Post: #1

I don't see any recent threads about intermittent fasting, and this was just published, so here you go:

What Happens To Your Body When You Don’t Eat For 16 Hours

My interest in intermittent fasting has to do with having a little midlife surprise to finish raising. Caloric restriction and intermittent fasting boost longevity.

One of the problems I have found for keeping up with it is...friends and relatives. Eating is a very social activity. You get into all sorts of trouble when you tell people "no, I'm fasting today".

For that reason I am tempted to try the 8 hour eating window, where you can eat during an 8 hour window every day and fast for the remaining 16 hours. It might make sense to eat two meals a day and cut out breakfast. One benefit of cutting out breakfast would be that breakfast is, perhaps out of habit more than anything else, usually the most carbo-loaded meal of the day. It's also typically not as much of a "social meal" as supper is. Except maybe on weekends when I often serve a really nice breakfast.

What might make sense is to start with one day a week, then two, then 3, etc, until my body is fully adjusted.

There are links in the article. One of them is to a TEDx talk about neurogenesis associated with fasting. It's a similar--maybe the same--process as happens during vigorous exercise. That might be one of the factors that contributes to longevity. Might also be useful for boosting brain power when learning new skills. The same speaker also mentions weight maintenance being easier when glycogen levels are regularly exhausted.

I am not a biologist so this is all hearsay for me. But it is possible that fasting can reduce the risk of cancer by triggering a process that cannibalizes damaged cells, which are the ones most likely to turn cancerous. And I think there is some actual research to the effect that it triggers regeneration of the immune system, and restores insulin sensitivity. All good things. It might have to do with certain biological "housekeeping operations" being normally triggered by fasting, which no longer happens in civilized lifestyles where food is available on a regular basis, instead of, say, when you actually find and kill it.

I hope you find this information useful and that it contributes to your well-being.

Post: #2

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