Comment by 52-6F-62 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 52-6F-62 | Hacker News Reader

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You should be careful doing that too regularly. Once a week is the maximum I’ve understood would be healthy for typical first world lifestyles.

It will otherwise coax your body into starvation response. This is true even with low calorie diets.

You can cause you’re body to retain store energy and retain fat rather than in a constant state of burning what you take in.

If you’re looking to lose weight you’re better off just limiting carbohydrates on non workout days. Eat a lot of vegetables and protein, take a multi, and do cardio and high intensity interval training 3-5 times a week.

If you want to build strength and lose weight then mix in resistance training into the routine as well.

As a baseline that schedule will help with anxiety, depression, and get your metabolism on track.

For most people, that is. I’ve been on antidepressants before as well as some anxiolytics. Excercise, vitamins, and eating healthy most of the time does a world of difference. Another benefit is you don’t have to limit you’re calories as harshly. Energy levels go up as well— to the point where sitting at a desk all day is too much idling!

Btw, I eat between 2 and 6 eggs a day (between breakfast and lunch), use butter/olive oil/sesame oil in cooking regularly, and my cholesterol has never been high following that general scheme. No hacks or tricks.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/does-met...

> Once a week is the maximum I’ve understood would be healthy for typical first world lifestyles.

As far as I understand, the 16-hour fasting (skipping breakfast) is something you keep doing rather than once a week. Unlike a 24/48+ hour fasting some people do once in a while... Maybe I missed some crucial piece of information?

Yes, that calorie reduction to that degree increases the chance (body type-dependant) that your’ll induce starvation prevention reactions in your body. An at rest adult human typically requires 2000 calorie sharing a day to maintain weight. That’s if you never left your bed. Regularly reducing that further will cause your body to store more energy which results in fat gain. And not always the good kind.

The simple way for me to put it is move your body and fuel it regularly for the best results. You don’t have to fast 16 hours a day, and I d wager you’d meet better results without doing so.

If you don’t want to move your body then that’s a whole other world of questions. But if you’re generally healthy and capable, you should.

The IF literature I’ve read indicates that calorie reduction isn’t really a goal, though it often happens to some degree. But I’m generally not taking in 2/3rd of prior calories just because I’m eating 2/3rd of the meals - more like 3/4 or 4/5.

This is all new to me so curious where you’re getting this info from so I can read up.

No problem. I really brought up calories, etc due to the other posters mentioning limited weight loss (or sometimes gain) as well as increased cholesterol even though they were reducing the frequency of meals (I was guessing at a reduction in calories because of that, though it’s fair to say that I don’t really have that insight in this case)

The info I’m conveying is part coaching, part experience/anecdotal, and part reading aggregate from health studies, running and sports health magazines, as well as general health magazines.

My parents were national-level athletes (70’s/80’s) and, later on, coaches. My mother was certified to coach in the Olympics (though she did not and continued her work locally). I was an athlete when I was younger and learned most of it then, but have in recent years taken a return to focusing more on my health. Also much of my reading stemmed from trying to lose weight after quitting smoking (also went from a physical job to a physically-idle one around the same time. Gained nearly 50 pounds. I was on antidepressants and anxiolytics at the same time. It was messy)

My girlfriend’s step mother is competing at the world championship Iron Man race this fall in Kona, and her advice was much the same (we plug everyone we can for coaching. Her stepmom even has her on a custom workout).

I don’t have much hard reading I can provide off hand, but a few searches surrounding the points I put out there should yield quite a bit of information. Primarily links between excercise and how it helps with depression and anxiety, and metabolic studies including starvation responses.

If you want to continue the discussion further I’d be happy to, and happy to help find further info that might resound more than some hexadecimal-aliased rambler on a message board. ;)

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