Post by robwhite on Nov 24, 2009 12:30:47 GMT -5
Something that crops up alot these days is the concept of Intermittent Fasting (IF) - typically either radically undereating or completely fasting for a 16-20 hour period, and then overeating for a 4-6 hours after. I've seen alot about it on a couple of the forums i frequent with some guys raving about how amazing it makes you feel, gets your body fat down, and does not cause muscle loss. Alot of studies also show it is extremely good for glucose sensitivity, blood profile, upregulation of protein metabolism, and longevity, some of which were higlighted in a recent edition of The Paleo Diet newsletter, and it seems Loren Cordain is shifting towards the IF approach. EliteFTS also ran a 2-part article about it a while back with quite a 'neutral' overall opinion.
This eating pattern is shown in many indigenous groups. From the aforementioned Paleo Diet newsletter:
"We are currently in the process of compiling meal times and patterns in the worlds historically studied hunter-gatherers. If any single picture is beginning to emerge, it clearly is not three meals per day plus snacking ala the typical U.S. grazing pattern. Here are a few examples:
The Ingalik Hunter Gatherers of Interior Alaska: "As has been made clear, the principal meal and sometimes the only one of the day is eaten in the evening." 22.
The Guayaki (Ache) Hunter Gatherers of Paraguay: "It seems, however, that the evening meal is the most consistent of the day. This is understandable, since the day is generally spent hunting for food that will be eaten in the evening"23.
The Kung Hunter Gatherers of Botswana. "Members move out of camp each day individually or in small groups to work through the surrounding range and return in the evening to pool the collected resources for the evening meal"24.
Hawaiians, Tahitians, Fijians and other Oceanic peoples (pre-westernization). "Typically, meals, as defined by Westerners, were consumed once or twice a day. . . Oliver (1989) described the main meal, usually freshly cooked, as generally eaten in the late afternoon after the day’s work was over."25.
The most consistent daily eating pattern that is beginning to emerge from the ethnographic literature in hunter-gatherers is that of a large single meal which was consumed in the late afternoon or evening. A midday meal or lunch was rarely or never consumed and a small breakfast (consisting of the remainders of the previous evening meal) was sometimes eaten. Some snacking may have occurred during daily gathering, however the bulk of the daily calories were taken in the late afternoon or evening. This pattern of eating could be described as intermittent fasting relative to the typical western pattern, particularly when daily gathering or hunting were unsuccessful or marginal."
Finally, to me, IF-style eating patterns seem to be the most natural. Our ancestors would not have had time to sit and eat 3-meals-a-day-plus-snacks when they had so much to do in terms of hunting, gathering, farming, and doing community and residential chores. This also fits well with promoting natural diurnal cycles of daytime catabolsim and evening / nighttime anabolism.
So, how does this fit into metabolic typing, and what metabolic type would you need to be to be able to eat like this?
T-Nation years ago did a good interview with Ori Hofmekler, creator of The Warrior Diet which is an undereating - overeating approach of ‘1 meal (a HUGE meal spread over a few hours) in the evening' approach, with optional low-calorie ‘nibbles’ during the day. In the interview, he states that the IF approach initially requires reasonable cortisol output to enable you to function without much food during the day. In fact, studies show that IF can result in peaks of a 105% increase in cortisol output during the day.
Bearing this in mind, if we look at Paul Eck’s theories, sympathetic dominant persons, who often only need to eat infrequently, tend to have decent adrenal and therefore good cortisol output, whereas 'unhealthy' parasympathetic dominant people, who often need to eat frequently, have low cortisol output due to adrenal fatigue. Therefore, it could be extrapolated from this that those with strong adrenals and good sympathetic output would do well on an IF-style eating pattern, whereas the unhealthy parasympathetics with the fatigued adrenals would not be able produce enough cortisol to do well on IF.
Perhaps, as a persons adrenal health improves, their need to eat so much diminishes ..? I’ve certainly noticed that since following an adrenal recovery protocol, my hunger has diminished and I can go longer without eating. In fact, i think my whole metabolic type might be changing (there are other symptoms like no asthma, massively reduced eczema, my average diameter of my pupils has widened recently, etc.).
It is worth noting that the type of food consumed in those IF studies involved light proteins, high carbs, and little fat - very much foods from a Carbo Type diet which rapidly oxidise and could result in blood sugar drops and then cortisol spikes in certain persons. Maybe if an IF approach was followed that used foods from the Protein Type food list, it could work for parasympathetics, in that such foods would slow oxidation and reduce the cortisol output somewhat. It maybe worth a try, esp. in light of Dr William Kelley's strong recommendations in "One Answer to Cancer" about daily periodic fasting from protien. He suggests that the pancreatic enzymes needed to stop cancer from developing are depleted if you consume cooked proteins all day long (because pancreatic enzymes get used up metabolising all that protein instead), and that if people condensed their protein consumption into a 6 hour window, that about 85% of cancer cases could be prevented, because it leaves the other 18 hours a day for production of pancreatic enzymes to digest cancer tissue.
This eating pattern is shown in many indigenous groups. From the aforementioned Paleo Diet newsletter:
"We are currently in the process of compiling meal times and patterns in the worlds historically studied hunter-gatherers. If any single picture is beginning to emerge, it clearly is not three meals per day plus snacking ala the typical U.S. grazing pattern. Here are a few examples:
The Ingalik Hunter Gatherers of Interior Alaska: "As has been made clear, the principal meal and sometimes the only one of the day is eaten in the evening." 22.
The Guayaki (Ache) Hunter Gatherers of Paraguay: "It seems, however, that the evening meal is the most consistent of the day. This is understandable, since the day is generally spent hunting for food that will be eaten in the evening"23.
The Kung Hunter Gatherers of Botswana. "Members move out of camp each day individually or in small groups to work through the surrounding range and return in the evening to pool the collected resources for the evening meal"24.
Hawaiians, Tahitians, Fijians and other Oceanic peoples (pre-westernization). "Typically, meals, as defined by Westerners, were consumed once or twice a day. . . Oliver (1989) described the main meal, usually freshly cooked, as generally eaten in the late afternoon after the day’s work was over."25.
The most consistent daily eating pattern that is beginning to emerge from the ethnographic literature in hunter-gatherers is that of a large single meal which was consumed in the late afternoon or evening. A midday meal or lunch was rarely or never consumed and a small breakfast (consisting of the remainders of the previous evening meal) was sometimes eaten. Some snacking may have occurred during daily gathering, however the bulk of the daily calories were taken in the late afternoon or evening. This pattern of eating could be described as intermittent fasting relative to the typical western pattern, particularly when daily gathering or hunting were unsuccessful or marginal."
Finally, to me, IF-style eating patterns seem to be the most natural. Our ancestors would not have had time to sit and eat 3-meals-a-day-plus-snacks when they had so much to do in terms of hunting, gathering, farming, and doing community and residential chores. This also fits well with promoting natural diurnal cycles of daytime catabolsim and evening / nighttime anabolism.
So, how does this fit into metabolic typing, and what metabolic type would you need to be to be able to eat like this?
T-Nation years ago did a good interview with Ori Hofmekler, creator of The Warrior Diet which is an undereating - overeating approach of ‘1 meal (a HUGE meal spread over a few hours) in the evening' approach, with optional low-calorie ‘nibbles’ during the day. In the interview, he states that the IF approach initially requires reasonable cortisol output to enable you to function without much food during the day. In fact, studies show that IF can result in peaks of a 105% increase in cortisol output during the day.
Bearing this in mind, if we look at Paul Eck’s theories, sympathetic dominant persons, who often only need to eat infrequently, tend to have decent adrenal and therefore good cortisol output, whereas 'unhealthy' parasympathetic dominant people, who often need to eat frequently, have low cortisol output due to adrenal fatigue. Therefore, it could be extrapolated from this that those with strong adrenals and good sympathetic output would do well on an IF-style eating pattern, whereas the unhealthy parasympathetics with the fatigued adrenals would not be able produce enough cortisol to do well on IF.
Perhaps, as a persons adrenal health improves, their need to eat so much diminishes ..? I’ve certainly noticed that since following an adrenal recovery protocol, my hunger has diminished and I can go longer without eating. In fact, i think my whole metabolic type might be changing (there are other symptoms like no asthma, massively reduced eczema, my average diameter of my pupils has widened recently, etc.).
It is worth noting that the type of food consumed in those IF studies involved light proteins, high carbs, and little fat - very much foods from a Carbo Type diet which rapidly oxidise and could result in blood sugar drops and then cortisol spikes in certain persons. Maybe if an IF approach was followed that used foods from the Protein Type food list, it could work for parasympathetics, in that such foods would slow oxidation and reduce the cortisol output somewhat. It maybe worth a try, esp. in light of Dr William Kelley's strong recommendations in "One Answer to Cancer" about daily periodic fasting from protien. He suggests that the pancreatic enzymes needed to stop cancer from developing are depleted if you consume cooked proteins all day long (because pancreatic enzymes get used up metabolising all that protein instead), and that if people condensed their protein consumption into a 6 hour window, that about 85% of cancer cases could be prevented, because it leaves the other 18 hours a day for production of pancreatic enzymes to digest cancer tissue.
