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I have been experimenting with IF for years now and my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results. (As me

I have been experimenting with IF for years now and my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results. (As measured by blood pressure, blood tests, body weight, the overall feeling of comfort/energy/stamina atc.) YMMV. I also noticed that the feelings of hunger are very malleable. Everyday hunger seems to be a habit. Once you are used to eating at a certain hour, you will feel hungry as it approaches, then the feeling will disappear again. It takes several days to extinguish that reflex. Looking at the state of obesity in the richer half of the world today, I wonder if we should promote IF as an alternative to contemporary eating standards. It is not a magic bullet and it may harm people with eating disorders, but the disease burden caused by overeating is an order of magnitude larger. The real trouble with IF is probably that it is nigh impossible to make money on it. Squaring market economy with less consumption - against vital interests of Coca-Cola, Nestlé etc. - seems to be impossible. It took a lot of effort to reduce prevalence of smoking, even though it smells badly and it is repulsive to non-smokers. We didn't even make a dent in alcoholism. And food is attractive, good smelling and absolutely necessary for our survival. Humanity seems to be destined for a future of gluttony. I am almost 44. During my life, I have seen children and elderly alike blowing up like balloons. Unlike many "old geezer complaints", this process is measurable and even obvious in plain sight, when you compare older street photographs to the situation today. What an intractable problem we've got ourselves into.

johnywalks 5y ago
As i got older i noticed that meals kept impacting my focus and productivity. I've been doing IF for the past year and it works surprisingly well. Basically, i'll have only coffee and water until 2pm and then 2 meals before 9pm. Mental focus and clarity is pretty high and consistent.
csa 5y ago
> my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results Another point of anecdata… My sweet spot is at a 4-5 hour feeding window — basically two meals with a short break in between. I don’t get hungry, I feel great, and my numbers are peak or near peak. One meal a day may be better, but I could never try it long enough to get reliable numbers.
arvinsim 5y ago
It's not just the economic factor. There is a social aspect of eating that is very hard to ignore. It's why I stopped doing Keto and went with IF. Breakfast is still in my control so I can skip it. But turning down social invitations to eat out because almost all of our food has lots of carbs was unsustainable to me.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  This factor nudged me towards abandoning breakfast as well. Socially, it is better to eat in the second half of the day. It helped that I am not very hungry in the mornings. I experimented with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and apparently I have a small bump in glucose levels immediately after waking up (not anything massive, but definitely noticeable on the graph), which probably means that the body is anticipating some energy consumption and is ready to cover it from internal sources.
- tomxor 5y ago
  I think intermittent fasting is way more sustainable. You are also achieving roughly the same thing, because your body does ketosis anyway as soon as you stop eating for even a short amount of time e.g while sleeping. "keto" diet is just trying to find a way to allow you to continuously eat without breaking it. I only do IF in terms of eating one main meal a day, i've never intentionally done this, i'm just not a morning person, and lunch always felt optional - However I've noticed quite clearly that even a small sugar-laced high-carb snack will destroy this for the day, e.g if I decide to have a croissant one morning as I occasionally do (not because i'm particularly hungry but because it looks damn tasty), then I have to accept that today i'm going to be more hungry and want to eat more - it's these big sugary carbs outside of meal time that keep everyone's hunger up by switching off ketosis. For comparison, having a few nuts is a much better snack, it doesn't make you more hungry because you are able to continue burning fat afterwards.
- listless 5y ago
  I’m just coming off Keto for those same reasons. What is your IF routine? I’ve been doing 12 - 7, but it sounds like a lot of people here are shortening that window.
glandium 5y ago
> Everyday hunger seems to be a habit. Once you are used to eating at a certain hour, you will feel hungry as it approaches Mmmm I'm curious what happens wrt hunger if you eat at random times of the day, never the same.
- kqr 5y ago
  In my experience (though not strictly random, just mainly determined by unpredictable outside influences) you get hungry at random times of the day too.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
I don't think three meals a day are a problem that caused obesity... imho, the main cause are large quantities of very processed (calorie high) food and lifestyles with less physical movement. Even "real restaurants" (compared to fast food ones) add a ton of butter and other caloric ingredients to make food taste great, much more than someone cooking at home would add. Basically, it's calories in, calories out, and a full stomach of homemade healty-ish stuff has a lot less calories than what you get at a fast food joint or even an expensive restaurant.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Three square meals a day, no. Three square meals plus various snacks throughout the day is a different story. The problem is that now, with a pandemics of obesity, we cannot just sustain status quo. We need to reverse it towards more health, less obesity. Which means that even going back to just three meals a day may not be enough.
  - zemvpferreira 5y ago
    As someone who's done every eating regime under the sun, it's very easy to binge on cookies for your one meal a day/week/month. Look how much shit keto enthusiasts can pile onto their bodies on a super-strict, mostly healthy diet for an example. People will abuse strict rule-based diets. Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants. For 99% of people the key is that simple. Hold individuals accountable for their choices and promote, push, heck subsidize ancient eating standards over industrialized foods on society.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Basically, it's calories in, calories out, and a full stomach of homemade healty-ish stuff has a lot less calories than what you get at a fast food joint or even an expensive restaurant. There are many health benefits to movement and our bodies evolved to have it part of our daily routine, but if you want to deal with your weight, it should done through diet. See Exercised by Lieberman: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49358915-exercised https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49358915-exercised * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lieberman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lieberman When it comes to weight, diet and exercise seem to minimally correlated.

johnywalks 5y ago

As i got older i noticed that meals kept impacting my focus and productivity. I've been doing IF for the past year and it works surprisingly well. Basically, i'll have only coffee and water until 2pm and then 2 meals before 9pm. Mental focus and clarity is pretty high and consistent.

csa 5y ago

> my consistent experience is that having a feeding window of about 2-5 hours gets me the best results Another point of anecdata… My sweet spot is at a 4-5 hour feeding window — basically two meals with a short break in between. I don’t get hungry, I feel great, and my numbers are peak or near peak. One meal a day may be better, but I could never try it long enough to get reliable numbers.

arvinsim 5y ago

It's not just the economic factor. There is a social aspect of eating that is very hard to ignore. It's why I stopped doing Keto and went with IF. Breakfast is still in my control so I can skip it. But turning down social invitations to eat out because almost all of our food has lots of carbs was unsustainable to me.

inglor_cz 5y ago
This factor nudged me towards abandoning breakfast as well. Socially, it is better to eat in the second half of the day. It helped that I am not very hungry in the mornings. I experimented with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and apparently I have a small bump in glucose levels immediately after waking up (not anything massive, but definitely noticeable on the graph), which probably means that the body is anticipating some energy consumption and is ready to cover it from internal sources.
tomxor 5y ago
I think intermittent fasting is way more sustainable. You are also achieving roughly the same thing, because your body does ketosis anyway as soon as you stop eating for even a short amount of time e.g while sleeping. "keto" diet is just trying to find a way to allow you to continuously eat without breaking it. I only do IF in terms of eating one main meal a day, i've never intentionally done this, i'm just not a morning person, and lunch always felt optional - However I've noticed quite clearly that even a small sugar-laced high-carb snack will destroy this for the day, e.g if I decide to have a croissant one morning as I occasionally do (not because i'm particularly hungry but because it looks damn tasty), then I have to accept that today i'm going to be more hungry and want to eat more - it's these big sugary carbs outside of meal time that keep everyone's hunger up by switching off ketosis. For comparison, having a few nuts is a much better snack, it doesn't make you more hungry because you are able to continue burning fat afterwards.
listless 5y ago
I’m just coming off Keto for those same reasons. What is your IF routine? I’ve been doing 12 - 7, but it sounds like a lot of people here are shortening that window.

glandium 5y ago

> Everyday hunger seems to be a habit. Once you are used to eating at a certain hour, you will feel hungry as it approaches Mmmm I'm curious what happens wrt hunger if you eat at random times of the day, never the same.

kqr 5y ago
In my experience (though not strictly random, just mainly determined by unpredictable outside influences) you get hungry at random times of the day too.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

I don't think three meals a day are a problem that caused obesity... imho, the main cause are large quantities of very processed (calorie high) food and lifestyles with less physical movement. Even "real restaurants" (compared to fast food ones) add a ton of butter and other caloric ingredients to make food taste great, much more than someone cooking at home would add. Basically, it's calories in, calories out, and a full stomach of homemade healty-ish stuff has a lot less calories than what you get at a fast food joint or even an expensive restaurant.

inglor_cz 5y ago
Three square meals a day, no. Three square meals plus various snacks throughout the day is a different story. The problem is that now, with a pandemics of obesity, we cannot just sustain status quo. We need to reverse it towards more health, less obesity. Which means that even going back to just three meals a day may not be enough.
- zemvpferreira 5y ago
  As someone who's done every eating regime under the sun, it's very easy to binge on cookies for your one meal a day/week/month. Look how much shit keto enthusiasts can pile onto their bodies on a super-strict, mostly healthy diet for an example. People will abuse strict rule-based diets. Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants. For 99% of people the key is that simple. Hold individuals accountable for their choices and promote, push, heck subsidize ancient eating standards over industrialized foods on society.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Basically, it's calories in, calories out, and a full stomach of homemade healty-ish stuff has a lot less calories than what you get at a fast food joint or even an expensive restaurant. There are many health benefits to movement and our bodies evolved to have it part of our daily routine, but if you want to deal with your weight, it should done through diet. See Exercised by Lieberman: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49358915-exercised https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49358915-exercised * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lieberman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lieberman When it comes to weight, diet and exercise seem to minimally correlated.