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Comment by kossTKR | Hacker News Reader

Same here. It's the closest thing to an actual wonder drug i have ever come across.

My skin clears up, brainfog disappears, the white in my eyes get brighter, etc.

After reading a bit i have come to the same conclusion - if your diet is already extremely clean / bland, maybe you won't get the same effect, but for most people that eats lots of different foods, processed stuff, fast food, alcohol, harsh additives, fried/burned food etc. on occasion then i think you really need to give yourself a break at least once a month. For a minimum of 48 hours.

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Come on, don't use the word clean with regards to diet. It's a bs and meaningless word that specifies nothing. Is it no sugar, no salt, no meat, no gc organisms, no alcohol no processed, low carb, high carb? Clean is a word that suggests Instagram influencers. Clean does not mean bland or not bland, whole foods or not. It's a meaningless word like good, healthy, natural.

That's definately not true, also what's up with the hostile tone?

"Clean" is pretty well understood as what's left after you finish an elimination diet.

As i just described it can be different for different people but in general, super high fat, super high carbohydrate, meals that are too large or too frequent, too much alcohol, lots of additives, lots of candy or cake, too many heavy metals from fish, too much fried food, too much low quality processed foods including cheap oils that has gone semi rancid, corn syrup, various carcinogens are all agreed upon across various a large spectrum of diets from Vegan to Paleo including nutrition research.

It probably also depends on ones own gut flora.

Pausing eating or just eating a pretty bland diet without above "luxuries" and you definitely get less of these things, that's partly why fasting works for a lot of people.

I mean, they did qualify it in the same sentence with "different foods, processed stuff, fast food, alcohol, harsh additives, fried/burned food etc. on occasion".

Although I don't know any diet that would be "clean" compared with a water fast...

> Although I don't know any diet that would be "clean" compared with a water fast...

Vegan perhaps?

> It's a bs and meaningless word that specifies nothing

It's neither bs nor meaningless. It intuitively describes a good diet if you have a basic knowledge of food and diet. It basically means "what is good for you". What would you describe as "clean", deep fried butter or broccoli sprouts? See how it's intuitive?

"what is good for you" is a completely tautological way of defining "a good diet". How can you say you are not just reinforcing your own presuppositions?

The only intuitive difference I see in those scenarios is that one has less calories and less fat (which are obviously both essential components of any diet).

Subjective meaning is not no meaning. Good absolutely has a meaning. So does healthy, as does natural.

Your lack of understanding of the context of use, and underlying meaning, is nobody's problem but your own.

Perhaps you should have asked what He meant by clean, because clearly you don't understand.

what does clean mean to you then? Everything we consume has been modified from the original. Apples, wheat, tomatoes, corn - everything we eat has been significantly modified from what it was 10,000 years ago. Early farmers modified potatoes and everything else to grow more calories by genetic manipulation - like planting the ones that grow faster or bigger. Nothing and I mean nothing is like it was before mankind started eating it. We put selective breeding pressure on cows by breeding the ones we grow. I can make up a definition of clean but everyone has a sense of it themselves. Whole foods that are not significantly modified seems reasonable. But modified from what?

https://www.primalorganicmiami.com/eat-clean-miami/ As this website says "There is not a strict definition for “eating clean”. I still assert clean eating is meaningless.

I'm not against healthy eating. But "healthy eating" or "clean foods" don't have definitions.

Asking somebody to clarify what they mean who is using a vague phrase is useful. Telling them to stop using a phrase that you personally don’t understand is not useful.

Think of it this way, there may not be a nailed down definition of “clean” or healthy” eating. However, it gets you in a “range of uncertainty”

Is McDonalds clean? No. Is Pizza clean? Nope. Is brown rice clean? Maybe. I should ask what they mean by their usage of clean.

Have I made my point a little bitter? I view usage of vague terms like that not as useless, but as “gets you close to the target without getting lost in the weeds.”

Hope this helps.

I'm here for it. You're saying that a water only fast for approximately 48 hours once every full moon helps out?

I've done some intermittent fasting before (I think that's where you make sure you don't eat after 18:00 and only start at 9:00)

Yes, exactly how long probably depends on a lot of factors, but the benefits really starts for me after 30+ hours.

Drinking water with potassium + magnesium + salt also helps a lot, to replenish electrolytes, but some people can manage without. Some people can continue workouts, others continue for 7+ days. It's all about experimentation.

Atm. i start each week fasting and just fast for as long as it feels ok. Often 1-3 days.

I would recommend 2 fasts per month 36-48 hours, and with electrolyte water for newcomers.

Off course starting weight, activity level etc. is also important factors, i'm personally trying to lose some "corona weight" atm.

I really appreciate some of the detailed comments here, but I will caution people that if you have a serious medical condition you may find fasting is a lot harder on you than the above suggests it will be.

If it benefits you, it may get easier over time. I have a serious medical condition. I used to routinely throw up when I was even just underfed for one day.

It now takes longer than one day for me to start having strong reactions. Fasting and semi-fasting have been beneficial for my condition, but it was amazingly hard on me for a really long time and is still not easy.

I tend to semi-fast for somewhere between one and two days (often around 36 hours) most months. I've done longer -- up to a week -- but two per month for a newcomer sounds like a lot to me and I assume that's because of how hard it is on me.

So YMMV and probably will.

If I could make it past the first 24 hours of fasting I could probably go further, but I get really bad headaches when fasting and usually give up somewhere close to 24 hours. I hear that if I were to push through for a few more hours that the headache would clear up, but haven't been able to do that yet.

The headaches could be due to electrolyte imbalance. Are you taking 4g potassium-citrate and 300mg magnesium-citrate a day when you fast? If not that could solve your headaches.

This doesn't tell us anything, and drinking water alone isn't enough. How much and how often did you drink water, and consume salt or rehydration salts. The latter is just as important as the former in keeping your body functioning. If you experience significant salt loss, you will get a headache as your body tries to maintain homeostasis. This is exactly one of the reasons for the headache part of a hangover, and if you adequately replenish your water and electrolytes, you will be vastly less likely to get one.

Is there any science behind it? Anecdotally I notice the same things especially with my skin CL earning up.

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