Why I don’t eat on Mondays

http://mariusandra.com/blog/2014/07/why-i-dont-eat-on-mondays/

by mariusandra • 12 years ago

83 87 12 years ago

mariusandra.com

JetSpiegel• 12 years ago

The idea came from the book “Man 2.0 – Engineering the Alpha“
Unfortunately most people can’t hear themselves.

Does not compute.

meritt• 12 years ago

I'm routinely surprised at the popularity of articles in this category. It's no secret that eating less and exercising more leads to a healthier person. Is it just the variety of systems and self-discipline utilized that is found so intriguing?

poopsintub• 12 years ago

I think people would rather read or watch about other people losing weight than actually doing something about it. Seriously, it's hard to lose weight, stop smoking, etc. If anything, at least it gives people momentary hope and a few take changing their diets seriously instead of looking for a miracle pill or momentary diet.

tekalon3• 12 years ago

Some of these comments reminded me of a story Clotaire Rapaille told in his book 'The Culture Code.' He gave a talk at an obesity conference. Each speaker gave their own solution to the obesity problem. Rapaille's observed:

“I think it is fascinating that the other speakers today have suggested that education is the answer to our country’s obesity problem,” I said. I slowly gestured around the room. “If education is the answer, then why hasn’t it helped more of you?”

adamman• 12 years ago

Fasting reminds him of what true hunger is and therefore avoids eating throughout the week when he is not truly hungry.

sp332• 12 years ago

He already said he tried eating less and it didn't stick. So the point isn't that eating less is a good idea (he already knew that), but which method works for him.

rayiner2• 12 years ago

Articles in this category are popular for the same reason articles in the "don't make these extremely elementary mistakes" category are popular in business magazines. Everyone knows that you need to eat less to lose weight, and everyone knows you need to have strong internal communications to run an effective business. But people have consistently have trouble doing either thing, because they are hard and require a lot of discipline. So people want to read about coping strategies to overcome their natural impulses.

paul_f• 12 years ago

It is well understood that exercise does not generally lead to weight loss and can even be counter-productive. This has well documented by Gary Taubes.

Caloric restriction does work, but it is quite difficult to track and maintain. This weekly fasting approach is a new concept, at least to me, and worthy of serious consideration.

dragonwriter9• 12 years ago

It is well understood that exercise does not generally lead to weight loss and can even be counter-productive.

Right, exercise is important in weight loss not because it promotes weight loss directly, but because it enables maintaining muscle loss during weight loss, which is critical to healthy weight loss--which is mostly fat loss--and because it promotes cardio-vascular fitness (which is often an important part of the real goal served by weight loss.)

dragonwriter9• 12 years ago

Weight is a problem lots of people have, and lots of people are looking for "one simple trick" to make it go away, and there are entire major industries that survive of selling a rotating array of quick fixes.

Obviously, free articles offering the same thing are going to be popular. Throw an analytical veneer over it with some charts and references to productivity, to meet the cultural biases of HN, and its popular on HN.

DanBC2• 12 years ago

Have you read the research about "eat less move more"? Because while it's obviously true it's also clearly not helping reduce the incidence of obesity.

Working out a method to help fat people lose weight would be worth a lot of cash.

swah• 12 years ago

That blockage was simply low glucose, right?

Bartweiss• 12 years ago

That was the line that alarmed me. Advertising a shot of glucose as "removing a blockage" isn't about the wonders of fasting, it's about the fairly important problems that arise from deciding to just not eat.

Similarly, before adopting a super-low calorie diet on the basis of those "long lifespan" studies in mice, look into the part where it induces depression and agoraphobia.

pmalynin• 12 years ago

Frankly, I would attribute this glucose deficiency to his diet that cut down on rice and the like. By reducing bodily supply of starch (and also lipids) they will interfere with their natural metabolic pathways such as glycogenoysis and gluconeogenesis which stabilize blood glucose levels, however without the underlying resources they cannot achieve their purpose.

vinceguidry• 12 years ago

Probably just mental. Vast numbers of people experience the symptoms of hypoglycemia without actually being hypoglycemic. The condition is known as Idiopathic Postprandial Syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiopathic_postprandial_syndrom...

thejerz• 12 years ago

Make it a challenge to see if you can go a full day without eating. What do you have to lose?

A lot, actually. Some medical conditions may be seriously affected by not eating for an entire day. As with any medical advice, you should consult your physician before attempting fasting.

tomp2• 12 years ago

Which, in particular?

Also, note that he explicitly mentions that "A normal healthy adult should not have any problems when fasting for 24 hours."

piva00• 12 years ago

Diabetes is one of them

sremani2• 12 years ago

Do you have a serious medical condition ? A General statement is not Universal. So, if it is applicable to say 80% of population you can cut that guy some slack.

delluminatus• 12 years ago

I do get tired of comments like these. Obviously diabetics aren't going to take some random person's advice to fast for 24 hours. Do you think they need you to tell them that?

drcross• 12 years ago

But, but, political correctness. Everyone must be explicitly told what to do at all times.

nnnnni3• 12 years ago

Some people don't YET know that they're diabetic. A whole day without food could cause some major problems in those people.

JoeAltmaier• 12 years ago

Nonsense. You don't check with your doctor every time you eat a new food - yet there's far more danger there.

lowmagnet• 12 years ago

Diabetic here. (Type 1)

Several times in both articles (linked post and the post at nerdfitness) they mention the diabetic/other blood sugar regulation issues.

Fasting isn't an issue for me. I generally fast from 8pm to 11-12am every day. My morning glucose is generally better when I do this, but there are sometimes swings caused by digestive issues, such as food being too nutritionally dense or slow to digest.

smallegan2• 12 years ago

"I still try to adhere to a low carb diet, eating mainly meat and vegetables and severely limiting my intake of bread, pasta, rice and potatoes." - I think this is a much larger player in his weight loss success than he may realize.

throwaway2837193• 12 years ago

He claims to have been following this diet for three months whilst maintaining the same weight, and only started seeing a drop in his weight after starting to fast for one day a week (standard sample size disclaimer etc etc).

dragonwriter9• 12 years ago

He claims to have been following this diet for three months whilst maintaining the same weight, and only started seeing a drop in his weight after starting to fast for one day a week (standard sample size disclaimer etc etc).

Its interesting that I don't notice any discussion of caloric intake on either model -- if he was eating the same except skipping one day of food later, then you are looking at a ~14% reduction in weekly caloric intake, which, without any special effect of fasting, you'd expect to turbocharge weight loss.

SandB0x• 12 years ago

Do we really need health advice from random unqualified people on the internet on Hacker News?

rayiner2• 12 years ago

Weight loss is a market in need of disruption. 70% of American adults are overweight, and the solutions espoused by the establishment (eat less and exercise more) are technically correct but practically ineffective. Disrupting weight loss is potentially a hundred billion dollar industry, considering the huge medical expenditures and lost productivity that accrues from people being overweight.

normloman2• 12 years ago

Leave it to the HN crowd to see an epidemic as a money making opportunity.

Isn't it good enough just to help people?

RockyMcNuts• 12 years ago

It's an unusual body/brain hack...he seems to have done it methodically and observed the outcome...it worked for him and he wrote up something detailed...that's the spirit of hacking!

I don't think it's flagworthy but if it lacks quality vote accordingly!

rsync• 12 years ago

Given that this behavior is well preserved in all major world religions, I would hesitate to call it unusual. ..

dragonwriter9• 12 years ago

It's an unusual body/brain hack...

No, its not...intermittent fasting has been a fad in the last few years. There's nothing unusual about it.

he seems to have done it methodically and observed the outcome...

I'm having trouble crediting something as a methodical study of a diet pattern change that doesn't have any indication of tracking the specific patterns of what is being eaten (or even quantification of total calories) before and after.

Justsignedup2• 12 years ago

As much as I hate saying this, most diets are pretty much identical. I don't see many diet suggestions from big orgs relying on massive multi-variable studies proving that their diet actually works vs anecdotes based on "well the numbers look right so it should work".

DanBC2• 12 years ago

Some peoe on HN freaking love random unqualified people giving weird advice about diet and nutrition.

emsy2• 12 years ago

The article's title is "Why I don't eat on Mondays" not "Why you shouldn't eat on Mondays". Also, intermittent fasting I fairly well researched and known for its benefits, so it's far from being a "weird advice".

MarioSpeedwagon• 12 years ago

Haven't you heard? Everybody is the same now, and nobody is to be trusted before anybody else. Can't judge. We're all heroes.

chestnut-tree• 12 years ago

There is some evidence that intermittent fasting can help you lose weight and improve your health. In fact, there have been a plethora of books on the subject. In the UK, this type of fasting diet became very popular after the BBC broadcast a (not very good) documentary about it in 2012. The presenter of the programme (Michael Mosley) then went on to write a best-selling book on the subject.

If you're in the UK, you can still watch the programme on iPlayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lxyzc/horizon-201220...

Here's the accompanying article from August 2012: The power of intermittent fasting http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19112549

hajderr• 12 years ago

Fasting has been tested for its health benefits. I advise you to check out this BBC documentary

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19112549

egb• 12 years ago

Quote at the end of that article contradicts your statement...?

"Current medical opinion is that the benefits of fasting are unproven and until there are more human studies it's better to eat at least 2000 calories a day. "

cliveowen• 12 years ago

It's been proven for mice and Rhesus monkeys, but as far as humans go there's no reason to believe the same holds true.

normloman2• 12 years ago

So instead listening to my doctor, I should follow the advice of a Belgian entrepreneur with no medical training, based on his experiment with a sample size of one.

throwaway2837193• 12 years ago

You'll note that this isn't presented as a medical study. It's presented exactly as you describe it - an experiment with a sample size of one.

No one is telling you to follow this advice. This is one guy saying "Hey, here's something that worked for me when I had this problem. Maybe if you have the same problem, it might work for you."

You are entirely free to ignore it. You should consider using that freedom.

jsissom2• 12 years ago

I'm sorry, but this is something a non-overweight person would say.

I've been overweight my whole life. I talked to my doctor. One said (yes he literally said this) Follow the SELAP diet. When I asked what he meant he said "Stop Eating Like a Pig". That was his advice. Another doctor said to get surgery.

I finally found another doctor that helped. He put me on a 1,000 calorie a day diet. Tons of people told me it was unhealthy, but I lost weight - 50 lbs. The information out there for dieting is so bad. I had people tell me that if I ate 1,000 calories a day, I would gain weight because of a slow metabolism. These were "professional" people. I've never heard of people who stop eating in food strikes in prisons get to the point where they weighed so much they can't leave their cell!

Unfortunately I couldn't keep that extremely low calorie diet up for the long term and when trying to increase it, I've now gained 25 of it back but it's been a year so I consider it somewhat of a success.

I'm glad to read about something that works for someone. The doctors you mention are pretty clueless in my opinion.

billbrown• 12 years ago

I've found the No-S Diet to be fairly maintainable over the years: "No Snacks, no Sweets, no Seconds except on days that start with S"

http://www.nosdiet.com/

tekalon3• 12 years ago

I'm 4'11, so really short and overweight. I tried to keep to the 1200 calories that everyone says is the minimum, but I can't, it's often too much food for me and never really saw much in weight loss. I've been trying to go closer to 600-1000 and have seen much more results and feel healthier.

hammock• 12 years ago

"It tunes my mind to the station of my body. It makes me feel real hunger and lets me differentiate it from other cravings"

What he's describing is congruent with a stoic lifestyle. The core of stoicism is to not be a slave to your feelings and cravings. And this is achieved through mental and spiritual "exercise."

I have fasted for 3 days at a time, allowing myself nothing but water. Try six weeks without a drop of alcohol. And don't cheat. It's not a "detoxifying" process- it's a process of gaining mindfulness. You understand, as the author points out, what your body does and does not need, and that many of your feelings of "hunger" (for food, or more figuratively anything) are triggered by your officemate talking about nutella, or hearing some bad news that makes you anxious, or any number of things that you can control if you become aware of them.

Once you understand the true control you have over your body and your feelings and actions, you can really start to take it to the next level with what you actually want to accomplish, as opposed to what has been programmed by your social environment.

davidu2• 12 years ago

I'm more interested in what generated that chart? Was it some automated system / program / tool?

mcnape• 12 years ago

It was made in beeminder (https://www.beeminder.com/). It is a website where you pledge a certain amount of money towards a goal and if you don't stay on track, it charges you.

davidu2• 12 years ago

Thanks. And really interesting site / idea. I've seen some before, but none quite as good.

cm2012• 12 years ago

This actually makes a lot of sense. An obese person burns about 2500 calories a day just be existing (obviously depending on weight/heigh/etc.) 1 day of fasting means 1lb a week lost, basically.

bryanlarsen• 12 years ago

The OP mentions that he eats extra on Sunday.

funkyy• 12 years ago

Well if Muslims and people from some other cultures can do fasting, and they still manage to live long and healthy like any other culture - why not try this method to actually loose weight and then pick for example Japanese diet to maintain it?

I think all this fasting is for self control rather than long term process. You teach your body and mind to say "no" to nasty foods and snacks.

nnnnni3• 12 years ago

Isn't it better, safer, and more comfortable to just eat 200-500 less calories per day?

I know that I'd rather eat one less slice of pizza during a meal than to eat NOTHING for a whole day.

As we all know, weight is primarily determined by calories in versus calories out. Since 3500 calories equals 1 lb or .45 kg, you can lose 2 lbs or 1 kg a week by eating 500 calories less each day.

Kevguy• 12 years ago

500 calories/day * 7 days == 3500 calories == 1 lb of fat per week. Not 2 lbs.

nnnnni3• 12 years ago

Oops, got mixed up with the conversions!

frankacter• 12 years ago

I think a challenge for many is what constitutes 200-500 calories and whether their will power allows them to accurately gauge and control.

Not eating is binary [ ] yes [ ] no, which for many is easier to control versus picking and choosing and limiting quantity.

trendyy• 12 years ago

For those interested in different approaches to weight loss, I found this article really helpful while trying to shed a few pounds myself: http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html

tekalon3• 12 years ago

One thing about this is paying attention not only to what he eats, but also how his body reacts to food. In high school, I would often only eat one meal a day (I could have had more meals, but I wasn't hungry). In college, I also still only ate the equivalent of one meal a day. Once I had a full time job that included lunch breaks, I felt obligated to eat more, and the more I ate the more I was hungry. Having more money and more freedom to eat what I want, when I wanted (compared to living with parents or in college eating on poor starving student rations), I stopped paying attention to what and how much I ate.

lucidrains• 12 years ago

Good for you! Health is wealth!

saurik2• 12 years ago

Still the idea of going for 24 hours without any food seemed alien at first. Was I going to be okay, I wondered.

I once forgot to eat for three days, I was just so busy. I walked up the stairs to my second-floor apartment, and I felt light-headed enough that I noticed myself start to black out. I began going through the "usual debugging", asking myself "what did you eat today?", and it turns out I hadn't... nor the day before... and when I realized I hadn't eaten the day before that either, it became very clear what happened, and I immediately ordered an extra large pizza. I take it this is highly unusual? :(

deadghost2• 12 years ago

How'd you manage to forget?

saurik2• 12 years ago

How does one manage to forget anything? I guess I was was just really distracted? :( I can easily imagine myself thinking "I should grab some food, but I only have a couple minutes, I'll just eat after class", or "I should eat something, but I'm so tired, I'll just eat a large breakfast", and then "I should eat something, but I'm late, I'll just eat when I get to campus".

Why I don’t eat on Mondays

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