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What Hacker News says
- I have been intermittent fasting (one to two 24 hour periods a week) for several months and have lost fat and increased muscle mass with really no negative side effects. The key is to lift weights to prevent muscle loss and to eat reasonably balanced diets (and enough calories) on non fasting-days. “Eat Stop Eat” has a good overview of the science behind it all (I have no association with the author)
- Research has shown metabolism doesn't have the affect on weight loss as many believe it to have. Case in point, weight loss can be achieved eating 1 big meal a day vs. 6 smaller meals a day (where the latter is often hyped b/c it "revs" your metabolism). Your body adjusts.
The true formula for weight loss is simple and well understood: consume less calories than your body requires. When you create a caloric deficit, you'll drop weight, certainly. Focusing on metabolism is a red herring.
What's more, is that your body doesn't care how the deficit is achieved. I'm eating fast food, sweets, and consuming diet soda more often then when I was a "healthy" eater ... you wouldn't guess that I've since dropped 30 lbs. All while getting stronger, and only eating 1 - 2 meals a day. Who cares what my metabolism is, or what I'm eating? The bottom line is that I'm consuming amounts that adhere to a caloric deficit, so I'm leaning down.
So for weight loss, how much you eat will always trump what you eat. Consuming more calories than your body needs will always lead to weight gain, even if they're "clean" calories that come from lean meats and veggies.
I'd encourage you to read Eat Stop Eat: http://www.eatstopeat.com/ (warning, the site looks spammy, but you won't be dissatisfied w/the book)
It's a great read on intermittent fasting that presents a lot of research that debunks metabolism and other hype factors the fitness industry relies on to complicate how simple weight loss really is.
- I think it's probably a combination of the knowledge that extreme fasting is dangerous and the myth that your metabolism plummets as soon as you skip a meal.
When I was in middle school, I remember my friend's older sister being on some kind of snack diet that was supposed to keep metabolism high by never going more than an hour or so without food when not sleeping.
I seem to remember Brad Pilon in "Eat Stop Eat" briefly mentioning the origin of the myth that your metabolism tanks rapidly if you skip a meal, but I could be wrong.
I do intermittent fasting myself, and it drives me a little crazy when my wife tries to convince me that it's bad for my health to skip dinner once in a while on one of my non-fast days.
- Many people have found success using similar methods popularized by Martin Berkhan’s Leangains or Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat. So anecdotally, efficacy isn't just limited to Rats (although I don't know the state of controlled studies in humans).
It’s interesting watching these intermittent fasting styles grow from niche body building communities to general population. It seems to be a great heuristic based way of keeping overall food intake under control.
- You forgot to mention vague references to "toxins" and "detox" as well as anecdotal feelings of mild euphoria (edit: or subjectively elevated mood following/compared to a reduced baseline mood induced by initial hunger) given as evidence of health benefits.
I have read Eat Stop Eat, and do a 24-hour water/coffee/tea fast once a week. I had my annual medical exam recently, and I mentioned to the nutritionist that I fast once a week. Her response wasn't positive or negative, just "you can fast if you like, but no longer than 24 hours, and don't let your hunger cause you to over-eat following the fast". The health benefits of my weekly fasting are probably not as great as I think. We'll see how my blood chemistry has changed from my last physical.
- > > our bodies are designed for scarcity
> This is something that's been forgotten in many countries ...
This requires either a Biblical citation (substitute your religious text of choice) or (preferably) citations from peer-reviewed journals.
I've read Eat Stop Eat and do a 24-hour water/coffee/tea fast once a week, but I don't buy these sorts of justifications that appear rooted in a misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution.
* "Non-survival of the least fit" is a better summary than "survival of the fittest".
* Even if our bodies were incredibly well optimized for the conditions present during most of our recent evolution, that does NOT imply that those conditions are optimal for our bodies. [Affirming the consequent]
* Lots of things will make a person feel "healthy" or mild euphoria, particularly when a person has become accustomed to a low baseline for a couple of days. Subjective anecdotes aren't a substitute for quantitative measures of health.
On a side note, detoxification from unspecified toxins is often accepted as an axiom without journal citation or other justification apart from subjective mood following the fast/cleanse.
Edited for formatting.
