[seer]

While I’ve done similar fasting myself, with the same wondrous effects you describe, I want to point out that it seems this might be a lot harder to do for young women (in child bearing age). My partner tried to replicate what I did since I was hyping it so much, and failed miserably. Later we learned that the female body reacts much more violently to the lack of calories than male ones, and its a lot harder for them. Or maybe she had other compounding factors.

While she couldn’t do the several day fast, we found out that it was quite feasible to do the “one meal per day” thing, which shares a lot of the health benefits, and its a lot more forgiving.

[mahathu]

I'm kind of doing "one meal per day" right now, not because I'm fasting on purpose but just because I don't enjoy eating (or cooking) more than once in a day. I mean I like to cook but doing it for over an hour every day just becomes a chore.

I was under the impression that this was really unhealthy though. My BMI is 19 so I'm close to being underweight. Isn't this unhealthy? Do people fast and not lose weight?

[strogonoff]

I’m sure many would be quick to jump to numbers on how much you are supposed to consume/burn in a day, but I really don’t think eating too little or too much is by itself an indicator.

The underlying psychological issues and associated stresses is what IMO qualifies as “unhealthy”, in which case corresponding under- or over-eating could result in malnourishment or excess weight[0]. However, in absence of these issues or other factors suppressing your body’s hunger/satiety messaging, not eating some “standard amount” shouldn’t be an issue on its own[1].

I happen to know a person who fasts routinely. In case of that person it doesn’t seem to be motivated by hidden psychological issues (he does not strike me as a person who could be suffering from body dysmorphia/anorexia) but by a conscious health choice. As an example of his logic, recently he got COVID and from his words he “simply” didn’t eat for two days and was right back on his feet feeling great. It’s not my place to question his choices, and I myself try to space meals to spend 14–16 hours without food every day since it seems to leave me feeling better, so it was surprising to hear but not too outlandish. He is not bulky but not skinnier than me either[2].

(I’m not a doctor, but from a cursory check medicine does seem to classify eating disorders as “expressive”, i.e. indicative of underlying issues. I don’t know how medicine treats under-eating without a cause, I certainly hope they don’t try to force-“treat” someone to make them eat at a level medicine considers “normal”.)

[0] For the record, I don’t think one can truly address those root causes just by eating less or more.

[1] In fact IIRC lower metabolic rates have been correlated with longer lifespans, at least in mice and in snails if not in humans.

[2] I’m slightly underweight, and can eat quite a bit without gaining much weight. My sister is similar, and she quickly gets low blood sugar shakes if she doesn’t eat enough. I guess it’s a sign of fast metabolism.

[thechao]

> I’m slightly underweight, and I can eat quite a bit without gaining much weight

Interesting! Here's a challenge for you: could you buy — and eat — 5000 calories of chips/candy/soda per day for the next 90 days. You may not walk/run more than 5km/day, nor engage in other exercise for more than 30m/day.

Please weigh yourself before & after this experiment.

[strogonoff]

I used to (?) stress-eat periodically (especially before I started trying to space out meals) and could go a long time without any exercise so pretty sure I approached this at some point or another in my life. Don’t weigh myself regularly but there were no signs of gaining weight. Maybe I’ll become heavy in my thirties, but so far all of that goes neither into fat nor into muscle.

[femiagbabiaka]

Weight gain or loss is all about calories in versus calories out. It is possible to exceed your TDEE in one meal, just a little difficult or unlikely. Whether or not this is unhealthy or not is dependent on the person. I will say that I worry that many in my generation are developing eating disorders and calling it fasting/OMAD/etc.

[Fritsdehacker]

For most males it should be possible to get enough calories and nutrients from just one meal, but I would not say easy. It is far easier with two meals, or maybe a time window of 4 hours.

It's probably also better to ease into it. So start with an 8 hour eating window and slowly decrease the window.

Getting enough calories and nutrients can be a challenge and is far from easy with the "standard western diet". I would really recommend seeking advice from a professional.

[itsoktocry]

>Getting enough calories and nutrients can be a challenge and is far from easy with the "standard western diet".

Have you been to a grocery store in the last 100 years? Getting enough calories and nutrients is dead simple, our stores are overflowing with fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and meat. What is the "standard western diet"?

[wutbrodo]

> What is the "standard western diet"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_pattern_diet, also referred to throughout the article as "The Standard American Diet".

[Fritsdehacker]

Under normal circumstances the difficulty with the western diet is getting enough nutrients, but not too much calories.

I meant the combination can be a challenge if your on a narrow time feeding window.

[wanda]

Sorry but that's kind if anecdotal. You're extending the case of one woman age (x) to all women age (x).

Yes, you say "maybe she had other compounding factors" which is equivalent to saying her case was idiosyncratic. In which case, why try to generalise it at all then?

When I look around the city, I see a lot of underweight women of all ages, including childbearing age — whatever the hell we're defining that as.* Many of them will be underweight by skipping meals, full on fasting, or eating and forcing themselves to throw it up later. This is the society, the mentality we have created.

Some of them I am friends with, others I have never met but write about it. Some claim to struggle with fasting, others fast and mention nothing about the difficulty or ease, and others struggle to eat enough. And some eat whatever they want and don't regulate it at all.

The takeaway is that when it comes to nutrition, there are a lot of factors and every case is idiosyncratic. There are no general rules other than "eat so you don't die", "don't eat so much you explode" and "don't eat toxic or corrosive chemicals". And even then, different people will have different tolerances to not eating, eating too much, and eating poison.

Nutrition is poorly understood, poorly communicated, and the driving factor behind the freight train of bullshit marketing telling people that they need to be wafer-like, elven creatures.

Full transparency, I'm underweight according to what I'm sure is actually a pretty shoddy measurement of weight...ness, but I don't do anything special. I fast quite a lot but I don't actually have a fasting regime, it's not planned, I just don't eat for extended periods of time.

When I do eat, it's really not a remarkable experience so I don't feel a need to change my behaviour. I eat enough to not die or suffer health problems thus far.

_____

* Since it will be a subset of {all ages}, my reasoning is covered.

[moonchrome]

>Sorry but that's kind if anecdotal.

He said they later learned it's known that women react to fasting differently and can have negative side effects, which we also discovered from our doctor when trying to get pregnant - so don't really see anything anecdotal there.

[wanda]

It's not anecdotal because your anecdote matched the parent's anecdote. Okay. Scientific method looking robust in this field.

My point is that any nutritional thing is anecdotal because people don't neatly slot into a category when it comes to nutrition.