| > I tend to favor going by what the experts say, and overwhelmingly they say to eat normally every day. The more progressive might admit that there's value in further study. I tend to follow experts when I don't have time to do my own research. But when I do, I find -- very often, with nutrition advice, and too often for comfort with medical advice -- that there's actually no scientific basis for these recommendations; rather that they are somewhere between "leap of faith" (that is sometimes provably wrong), superstition, and "that's the way we've been doing for a while so we assume it's the right way". For example, many experts still insist that you should limit egg yolk consumption to no more than a few a week, although there's no science behind it - just a 60 year hypothesis that's been repeatedly disproved over the last 30 years (although the belief is so strong almost no one seems to be aware of those results). And many still insist that the more cushioning for your ankle on your shoe the better - although there was never any research indicating that this should be true, and there is very consistent evidence showing that it is in fact harmful. > On a different note... A couple years ago (long before I started fasting), I was in a meeting and I got super hungry. It was painful. I realized that many people live with this daily for decades. I think going hungry for a short period of time might make some people more empathetic. I had fasted for 21 days once, and did not feel any discomfort throughout (on the contrary - up until day 14 or so, I felt disgusted at the thought of food; after that, it just wasn't appealing). And then I felt hunger. Which is something completely different from appetite, which is what I referred to as hunger before. hunger is something that I've only ever felt at the end of the fast, and at the end of an army training camp that didn't provide enough food -- and I assume most people in the western world never do (although you might have - I can't really tell). It's not pain. It's an obsession with food that will not go away when you do something interesting, which is unlike food craving or appetite - but I can't really put it into words. |