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I don't have any formal education on this topic, but I did lose a bunch of weight and keep it off, partly thru intermittent fasting, so I can offer anecdotal e

I don't have any formal education on this topic, but I did lose a bunch of weight and keep it off, partly thru intermittent fasting, so I can offer anecdotal evidence. For me, simply, it's easier to eat less calories if I intermittent fast. For some reason, if I don't eat breakfast or lunch, I find my hunger is actually sometimes lower, and I don't need to eat a bigger dinner to make up for it. Certainly eating low-g.i\high-carb foods seems to make me get hungry again very easily. I also had really good luck with keto, and sometimes a combination of both. I believe the reason is something to do with blood sugar and insulin not spiking as much, but I'm not a biologist in the slightest.

paulcarroty 7y ago
Eat less & eat often - doctor recommended me once. And its works fine. He also said fasting and "don't eat breakfast or lunch" are destructive, regular feeding matters.
- jvanderbot 7y ago
  That does sound like the "old" advice. Most of the work on IF that I've followed implicates insulin spikes as cutting of cellular "cleanup" mechanisms. Insulin spikes happen after meals. Eating less (less insulin), intermittent fasting (a break from insulin), and low carb (less insulin), all have shown to be effective ways to improve longevity, and all can be at least partially (perhaps mostly) explained by reducing insulin load. But perhaps that is simply one of the many effects. Here's a guide that's not bad. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/intermittent-fasting-guide https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/intermittent-fasting-gu...
- pstuart 7y ago
  That's seems like outdated info.
- humanlion87 7y ago
  I think a lot things have changed since that recommendation. And maybe your doctor has not kept themselves up to date with the new research. I am particularly referring to "don't eat breakfast is destructive". IMO, nutrition is such a complex topic and I feel like we have only begun to start peeling the layers. As an aside, did you know that the saying "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" was invented by the founders of the Kellogs cereal?
- ravenstine 7y ago
  Coming from a fasting fanatic, eating often but less can work for some people, but I don't think it works well for people who need to lose weight, whom make up a significant portion of the population. If you eat a small amount but eat often, you're less likely to put yourself into autophagy where your body will actually be using an appreciable amount of body fat to power itself. In order for a "grazing" diet to work for weight loss, people have to burn excess calories through exercising or eat very minimally. The average person won't keep up exercising for very long, especially when they aren't eating food that will give them the explosive energy that they need, and eating lots of low calorie food ends up making people miserable and causes yo-yo dieting. There's nothing destructive about fasting, as long as the person isn't starving. A lot of people confuse fasting with starvation, but they're not the same thing. Body fat is food. As long as you have fat to burn, you're not starving. Few people are going to starve doing even 72 hour long fasts. The human body just doesn't require that many nutrients on an hourly basis. You won't die or get hurt by not eating kale for a few days. It was common wisdom that skipping a meal was destructive, but it's becoming more accepted that it simply isn't true. It doesn't really make sense that we require the sheer amounts of food that we're eating on a regular basis. Most omnivores and carnivores aren't eating the equivalent of 3 meals a day, and are effectively practicing some form of fasting. If we're supposed to not skip breakfast, then all our ancestors must have been pretty unhealthy, yet fossil evidence doesn't really demonstrate this. A grazing type diet can be perfectly fine for someone at a healthy weight, but they're not really benefiting from it in any way besides the enjoyment of eating. Even so, it depends on what the person is eating in the first place. If someone eats toast with jelly for breakfast, it's highly questionable whether they're getting any long term health benefit from that at all. There's a plethora of information about this subject, and I don't have the time to cite it all here. I encourage you to update your knowledge here. Most general practitioners aren't well educated in nutrition, nor are they versed in the latest research, so your doctor may be operating on old wisdom that hasn't panned out.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Note: that advice is countered by modern nutrition that sees insulin spikes and serum insulin as a bad thing.
- TheRealSteel 7y ago
  I don't believe the research and evidence are going that way. That being said, I will concede that specifically for some (not all) people with some eating disorders, restricting intake can be detrimental to recovery as it increases the chance of a binge later in the day. If you have binge eating disorder, be aware of that if you're considering intermittent fasting.
  - nmfisher 7y ago
    > That being said, I will concede that specifically for some (not all) people with some eating disorders, restricting intake can be detrimental to recovery as it increases the chance of a binge later in the day. If you have binge eating disorder, be aware of that if you're considering intermittent fasting. This is exactly why I don't do that well with fasting, and I don't even have an eating disorder. With anything more than 16:8, it's very easy for me to start binge eating, so the whole thing becomes counterproductive. Every time I seriously lose weight (usually twice a year, once after winter and once after Christmas), it's eating small, high protein/low-carb meals every 3 hours or so. That puts just enough volume into my stomach to keep the hunger pangs at bay.
muststopmyths 7y ago
>For me, simply, it's easier to eat less calories if I intermittent fast. For some reason, if I don't eat breakfast or lunch, I find my hunger is actually sometimes lower, and I don't need to eat a bigger dinner to make up for it. That has been my experience as well. I feel full a lot more quickly with IF. Even if I fall off the wagon sometimes, I can count on IF as a quick way to fix overeating.

paulcarroty 7y ago

Eat less & eat often - doctor recommended me once. And its works fine. He also said fasting and "don't eat breakfast or lunch" are destructive, regular feeding matters.

jvanderbot 7y ago
That does sound like the "old" advice. Most of the work on IF that I've followed implicates insulin spikes as cutting of cellular "cleanup" mechanisms. Insulin spikes happen after meals. Eating less (less insulin), intermittent fasting (a break from insulin), and low carb (less insulin), all have shown to be effective ways to improve longevity, and all can be at least partially (perhaps mostly) explained by reducing insulin load. But perhaps that is simply one of the many effects. Here's a guide that's not bad. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/intermittent-fasting-guide https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/intermittent-fasting-gu...
pstuart 7y ago
That's seems like outdated info.
humanlion87 7y ago
I think a lot things have changed since that recommendation. And maybe your doctor has not kept themselves up to date with the new research. I am particularly referring to "don't eat breakfast is destructive". IMO, nutrition is such a complex topic and I feel like we have only begun to start peeling the layers. As an aside, did you know that the saying "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" was invented by the founders of the Kellogs cereal?
ravenstine 7y ago
Coming from a fasting fanatic, eating often but less can work for some people, but I don't think it works well for people who need to lose weight, whom make up a significant portion of the population. If you eat a small amount but eat often, you're less likely to put yourself into autophagy where your body will actually be using an appreciable amount of body fat to power itself. In order for a "grazing" diet to work for weight loss, people have to burn excess calories through exercising or eat very minimally. The average person won't keep up exercising for very long, especially when they aren't eating food that will give them the explosive energy that they need, and eating lots of low calorie food ends up making people miserable and causes yo-yo dieting. There's nothing destructive about fasting, as long as the person isn't starving. A lot of people confuse fasting with starvation, but they're not the same thing. Body fat is food. As long as you have fat to burn, you're not starving. Few people are going to starve doing even 72 hour long fasts. The human body just doesn't require that many nutrients on an hourly basis. You won't die or get hurt by not eating kale for a few days. It was common wisdom that skipping a meal was destructive, but it's becoming more accepted that it simply isn't true. It doesn't really make sense that we require the sheer amounts of food that we're eating on a regular basis. Most omnivores and carnivores aren't eating the equivalent of 3 meals a day, and are effectively practicing some form of fasting. If we're supposed to not skip breakfast, then all our ancestors must have been pretty unhealthy, yet fossil evidence doesn't really demonstrate this. A grazing type diet can be perfectly fine for someone at a healthy weight, but they're not really benefiting from it in any way besides the enjoyment of eating. Even so, it depends on what the person is eating in the first place. If someone eats toast with jelly for breakfast, it's highly questionable whether they're getting any long term health benefit from that at all. There's a plethora of information about this subject, and I don't have the time to cite it all here. I encourage you to update your knowledge here. Most general practitioners aren't well educated in nutrition, nor are they versed in the latest research, so your doctor may be operating on old wisdom that hasn't panned out.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
Note: that advice is countered by modern nutrition that sees insulin spikes and serum insulin as a bad thing.
TheRealSteel 7y ago
I don't believe the research and evidence are going that way. That being said, I will concede that specifically for some (not all) people with some eating disorders, restricting intake can be detrimental to recovery as it increases the chance of a binge later in the day. If you have binge eating disorder, be aware of that if you're considering intermittent fasting.
- nmfisher 7y ago
  > That being said, I will concede that specifically for some (not all) people with some eating disorders, restricting intake can be detrimental to recovery as it increases the chance of a binge later in the day. If you have binge eating disorder, be aware of that if you're considering intermittent fasting. This is exactly why I don't do that well with fasting, and I don't even have an eating disorder. With anything more than 16:8, it's very easy for me to start binge eating, so the whole thing becomes counterproductive. Every time I seriously lose weight (usually twice a year, once after winter and once after Christmas), it's eating small, high protein/low-carb meals every 3 hours or so. That puts just enough volume into my stomach to keep the hunger pangs at bay.

muststopmyths 7y ago

>For me, simply, it's easier to eat less calories if I intermittent fast. For some reason, if I don't eat breakfast or lunch, I find my hunger is actually sometimes lower, and I don't need to eat a bigger dinner to make up for it. That has been my experience as well. I feel full a lot more quickly with IF. Even if I fall off the wagon sometimes, I can count on IF as a quick way to fix overeating.