A crazy prediction: 25 years from now, what we call intermittent fasting will be called a normal daily schedule, and what we call a normal daily schedule (3 meals and some healthier snacks) will be called food addiction. And the primary reason for this change will not be even e.g. obesity but the mental effects: people will consider it an obvious truth that being constantly in a fed state dulls the mind and saps motivation and generates akrasia and generally harms productivity.
They will look back to us and think these people went through life half-asleep because they went through life constantly (nearly) sated.
They will says stuff like “you are a like a dolphin: if you feed yourself before you jumped through all the hoops you planned for that day, you won’t jump through them”.
Arriving to work with a breakfast in hand will be a bit like arriving to work with a beer in hand: if you roll best that way it is not for others to judge, but most people will prefer to work sober and sharp—and that means literally staying hungry. Today we joke about having a food coma and difficulty to concentrate after a work lunch, fixing ourselves up with coffee: this will sound a lot like as an 1950′s person complaining that he finds it hard to concentrate after a two-martini lunch sounds today.
Mental effects of IF seem so easily measured and carried out by a self-experimenter that there’s no need to speculate about it, you should just do it. Thus far, I haven’t heard of any human trials examining the cognitive effects.
I have been doing intermittent fasting for a few years, and while I think it has probably helped my mental performance, the effect isn’t all that strong. If intermittent fasting becomes commonplace it’s more likely, I predict, because of its anti-aging effects.
There is a transition period. After doing IF for a few months you might be fine in the mornings without breakfast. Your caveman ancestors certainly didn’t need breakfast before they went out hunting.
Sleeping hungry? Sounds impossible to me. Working with a grumbling stomach is for me totally logical: hunger is a motivation to go out and hunt and it can be channeled into other activities. But how could one sleep without feeling sated? I mean, wouldn’t that be the normal routine of an animal: be hungry, go hunt, feel sated, sleep?
Is it? Domesticated dogs derive from a nocturnal species, when born feral they are nocturnal, but have no problems being diurnal when raised so by humans. Humans can easily adapt to two shorter sleeps or even the weird polyphasic routine.
Not sure this is true. In the tropics (where there are a lot of feral dogs) the peaks of activity for most everyone is dawn and dusk, avoiding the midday heat. As far as I know nocturnal predators certainly exist but are rare.
Humans can easily adapt
Don’t know about that either. Humans can adapt. Some humans can easily adapt. A lot can’t.
Wasn’t the idea to not be sated until the end of the day and thus have a clearer head and be more productive? I’m not concerned about losing weight, which I have heard skipping dinner is pretty good for.
Could be but bulletproof is really the 100th fad diet invented and somehow neither has a control group who is not a McD junkie but lives on basic standard traditional more-or-less Western “grandma type” homecooked food. Roast chicken, mashed potatoes type food. That would be a useful control group to have.
I must say, eat nothing for X hours can also be a fad diet but it is refreshingly different and does not require difficult and complicated things to do.
One of these days we should discuss the meta of diets here. Are paleo/keto/bulletproof/vegaan/anything primarily aimed at people who have a high control over their diet? For example they live in a Western country but it totally happened with them that they bought a Korean cookbook and tried cooking something from it, they knew where to get ingredients, they were curious about trying things, was it like that? Just because most people I know are running halfway on hand-me-down family recipes in autopilot mode and they buy the other half from some takeaway.
A crazy prediction: 25 years from now, what we call intermittent fasting will be called a normal daily schedule, and what we call a normal daily schedule (3 meals and some healthier snacks) will be called food addiction. And the primary reason for this change will not be even e.g. obesity but the mental effects: people will consider it an obvious truth that being constantly in a fed state dulls the mind and saps motivation and generates akrasia and generally harms productivity.
They will look back to us and think these people went through life half-asleep because they went through life constantly (nearly) sated.
They will says stuff like “you are a like a dolphin: if you feed yourself before you jumped through all the hoops you planned for that day, you won’t jump through them”.
Arriving to work with a breakfast in hand will be a bit like arriving to work with a beer in hand: if you roll best that way it is not for others to judge, but most people will prefer to work sober and sharp—and that means literally staying hungry. Today we joke about having a food coma and difficulty to concentrate after a work lunch, fixing ourselves up with coffee: this will sound a lot like as an 1950′s person complaining that he finds it hard to concentrate after a two-martini lunch sounds today.
Mental effects of IF seem so easily measured and carried out by a self-experimenter that there’s no need to speculate about it, you should just do it. Thus far, I haven’t heard of any human trials examining the cognitive effects.
I have never heard of this effect. Do you have a reference? I am totally unable to concentrate or be productive when hungry.
I have been doing intermittent fasting for a few years, and while I think it has probably helped my mental performance, the effect isn’t all that strong. If intermittent fasting becomes commonplace it’s more likely, I predict, because of its anti-aging effects.
Not all people function equally. I can’t work without breakfast.
There is a transition period. After doing IF for a few months you might be fine in the mornings without breakfast. Your caveman ancestors certainly didn’t need breakfast before they went out hunting.
Same. I’m completely fine if I skip lunch though. I think I might try doing that regularly and see how it goes.
In my experience, skipping dinner works better.
Sleeping hungry? Sounds impossible to me. Working with a grumbling stomach is for me totally logical: hunger is a motivation to go out and hunt and it can be channeled into other activities. But how could one sleep without feeling sated? I mean, wouldn’t that be the normal routine of an animal: be hungry, go hunt, feel sated, sleep?
No, because sleep is tied to the diurnal cycle and the success of a hunt (for carnivores) cannot be so conveniently arranged.
Is it? Domesticated dogs derive from a nocturnal species, when born feral they are nocturnal, but have no problems being diurnal when raised so by humans. Humans can easily adapt to two shorter sleeps or even the weird polyphasic routine.
OTOH “food coma” is a thing.
Not sure this is true. In the tropics (where there are a lot of feral dogs) the peaks of activity for most everyone is dawn and dusk, avoiding the midday heat. As far as I know nocturnal predators certainly exist but are rare.
Don’t know about that either. Humans can adapt. Some humans can easily adapt. A lot can’t.
Wasn’t the idea to not be sated until the end of the day and thus have a clearer head and be more productive? I’m not concerned about losing weight, which I have heard skipping dinner is pretty good for.
Oh. We have different goals, then.
Dave Asprey says, with a reasonably large set of referenced studies, that it’s the mold in food which reduces your fed performance.
Could be but bulletproof is really the 100th fad diet invented and somehow neither has a control group who is not a McD junkie but lives on basic standard traditional more-or-less Western “grandma type” homecooked food. Roast chicken, mashed potatoes type food. That would be a useful control group to have.
I must say, eat nothing for X hours can also be a fad diet but it is refreshingly different and does not require difficult and complicated things to do.
One of these days we should discuss the meta of diets here. Are paleo/keto/bulletproof/vegaan/anything primarily aimed at people who have a high control over their diet? For example they live in a Western country but it totally happened with them that they bought a Korean cookbook and tried cooking something from it, they knew where to get ingredients, they were curious about trying things, was it like that? Just because most people I know are running halfway on hand-me-down family recipes in autopilot mode and they buy the other half from some takeaway.
This is definitely crazy, but only because you seem to expect so many people to act rationally. ;)
I do have this problem with food- just eating breakfast makes me go back to bed.