> Many of the same benefits of calorie restriction may be achievable through intermittent fasting, which is much easier for people to follow. I've been experimenting with a daily 16 hour fast
Citation? I can't get the NIH study to load, but the other two are wildly different from 16/8 IF. IF proponents like to look at alternate day fasting or periodic weekly fasting and claim evidence for the effectiveness of 16/8 fasting, but going without food for >24 hours is definitely not the same as skipping breakfast, which is all 16/8 really is.
16/8 probably helps with weight loss for many people, because it shortens the eating window, which will make it easier to reduce caloric intake. But I have never seen a study that indicated 16/8 had effects similar to 24/24 or the other IF patterns typically studied.
How about skipping breakfast and lunch, as done by Muslims during Ramadan? In general, Islam recommends voluntary fasting for 2 days every week (traditionally Monday and Thursday).
It's probably better to skip breakfast and dinner, and eat only at mid-day. You're still generally active for hours after the mid-day meal, so you don't have the tendency to gorge and then curl up on the couch or go to bed.
The issue with Ramadan is that they eat at night. It is indeed intermittent fasting, but it is not as good as intermittent fasting where you eat during the day, because eating is related to peripheral oscillators of our circadian rhythm.
There are some assertions that the wheat-based carbs we eat today are deficient in something (allegations vary depending upon who you speak with) that is missing from modern wheat grains and especially flours. It would be interesting to find a micro-culture or community that sources and exclusively uses freshly-stone-ground (not roller milled), whole, heirloom grain varieties for its flour, and compare the incidence of metabolic diseases with the general population.
That means a population that only uses a flour that is ground locally, then immediately used within 12-48 hours after grinding. The mill grinds the entire wheat grain, under cold temperatures, sourced from older strains of grain (e.g., einkorn or emmer), without separating and then adding back in bran, etc. Before milling, the grains are held in cold or even freezing, dry, dark storage.
If such a population can be found and studied, it could support or refute these assertions that modern hybrid grain strains and modern processes for even "whole wheat" flours is causing deficiencies in our diet that are contributing to various metabolic disorders.
Whole wheat is a poorly-regulated term [1]. Baking with whole, heirloom wheat might benefit from deep learning algos, automation, and appropriate sensor tech, considering how finicky the variables are [2]. If we can solve that, then we might be able to deliver industrial-scale baked goods with all the asserted benefits, without the high prices of artisan production. There are a lot of claims surrounding the adverse effects of industrialized grain and its affiliated production [3] [4], but I don't know of anyone coming at the other end, showing populations that eat heirloom grains that are freshly-processed differ from the general population in significant ways. I'm curious if an analogous condition exists for rice.
So damn true haha! Have you tried Tunisian cuisine? The food we are mostly known for is couscous. It's actually popular among North African countries, but I prefer the southern Tunisian variant to the rest.
16/8 is not just skipping breakfast: it's also not eating anything (or drinking anything calorie rich) in the evening after dinner, which is a common practice for many people. It's also not eating anything between the skipped breakfast and lunch. In other words: it cuts down on snacking and alcohol.
That intermittent fasting has many of the same benefits of calorie restriction is obvious if you realize that people practicing intermittent fasting usually do not compensate the lost calories in other meals. So they effectively calorie restrict. Often that is even the main goal.
I have never seen a study that indicated 16/8 had effects
similar to 24/24
It's well known when the body goes into the fasted state: after at most 12 hours. So 16/8 gives you at least 4 hours in that state, vs. 12 hours for 24/24. In addition to that there is the calorie restriction. It would be surprising if 16/8 did not confer much of the same benefits as other forms of intermittent fasting.
Citation? I can't get the NIH study to load, but the other two are wildly different from 16/8 IF. IF proponents like to look at alternate day fasting or periodic weekly fasting and claim evidence for the effectiveness of 16/8 fasting, but going without food for >24 hours is definitely not the same as skipping breakfast, which is all 16/8 really is.
16/8 probably helps with weight loss for many people, because it shortens the eating window, which will make it easier to reduce caloric intake. But I have never seen a study that indicated 16/8 had effects similar to 24/24 or the other IF patterns typically studied.