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I currently intermittent fast by skipping breakfast + lunch, partially because I'm lazy, partially because it allows me to easily eat 'all my calories' in the e

I currently intermittent fast by skipping breakfast + lunch, partially because I'm lazy, partially because it allows me to easily eat 'all my calories' in the end of the day. I really like this as it provides a 'buffer' for unexpected food, such as random cake, or random lunches with colleagues etc. Has anyone here actually ever TRIED fasting a full 24h day? I have. I HATED it. Well, the fasting itself wasn't that bad, however, the next day my body went FULL berserk mode and I literally couldn't stop myself from eating. It was really weird and I never had such strong biological urges. That's when I decided I'd just stick to fasting until 5 pm when I eat diner.

teach 11y ago
Just for the record, skipping breakfast + lunch has nothing whatsoever to do with fasting. It's not even remotely similar in terms of how your body reacts to it. And as others have commented yes there are many of us who have fasted for days at a time for religious reasons.
- greensoap 11y ago
  He said intermittent fasting. IF is basically what he described. 16 hours of no eating with an 8 hour window where you eat. I think some people take it farther--20 hours of fasting (water permitted) followed by caloric intake for four hours.
  - __z 11y ago
    IF includes a lot of different eating schedules - Eating for 5 days a week and fasting for 2 is a common practice too. When I did IF I fasted every 4 days.
- __z 11y ago
  Fasting means abstaining from food for a period of time. Breakfast is called breakfast because you fast while you sleep and break the fast with breakfast so break-fast. Sure a 24 hr fast isn't a multi day fast but that doesn't mean it isn't a fast. 24 hr fasts are a commom intermittent fasting schedule. Religious practices that are called fasting last less than several days. When my doctor wants me in the fasted state (bloodwork/surgery) they say no food for 8-12 hrs. Saying short fasts have "nothing to do with fasting" is totally untrue.
- tptacek 11y ago
  "Skipping breakfast and lunch" is a pretty reasonable way to summarize "intermittent fasting". I don't know how credible "IF" is scientifically, but lots of people use the word "fasting" to describe it. What's the number of hours you're calling the threshold for "fasting"? I assume it's some high number, like 24-48 ("skipping breakfast and lunch" gets you past 16). Can you cite a source for the stark metabolic difference you're implying?
- robbiep 11y ago
  Biochemically, once you have not consumed anything for around 12 hours you are fasting (ie your liver is out of sugar and you are shifting to ketosis). So really it depends on your definition of fast, but scientifically skipping breakfast pushes you to the definition.
swsieber 11y ago
Yes. My religion teaches it (along with some other healthy things). It was actually reiterated very recently (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/is-not-this-the-fast-that-i-have-chosen?lang=eng https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/is-not-this-t...). The emphasis is much less on the health benefits but they are none-the-less talked about from time to time. I think part of it that doing it a couple of times help reduce the extreme biological need. Also, when did you finish your fast? Dinner (5pm - 5pm) seems to be a good way to do it. Break it by drinking a lot of water to start. Edit: I also find myself eating (snacking) less the next couple of days because I'm used to holding back.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Be careful not to assume that all of a group's practices are healthy just because one practice happens to be healthy. Also be careful not to assume that such a practice being healthy means that all of the group's claims are valid. As a meta note, in general, it's probably bad form to bring up religion on HN in unrelated threads, especially in a subtly proselytizing way.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    I think that a lot of dietary traditions can be rooted in some level of observational benefit... for instance pigs are one of the few animals that can cross-carry viruses between humans and other species, and a lot of mutation happens in them. Not that all things are necessarily proven out, but a lot of them are. Though, I do think there are also a lot of logical fallacies propagated as "faith". Just the same, I don't think it's worse than what a lot of commercial industries, or interest groups propagate. Look how long it's taking to get past the "fat == bad, lowfat == good" mindset that really took hold in the 80's.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      No doubt good and bad ideas can be found in all places, and some portion of religious and cultural superstitions may be emergent (or deliberate) results of real phenomena (e.g. avoiding pork because the last guy you saw eat pork got sick). Fortunately we now have science, which basically amounts to a hill climbing algorithm for identifying valid and rejecting invalid ideas over time. I'll note that I was once extremely active in the same community mentioned in the comment to which I replied, so I do have experience on both sides of the aisle.
jeremyw 11y ago
It helps if you're already in ketosis (on a ketogenic diet), so you don't pay physical switching costs (day 2 and 3 are hardest). I can drop meals or whole days without much body-grumbling, as is the common experience. And you must feed electrolytes like you mean it. 5g sodium, 3g potassium, mag+calcium if you need it, attenuate for size.
- abrookewood 11y ago
  Do you have any references for the electrolyte requirements? I just add a small amount of salt to the water I was drinking during a fast, but never had any idea how much I should or whether I should ...
dorian-graph 11y ago
Yup, I have. I've fasted for almost 2 full days and felt fine. When I finished my fast I had some water and small snacks and then later had a larger meal—my throat is usually a bit dry and it can hurt jumping into a big meal. I find when I fast that my mind is more alert and I'm more efficient too. I've grown up as a Mormon though so since I was a teenager I had usually fasted at least once a month for two meals so maybe I'm more used to it than most people would be. Also, I'm naturally quite thin so that probably has something to do with it too.
heimatau 11y ago
The first three days of 24 hour day fasts are (:edited:) mostly painful. Headaches, migraines, agitation, etc. They are not fun nor for the faint of heart. I'd suggest a five day, if you body can allow it. Days four through ten can be the most rewarding. This is all based on personal experience/opinion.
- spiritplumber 11y ago
  The longest I've gone without eating was three days... it's liveable, but I can't get anything done! Can't code, can't solder, can't do circuit design....
  - heimatau 11y ago
    Taking a rest from eating...can be invigorating. That's been my experience. But don't force it. I find that I need to be prepared mentally and adjust my days to read more and do less physically demanding tasks, that is if I'm going on longer fasts.
- vlasev 11y ago
  One thing to keep in mind is that you need to drink lots of water during that time because you'll be using your fat deposits and you need water to process the fat.
- __z 11y ago
  Detoxing from what? Personally, my liver and kidneys pretty well no matter what I am eating (or not).
  - heimatau 11y ago
    Your body is digesting food that remained in your intestines and also fat deposits. Toxins are in the fat and removing undigested food can have a liberating affect.
    - deleted 11y ago
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kristopolous 11y ago
I believe there's some consensus that eating closer to the time you wake is more advisable then closer to the time you sleep - all other things being equal.
- lsniddy 11y ago
  check out the warrior diet, similar to an ironman sleep cycle in its extremity. One massive meal a day at night. http://www.warriordiet.com/ http://www.warriordiet.com/
  - shard 11y ago
    So to the first order the warrior diet is the Ultra Slim Fast diet? "Have a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a sensible dinner"
- mod 11y ago
  More advisable for what intended result?
rlucas 11y ago
You've got to get past about 36 hours before your body / brain stop acting so "berserk." After that, you stop being hungry and you can look at food with relative equanimity.
- aviv 11y ago
  I agree. Earlier this year I fasted for 23 days (consuming only water) and the hunger and desire to eat went away after the third or forth day. The need to eat was replaced by a burst of energy that lasted for the remainder of the fast and several weeks after.
  - justinpaulson 11y ago
    Did you find that you got light-headed when you stood up too fast after 14 or so days? I fasted for 25 days (water) and found that I would get a little bit light-headed if I stood up from a seated position too fast. I also found that I would have these weird nightmares where i was eating a ton of food and would wake up thinking I had ruined my fast...very bizarre. I have never talked personally to anyone that had also fasted longer than a week, so I was interested if your experiences mirrored mine and if you found any way to reduce that light-headed seeing stars kind of feeling when you stood up. Other than that, I'd say I didn't notice many other issues except for maybe a quicker onset of fatigue if I was climbing a flight of stairs or something.
    - aviv 11y ago
      Not so much, no. I did attempt to paint a wall around day 16 I think and didn't feel comfortable looking up while standing on the ladder so decided to put it off until I ended the fast. Other than that I felt as normal as can be during the entire fast, although I couldn't get myself to stay up very late and so my evenings would end around 9pm. I didn't have nightmares but I do remember that my dreams during the fast were incredibly vivid. I never imagined such dreams were possible and it's one of the things I miss most since ending the fast.
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Fiahil 11y ago
It happened to me several times in the past, when I was so focused on what I was coding/debugging, that I forgot to eat multiple times in a row. Now, when I don't want to be disturbed by a growling stomach, I usually give him an apple just to keep him busy.
- mkempe 11y ago
  During my v.early coding years I would often go, esily, through a couple of days without eating, and little sleep. Decades later, I'm married with kids -- they complain if I don't join them to eat.
antisuji 11y ago
I've been fasting one day a week (24h and recently closer to 36h) for a little over a year now. The first few times were hard to get through, and at first I experienced the next-day binge you describe. The worst part was having trouble sleeping through the second night of a longer fast. After a few repetitions I got used to it. I don't feel like stuffing myself the next day. The hunger during fasting is still there, but it's much easier to deal with now. And sleeping during a longer fast is starting to feel easier now that I do that more consistently. So you might want to try again once or twice and let your body adjust. Or not—ultimately you have to find something that works for you.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Weirdly, after 24 hours, I am the opposite of ready to binge-eat. I feel hungry, but I'm also very quickly satiated. The revelation for me was after my second accidental 24hr fast, before doing anything deliberate with my eating schedule. I had skipped lunch the previous day, and then household drama prevented me from eating dinner. The next day, we had a team dinner set up at Publican in Chicago, which is hugely a metric fuckload of calories, and so I skipped lunch that day as well. I was pretty hungry when we got to the restaurant but found myself too full to eat pretty quickly, much more quickly than when I'd been eating on a more "normal" schedule. I also find that on an IF-y schedule, I'm a little hungry at 2PM; I eat a couple eggs, and then I am basically never hungry at any other time. I still eat dinner, but mostly because we cook for the family. A fringe benefit of this lightweight pseudo-fasting schedule is that it's very easy to control macronutrients. I haven't eaten in 18 hours, so I'm eating because I legitimately should be eating, and so almost anything works for me; I don't find it at all difficult to opt for proteins and fats over carbs, which is challenging on the "normal" schedule. Basically: the "normal" eating schedule is, in my case, just dumb.
- gituliar 11y ago
  One year is a quite long period; do you see some noticable changes since you started to fast: wieght loss, more/less active, etc?
ak1394 11y ago
I've been doing 5:2 style diet since March. I absolutely love it. Going through the day not eating is relatively easy for me, and for the rest of the week I don't have to care what, when or how much I eat. So far I lost about 5kg.
- gituliar 11y ago
  What 5:2 stands for: 2 days of fasting per week? If so, what days do you fast at?
  - js2 11y ago
    You can pick any 2 non-consecutive days, and they aren't actually full fast days. You just limit to 500-600 calories on those days. http://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day/ http://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day...
    - excentrida 11y ago
      5:2 fits my lifestyle perfectly )
- fineline 11y ago
  +1 for 5:2, been on it all this year. Feels good to assert some discipline around eating, toughens up body and mind. Plus I'm now 6 months older than I was to start with, which proves that it extends life, right?
tptacek 11y ago
Yes. For the last year, I've been eating 1-2 meals a day in a 2PM-8PM window, which is something I started doing after accidentally fasting 24+ hours a couple times and realizing that it wasn't that big a deal. I can get a full 24 hour fast simply by holding off until 8PM for dinner, which I do sometimes too. I definitely don't get berzerk-mode hungry after 24 hours.
- redmaverick 11y ago
  Did it have any impact on your ability to do a good days work? Were you more focused? I wouldn't mind fasting if it makes me more focused and productive.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Meh, I mean, apart from never being distracted by wanting a snack anymore.
  - spydum 11y ago
    I dunno about parent, but I find skipping lunch and maybe just having a very small snack does tons for my productivity.. The swing in blood sugar after lunch makes a noticeable dent in my work output quality and volume. It also usually means I am hungry by 5pm giving me even more incentive to stop working "on time" and be available for my family. Then on top of that, I am not eating so late that my sleep quality is poor.
ams6110 11y ago
I recently did a 3-day fast. It wasn't too bad. I fact I thought I would be ravenously hungry at the end of the 72 hours but I just ate a normal meal and it was fine. I can't say I felt any better after the fast. I had lost a few pounds but nothing else noticable. One problem that people might have with fasting and then wanting to binge is that the starchy, sugary diet that the USDA and FDA have been promoting as "healthy" for the last four decades is actually the opposite. The food pyramid is pretty much upside-down. If your diet is mostly simple carbohydrates, they metabolize quickly and leave you hungry for more. If you eat a diet richer in fats and proteins and leafy vegetables your appetite is slaked for a much longer time. The idea that intermittent fasting is healthy makes sense to me. Prior to the last few hundred years, certainly prior to the last few thousand years, our hunter-gatherer ancestors probably routinely went without food for a few days at a time. Our metabolism would have evolved to operate optimally with that.
- themartorana 11y ago
  If stupid food scientists would make stupid kale taste as good as yummy chocolate cake I would eat more of it. Seriously though, despite the obvious health benefits, sometimes I can't get the good stuff to be nearly as satisfying as the bad stuff. I wish sugar wasn't so damn addictive. Food is the issue I'm most embarrassed about. I'm not obese, but I'm not svelte either. Self-control is easy right up until the second it isn't, and everything else in this world seems easy to control against my daily fight with food.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Agreed... I downright get cravings for pasta and bread... though the really sweet stuff (candy), not nearly as much after a while without.
  - digisign 11y ago
    Recognize it for the drug it is, and keep it out of the house. A steak and big salad slathered in olive oil can be even more satifying. Give your self some fun and walk for an ice cream on the weekend, or pasta, whatever. But think of it as the same as going out for a beer, because thats what it is. As you can see, swilling down alcohol three times a day is not a recipe for good health. Theres a great video where a doc explains that fructose has most of the same negative side effects as alcohol, just without the buzz. Maybe we need to start up a Carboholics anonymous?
diet_poop 11y ago
It is _really_ important to bookend a fast with healthy food. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables the days leading up to and following a fast will leave you feeling a ton better. And for those pursuing longer fasts: day 3 is when most people turn a corner and the hunger is no longer horrible. I haven't gone that far, but am planning on it soon. And I've been told there are some remarkable physiological and psychological cleansing process that kick in on day 3. They say you become hyper-alert, clear-headed, and focused.
- __z 11y ago
  I have a lot of experience fasting. All the stuff that you mention is complete BS. Theres always hunger and no hyper-alert focused BS.
  - VeejayRampay 11y ago
    Please don't do that. If you're going to come here and engage in a debate/conversation with someone, try to be civil and avoid resorting to words like "complete BS" and an overall aggressive tone. You'd convey the exact same idea with "There's no scientific evidence for the phenomenons you report and as with someone with experience fasting, I haven't ever experienced it" and it wouldn't create an atmosphere of unneeded conflict that is detrimental to the community.
    - __z 11y ago
      I don't know about the science, nor do I care, I am speaking of my own experiences. Experiences other than "I never felt hungry and I had nothing but energy after a couple of days" are discounted and hidden when speaking about fasting by the people who support it. It has taken a life of its own and spoken as fact. Other experiences need to be heard too and we need to acknowledge there is a wide range of people who have a wide range of experiences and people can have different reactions and that's ok. The ones who don't have such experiences need to be welcomed too. People do speak a lot of BS when it comes to fasting. I guess my comment was more of a reaction from being attacked for my experiences fasting, not here but elsewhere. That's why I no longer spend time those places. It did come out wrong in retrospect and reactionary.
tracker1 11y ago
I tend to get that to a smaller degree if I don't eat something mid-afternoon... even an apple, or 1/4 cup of nuts is enough to notice a difference in what/how much I eat at dinner. I tend to be pretty sated after lunch, and will usually continue working until well after 6pm, when I start to get hungry again... I pretty much have to force myself to have something around 2 or 3pm, and it cuts the cravings way down. I also notice that when I watch TV in the evenings (even without commercials), I tend to eat a bit more, and randomly.
brown-dragon 11y ago
I have always heard that skipping breakfast is bad while eating a small dinner is good[1]. Isn't this diet doing the exact opposite? [1]: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/128/4/337.abstract?sid=6c59e2d9-c6a9-44be-bd09-79d7ec32595b http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/128/4/337.abstract?sid=6...
- eru 11y ago
  Wasn't that just a myth created by the breakfast cereals industry?
- Banoffee 11y ago
  http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debun... See number 7.
  - brown-dragon 11y ago
    The blog post makes interesting points but it's just an argument without data. Studies like this one[1] seem to show that skipping breakfast and eating late do correlate with negative outcomes. [1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/07/23/why-is-skipping-breakfast-so-bad-for-our-heart-health/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/07/23/why-is-s...
ux-app 11y ago
> Has anyone here actually ever TRIED fasting a full 24h day? I've been IF throughout the past 8 months. It's by far the best way of losing weight I've found (10kg in 8 months). I'm planning on doing more fasting this month to lose another 2-3kg which will get me to my goal weight. The longest stretch for me has been 5 days. It's hard for me to describe how I go longish periods(some go for a month+), but essentially it is a 100% mental effort. I visualise my hunger as a switch which I turn off. When the switch is off I am immune to hunger. It sounds ridiculous but this kind of visual imagery works for me. I've tried going into a fast without first spending about half a day "tuning" my brain via visualisation and it was a disaster, just as you describe. For me fasting has by far been the best (easiest, most effective) way of losing weight. Before this I spent about 3 months cardio training with only minimal dietary intervention which resulted in huge muscle tone in my legs (had a work colleague once remark : "dude! your calves are fricking huge!") and no noticeable abdominal fat loss. Throughout my fasting I've also been weight training. The results at the 3 month mark are unbelievably cool :)
- usaphp 11y ago
  By losing weight you mean losing fat or mostly muscles? I know that if are already in good shape then you mostly lose muscles not fat first.
  - ux-app 11y ago
    The majority of the weight loss has been fat. I've put on a considerable amount of muscle since Christmas 2014 and the scales show me at 10kg lighter.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    From experience bulking and cutting during 10+ years of power lifting, it's fairly hard to lose muscle during short term low calorie diets. It will appear as if you lose muscle as you will flush fluids out of your muscles very early on, and unless you're very lean to start with it's not obvious that this isn't muscle loss. You will also often appear to be weaker - e.g. I don't hit my 1 rep max when I'm not on a protein heavy diet with a calorie surplus. If I ate badly the day before exercise, I simply do not manage to push myself to my limits. There's no way I've then lost muscle to cause that (if I had, I wouldn't be back to normal next workout with a stricter diet). When I'm cutting that effect is much stronger. Couple fluid loss and feeling weaker, and it's natural that people assume they've lost lots of muscle, but it takes quite a while or quite extreme deficits before you actually lose enough to notice. (Even then, training back up again is much easier than the first time)
digisign 11y ago
Wouldnt it be better to have a lunch instead? That way the body has a chance to use excess energy before storing as fat for the night.
- eru 11y ago
  Not sure our bodies work that way.
fezz 11y ago
I've done 3, 5, 11 and 20 day fasts. The first 3 days are the hardest but once you get over that hump it's pretty easy. The senses heighten and you become very alert (when you're not napping). I haven't done it in a while because you need to free to nap whenever you feel like it.
- abrookewood 11y ago
  What type of fasting did you do? I've done 5 day water fasts before, but I don't know how comfortable I would feel extending that to 11 or 20 days!
  - fezz 11y ago
    Water and tea.
- deleted 11y ago
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mipapage 11y ago
I fasted for 14 days a few years back. Once you get past the first day or two its easier. When you do this you re-learn what hungry is, and I found that what I thought was hunger was just desire in many cases.
abrookewood 11y ago
I just finished a 4 day water fast. I've done 3-4 days a few times over the last few years and they all seem to follow the same pattern for me at least: Day 1 is really hard (all I can think about is food and the hunger is intense); Day 2 is less so; Day 3 involves diarrhoea & a few stomach cramps; Day 4 is fine and usually makes me think of going further. I tend to lose 1Kg a day and feel pretty damn good afterwards. While fasting, I'll drink a lot of tea (usually herbal, sometimes black tea with milk) and a reasonable amount of water (sometimes with a pinch of salt [not sure if this is necessary or not] and lime for flavour). Purely anecdotal of course, but I've noticed that it seems to help with some health conditions seem to improve afterwards. YMMV. EDIT: I forgot to mention that on night 3 & 4 I tend to get insomnia a bit. Nothing unpleasant, it's more like I am awake enough not to sleep, rather than really tired and unable to sleep.
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>Has anyone here actually ever TRIED fasting a full 24h day? I have. I HATED it. Well, the fasting itself wasn't that bad, however, the next day my body went FULL berserk mode and I literally couldn't stop myself from eating. It was really weird and I never had such strong biological urges. That's when I decided I'd just stick to fasting until 5 pm when I eat diner. Yeah, Yom Kippur fucking sucks. Every damn year.
ljk 11y ago
do you work out? I'd imagine working out while being hungry can't be good?

teach 11y ago

Just for the record, skipping breakfast + lunch has nothing whatsoever to do with fasting. It's not even remotely similar in terms of how your body reacts to it. And as others have commented yes there are many of us who have fasted for days at a time for religious reasons.

greensoap 11y ago
He said intermittent fasting. IF is basically what he described. 16 hours of no eating with an 8 hour window where you eat. I think some people take it farther--20 hours of fasting (water permitted) followed by caloric intake for four hours.
- __z 11y ago
  IF includes a lot of different eating schedules - Eating for 5 days a week and fasting for 2 is a common practice too. When I did IF I fasted every 4 days.
__z 11y ago
Fasting means abstaining from food for a period of time. Breakfast is called breakfast because you fast while you sleep and break the fast with breakfast so break-fast. Sure a 24 hr fast isn't a multi day fast but that doesn't mean it isn't a fast. 24 hr fasts are a commom intermittent fasting schedule. Religious practices that are called fasting last less than several days. When my doctor wants me in the fasted state (bloodwork/surgery) they say no food for 8-12 hrs. Saying short fasts have "nothing to do with fasting" is totally untrue.
tptacek 11y ago
"Skipping breakfast and lunch" is a pretty reasonable way to summarize "intermittent fasting". I don't know how credible "IF" is scientifically, but lots of people use the word "fasting" to describe it. What's the number of hours you're calling the threshold for "fasting"? I assume it's some high number, like 24-48 ("skipping breakfast and lunch" gets you past 16). Can you cite a source for the stark metabolic difference you're implying?
robbiep 11y ago
Biochemically, once you have not consumed anything for around 12 hours you are fasting (ie your liver is out of sugar and you are shifting to ketosis). So really it depends on your definition of fast, but scientifically skipping breakfast pushes you to the definition.

swsieber 11y ago

Yes. My religion teaches it (along with some other healthy things). It was actually reiterated very recently (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/is-not-this-the-fast-that-i-have-chosen?lang=eng https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/is-not-this-t...). The emphasis is much less on the health benefits but they are none-the-less talked about from time to time. I think part of it that doing it a couple of times help reduce the extreme biological need. Also, when did you finish your fast? Dinner (5pm - 5pm) seems to be a good way to do it. Break it by drinking a lot of water to start. Edit: I also find myself eating (snacking) less the next couple of days because I'm used to holding back.

nitrogen 11y ago
Be careful not to assume that all of a group's practices are healthy just because one practice happens to be healthy. Also be careful not to assume that such a practice being healthy means that all of the group's claims are valid. As a meta note, in general, it's probably bad form to bring up religion on HN in unrelated threads, especially in a subtly proselytizing way.
- tracker1 11y ago
  I think that a lot of dietary traditions can be rooted in some level of observational benefit... for instance pigs are one of the few animals that can cross-carry viruses between humans and other species, and a lot of mutation happens in them. Not that all things are necessarily proven out, but a lot of them are. Though, I do think there are also a lot of logical fallacies propagated as "faith". Just the same, I don't think it's worse than what a lot of commercial industries, or interest groups propagate. Look how long it's taking to get past the "fat == bad, lowfat == good" mindset that really took hold in the 80's.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    No doubt good and bad ideas can be found in all places, and some portion of religious and cultural superstitions may be emergent (or deliberate) results of real phenomena (e.g. avoiding pork because the last guy you saw eat pork got sick). Fortunately we now have science, which basically amounts to a hill climbing algorithm for identifying valid and rejecting invalid ideas over time. I'll note that I was once extremely active in the same community mentioned in the comment to which I replied, so I do have experience on both sides of the aisle.

jeremyw 11y ago

It helps if you're already in ketosis (on a ketogenic diet), so you don't pay physical switching costs (day 2 and 3 are hardest). I can drop meals or whole days without much body-grumbling, as is the common experience. And you must feed electrolytes like you mean it. 5g sodium, 3g potassium, mag+calcium if you need it, attenuate for size.

abrookewood 11y ago
Do you have any references for the electrolyte requirements? I just add a small amount of salt to the water I was drinking during a fast, but never had any idea how much I should or whether I should ...

dorian-graph 11y ago

Yup, I have. I've fasted for almost 2 full days and felt fine. When I finished my fast I had some water and small snacks and then later had a larger meal—my throat is usually a bit dry and it can hurt jumping into a big meal. I find when I fast that my mind is more alert and I'm more efficient too. I've grown up as a Mormon though so since I was a teenager I had usually fasted at least once a month for two meals so maybe I'm more used to it than most people would be. Also, I'm naturally quite thin so that probably has something to do with it too.

heimatau 11y ago

The first three days of 24 hour day fasts are (:edited:) mostly painful. Headaches, migraines, agitation, etc. They are not fun nor for the faint of heart. I'd suggest a five day, if you body can allow it. Days four through ten can be the most rewarding. This is all based on personal experience/opinion.

spiritplumber 11y ago
The longest I've gone without eating was three days... it's liveable, but I can't get anything done! Can't code, can't solder, can't do circuit design....
- heimatau 11y ago
  Taking a rest from eating...can be invigorating. That's been my experience. But don't force it. I find that I need to be prepared mentally and adjust my days to read more and do less physically demanding tasks, that is if I'm going on longer fasts.
vlasev 11y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that you need to drink lots of water during that time because you'll be using your fat deposits and you need water to process the fat.
__z 11y ago
Detoxing from what? Personally, my liver and kidneys pretty well no matter what I am eating (or not).
- heimatau 11y ago
  Your body is digesting food that remained in your intestines and also fat deposits. Toxins are in the fat and removing undigested food can have a liberating affect.
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kristopolous 11y ago

I believe there's some consensus that eating closer to the time you wake is more advisable then closer to the time you sleep - all other things being equal.

lsniddy 11y ago
check out the warrior diet, similar to an ironman sleep cycle in its extremity. One massive meal a day at night. http://www.warriordiet.com/ http://www.warriordiet.com/
- shard 11y ago
  So to the first order the warrior diet is the Ultra Slim Fast diet? "Have a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a sensible dinner"
mod 11y ago
More advisable for what intended result?

rlucas 11y ago

You've got to get past about 36 hours before your body / brain stop acting so "berserk." After that, you stop being hungry and you can look at food with relative equanimity.

aviv 11y ago
I agree. Earlier this year I fasted for 23 days (consuming only water) and the hunger and desire to eat went away after the third or forth day. The need to eat was replaced by a burst of energy that lasted for the remainder of the fast and several weeks after.
- justinpaulson 11y ago
  Did you find that you got light-headed when you stood up too fast after 14 or so days? I fasted for 25 days (water) and found that I would get a little bit light-headed if I stood up from a seated position too fast. I also found that I would have these weird nightmares where i was eating a ton of food and would wake up thinking I had ruined my fast...very bizarre. I have never talked personally to anyone that had also fasted longer than a week, so I was interested if your experiences mirrored mine and if you found any way to reduce that light-headed seeing stars kind of feeling when you stood up. Other than that, I'd say I didn't notice many other issues except for maybe a quicker onset of fatigue if I was climbing a flight of stairs or something.
  - aviv 11y ago
    Not so much, no. I did attempt to paint a wall around day 16 I think and didn't feel comfortable looking up while standing on the ladder so decided to put it off until I ended the fast. Other than that I felt as normal as can be during the entire fast, although I couldn't get myself to stay up very late and so my evenings would end around 9pm. I didn't have nightmares but I do remember that my dreams during the fast were incredibly vivid. I never imagined such dreams were possible and it's one of the things I miss most since ending the fast.
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Fiahil 11y ago

It happened to me several times in the past, when I was so focused on what I was coding/debugging, that I forgot to eat multiple times in a row. Now, when I don't want to be disturbed by a growling stomach, I usually give him an apple just to keep him busy.

mkempe 11y ago
During my v.early coding years I would often go, esily, through a couple of days without eating, and little sleep. Decades later, I'm married with kids -- they complain if I don't join them to eat.

antisuji 11y ago

I've been fasting one day a week (24h and recently closer to 36h) for a little over a year now. The first few times were hard to get through, and at first I experienced the next-day binge you describe. The worst part was having trouble sleeping through the second night of a longer fast. After a few repetitions I got used to it. I don't feel like stuffing myself the next day. The hunger during fasting is still there, but it's much easier to deal with now. And sleeping during a longer fast is starting to feel easier now that I do that more consistently. So you might want to try again once or twice and let your body adjust. Or not—ultimately you have to find something that works for you.

tptacek 11y ago
Weirdly, after 24 hours, I am the opposite of ready to binge-eat. I feel hungry, but I'm also very quickly satiated. The revelation for me was after my second accidental 24hr fast, before doing anything deliberate with my eating schedule. I had skipped lunch the previous day, and then household drama prevented me from eating dinner. The next day, we had a team dinner set up at Publican in Chicago, which is hugely a metric fuckload of calories, and so I skipped lunch that day as well. I was pretty hungry when we got to the restaurant but found myself too full to eat pretty quickly, much more quickly than when I'd been eating on a more "normal" schedule. I also find that on an IF-y schedule, I'm a little hungry at 2PM; I eat a couple eggs, and then I am basically never hungry at any other time. I still eat dinner, but mostly because we cook for the family. A fringe benefit of this lightweight pseudo-fasting schedule is that it's very easy to control macronutrients. I haven't eaten in 18 hours, so I'm eating because I legitimately should be eating, and so almost anything works for me; I don't find it at all difficult to opt for proteins and fats over carbs, which is challenging on the "normal" schedule. Basically: the "normal" eating schedule is, in my case, just dumb.
gituliar 11y ago
One year is a quite long period; do you see some noticable changes since you started to fast: wieght loss, more/less active, etc?

ak1394 11y ago

I've been doing 5:2 style diet since March. I absolutely love it. Going through the day not eating is relatively easy for me, and for the rest of the week I don't have to care what, when or how much I eat. So far I lost about 5kg.

gituliar 11y ago
What 5:2 stands for: 2 days of fasting per week? If so, what days do you fast at?
- js2 11y ago
  You can pick any 2 non-consecutive days, and they aren't actually full fast days. You just limit to 500-600 calories on those days. http://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day/ http://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day...
  - excentrida 11y ago
    5:2 fits my lifestyle perfectly )
fineline 11y ago
+1 for 5:2, been on it all this year. Feels good to assert some discipline around eating, toughens up body and mind. Plus I'm now 6 months older than I was to start with, which proves that it extends life, right?

tptacek 11y ago

Yes. For the last year, I've been eating 1-2 meals a day in a 2PM-8PM window, which is something I started doing after accidentally fasting 24+ hours a couple times and realizing that it wasn't that big a deal. I can get a full 24 hour fast simply by holding off until 8PM for dinner, which I do sometimes too. I definitely don't get berzerk-mode hungry after 24 hours.

redmaverick 11y ago
Did it have any impact on your ability to do a good days work? Were you more focused? I wouldn't mind fasting if it makes me more focused and productive.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Meh, I mean, apart from never being distracted by wanting a snack anymore.
- spydum 11y ago
  I dunno about parent, but I find skipping lunch and maybe just having a very small snack does tons for my productivity.. The swing in blood sugar after lunch makes a noticeable dent in my work output quality and volume. It also usually means I am hungry by 5pm giving me even more incentive to stop working "on time" and be available for my family. Then on top of that, I am not eating so late that my sleep quality is poor.

ams6110 11y ago

I recently did a 3-day fast. It wasn't too bad. I fact I thought I would be ravenously hungry at the end of the 72 hours but I just ate a normal meal and it was fine. I can't say I felt any better after the fast. I had lost a few pounds but nothing else noticable. One problem that people might have with fasting and then wanting to binge is that the starchy, sugary diet that the USDA and FDA have been promoting as "healthy" for the last four decades is actually the opposite. The food pyramid is pretty much upside-down. If your diet is mostly simple carbohydrates, they metabolize quickly and leave you hungry for more. If you eat a diet richer in fats and proteins and leafy vegetables your appetite is slaked for a much longer time. The idea that intermittent fasting is healthy makes sense to me. Prior to the last few hundred years, certainly prior to the last few thousand years, our hunter-gatherer ancestors probably routinely went without food for a few days at a time. Our metabolism would have evolved to operate optimally with that.

themartorana 11y ago
If stupid food scientists would make stupid kale taste as good as yummy chocolate cake I would eat more of it. Seriously though, despite the obvious health benefits, sometimes I can't get the good stuff to be nearly as satisfying as the bad stuff. I wish sugar wasn't so damn addictive. Food is the issue I'm most embarrassed about. I'm not obese, but I'm not svelte either. Self-control is easy right up until the second it isn't, and everything else in this world seems easy to control against my daily fight with food.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Agreed... I downright get cravings for pasta and bread... though the really sweet stuff (candy), not nearly as much after a while without.
- digisign 11y ago
  Recognize it for the drug it is, and keep it out of the house. A steak and big salad slathered in olive oil can be even more satifying. Give your self some fun and walk for an ice cream on the weekend, or pasta, whatever. But think of it as the same as going out for a beer, because thats what it is. As you can see, swilling down alcohol three times a day is not a recipe for good health. Theres a great video where a doc explains that fructose has most of the same negative side effects as alcohol, just without the buzz. Maybe we need to start up a Carboholics anonymous?

diet_poop 11y ago

It is _really_ important to bookend a fast with healthy food. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables the days leading up to and following a fast will leave you feeling a ton better. And for those pursuing longer fasts: day 3 is when most people turn a corner and the hunger is no longer horrible. I haven't gone that far, but am planning on it soon. And I've been told there are some remarkable physiological and psychological cleansing process that kick in on day 3. They say you become hyper-alert, clear-headed, and focused.

__z 11y ago
I have a lot of experience fasting. All the stuff that you mention is complete BS. Theres always hunger and no hyper-alert focused BS.
- VeejayRampay 11y ago
  Please don't do that. If you're going to come here and engage in a debate/conversation with someone, try to be civil and avoid resorting to words like "complete BS" and an overall aggressive tone. You'd convey the exact same idea with "There's no scientific evidence for the phenomenons you report and as with someone with experience fasting, I haven't ever experienced it" and it wouldn't create an atmosphere of unneeded conflict that is detrimental to the community.
  - __z 11y ago
    I don't know about the science, nor do I care, I am speaking of my own experiences. Experiences other than "I never felt hungry and I had nothing but energy after a couple of days" are discounted and hidden when speaking about fasting by the people who support it. It has taken a life of its own and spoken as fact. Other experiences need to be heard too and we need to acknowledge there is a wide range of people who have a wide range of experiences and people can have different reactions and that's ok. The ones who don't have such experiences need to be welcomed too. People do speak a lot of BS when it comes to fasting. I guess my comment was more of a reaction from being attacked for my experiences fasting, not here but elsewhere. That's why I no longer spend time those places. It did come out wrong in retrospect and reactionary.

tracker1 11y ago

I tend to get that to a smaller degree if I don't eat something mid-afternoon... even an apple, or 1/4 cup of nuts is enough to notice a difference in what/how much I eat at dinner. I tend to be pretty sated after lunch, and will usually continue working until well after 6pm, when I start to get hungry again... I pretty much have to force myself to have something around 2 or 3pm, and it cuts the cravings way down. I also notice that when I watch TV in the evenings (even without commercials), I tend to eat a bit more, and randomly.

brown-dragon 11y ago

I have always heard that skipping breakfast is bad while eating a small dinner is good[1]. Isn't this diet doing the exact opposite? [1]: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/128/4/337.abstract?sid=6c59e2d9-c6a9-44be-bd09-79d7ec32595b http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/128/4/337.abstract?sid=6...

eru 11y ago
Wasn't that just a myth created by the breakfast cereals industry?
Banoffee 11y ago
http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debun... See number 7.
- brown-dragon 11y ago
  The blog post makes interesting points but it's just an argument without data. Studies like this one[1] seem to show that skipping breakfast and eating late do correlate with negative outcomes. [1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/07/23/why-is-skipping-breakfast-so-bad-for-our-heart-health/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/07/23/why-is-s...

ux-app 11y ago

> Has anyone here actually ever TRIED fasting a full 24h day? I've been IF throughout the past 8 months. It's by far the best way of losing weight I've found (10kg in 8 months). I'm planning on doing more fasting this month to lose another 2-3kg which will get me to my goal weight. The longest stretch for me has been 5 days. It's hard for me to describe how I go longish periods(some go for a month+), but essentially it is a 100% mental effort. I visualise my hunger as a switch which I turn off. When the switch is off I am immune to hunger. It sounds ridiculous but this kind of visual imagery works for me. I've tried going into a fast without first spending about half a day "tuning" my brain via visualisation and it was a disaster, just as you describe. For me fasting has by far been the best (easiest, most effective) way of losing weight. Before this I spent about 3 months cardio training with only minimal dietary intervention which resulted in huge muscle tone in my legs (had a work colleague once remark : "dude! your calves are fricking huge!") and no noticeable abdominal fat loss. Throughout my fasting I've also been weight training. The results at the 3 month mark are unbelievably cool :)

usaphp 11y ago
By losing weight you mean losing fat or mostly muscles? I know that if are already in good shape then you mostly lose muscles not fat first.
- ux-app 11y ago
  The majority of the weight loss has been fat. I've put on a considerable amount of muscle since Christmas 2014 and the scales show me at 10kg lighter.
- vidarh 11y ago
  From experience bulking and cutting during 10+ years of power lifting, it's fairly hard to lose muscle during short term low calorie diets. It will appear as if you lose muscle as you will flush fluids out of your muscles very early on, and unless you're very lean to start with it's not obvious that this isn't muscle loss. You will also often appear to be weaker - e.g. I don't hit my 1 rep max when I'm not on a protein heavy diet with a calorie surplus. If I ate badly the day before exercise, I simply do not manage to push myself to my limits. There's no way I've then lost muscle to cause that (if I had, I wouldn't be back to normal next workout with a stricter diet). When I'm cutting that effect is much stronger. Couple fluid loss and feeling weaker, and it's natural that people assume they've lost lots of muscle, but it takes quite a while or quite extreme deficits before you actually lose enough to notice. (Even then, training back up again is much easier than the first time)

digisign 11y ago

Wouldnt it be better to have a lunch instead? That way the body has a chance to use excess energy before storing as fat for the night.

eru 11y ago
Not sure our bodies work that way.

fezz 11y ago

I've done 3, 5, 11 and 20 day fasts. The first 3 days are the hardest but once you get over that hump it's pretty easy. The senses heighten and you become very alert (when you're not napping). I haven't done it in a while because you need to free to nap whenever you feel like it.

abrookewood 11y ago
What type of fasting did you do? I've done 5 day water fasts before, but I don't know how comfortable I would feel extending that to 11 or 20 days!
- fezz 11y ago
  Water and tea.
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mipapage 11y ago

I fasted for 14 days a few years back. Once you get past the first day or two its easier. When you do this you re-learn what hungry is, and I found that what I thought was hunger was just desire in many cases.

abrookewood 11y ago

I just finished a 4 day water fast. I've done 3-4 days a few times over the last few years and they all seem to follow the same pattern for me at least: Day 1 is really hard (all I can think about is food and the hunger is intense); Day 2 is less so; Day 3 involves diarrhoea & a few stomach cramps; Day 4 is fine and usually makes me think of going further. I tend to lose 1Kg a day and feel pretty damn good afterwards. While fasting, I'll drink a lot of tea (usually herbal, sometimes black tea with milk) and a reasonable amount of water (sometimes with a pinch of salt [not sure if this is necessary or not] and lime for flavour). Purely anecdotal of course, but I've noticed that it seems to help with some health conditions seem to improve afterwards. YMMV. EDIT: I forgot to mention that on night 3 & 4 I tend to get insomnia a bit. Nothing unpleasant, it's more like I am awake enough not to sleep, rather than really tired and unable to sleep.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago

>Has anyone here actually ever TRIED fasting a full 24h day? I have. I HATED it. Well, the fasting itself wasn't that bad, however, the next day my body went FULL berserk mode and I literally couldn't stop myself from eating. It was really weird and I never had such strong biological urges. That's when I decided I'd just stick to fasting until 5 pm when I eat diner. Yeah, Yom Kippur fucking sucks. Every damn year.

ljk 11y ago

do you work out? I'd imagine working out while being hungry can't be good?