A few years ago I wasn't interested in fasting at all. I was perhaps too quick to associate the concept with just "eating less", when later I came to realise it was more about "eating less often".

I'm still not one to actively pursue fasting myself, rather I've just let it happen of its own accord, according to my appetite. Like I've always done throughout my entire life, I've just eaten when hungry and not eaten when I wasn't. My problem was just that previously, I was always hungry.

These days I've come to view hunger as the body's way of saying "I need more of whatever it is that I need", without being able to explicitly tell you upfront what that need actually is. But it's still something that can be worked out through simple trial and error. If I can have a plate of pasta for lunch and be hungry again at 3, or I have a plate of pork belly for lunch and be hungry again at 6, what does that suggest about the sorts of nutrients that my body might seem to appreciate more, to be able to better utilise?

Blues Singer - thanks for the graphic. I wondered, when I looked at it, if the insulin spikes would be different depending upon the carb count of the meals. Just curious.

I have found - now that I am officially "an old hag" that I cannot eat as much protein in one sitting as I did in 2006. Why? I have no idea. 5 oz is max but 3 oz is more usual. I could once eat an 8 oz portion plus all the sides.

I do not know what has changed - or why - but I am unable to eat as much protein in a sitting as I did while doing Protein Power 14 years ago.

It might just go long with changed sleep patterns as well - without an alarm - I used to log 8 to 9 hours a night. Now I am good to go on 6 hours and even sometimes 4. Why?
QuienSabe? Who knows?

Grav - I can relate to the change from being hungry all the time to being hungry periodically.

I used to go into panic attacks when I got hungry so for many years I ate to stave off the panic attacks. For some reason it doesn't happen any more - but i have no idea why. Unless writing my memoirs purged the cause of the panic attacks.

These days my hunger is unconsciously triggered by my reading fiction. People are always eating something in a story.

I also struggle with eating enough protein. I have two sources of protein supplements I use, collagen and protein powder. Sleep? For me, results vary. The good news is that retired persons can nap.

Where do you get collagen?
Is it a protein?

The refeed after an IF is important:

Caloric restriction vs. periodic fasting and the importance of re-feeding after a fast __2-9-19

Dr. Longo and Dr. Rhonda Patrick

FMF Clips

As a supplement (not a food) I use Premium Collagen Peptide Powder from Grass Fed Beef. It is flavorless and dissolves instantly. I'm sure there are cheaper ways to get collagen. One scoop has 10gms protein.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product...e?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Soups (bone broth). Yes, it's a protein.

Collagen - What Is It and What Is It Good For?

Chicken Collagen Benefits Digestion, Immunity & Skin Health

I get the flavored collagen drinks (lemonade with erythritrol, an artificial sweetener I get along with) then cut it half and half with the unflavored. Makes a tasty thing to sip all day.

Easier than bone broth.

Update: I was satisfied and didn't eat any more yesterday. As Dr. Fung says, if you have famine (fasting) you balance it with feasting!

This graphic is excellent at enabling people to visualize why, when, and what's happening with insulin release. If we successfully manage release of the insulin hormone, we effectively influence good health.

That's pretty much it - the 1500 is what your body needs to keep going, when you're doing nothing at all, not even digesting food - they said on there that they test BMR when the person is awake, but practically comatose pretty much describes it, because they're doing nothing at all except lying there.






Yeah, it's unfortunate that calculator doesn't work above age 80. But just to see trends in BMR, I put a bunch of different ages between 60 and 80 into that calculator, while keeping the weight the same. The 60 year old had a BMR of only 50 calories a day more than the 70 year old, and the 70 year old had a BMR of only 50 calories more per day than the 80 year old, so my guess is that the BMR reduction between 80 and 90 is probably not much different, because most of our calorie expenditure is always just keeping the brain, heart, and other major organs going.



It's still just an estimate of how much it takes to keep a body of a certain size and age going when there's no activity at all though, so it just gives you a place to start when trying to determine the number of calories you don't want to go below. And yes, if the best estimate of your BMR is 1500ish, then going down to 1200 cals will likely stop weight loss.

BMR calculator. Dropping BMR by age is nonsense. It relies on loss of muscle mass. We should not lose muscle as we age; working small weights etc to keep muscle is critical to aging well and enjoying an active "old age".

There is a theory that the reason babies sleep so much, and seniors so little, is part of sleeping is "classifying and filing" new information. Everything is new to babies. Often, seniors get into routines where they don't need to process a lot of new information.

In my case, I've got a lot of healing to catch up on. Sleep hygiene techniques like blue light filters on devices after sundown, sleep mask, and making myself lie there listening to an audiobook or podcast to get back to sleep has improved things greatly.

There have been a couple of studies in the last few years--we probably talked about them on the Dr. Fung thread in the diabetes forum--where meal timing, keeping calories the same, resulted in greater fat loss when most of the calories came earlier in the day. So there's a time window there, as well as how calories were portioned out. One I remember gave something like 1500 calories a day, 750 for breakfast, 500 for lunch, 250 for dinner. I don't know how strong a calorie restriction this was, but there was greater fat loss on the same calories that way than if dinner was the largest meal of the day instead of breakfast.

I don't think we have a definitive answer to your question, I think we need more intervention studies, really, and until then we're sort of left to look at the suggestions and do a bit of trial and error at home.

Nany's "eat more" suggestion doesn't come from controlled metabolic ward type studies. Doctors might notice that if they tell people not to restrain their eating, that they sometimes lose weight. So what's going on? Are they actually eating more at meals, so snacking less? I mean, we already have that idea that eating in a different pattern--discreet meals in a shorter time window, versus constant snacking or eating the same food with the bulk of calories coming at a different time of day can make a difference. Do they actually wind up eating more during the day? How well are they tracking their calories? We have people told not to track calories... now I'm not saying I doubt individual accounts of weight loss with high calories when they are tracking, but I just think things are a bit foggy when it comes to what's generally going on.