Intermittent feeding

[Guest guest]

I've been thinking about behavioral methods to attain CR.

A while back I was trying to fast once a week. I'd usually have a little

bit of tomato juice or something like that on a fast day.

I found that I had trouble sleeping if I fasted all day (even taking an

ambien didn't help me sleep), so I usually ended up skipping two meals on

fast days and eating a light dinner. So I ended up doing a fast that

involved skipping lunch and breakfast.

Personally I don't notice any terrible consequences from skipping

breakfast and lunch. I find that my mental concentration flags a bit

around 4 pm, but I'm just about to wrap up at work and that's not too

horrible. Saving the time spent with buying or preparing and eating lunch

probably makes up for any productivity lost.

It seems that the likes of Mercola and Sears, as well as mainstream

nutritionists, all seem to agree that skipping meals is a bad idea. The

fad today seems to be that people should eat many frequent small meals. I

used to believe that, and it worked for me for a while when I was working

out intensively and sticking strictly to the Zone. After a while I gained

25 pounds on a " frequent feeding " schedule and started fasting because I've

found it's easier to fast certain days and not be so tough on other days.

For the last week I've been trying a protocol of skipping lunch on work

days. " Skipping lunch " means I don't eat anything at work. If it turns

out that I'm going to have to eat for social reasons at work, I'll skip

breakfast. One of my immediate goals is to lose the 25 pounds I've

gained, and try to do that at a rate of around 1 lb a week, maybe a

little less.

I've hit a plateau with my weekly fast -- I also ran into the problems

that I had to eat last Friday for social reasons, so I got the idea of

having many short fasts. (No food 12am-12pm, or no food 9am-5pm) One

advantage is that this is really flexible -- I can decide to skip 3 meals a

week or 4 meals a week or 5 meals a week, whatever.

The " mainstream consensus " seems to be that:

(i) if you skip a meal you'll just eat more later

(ii) skipping meals will slow down your metabolism and cause you to burn

fewer calories

(iii) blood sugar regulation works better if you eat small frequent meals

I don't believe (i). I certainly was in a hurry to start eating dinner

last night, but I don't double my consumption at night. In fact, I find

that a short fast seems to cause me to feel full quickly the next time I eat.

I don't think (ii) is a problem for CR. CR people aren't (mainly) trying

to lose weight, generally they want metabolism to go down, at least in

the long term. I don't think, for weight loss, that this is a big

problem for people that are currently overweight, although

bodybuilders, anorexics and other people who are aiming for body fat < 12%

do need to worry about this.

So far as (iii), I've had the simple and cheap tests of blood sugar

regulation, and my blood sugar regulation is excellent. Some people claim

that eating frequent smaller meals means you have less insulin secretion

and smaller blood sugar swings. I haven't seen hard evidence of that. An

alternate viewpoint is that it's insulin sensitivity that matters -- and I

think that's more complicated. My guess is that metabolism is like a

muscle in that you develop the ability to use pathways by using them. If

you don't eat any carbs for a year, your body isn't going to express the

enzymes needed to metabolize carbs... Why should it? If you eat

intermittently, your body will activate both the pathways needed to absorb

pulses of food AND that pathways required to run off reserves... So you

get metabolic flexibility that lets you deal with whatever life throws at you.

Another trouble I have with " frequent small meals " is that it's linked up

with an ideology that you should " never be hungry " . Let's face it -- if

you're going to reduce your energy intake, you're going to be hungry

sometimes. If you're eating in a way where you know you're going to be

hungry certain times, your brain gets used to the idea that it's going to

feel hunger, and it finds ways to deal with it. If you get the idea that

it's your birthright to never be hungry, then you might as well grab a

snickers.

The " mainstream " seems to think that

(i) it's impossible to lose weight, and

(ii) CR is impossible in humans, so we need to develop a CR-mimetic pill,

so maybe we ought to question the conventional wisdom here...

Any thoughts?