

Why I don’t eat on Mondays - mariusandra
http://mariusandra.com/blog/2014/07/why-i-dont-eat-on-mondays/

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SandB0x
Do we really need health advice from random unqualified people on the internet
on Hacker News?

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RockyMcNuts
It's an unusual body/brain hack...he seems to have done it methodically and
observed the outcome...it worked for him and he wrote up something
detailed...that's the spirit of hacking!

I don't think it's flagworthy but if it lacks quality vote accordingly!

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dragonwriter
> It's an unusual body/brain hack...

No, its not...intermittent fasting has been a fad in the last few years.
There's nothing unusual about it.

> he seems to have done it methodically and observed the outcome...

I'm having trouble crediting something as a methodical study of a diet pattern
change that doesn't have any indication of tracking the specific patterns of
what is being eaten (or even quantification of total calories) before and
after.

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thoughtpalette
> No, its not...intermittent fasting has been a fad in the last few years.
> There's nothing unusual about it.

Not everyone has heard about it. I found the article very interesting even
though I'm not going to try it out.

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dragonwriter
> Not everyone has heard about it.

That's not the same thing as "unusual".

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thoughtpalette
I agree to an extent. I consider it unusual, but the nature of that word is
subjective.

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meritt
I'm routinely surprised at the popularity of articles in this category. It's
no secret that eating less and exercising more leads to a healthier person. Is
it just the variety of systems and self-discipline utilized that is found so
intriguing?

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poopsintub
I think people would rather read or watch about other people losing weight
than actually doing something about it. Seriously, it's hard to lose weight,
stop smoking, etc. If anything, at least it gives people momentary hope and a
few take changing their diets seriously instead of looking for a miracle pill
or momentary diet.

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tekalon
Some of these comments reminded me of a story Clotaire Rapaille told in his
book 'The Culture Code.' He gave a talk at an obesity conference. Each speaker
gave their own solution to the obesity problem. Rapaille's observed:

“I think it is fascinating that the other speakers today have suggested that
education is the answer to our country’s obesity problem,” I said. I slowly
gestured around the room. “If education is the answer, then why hasn’t it
helped more of you?”

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normloman
So instead listening to my doctor, I should follow the advice of a Belgian
entrepreneur with no medical training, based on his experiment with a sample
size of one.

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jsissom
I'm sorry, but this is something a non-overweight person would say.

I've been overweight my whole life. I talked to my doctor. One said (yes he
literally said this) Follow the SELAP diet. When I asked what he meant he said
"Stop Eating Like a Pig". That was his advice. Another doctor said to get
surgery.

I finally found another doctor that helped. He put me on a 1,000 calorie a day
diet. Tons of people told me it was unhealthy, but I lost weight - 50 lbs. The
information out there for dieting is so bad. I had people tell me that if I
ate 1,000 calories a day, I would gain weight because of a slow metabolism.
These were "professional" people. I've never heard of people who stop eating
in food strikes in prisons get to the point where they weighed so much they
can't leave their cell!

Unfortunately I couldn't keep that extremely low calorie diet up for the long
term and when trying to increase it, I've now gained 25 of it back but it's
been a year so I consider it somewhat of a success.

I'm glad to read about something that works for someone. The doctors you
mention are pretty clueless in my opinion.

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tekalon
I'm 4'11, so really short and overweight. I tried to keep to the 1200 calories
that everyone says is the minimum, but I can't, it's often too much food for
me and never really saw much in weight loss. I've been trying to go closer to
600-1000 and have seen much more results and feel healthier.

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jsissom
Watch out, you'll gain a ton of weight on a diet like that! :)

The problem with the diet thing is that everyone is different. If you have
found something that works for you, that's great!

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hammock
"It tunes my mind to the station of my body. It makes me feel real hunger and
lets me differentiate it from other cravings"

What he's describing is congruent with a stoic lifestyle. The core of stoicism
is to not be a slave to your feelings and cravings. And this is achieved
through mental and spiritual "exercise."

I have fasted for 3 days at a time, allowing myself nothing but water. Try six
weeks without a drop of alcohol. And don't cheat. It's not a "detoxifying"
process- it's a process of gaining mindfulness. You understand, as the author
points out, what your body does and does not need, and that many of your
feelings of "hunger" (for food, or more figuratively anything) are triggered
by your officemate talking about nutella, or hearing some bad news that makes
you anxious, or any number of things that you can control if you become aware
of them.

Once you understand the true control you have over your body and your feelings
and actions, you can really start to take it to the next level with what you
actually want to accomplish, as opposed to what has been programmed by your
social environment.

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nnnnni
Isn't it better, safer, and more comfortable to just eat 200-500 less calories
per day?

I know that I'd rather eat one less slice of pizza during a meal than to eat
NOTHING for a whole day.

As we all know, weight is primarily determined by calories in versus calories
out. Since 3500 calories equals 1 lb or .45 kg, you can lose 2 lbs or 1 kg a
week by eating 500 calories less each day.

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Kevguy
500 calories/day * 7 days == 3500 calories == 1 lb of fat per week. Not 2 lbs.

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nnnnni
Oops, got mixed up with the conversions!

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funkyy
Well if Muslims and people from some other cultures can do fasting, and they
still manage to live long and healthy like any other culture - why not try
this method to actually loose weight and then pick for example Japanese diet
to maintain it?

I think all this fasting is for self control rather than long term process.
You teach your body and mind to say "no" to nasty foods and snacks.

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davidu
I'm more interested in what generated that chart? Was it some automated system
/ program / tool?

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mcnape
It was made in beeminder
([https://www.beeminder.com/](https://www.beeminder.com/)). It is a website
where you pledge a certain amount of money towards a goal and if you don't
stay on track, it charges you.

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davidu
Thanks. And really interesting site / idea. I've seen some before, but none
quite as good.

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thejerz
> Make it a challenge to see if you can go a full day without eating. What do
> you have to lose?

A lot, actually. Some medical conditions may be seriously affected by not
eating for an entire day. As with any medical advice, you should consult your
physician before attempting fasting.

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delluminatus
I do get tired of comments like these. _Obviously_ diabetics aren't going to
take some random person's advice to fast for 24 hours. Do you think they need
you to tell them that?

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drcross
But, but, political correctness. Everyone must be explicitly told what to do
at all times.

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kordless
And all the things they are told must be voted on and ratified by people who
are qualified to say what is right and wrong.

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saurik
> Still the idea of going for 24 hours without any food seemed alien at first.
> Was I going to be okay, I wondered.

I once _forgot_ to eat for three days, I was just so busy. I walked up the
stairs to my second-floor apartment, and I felt light-headed enough that I
noticed myself start to black out. I began going through the "usual
debugging", asking myself "what did you eat today?", and it turns out I
hadn't... nor the day before... and when I realized I hadn't eaten the day
before that either, it became very clear what happened, and I immediately
ordered an extra large pizza. I take it this is highly unusual? :(

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deadghost
How'd you manage to forget?

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saurik
How does one manage to forget anything? I guess I was was just really
distracted? :( I can easily imagine myself thinking "I should grab some food,
but I only have a couple minutes, I'll just eat after class", or "I should eat
something, but I'm so tired, I'll just eat a large breakfast", and then "I
should eat something, but I'm late, I'll just eat when I get to campus".

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deadghost
Well typically when I don't eat my body gets angry at me and tells me I
should. My body feels like ass and my head gets foggy such that I stop and
intake some nutrients.

I don't think I can go 72 hours without food without crashing.

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tekalon
One thing about this is paying attention not only to what he eats, but also
how his body reacts to food. In high school, I would often only eat one meal a
day (I could have had more meals, but I wasn't hungry). In college, I also
still only ate the equivalent of one meal a day. Once I had a full time job
that included lunch breaks, I felt obligated to eat more, and the more I ate
the more I was hungry. Having more money and more freedom to eat what I want,
when I wanted (compared to living with parents or in college eating on poor
starving student rations), I stopped paying attention to what and how much I
ate.

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hajderr
Fasting has been tested for its health benefits. I advise you to check out
this BBC documentary

[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19112549](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19112549)

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egb
Quote at the end of that article contradicts your statement...?

"Current medical opinion is that the benefits of fasting are unproven and
until there are more human studies it's better to eat at least 2000 calories a
day. "

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swah
That blockage was simply low glucose, right?

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Bartweiss
That was the line that alarmed me. Advertising a shot of glucose as "removing
a blockage" isn't about the wonders of fasting, it's about the fairly
important problems that arise from deciding to just not eat.

Similarly, before adopting a super-low calorie diet on the basis of those
"long lifespan" studies in mice, look into the part where it induces
depression and agoraphobia.

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pmalynin
Frankly, I would attribute this glucose deficiency to his diet that cut down
on rice and the like. By reducing bodily supply of starch (and also lipids)
they will interfere with their natural metabolic pathways such as
glycogenoysis and gluconeogenesis which stabilize blood glucose levels,
however without the underlying resources they cannot achieve their purpose.

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trendyy
For those interested in different approaches to weight loss, I found this
article really helpful while trying to shed a few pounds myself:
[http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html](http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html)

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cm2012
This actually makes a lot of sense. An obese person burns about 2500 calories
a day just be existing (obviously depending on weight/heigh/etc.) 1 day of
fasting means 1lb a week lost, basically.

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bryanlarsen
The OP mentions that he eats extra on Sunday.

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lucidrains
Good for you! Health is wealth!

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JetSpiegel
> The idea came from the book “Man 2.0 – Engineering the Alpha“

> Unfortunately most people can’t hear themselves.

Does not compute.

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smallegan
"I still try to adhere to a low carb diet, eating mainly meat and vegetables
and severely limiting my intake of bread, pasta, rice and potatoes." \- I
think this is a much larger player in his weight loss success than he may
realize.

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throwaway283719
He claims to have been following this diet for three months whilst maintaining
the same weight, and only started seeing a drop in his weight after starting
to fast for one day a week (standard sample size disclaimer etc etc).

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dragonwriter
> He claims to have been following this diet for three months whilst
> maintaining the same weight, and only started seeing a drop in his weight
> after starting to fast for one day a week (standard sample size disclaimer
> etc etc).

Its interesting that I don't notice any discussion of caloric intake on either
model -- if he was eating the same except skipping one day of food later, then
you are looking at a ~14% reduction in weekly caloric intake, which, without
any special effect of fasting, you'd expect to turbocharge weight loss.

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smallegan
That depends on how many calories you are taking in. If you eat 5k calories a
day and suddenly fast 1 day a week you aren't going to lose weight you will
just stop gaining as quickly.

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dragonwriter
> That depends on how many calories you are taking in.

"Turbocharge weight loss" means that there is existing weight loss to
turbocharge. If you are losing weight, reduce weekly calorie intake by 14% and
change nothing else, I think the description is accurate independent of the
pre-existing intake level.

