Hacker News Reader

Comment by shoto_io | Hacker News Reader

I am a big IF fan. Specifically, I try to do it 3-4x a week. I skip dinner and start at 5pm and hold it until 9am. I tried skipping breakfast before, that didn’t work well for me.

Two things have been difficult for me lately:

A) sudden extreme cravings before I start at 5pm

B) a sore throat starting at around 9-10pm. I have no clue why it happens.

Do you guys experience something similar and how do you deal with it?

EDIT: Sorry for the confusion. I meant heartburn.

View on HN

I can't speak to the sore throat but I do keto and on days I skip most/all food, I get crazy food cravings that can usually be addressed (provided I'm not recently re-entering keto but am a week+ fat-adjusted) by drinking a bottle of water with a squirt of electrolyte replacement concentrate (K+Mg) along with 3-5g of salt.

I normally eat a pretty high-salt diet (7-10g per day depending on if I eat out or not), keto or no, and replacing a day's salt with just 1-2g is insufficient to keep my body from cravings. I find that having 3-5g with my other misc electrolyte replacement generally makes it much, much easier for me to skip the day's meals.

Cravings are almost always your body asking for something; the trick is to learn what it's asking for that doesn't involve calories.

> start at 5pm and hold it until 9am

Isn't that basically normal? We call it breakfast for a reason, and 5pm to 9pm is extremely close to what many people do habitually. Maybe a slightly early dinner and a slightly late breakfast, but not by much.

interesting. I do IF since 2018, but because I normally do heavy sports at night, I cannot sleep if I don't eat. So I eat well after training and then go until 14:00 without food other than coffee and water.

Well, it was never normal for me. I used to eat until 10pm or so and then start eating right after getting up at 7am. So 5pm-9am adds 7h of fasting for me.

Sore throat might be heartburn, have you changed your diet? Perhaps you're eating too quickly? Are you drinking enough water?

Might be an idea to consult a registered dietician or a GP (general practitioner, a generalist doctor, sometimes called a 'family doctor').

I fast about once a week or once every two weeks.

>A) sudden extreme cravings before I start at 5pm

Have you tried apple cider vinegar? That seems to work for me.

>B) a sore throat starting at around 9-10pm. I have no clue why it happens.

I don't get that specifically, but I do get lowered body temperature. Could sore throat be a symptom of that? Have you tried hot water, perhaps with lemon and/or tea?

>Have you tried apple cider vinegar? That seems to work for me.

No comment on effectiveness, but for anyone who is going to do this, make sure to dilute the vinegar with some water.

1 tsp apple cider vinegar mixed in a full glass of water.

It also helps to drink with a straw to avoid residual acid on the teeth (although the water already diluted it enough).

>No comment on effectiveness, but for anyone who is going to do this, make sure to dilute the vinegar with some water.

Oh jeez, woopsie. Yeah, forgetting to do that would certainly cause a bit of sore throat. Or 3rd degree burns.

I get the lower body temperature, too. How do you deal with it?

have had similar and suggest:

- swap coffee for green tea

- supplement phosphatidylcholine daily

- drink hot water with a spoonful of apple cider vinegar and honey at night

- measure humidity in your home and make sure it isn't too dry

For me this reduced inflammation and GERD issue presenting sore throat at night. May take over a week to start noticing results.

Yes, green tea has helped a lot compared to coffee! It’s not completely gone though.

try the other things too and hope it helps.

phosphatidylcholine caps look like fish oil and seem to generate an anti-inflammatory response for me and this research article:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17636253/

I find that many times I'm just thirsty not hungry. If I chug a big glass of water, maybe two, I can easily skip a meal or more. This routinely makes 16 hours of fasting possible.

I have moderate success solving A) by drinking a glass of water.

Also ignore it and it will go away helps.

>ignore it and it will go away helps.

When I was young I would hurt myself somehow and go to my mother saying

Me - My arm hurts when I do THIS (bend arm at elbow, back and forth)

Mom- Don't do that and it won't hurt.

Me - (Pikachu meme face)

The cravings are likely low blood sugar. Eat more fat, less carbs.

Sore throat sounds like acid reflux. Can you take an antacid?

Or, address the cause of the reflux?

I assume it’s from fasting.

Cravings and weird side-effects suggest you're lacking some basic nutrient/s. Have you tried varying the types of foods you eat to counter this?

Why don’t you have a filling meal at 4.30 or 4.45 ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com