18 ms·

This study was in Chinese people who were overweight and were eating a lot of carbs (~300g a day). Presumably this was largely high GI rice. IF made a modest di

by Gatsky 4y ago

This study was in Chinese people who were overweight and were eating a lot of carbs (~300g a day). Presumably this was largely high GI rice. IF made a modest difference. They also lost some muscle mass, as expected. The study tested a lot of different variables, apparently without adjusting for multiple hypothesis testing. Hard to generalise these results. If you are eating a toxic diet, I guess more time without it is a good thing. A similar study in a Western population showed no effect of isocaloric IF [1]. In another study, IF with energy restriction in obese subjects was more effective than energy restriction without IF [2]. I don’t see that the data supports IF as a universal strategy. If you are obese, then these studies suggest eating less, for less hours of the day and less at night is probably beneficial. Otherwise, as far as health interventions go, exercise has a much larger magnitude of benefit than dietary interventions. It also has the major advantage of simplicity - more exercise is better for everyone everywhere at every age [3]. Contrast this with the utterly confusing state of nutrition science. And exercise also makes a difference even when you do a little bit, whereas eating a little bit better does almost nothing. [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2771095 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2794819 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl... [3] This is not 100% true. There are some contraindications to exercise for people with specific conditions. EDIT: When talking about the benefits of exercise versus diet, I mean the effects on health in general (mortality, lifespan, healthspan). Exercise isn't an effective method of weight loss as others have indicated.

arcticbull 4y ago
> They also lost some muscle mass, as expected. Not sure why that would be expected. Fasting leads to significantly increased levels of HGH which preserves muscle and improves body composition. [1] Fasting yields an up to 1250% increase in HGH depending on the duration of the fast. [2] [edit] > ...exercise has a much larger magnitude of benefit than dietary interventions... This could not be further from the truth. Exercise is not a good way to lose weight. It has a ton of health benefits and you should do it anyways but you should not expect to lose weight from exercise alone. Think about it, 1lb of fat loss requires a caloric deficit of 3500kcal. An average human burns like 100kcal per mile running - so 35 miles per pound of fat. Deficit. Humans are well known for compensatory eating, after all you're running 1.5 marathons, you're going to be hungry, right? Someone who needs to lose 16bs needs to run from San Francisco to LA along the entirety of the high-speed rail Phase 1 track, via Merced, Bakersfield and Palmdale. This is bad advice and it simply does not hold up. > Contrast this with the utterly confusing state of nutrition science. Fasting is the simplest nutrition science there is. BMR 2000kcal? Don't eat for a day, lose 0.6lbs. Or, you know, run an entire marathon without treating yourself to any more food that day than you would have normally consumed. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3127426/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3127426/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6758355/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6758355/
- Gatsky 4y ago
  Just because it boosts GH doesn't mean you build muscle. Undoubtedly, fasting has positive metabolic benefits, but building lean muscle mass isn't one of them. The studies I have seen about regular fasting and muscle mass generally show loss or at best maintenance with exercise. Generally you will be catabolising muscle when you wake up from sleeping, until consuming sufficient protein. This is why body builders eat so often, and also try to have some slow release protein before sleeping. You are right that exercise isn't a good way to lose weight, I am not talking about that at all. By magnitude of benefit I am talking about mortality/longevity/frailty, not weight loss. That's what really matters. The relationship between body weight and hard clinical outcomes is complicated and not monotonic (obese pre-menopausal women are less likely to get breast cancer, to provide one example). Additionally, asian people suffer from the skinny-fat phenomenon, where they are not obese but have metabolically pernicious visceral fat.
  - gfosco 4y ago
    The post you are responding to does not make the claim that it builds muscle, nor does it make reference to lean muscle mass... It says "preserves" muscle (comparable to "maintenance" as you suggested).
    - Silverback_VII 4y ago
      I'm not buying it. Muscles use energy even while at rest so in the case of an emergency I'm sure the body will first remove the useless consumption of unnecessary muscle mass than to start tapping the reserves.
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        In what world would the body prioritize consuming "unnecessary muscle mass" (the thing you need to hunt down and kill food) over fat, which is by definition energy stored for this exact scenario? Muscle simply doesn't consume much more energy at idle than fat does but is far more useful and far less calorie-dense. A pound of muscle burns 4-6 calories per day at idle vs a pound of fat which burns 2-3 calories. Basically the same.
orangepurple 4y ago
I have been experimenting with lifestyle TRF for 5 years before finally finding an approach that works consistently with little effort in a modestly socially acceptable way with common food sources. Starting from 235 pounds I lost 55 pounds since April by restricting my feeding time window to 4 hours and I only exercise once every week or two. An eating time window larger than 4 hours did not result in any meaningful long term weight loss for me. It must be 4 hours per day or shorter. 4 hours works great. I barely made a change in my diet to eat healthier besides cutting out foods and beverages commonly known as being bad and I only drink water and coffee. I consistently begin to plateau and this process only stops with increased water intake and exercise, but mostly water intake more than 1 gallon per day. In terms of effect size time restriction is most critical followed by eating food that isn't obviously unhealthy (e.g. anything containing added fructose), closely followed by drinking a gallon of water per day. Exercise is a distant next step but it has a big effect whenever loss plateau begins. As I approach my weight goal I plan to expand my eating window by one hour per day per month until I plateau.
- eckza 4y ago
  Forgive the question, but why is exercise such a distant next step for you? You very clearly have a lot of self-discipline, and you have your shit together. For me, exercise has always been the most rewarding part of the whole deal. Really glad that you took the time to make the effort over literal years to find what works for your body. For most people - myself included - that's what it takes. And most people won't stick with it and see it through.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    > You very clearly have a lot of self-discipline, and you have your shit together. For me, exercise has always been the most rewarding part of the whole deal. Not OP, but answering for myself: I don’t enjoy exercising, and not doing something is far easier than doing something extra. I have easily removed most carbs (doing Keto), and reduced my eating window to 8h. I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years. Hell, I even got an electronic desk and work standing 70% of my work day. But exercise is extra. I can’t just do exercise while doing something else (maybe if I enjoyed audiobooks it would work better, but I’m really into reading books), so any exercise takes effort for something I don’t enjoy unlike all other changes.
LastTrain 4y ago
I find it interesting you criticize their study methods but then assume what food they are eating (GI rice) without evidence and state that it is toxic, without evidence, and then use this info to draw conclusions.
- Gatsky 4y ago
  Forgive me for being brief, Supplementary table 3 breaks down the the baseline food intake, and rice and wheat flour are the top two items. Regarding your second query, the first line of the abstract of the article is: "Overconsumption of carbohydrate-rich food combined with adverse eating patterns contributes to the increasing incidence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in China. "
- nradov 4y ago
  High levels of blood glucose are toxic to most tissues, and high GI foods tend to cause glucose spikes. This is like Physiology 101 level common knowledge and not something that requires additional evidence in every little comment.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    This isn't wrong, but it's pretty hyperbolic. A large helping of white rice isn't "toxic" in a meaningful way.
    - spfzero 4y ago
      But as a diet, this would be glucose spikes multiple times per day, for perhaps a lifetime. That may not qualify as "toxic" I guess, in that it doesn't kill you on the first day. But it is not benign.
      - astura 4y ago
        Rice is literally the most commonly eaten food in the world, eaten by billions of people a day.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ycombinator_acc 4y ago
I wonder if regular resistance training would've avoided the muscle loss.
niklasbuschmann 4y ago
Dumb question: Wouldn’t every diet show no improvement with an isocaloric control group?

by Gatsky 4y ago

arcticbull 4y ago

> They also lost some muscle mass, as expected. Not sure why that would be expected. Fasting leads to significantly increased levels of HGH which preserves muscle and improves body composition. [1] Fasting yields an up to 1250% increase in HGH depending on the duration of the fast. [2] [edit] > ...exercise has a much larger magnitude of benefit than dietary interventions... This could not be further from the truth. Exercise is not a good way to lose weight. It has a ton of health benefits and you should do it anyways but you should not expect to lose weight from exercise alone. Think about it, 1lb of fat loss requires a caloric deficit of 3500kcal. An average human burns like 100kcal per mile running - so 35 miles per pound of fat. Deficit. Humans are well known for compensatory eating, after all you're running 1.5 marathons, you're going to be hungry, right? Someone who needs to lose 16bs needs to run from San Francisco to LA along the entirety of the high-speed rail Phase 1 track, via Merced, Bakersfield and Palmdale. This is bad advice and it simply does not hold up. > Contrast this with the utterly confusing state of nutrition science. Fasting is the simplest nutrition science there is. BMR 2000kcal? Don't eat for a day, lose 0.6lbs. Or, you know, run an entire marathon without treating yourself to any more food that day than you would have normally consumed. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3127426/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3127426/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6758355/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6758355/

Gatsky 4y ago
Just because it boosts GH doesn't mean you build muscle. Undoubtedly, fasting has positive metabolic benefits, but building lean muscle mass isn't one of them. The studies I have seen about regular fasting and muscle mass generally show loss or at best maintenance with exercise. Generally you will be catabolising muscle when you wake up from sleeping, until consuming sufficient protein. This is why body builders eat so often, and also try to have some slow release protein before sleeping. You are right that exercise isn't a good way to lose weight, I am not talking about that at all. By magnitude of benefit I am talking about mortality/longevity/frailty, not weight loss. That's what really matters. The relationship between body weight and hard clinical outcomes is complicated and not monotonic (obese pre-menopausal women are less likely to get breast cancer, to provide one example). Additionally, asian people suffer from the skinny-fat phenomenon, where they are not obese but have metabolically pernicious visceral fat.
- gfosco 4y ago
  The post you are responding to does not make the claim that it builds muscle, nor does it make reference to lean muscle mass... It says "preserves" muscle (comparable to "maintenance" as you suggested).
  - Silverback_VII 4y ago
    I'm not buying it. Muscles use energy even while at rest so in the case of an emergency I'm sure the body will first remove the useless consumption of unnecessary muscle mass than to start tapping the reserves.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      In what world would the body prioritize consuming "unnecessary muscle mass" (the thing you need to hunt down and kill food) over fat, which is by definition energy stored for this exact scenario? Muscle simply doesn't consume much more energy at idle than fat does but is far more useful and far less calorie-dense. A pound of muscle burns 4-6 calories per day at idle vs a pound of fat which burns 2-3 calories. Basically the same.

orangepurple 4y ago

I have been experimenting with lifestyle TRF for 5 years before finally finding an approach that works consistently with little effort in a modestly socially acceptable way with common food sources. Starting from 235 pounds I lost 55 pounds since April by restricting my feeding time window to 4 hours and I only exercise once every week or two. An eating time window larger than 4 hours did not result in any meaningful long term weight loss for me. It must be 4 hours per day or shorter. 4 hours works great. I barely made a change in my diet to eat healthier besides cutting out foods and beverages commonly known as being bad and I only drink water and coffee. I consistently begin to plateau and this process only stops with increased water intake and exercise, but mostly water intake more than 1 gallon per day. In terms of effect size time restriction is most critical followed by eating food that isn't obviously unhealthy (e.g. anything containing added fructose), closely followed by drinking a gallon of water per day. Exercise is a distant next step but it has a big effect whenever loss plateau begins. As I approach my weight goal I plan to expand my eating window by one hour per day per month until I plateau.

eckza 4y ago
Forgive the question, but why is exercise such a distant next step for you? You very clearly have a lot of self-discipline, and you have your shit together. For me, exercise has always been the most rewarding part of the whole deal. Really glad that you took the time to make the effort over literal years to find what works for your body. For most people - myself included - that's what it takes. And most people won't stick with it and see it through.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > You very clearly have a lot of self-discipline, and you have your shit together. For me, exercise has always been the most rewarding part of the whole deal. Not OP, but answering for myself: I don’t enjoy exercising, and not doing something is far easier than doing something extra. I have easily removed most carbs (doing Keto), and reduced my eating window to 8h. I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years. Hell, I even got an electronic desk and work standing 70% of my work day. But exercise is extra. I can’t just do exercise while doing something else (maybe if I enjoyed audiobooks it would work better, but I’m really into reading books), so any exercise takes effort for something I don’t enjoy unlike all other changes.

LastTrain 4y ago

I find it interesting you criticize their study methods but then assume what food they are eating (GI rice) without evidence and state that it is toxic, without evidence, and then use this info to draw conclusions.

Gatsky 4y ago
Forgive me for being brief, Supplementary table 3 breaks down the the baseline food intake, and rice and wheat flour are the top two items. Regarding your second query, the first line of the abstract of the article is: "Overconsumption of carbohydrate-rich food combined with adverse eating patterns contributes to the increasing incidence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in China. "
nradov 4y ago
High levels of blood glucose are toxic to most tissues, and high GI foods tend to cause glucose spikes. This is like Physiology 101 level common knowledge and not something that requires additional evidence in every little comment.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  This isn't wrong, but it's pretty hyperbolic. A large helping of white rice isn't "toxic" in a meaningful way.
  - spfzero 4y ago
    But as a diet, this would be glucose spikes multiple times per day, for perhaps a lifetime. That may not qualify as "toxic" I guess, in that it doesn't kill you on the first day. But it is not benign.
    - astura 4y ago
      Rice is literally the most commonly eaten food in the world, eaten by billions of people a day.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ycombinator_acc 4y ago

I wonder if regular resistance training would've avoided the muscle loss.

niklasbuschmann 4y ago

Dumb question: Wouldn’t every diet show no improvement with an isocaloric control group?