Mark Mattson reveals the surprising brain benefits of fasting.
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By ravenstine 2019-05-0815:2513 reply I sometimes intermittently fast for 24 hour periods, but recently I've switched to skipping breakfast, which effectively works out to be a 17 hour fast for me if I eat dinner at 6pm and have lunch at 12pm. Everyone says it's the most important meal of the day, but I haven't found convincing evidence of this(especially that which isn't sponsored by grain and sugar producers), and not having a huge insulin spike at the beginning of the day seems beneficial.
The results are profound. I'm a lot more focused and emotionally stable. The only distraction is the frequent "gotta find food" feeling, but that usually subsides within minutes. It's usually not even true hunger, but an impulse instilled in me by a culture focused on eating and "never starving".
Pro-breakfast proponents say that eating breakfast results in eating less throughout the day, but I can't say this has been true at all for myself. When I ate breakfast, I also would snack more throughout the day. Without breakfast, I look forward to meals more and those two meals, which are almost always ketogenic, are more satisfying.
The only negative effect I'm having is that my sex drive has plummeted to near-zero. I suppose that's a good thing for focusing on work, but I wouldn't want to keep that up forever.
By UpperBodyEimi 2019-05-0815:307 reply “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" was an advertising slogan for Kellogg's.
By ravenstine 2019-05-0815:532 reply The saddest part of that is that I heard that phrase not through overt advertising but from school.
I remember a handful of occasions in elementary school where they had someone come in and teach kids about nutrition, and the one lady told us that breakfast is the most important meal because we need to start off our day with "lots of energy". These lessons included the food pyramid, which is bad science to start with.
As kids, we were being fed corporate propaganda through government sanctioned education, and sadly I don't think the students or any of the adults at the time realized it.
By robodale 2019-05-0820:24 The Simpsons have parodied corporate-sponsored education for years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR_4h5A5z_A&t=1s
By jrs235 2019-05-0816:45 >told us that breakfast is the most important meal because we need to start off our day with "lots of energy"
No wonder elementary kids can't sit still then and are diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)!
By Bartweiss 2019-05-0815:41 My favorite trick in this vein, now I believe defunct, is "doctors recommend starting your morning with a bowl of cereal".
The trick to that, of course, is the ambiguity of recommend'. You can ask a dozen doctors if a bowl of cereal with fresh fruit is healthier than nothing at all, or a bowl of plain oatmeal; if they say yes then they "recommend cereal". The same trick still works great for things like toothpaste, where a brand might be dentist-recommended not relative to the competition but to baking soda or plain water.
By jesperlang 2019-05-0815:43 Some interesting story surrounding that!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfa...
By riazrizvi 2019-05-0815:47 So then it is the most important meal of the day, for Kellogg’s shareholders.
That sounds plausible (and interesting) but do you have a source for it?
By Bartweiss 2019-05-0816:05 I can't find a clear source for Kellogg's coining that phrase, but they definitely use "The best way to start the day" as a slogan. For instance, this Kellogg promotional flyer: https://www.kelloggcompany.com/content/dam/kellogg-company/f...
Page three is what you want, and it's worth looking at for a masterclass in garbage science.
The big header gives us "A cereal breakfast. Why it’s the best way to start the day." The subhead asserts "Experts worldwide agree: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day", which is somewhere between disputable and a lie. Below that is a list of wild claims like "People who regularly eat cereal tend to be less stressed, less anxious and are less likely to be depressed."
Wow! Let's see the evidence! Well, about half the studies listed appear to be directly funded by Kelloggs. Many that weren't are about breakfast in general, so "eat cereal" is a misrepresentation of "compared to skipping breakfast and eating unhealthy snacks". And they're full of hilariously poor controls - there's some fumbling with "difficulty sleeping" and a "negative job score", but ultimately the study can't discern "the benefits of eating breakfast" from "the harms of working the night shift" or "leaving at 5AM in a rush".
It's actually fascinating just how many bold, impressive claims Kelloggs manages to make without lying while relying on laughably thin evidence.
https://youtu.be/9Ffceu672c4?t=173
Dr. Kellogg and his brother had a business creating various supposed health products and Corn Flakes was part of that.
In 1917 a magazine called Good Health, edited by Dr. Kellogg, wrote "in many ways breakfast is the most important meal of the day". That seems to be the origin and cereal makers ran with it.
By dragontamer 2019-05-0817:39 > Dr. Kellogg and his brother
More importantly, Dr. Kellogg and his brother started two rival companies. The brother believed that sugar should be added to the formula Dr. Kellogg has been using to treat his patients.
Dr. Kellogg refused, believing sugar to be awful for the body.
Needless to say, we all know which of the two rival companies became the corporate giant, and which of the two rival companies disappeared into history. There was a big court case between the two rival brothers over the "Kellogg" name. After that, the two brothers never talked with each other for the rest of their lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg#Breakfast_...
Since the two were brothers, it is somewhat ambiguous to who really invented modern cereal. But Dr. Kellogg was the health-fanatic who would have been studying "healthy breakfasts" and other such stuff.
EDIT: It should be noted that 1890s / early 1900s medical science was downright awful. So definitely take any health claims from that era with suspicion. Be sure to look up "sanatoriums" and how awful their medical practices / beliefs were. There's probably a nugget of truth somewhere in Dr. Kellogg's research, but you've gotta look at his claims through the lens of history to really understand him.
By pilsetnieks 2019-05-0815:551 reply No, that's false. It was actually General Foods for Grape Nuts: https://priceonomics.com/how-breakfast-became-a-thing/
By Bartweiss 2019-05-0816:06 I can't speak to the origins, but Kelloggs does use "the best way to start a day" as a slogan, not just to describe their own brands but about cereal in general: https://www.kelloggcompany.com/content/dam/kellogg-company/f...
By daenz 2019-05-0815:33 I'm in awe at how well that advertising slogan permeated culture as pseudoscience. I hope someone at Kellogg's got a nice bonus for that.
By DoreenMichele 2019-05-0816:20 Can we please dismantle Christmas next?
The current insanity also grew out of commercials promoting the idea that you needed to spend big for this holiday. Historically, Christmas gifts were basically for children and poor people and the rest of it could be handled as a social get together based on a big meal and/or attending some kind of spiritual/religious thing. It wasn't some obligation to bleed yourself to participate in some out-of-control spending ritual in order to not be on the outs socially with everyone you know.
> Pro-breakfast proponents say that eating breakfast results in eating less throughout the day, but I can't say this has been true at all for myself.
Another sample size of 1, but I had the same experience. Eating or not eating breakfast has no apparent impact on my hunger at lunchtime. (Not eating dinner the night before, however, does, so I'm hardly immune to hunger. I wish)
> The only negative effect I'm having is that my sex drive has plummeted to near-zero
This symptom I do not share, however.
By ravenstine 2019-05-0815:581 reply > This symptom I do not share, however.
Yeah, it's funny because I eat plenty of eggs and fat, which have constituents used by the body to produce hormones like testosterone. If anything, I'd expect the opposite effect but I haven't read any literature on the effects it can have on libido, so I'm not sure what's typical.
Are you a skinny person? I've read people under a certain body% fat can have lower sex drive as the body is signaling to them that they do not have enough nutrients to spare/procreate.
Could be made up but sounds like a plausible theory to me.
By ravenstine 2019-05-0816:31 People describe me as "skinny" or "slender", but I've got a fair amount of muscle and still some fat left over from when I was overweight.(I dropped over 60 lbs from 2013 to 2015 and have stayed at around 160 lbs) But I don't have calipers and haven't measured my body fat percentage, so I guess that'd be a good thing to figure out.
> I'm hardly immune to hunger. I wish
Why would you wish such a thing? Being hungry and then eating is one of the nicest things in life.
> Why would you wish such a thing? Being hungry and then eating is one of the nicest things in life.
"hunger is the best sauce" - yes, I agree. Several years ago, I even made a similar comment to yours when I discovered a coworker disliked eating. But that was 50 pounds ago and I was overweight then.
Now I find that a lot of pleasures of the world are less pleasurable because I'm fat. Eating less (and appropriately, but still less) is the key component to not being fat, but that's hard because I'm hungry. I wish to continue to eat, and to enjoy eating, but I'll happily give up that extra burst of enjoyment while eating for the benefits I'd get in the rest of my life - both from the better health and the reduced unhappiness of wanting to eat.
Thus my comment.
Thanks for the response! Still, I wonder what we as society get so wrong. People used to eat whatever they wanted (and was available) whenever they wanted and not be fat. I recently watched the original woodstock 69 footage. There are zero fat people there. For all I know it may have nothing to do with eating.
By username444 2019-05-0819:52 There's a big difference between "eating when you want" and having an active lifestyle that restricts eating naturally, versus binging TV on the couch with junk food 10 feed away.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3102055/
Conclusion
Over the last 50 years in the U.S. we estimate that daily occupation-related energy expenditure has decreased by more than 100 calories, and this reduction in energy expenditure accounts for a significant portion of the increase in mean U.S. body weights for women and men
That's 3000 calories per month, or almost 10 lbs of fat per year.
By danbender 2019-05-097:14 Here's my schedule. I do enjoy it a lot, and I feel like it's benefitting my metabolism, mood, and digestion:
1. I fast every week from Sunday after (a big) lunch (1 pm) to Monday lunch (noon).
2. Mon - Sat (i.e., 6x/week) I work out in the morning from 6-7 am so I do feel like I "need" a substantial breakfast to bulk a bit.
* Mon (fasting day): 30' of light cardio and a few minutes of cardio * Tue: Weights (upper body) * Wed: Weights (lower body) * Thu: Cardio + Yoga * Fri: Weights (upper body) * Sa: Weights (lower body) * Sun: Rest
3. I eat lunch at noon.
4. I don't eat dinner, but maybe a handful of nuts and dates.
Works well for me. :)
FWIW, saw this study pass the NYT radar a few weeks back.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/well/eat/skipping-breakfa...
By Jommi 2019-05-0914:39 Very interesting. This is just a correlational study, and is limited to 40-65 year old americans.
But it stills strikes for a need of more investigation.
By ablation 2019-05-0815:35 I agree. Purely anecdotal from me too, but I feel so much more productive when I fast 16/8. I stopped feeling ravenously hungry after the first couple of days, and frequently fast for longer than the 16 hours in a single cycle.
By hnick 2019-05-094:45 Do you do any exercise in the morning?
I naturally fell into this routine when I started working. A coffee around 9am then lunch around noon is plenty for me. I also never snack naturally (if it's there I can't stop myself, so I just don't take anything to my desk).
The only problem is lately I work from home and I can schedule some gym time into my day. A hard workout before that first meal is very hit or miss. Some days it's fine - some days I'll be light-headed and feel physically sick. It passes quickly though if I monitor my effort.
By drekembemutombo 2019-05-0815:342 reply If it works for you, sure. Interesting, I often eat a big but healthy breakfast and then eat nothing for the rest of the day, and that works really well for me.
By ravenstine 2019-05-0815:451 reply Everyone's a bit different and have their own preferences. I just think that the idea that everyone must eat breakfast(or any meal), and eat it promptly, is bogus.
A better general rule, I think, is that people should only eat when they're actually hungry. That could be in the morning or any time. I have an empty stomach in the morning(waking up around 6pm), but I don't usually feel hunger until between 10:30a and 12pm.
Even better, people should avoid the usual breakfast foods that are high in sugar and low in beneficial fats. I would only discourage people from eating breakfast if they're going to regularly eat foods that spike insulin and not exercise enough to compensate, in which case I believe they're setting themselves up for failure in the long term. A healthy breakfast, on the other hand, isn't harmful by any stretch of the imagination.
By avinium 2019-05-099:03 You’re right, but the problem is that most people have forgotten what real hunger feels like. They confuse “hormone dependence” from years of eating carb heavy meals with actual hunger.
The easiest way to retrain yourself is to stick to simple rules about when to eat (and what to eat).
By jawilson2 2019-05-0815:56 From what I've read in some research, this actually might be slightly more optimal, in terms of timing metabolism and circadian rhythms, etc. However, socially, skipping breakfast is easier, because the alternative (in order to get 16+ hours of fasting in) is to skip dinner, which might be weird for family or friends. The tradeoff is probably minor.
By busymom0 2019-05-097:22 > The only negative effect I'm having is that my sex drive has plummeted to near-zero.
Are you eating enough healthy fats? (whole eggs, avocados etc). Also maybe look into ZMA (zinc, magnesium aspartate, and vitamin B6) supplementation or at least get your blood work done to see if you are low on anything. A lot of people have lower testosterone levels and sex drive due to low zinc.
By dfawcus 2019-05-0817:17 It rather depends upon what one has for Breakfast.
I'll have a quarter pound steak (sirloin or ribeye), with veggies at 7am, and then not eat again until 6-7pm, when I'll have something light (say salad).
No lack of energy during the day, no cravings. However this does tend to mean that one is largely running on burning fat during the day.
By rv-de 2019-05-0819:10 > my sex drive has plummeted to near-zero.
you write that you started this regimen "recently". possibly your body is still adapting to it. initially the effect is weakening to some extent. after a while - provided a healthy diet and body - this should change and make you feel stronger and more vital.
By pieter_mj 2019-05-0816:21 You just need to get a decent intermittent fasting period, whether you achieve that by skipping breakfast or other means doesn't matter much I guess.
Insulin sensitivity is highest in the morning though and decreases throughout the day.
By simonebrunozzi 2019-05-0816:501 reply > The only negative effect I'm having is that my sex drive has plummeted to near-zero.
Wondering why this happens. Any idea?
By ravenstine 2019-05-0817:45 My hypothesis is that, when the body is in a survival or self-repair mode, libido is placed on the backburner because it's just not that important to individual survival. If the body isn't seeking food, reproduction takes a higher priority. Someone else here was talking about how it might be related to a low body fat percentage, which would play into this hypothesis, and I am a fairly skinny guy(not scrawny or lanky, though).
By HNLurker2 2019-05-0910:05 "I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency" Plato
> And that’s what we’re finding in lab animals — the brain and body actually perform better during fasting. In the case of the brain, cognitive function, learning, memory, and alertness are all increased by fasting.
I find this to be true whenever I fast for 12+ hours. It feels like I'm on a drug.
It's strange to realize how not eating can be good for you.
Fun trivia: the longest a human went without food is 382 days. [0]
By wastedhours 2019-05-0815:171 reply > I find this to be true whenever I fast for 12+ hours. It feels like I'm on a drug.
Totally this - when I was suffering with anorexia, in the early days where I was skipping meals all the time and burning fat, I felt amazing. Literally, "skipping down the streets because I had so much energy" amazing.
Just remember to eat afterwards or you'll f* yourself up. Please.
I don't think "remembering to eat" is really in line with anorexia, if that's the parallel you're trying to draw.
I know you're joking, but it's really not a concern at all. A healthy mind will seek food after a fasting period.
I'd add a caution of my own, which is not to gorge yourself during this period. Your body should be given time to adjust back to a normal diet. Though this isn't much of a concern for brief fasts under the intermittent fasting regimen.
By wastedhours 2019-05-096:311 reply I was only being slightly flippant - one of the factors (aside from body image and weight loss) that tipped me over the edge was continuing to strive for the buzz from fasting long after it became healthy to do so.
From my lived experience I can tell you that if you're vulnerable from the other mental health signals of anorexia, the mental and physical benefits of fasting can be a trigger. So as simplistic as it is to say, break the fast when you intend to break it, and never just stretch it out or do it more regularly simply "because I feel good now".
Maintaining a healthy relationship with food is crucial in the early days. Otherwise you'll find yourself stood in the ready meal aisle of the supermarket for 30 minutes paralysed by a choice between a 300 and 400 calorie ready meal and being mentally unable to rationalise eating either.
TL;DR - set an defined end to your fast and stick the heck to it.
By hudbuddy 2019-05-0923:29 Oh yeah that makes sense, thanks for the explanation. Similar to how the positive affects of meditation can be quite addicting, I imagine!
We humans sure do like getting addicted to stuff.
I've done 7 day water fasts (I try to do them quarterly, or bi-annually) and I find by day three I'm full of energy to the point where I have a hard time sleeping. I'm also way more productive during those 7 days. The only thing that tends to suffer is my weight lifting. I drop in strength a tiny bit, but not nearly as much as you'd expect. I also drop about 5-10 lbs in mass, with about half of that coming from water. Almost no lean muscle loss as far as I can tell. In fact, I always look shredded after the fast. I just ease back in with keto for a week or two, then back to low carb diet.
By ohaideredevs 2019-05-0816:192 reply Being hungry increases alertness. This is discussed in "The Willpower Instinct", in the context of keeping you from sleeping well. It's natural - the body knows it needs to find food, so it makes you hyper until you do, negatively affecting the ability to get essential sleep.
So, there is nothing weird about what you are experiencing - it's like wanting to get air when you are under water. Doesn't make it a good way to do things.
It's amazing how much of a trend fasting is lately.
Yeah I'm aware of the biological reasons for why I feel the way I do when I fast. There's a lot of science backing why fasting is good for you, and it has to do with mTOR and the science behind apoptosis, for which Yoshinori Ohsumi won the nobel prize in 2016. Fasting isn't a 'trend' like say 'cleansers' are a trend. One is backed by science, and the other is just a catch phrase to sell products to people.
By ohaideredevs 2019-05-0817:12 The question is of balance. For example, if fasting keeps you from sleeping, I consider it an issue. If fasting causes muscle loss, I consider it an issue. I read the cancer research - how much is damage is being done by not getting the nutrition you need though? It's still a trend - there is no balance defined.
By HNLurker2 2019-05-0910:09 >Being hungry increases alertness. This is discussed in "The Willpower Instinct",
Being hungry decreases your will power, as said in the book. That also means refusing offered food affects your will power
By hnick 2019-05-094:49 If it feels so good why don't you do it more often? Is it a mental block or are there solid reasons that it's too bad in excess? Do you just need some time to gain more fat stores?
Yeah, it feels like getting a "second wind" when exercising.
Getting there can be brutal though as my mind and body feel weak and it's hard for me to do any highly cognitive tasks. But after my body accepts it I feel "in the zone" and I don't want to eat and disrupt the feeling.
I've never gone longer than 18hrs though.
By shanehoban 2019-05-0815:14 I'm not a doctor or anything but my own interpretation of this affect is that you are depleting your glucose stores, and when you reach ketosis, you once again have energy to burn.
By ianstallings 2019-05-0815:21 I was very skeptical of fasting for quite a while, but over winter I was on a contract with a guy that did intermittent fasting and his particular schedule had him eating after 3pm. The guy was like a machine. Just this sense of urgency in his work that was incredible to watch. He accomplished so much more than the other guys in the same position. I'm sure part of that was his own character and his work ethic, but when I talked to him he attributed a lot of it to his fasting. Turns out he's probably correct.
I wonder how these findings can be reconciled with the research on the importance of breakfast for school children. There are obvious differences between the two issues, but nevertheless when I think about how to apply these insights, they seem to conflict, and I'm not sure how to resolve those conflicts.
Edit: The biggest difference is age, but conventional wisdom says adults, too, should eat a good breakfast before an important exam. Should you skip breakfast before your LSAT?
By coldtea 2019-05-0814:58 >I wonder how these findings can be reconciled with the research on the importance of breakfast for school children.
A lot of that research is bogus anyway.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfa...
If you want to ace your LSAT, you're better off getting a good nights sleep and writing the exam fasted. Sleep is way more important than anything else when it comes to memory recall. Also, you should study with a particular type of perfume, and then write the exam with that same perfume. That'll also help memory recall. Breakfast is probably the worst meal of the day, in terms of metabolic health, which is why I haven't regularly had breakfast in over a decade.
By graeme 2019-05-0816:35 I agree, except It would recommend people fast regularly before test day so the body is adapted.
I teach the LSAT and I'm astonished how some people try to do it while sleep deprived. In their regular studying too.
(Day before test nerves can impede that night's sleep, which is really unfortunate)
By mcfunk 2019-05-0814:53 The simple answer is that children's physical and hormonal makeup is different to that of adults. I've always seen it recommended that children should not fast.
There is really no good evidence that breakfast is "the most important meal of the day", despite what folk wisdom and cereal advertising say. For many people it can easily be skipped.
By false-mirror 2019-05-0815:25 It's far healthier to skip dinner though. Breakfast is the easiest to skip (for social/practical reasons), but generally your body will digest things better when ingested earlier in the day.
An easy compromise is to get most of your calories around lunch time (or earlier).
By RobertoG 2019-05-0815:37 >"how these findings can be reconciled with the research on the importance of breakfast"
Research, sometimes, is not what it should be.
"It was a combination of fear of indigestion, religious moralization and advertising that helped push the idea of breakfast as the most important meal of the day – but it was a campaign to sell more bacon that really solidified the idea. [..] Edward Bernays [..] exploited all the moralization and health fears around breakfast to help the company push its bacon."
From: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfa...
If I had a big test coming up, I wouldn't experiment with fasting on the day. However, if you've been fasting while studying and you find it to be a help, then fasting the day of the test is probably a good idea.
By faissaloo 2019-05-0815:25 I know it's anecdotal but I've only managed a few points increase by fasting.
I'm not sure this research applies to kids. Also, you can totally have breakfast and still be fasting, i.e. by following a 16:8 diet (fasting during 16 hours, eating during a 8 hour window).
By blotter_paper 2019-05-0815:31 Oh, come on now, we call that intermittent fasting (or time restricted eating) for a reason! This like saying that you can pronounce the alphabet aloud while being silent. No, but you can pronounce the alphabet while being intermittently silent :) You're not fasting while you're eating breakfast.
By jhawk28 2019-05-0815:44 I think the breakfast only shows improvement for school children if they are malnourished.
