Intermittent fasting (IF), so far, works. And the best part is that, for the rest of the week, I can eat normally.

Like the previous two times, after 24 hours of fasting I wake up not feeling hungry; in fact, it’s 11 AM and I haven’t eaten anything solid yet (I will do so at lunch, of course).

I’m beginning to agree with the IF advocates when they say that the food and diet industry has convinced most of the Western world that “you need 6 meals a day”, that “being hungry is unbearable and bad for you”, that “if you go more than a couple of hours without eating you’ll feel weak and light-headed”, that “no way I could go an entire day without food; I’d faint”, and so on. I’m no expert (far from it – I’m a computer guy, not a nutritionist or a doctor), but, like I’ve said before, I have the “soul of a scientist”, and a scientist doesn’t take things on faith, or on “everybody knows”; I wanted to test things out for myself, and, so far, the results have been exactly the opposite of what “popular wisdom” tells me. In fact, they almost sound too good to be true.

As I said, I test things out; this is just my second week of IF, and my plan was to try this out for a month (until the end of April); if, in the end, I don’t feel as good as I do now, or I develop some health problem, I’ll stop, of course. But if I hadn’t done this, I’d never know, so, even if the test went badly, it would still have increased my knowledge, which is always a good thing. But, so far, so good.

Just for fun: have you thought about what would happen to the world’s economy if everyone in the world started eating just 5 days a week? Now that would be a crisis… so, naturally, there are vested interests in perpetuating the “need 6 meals a day, can’t ever feel hungry” belief.

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I’m pleased to report full success after my first 24 hours of fasting (from one breakfast to another). I slept a good night’s sleep, and wasn’t even hungry at all when I woke up; in fact, much like during the rest of my breakfast trial, I ate because I had decided to, not because I felt like it or wanted any of it. I believe I could have easily fasted for another 24 hours, if I wanted to.

Breakfast was a scrambled egg with cheese. As always, it tasted good, but it was as if my body was asking me: “why are you eating so early? I’m not hungry!”.

Exercise was, again, the usual, light stuff: Wii Fit jogging and hula hoops.

Weight: 80.1 kg, which means I lost 1.1 kg since yesterday. Not bad, not bad at all. This gives me a BMI of exactly 25.0, which is the threshold for being “overweight”; 24.9 already means “normal”. Of course (as I see some angry girls coming at me with knives), weight loss is not my goal, it’s just an easy measure of part of it; I’m still far from “athletic”. I need to find a way to exercise more, too.

I’ll be eating normally today and during the weekend, but I plan to fast again next Tuesday and Thursday. As I said last post, after hearing so many horror stories, I was surprised by how easy it was. Maybe the fact that I’ve skipped breakfast and afternoon tea for years has made my body not “panic” by the slightest sensation of hunger, like many of the “6 meals a day” people seem to do. Plus, having the equivalent of 27-hour days twice a week is nice.

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As I write this, I haven’t eaten anything for about 14 hours (since breakfast; it’s now half past midnight), and have only drank water and a little Diet Coke. How do I feel?

In terms of hunger, I’m hungry (as in “I could eat something”), but not starving in any way. I haven’t been thinking about food during the day, except an hour or so after lunchtime, when my body was clearly expecting something; after it “understood” that food wasn’t forthcoming, my sensation of hunger actually diminished, and, as I said, I’m not “craving” food. Indeed, if it doesn’t get worse than this (I still have a night – about 8 hours – to go before next breakfast, when I’ll eat again, but I’ll be asleep during that time), then fasting is easy, at least for me. After hearing so many horror stories about people feeling starved, slow-minded, and unable to think about anything except food, I’m discovering that those are just that – horror stories. At least until now.

One weakness, though: if I smell food, I really get a craving for it. It goes away quickly after I leave the smell’s range, though.

Incidentally, I haven’t felt myself “slowing down” or anything like that. On the contrary, I think I’ve actually felt more awake and active than I do most of the time. Being full often makes you sleepy, and I guess that digestion also takes some energy from you, which I haven’t spent today.

One interesting fact not related to nutrition at all: this day felt much longer. At least 3 hours longer than usual. I felt that I spent much more time both at work and at home, and, indeed, had to come up with things to do; I’m used to much shorter days, with two interruptions of 60-90 minutes each; by removing those interruptions, it felt as if I had a “27-hour day”, so to speak. Having so much more time to do things can be a big difference in one’s life; our daily routine tends to grow up to fill the “vacuum” of the day, and suddenly it’s as if some days become much longer, with more free time than you know what to do with.

It remains to be seen how I’ll be feeling tomorrow just before breakfast. But, so far, so good – and I intend to try this out for the entire month of April; hopefully two days each week. If this is as “bad” as it gets, I know I can do it. As for my health, we’ll see. I’m not worried, as many religions have, for centuries, included fasting as part of their rituals, and people in general don’t die from it. Not to mention that, compared to how long humans have existed, agriculture (and, therefore, regular meals) is a very recent invention; the human race has existed for most of its “life” without it.

By the way, with one exception, everyone I told about what I’ve been doing today was alarmed: “are you crazy? you mustn’t do that! you’ll ruin your health!”. While I appreciate that my friends care for me, it’s interesting to note how they almost panic, as if I was endangering my health or even my life merely by not eating for about 24 hours. Are people taught to be so terrified of ever feeling hunger? Or are we all so brainwashed by the media that we think it’s a “sin” against our bodies to ever go more than 2 hours (sometimes even less than that) without eating? Really, people, I’m OK. I feel fine. Don’t worry.

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Breakfast was cream cheese (again), and exercise was brief: a bit of Wii Sports boxing, and some sit-ups. Weight: 81.2 kg (0.2 kg lower than 2 days ago).

Since I’m an impatient fellow, I decided to anticipate playing with fasting (not eating for about 24 hors) today. The term “fasting” suggests not eating for a whole day, which of course I’ve already done today, but my challenge is now to eat nothing and drink only non-caloric liquids until tomorrow’s breakfast. I believe I can do it, but it won’t be easy, since our bodies are used to having regular meals and never being really hungry. Supposedly, however, our species spent millennia as hunter-gatherers, who would eat just when they had a successful hunt or found berries or other fruit – much like, in fact, wild animals still do. Regular meals are a social construct, not a biological need. At least, that’s the theory. I’m not believing or disbelieving in it; I’m simply going to try it out. The real trial begins next week, though; today is just a preliminary test, simply because I feel like it.

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So, naturally, I find these ideas appealing. Wikipedia mentions two authors: Martin Berkhan, whose suggestion is basically what I already have done for the past years (except probably for the booze ): big meals at lunch and dinner, and spend most of the day (from dinner to next day’s lunch) without eating. I’m sure that some details are different (I just found out about the site, and there’s a lot I have yet to read), but it’s good to know that what I’ve done for years – even if I did it due to laziness, not health – was not completely absurd. Martin’s approach seems to be more oriented towards muscle gain than weight loss, but both are, of course, a good thing.

A different approach is Brad Pilon’s “Eat Stop Eat”. Brad sells a book, so there aren’t any big details on his web page, naturally, but according to Wikipedia it involves fasting (as in just drinking non-caloric liquids) for one or two 24-hour periods every week. According to Brad, that’s not as hard as it sounds, once you get used to it; most people, supposedly, eat more because they’re “addicted” to eating, than because they’re actually feeling hungry, or are in need of food. He claims that this approach doesn’t make you feel hungry or “slowing down”, and doesn’t interfere with any exercise you do on those days.

This, of course, makes me curious, and it will be my next trial, beginning early April. Until then, I still want to extend my “eat breakfast even though I’m not hungry in the morning” trial, until at least the end of March.

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