE and intermittent fasting, and let me tell you, it works. I do it for longevity and energy. Weight management is just a bonus since now I can eat more of what I want without gaining weight since I am doing it in a smaller number of hours in the day.
- nickjj 7y ago
  I don't doubt any of that, I'm just confused on why 10/14 needs a special label or is defined as fasting. If you goto sleep at 11pm and don't eat until 8am the next day, do you classify this as a 9 hour fast assuming you ate something 5 minute before sleeping? At some point things are just "normal" based around your sleep schedule. Or to put it another way, if you drink water with breakfast at 8am but then don't drink anything for 3 hours, would you label that 3 hour time span as a "self imposed hydration cleanse"?
  - Disruptive_Dave 7y ago
    Maybe intention is the difference here. The "normal" people are simply running on routine with no designs to stick to that routine should a disruption appear. By actively intermittent fasting, you are declaring your intentions, likely with a specific goal in mind.
  - Certhas 7y ago
    That's actually a selling point of this method. Another way to put it is: Skip breakfast. If you eat at 10 pm last, skip breakfast and eat again at 12pm lunch the next day that works.
    - jackmodern 7y ago
      with time restricted eating it is typically recommended to have your last meal by 6 or 7 if you intend to sleep by 10pm. There are a number of health consequences to eating so late. The one most people care about has to do with the pancreas receiving melatonin and slowly beginning to shut down for the night, so when you eat late it has a lower insulin response than it would otherwise leading to more calories being stored as fat instead of being used as energy. There are some metabolic consequences as well.
  - jonathanstrange 7y ago
    I don't understand your point. The study asked people to (typically) eat during 10 hours and not eat during 14 hours, hence the 10/14 labelling. This resulted in a moderate weight loss, about 8.6% less calories/day were consumed. You're suggesting that other schedules might also work and that 10/14 is "normal". Whether it's normal in the statistical sense or not is an empirical question (the answer is probably "no"), and whether other schedules would have the same effect requires another study.
  - jackmodern 7y ago
    10/14 is the typical time restricted feeding window. the other most common is 8/16, and if you go lower you hit 6/18 which is considered intermittent fasting. These numbers matter in the context of clinical trials for various definitions. If you wish to remain naive to the subject feel free to ignore my initial comment. I gave you everything you needed there to figure it out for yourself.
balfirevic 7y ago
10/14 hour intermittent fasting would also include a regime where you eat before bed (22h) and then don't eat until noon next day. What makes you think that eating before bed is "really bad"?
- nickjj 7y ago
  > What makes you think that eating before bed is "really bad"? I don't know, I don't have any science behind that decision. I just remember tales of my parents and people saying not to eat a lot right before sleeping and then looking at people around me who routinely eat late at night and they were heavier than others (not in every case, but most). These would be people who would eat dinner at let's say 6-7pm but then eat something decently sized (sandwiches, left overs from dinner, ice cream, etc.) again at 10:30pm then goto bed around 11pm-midnight.
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    They also probably routinely eat in the morning too! I think we can safely put put not eating before bed in the same bucket as eating lot of small meals throughout the day. It's not that those things are universally good or bad. It's just that both strategies help some people eat appropriate amount of food, but are totally useless (or worse) for others.
- skohan 7y ago
  I don't think there's anything inherently bad about it. One thing I've heard as a reason to avoid late-night eating is that willpower tends to decrease as the day goes on. Therefore late at night, you might be more likely to give in and eat those super-high-calorie foods, like a bowl of ice-cream or greasy takeout. It's not that eating a bowl of kale at midnight is worse than eating one at lunch time.
SteveNuts 7y ago
Is eating right before bed actually a bad habit? I don't see why it would matter much what time you eat (barring indigestion possibly).
- naasking 7y ago
  No it's not. Studies have even found that athletes improve recovery if they have a protein infusion soon before sleeping.
  - icandoit 7y ago
    RESULTS: During sleep, casein protein was effectively digested and absorbed resulting in a rapid rise in circulating amino acid levels, which were sustained throughout the remainder of the night. Protein ingestion before sleep increased whole-body protein synthesis rates (311 ± 8 vs 246 ± 9 μmol·kg per 7.5 h) and improved net protein balance (61 ± 5 vs -11 ± 6 μmol·kg per 7.5 h) in the PRO vs the PLA experiment (P < 0.01). Mixed muscle protein synthesis rates were ∼22% higher in the PRO vs the PLA experiment, which reached borderline significance (0.059%·h ± 0.005%·h vs 0.048%·h ± 0.004%·h, P = 0.05). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22330017 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22330017
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  It's probably encoded as a "bad habit" because for 99% of people it's night snacking on crappy calories, not just having your dinner at 10pm. Though I do notice that psylium husk products (fiber supplement) tell you not to consume it right before bed.
  - criddell 7y ago
    Maybe the warning on Metamucil is about not being woken up because you have to use the bathroom.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  If you're in the first world then chances are you've already 2000+ calories today and don't really need more. You're hungry before bed because your blood sugar is falling, and all those extra calories will do is push you over the limit for the day, aka extra calories lead to fat.
naasking 7y ago
It is a fasting protocol though. Sleeping is a fast, which is why we break our fast in the morning with break-fast.
- apexalpha 7y ago
  I think the parent post is saying that it is weird this is called "intermittent fasting" while it boils down to not even skipping breakfast: just having 3 meals a day.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
> eat dinner at 6-7pm and that's your last food intake for the day and then eat breakfast around 7-9am. [...] It's just living life normally. That sounds like the eating habits of my thin friends, not the habit of my overweight friends. 70%+ of the USA is overweight. Time to rethink "normal".
- basq 7y ago
  It was the habits of my overweight parents, and thier overweight parents before them. The habits of thin people are not about when they eat, but what and how much they eat.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    I wouldn't simplify it so much. For example, I can basically guarantee that the few people I know with bodies that I'd classify as "pretty good" don't drink any Coca Cola. They don't just drink a little bit. They drink none. And they have entire lifestyle patterns that conspire to keep them thin and fit, not just a few sliders tweaked. I think acknowledging this is crucial to changing your health trajectory. The difference between a fit person and the average HN user isn't just a small twist of some variable knob. It's a whole collection of good practices beyond limiting portion size.
msamwald 7y ago
It might be normal behavior for you but this is not normal for everyone.
TimSchumann 7y ago
I think it's just a terminology issue. Fasting - Counted from your last meal but starts at 24+ hours. Time Restricted Eating - Anything less than 24 hours.
Balgair 7y ago
> In my mind this isn't "fasting". It's just living life normally based on your sleep schedule. I forget where I heard it first, but someone out there said that all this 'keto', 'intermittent fasting', 'atkins', etc. isn't new. It's just that men are now doing something that women have done for centuries, but since women were the ones doing it, the men needed a new name for the exact same thing such they they didn't seem effeminate. Men needed to call it something other than 'going on a diet'.
- ragazzina 7y ago
  Women used to not eat bread? Potatoes? For centuries?
2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago
Living normally today means constant snacking and never going a second with a stomach that is not full.
tarsinge 7y ago
Are you sure eating absolutely nothing and drinking nothing else than water after 7pm 7 days a week is that common?

by nickjj 7y ago

jackmodern 7y ago

There's subtle differences here. What this title refers to is commonly referred to as "time restricted feeding" or in humans "time restricted eating" if you are curious to learn more, google for a pod cast with Sachin Panda and Rhonda Patrick. They get into the details of this style of dieting at a mechanistic level really well. Basically doing this over the long run will make you live longer, have a healthier metabolic system, lose weight, have healthier glucose levels, etc. I'm on a mixture of TRE and intermittent fasting, and let me tell you, it works. I do it for longevity and energy. Weight management is just a bonus since now I can eat more of what I want without gaining weight since I am doing it in a smaller number of hours in the day.

nickjj 7y ago
I don't doubt any of that, I'm just confused on why 10/14 needs a special label or is defined as fasting. If you goto sleep at 11pm and don't eat until 8am the next day, do you classify this as a 9 hour fast assuming you ate something 5 minute before sleeping? At some point things are just "normal" based around your sleep schedule. Or to put it another way, if you drink water with breakfast at 8am but then don't drink anything for 3 hours, would you label that 3 hour time span as a "self imposed hydration cleanse"?
- Disruptive_Dave 7y ago
  Maybe intention is the difference here. The "normal" people are simply running on routine with no designs to stick to that routine should a disruption appear. By actively intermittent fasting, you are declaring your intentions, likely with a specific goal in mind.
- Certhas 7y ago
  That's actually a selling point of this method. Another way to put it is: Skip breakfast. If you eat at 10 pm last, skip breakfast and eat again at 12pm lunch the next day that works.
  - jackmodern 7y ago
    with time restricted eating it is typically recommended to have your last meal by 6 or 7 if you intend to sleep by 10pm. There are a number of health consequences to eating so late. The one most people care about has to do with the pancreas receiving melatonin and slowly beginning to shut down for the night, so when you eat late it has a lower insulin response than it would otherwise leading to more calories being stored as fat instead of being used as energy. There are some metabolic consequences as well.
- jonathanstrange 7y ago
  I don't understand your point. The study asked people to (typically) eat during 10 hours and not eat during 14 hours, hence the 10/14 labelling. This resulted in a moderate weight loss, about 8.6% less calories/day were consumed. You're suggesting that other schedules might also work and that 10/14 is "normal". Whether it's normal in the statistical sense or not is an empirical question (the answer is probably "no"), and whether other schedules would have the same effect requires another study.
- jackmodern 7y ago
  10/14 is the typical time restricted feeding window. the other most common is 8/16, and if you go lower you hit 6/18 which is considered intermittent fasting. These numbers matter in the context of clinical trials for various definitions. If you wish to remain naive to the subject feel free to ignore my initial comment. I gave you everything you needed there to figure it out for yourself.

balfirevic 7y ago

10/14 hour intermittent fasting would also include a regime where you eat before bed (22h) and then don't eat until noon next day. What makes you think that eating before bed is "really bad"?

nickjj 7y ago
> What makes you think that eating before bed is "really bad"? I don't know, I don't have any science behind that decision. I just remember tales of my parents and people saying not to eat a lot right before sleeping and then looking at people around me who routinely eat late at night and they were heavier than others (not in every case, but most). These would be people who would eat dinner at let's say 6-7pm but then eat something decently sized (sandwiches, left overs from dinner, ice cream, etc.) again at 10:30pm then goto bed around 11pm-midnight.
- balfirevic 7y ago
  They also probably routinely eat in the morning too! I think we can safely put put not eating before bed in the same bucket as eating lot of small meals throughout the day. It's not that those things are universally good or bad. It's just that both strategies help some people eat appropriate amount of food, but are totally useless (or worse) for others.
skohan 7y ago
I don't think there's anything inherently bad about it. One thing I've heard as a reason to avoid late-night eating is that willpower tends to decrease as the day goes on. Therefore late at night, you might be more likely to give in and eat those super-high-calorie foods, like a bowl of ice-cream or greasy takeout. It's not that eating a bowl of kale at midnight is worse than eating one at lunch time.

SteveNuts 7y ago

Is eating right before bed actually a bad habit? I don't see why it would matter much what time you eat (barring indigestion possibly).

naasking 7y ago
No it's not. Studies have even found that athletes improve recovery if they have a protein infusion soon before sleeping.
- icandoit 7y ago
  RESULTS: During sleep, casein protein was effectively digested and absorbed resulting in a rapid rise in circulating amino acid levels, which were sustained throughout the remainder of the night. Protein ingestion before sleep increased whole-body protein synthesis rates (311 ± 8 vs 246 ± 9 μmol·kg per 7.5 h) and improved net protein balance (61 ± 5 vs -11 ± 6 μmol·kg per 7.5 h) in the PRO vs the PLA experiment (P < 0.01). Mixed muscle protein synthesis rates were ∼22% higher in the PRO vs the PLA experiment, which reached borderline significance (0.059%·h ± 0.005%·h vs 0.048%·h ± 0.004%·h, P = 0.05). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22330017 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22330017
hombre_fatal 7y ago
It's probably encoded as a "bad habit" because for 99% of people it's night snacking on crappy calories, not just having your dinner at 10pm. Though I do notice that psylium husk products (fiber supplement) tell you not to consume it right before bed.
- criddell 7y ago
  Maybe the warning on Metamucil is about not being woken up because you have to use the bathroom.
blaser-waffle 7y ago
If you're in the first world then chances are you've already 2000+ calories today and don't really need more. You're hungry before bed because your blood sugar is falling, and all those extra calories will do is push you over the limit for the day, aka extra calories lead to fat.

naasking 7y ago

It is a fasting protocol though. Sleeping is a fast, which is why we break our fast in the morning with break-fast.

apexalpha 7y ago
I think the parent post is saying that it is weird this is called "intermittent fasting" while it boils down to not even skipping breakfast: just having 3 meals a day.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

> eat dinner at 6-7pm and that's your last food intake for the day and then eat breakfast around 7-9am. [...] It's just living life normally. That sounds like the eating habits of my thin friends, not the habit of my overweight friends. 70%+ of the USA is overweight. Time to rethink "normal".

basq 7y ago
It was the habits of my overweight parents, and thier overweight parents before them. The habits of thin people are not about when they eat, but what and how much they eat.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  I wouldn't simplify it so much. For example, I can basically guarantee that the few people I know with bodies that I'd classify as "pretty good" don't drink any Coca Cola. They don't just drink a little bit. They drink none. And they have entire lifestyle patterns that conspire to keep them thin and fit, not just a few sliders tweaked. I think acknowledging this is crucial to changing your health trajectory. The difference between a fit person and the average HN user isn't just a small twist of some variable knob. It's a whole collection of good practices beyond limiting portion size.

msamwald 7y ago

It might be normal behavior for you but this is not normal for everyone.

TimSchumann 7y ago

I think it's just a terminology issue. Fasting - Counted from your last meal but starts at 24+ hours. Time Restricted Eating - Anything less than 24 hours.

Balgair 7y ago

> In my mind this isn't "fasting". It's just living life normally based on your sleep schedule. I forget where I heard it first, but someone out there said that all this 'keto', 'intermittent fasting', 'atkins', etc. isn't new. It's just that men are now doing something that women have done for centuries, but since women were the ones doing it, the men needed a new name for the exact same thing such they they didn't seem effeminate. Men needed to call it something other than 'going on a diet'.

ragazzina 7y ago
Women used to not eat bread? Potatoes? For centuries?

2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago

Living normally today means constant snacking and never going a second with a stomach that is not full.

tarsinge 7y ago

Are you sure eating absolutely nothing and drinking nothing else than water after 7pm 7 days a week is that common?