Fasting Research
I’m not very happy, I feel like I’ve been shat on like a grandson all these years. It was in the 90s, right, stir-fry can finally put more lard, fragrant, but said it is fat is harmful to health, overnight household vegetable oil up in a bucket; 30 years later, and said that fat is good, but the plant seeds plus industrial production of oil can not. It was also said that not only lard was good, but also butter was better, and that it was suitable for the elderly because they did not have to make extra efforts to digest and absorb it.
Or the 90s, it said that high cholesterol is not good. And also said very image: the blood will become porridge, sticky blood vessels blocked. The FDA said cholesterol has little to do with what you eat, it will always synthesize itself in the body. Keep eating eggs and duck eggs, just in moderation.
It is still the 90s, it says three meals a day is indispensable, do not eat breakfast gallstones. There is also a song: the morning to eat full, noon to eat well, eat less at night. Well, one eat thirty years, now tell you say: millions of years of evolution of the human body, suitable for a full and hungry life. With all three meals, the digestive tract does not get a break, blood sugar and weight are difficult to control, and the muscle autophagy cleaning process cannot start. Fasting or intermittent eating is recommended to restore health and two meals a day is enough. It is best to fast two days a week, just seven meals a week.
The tree of theory is evergreen and we, the people, cannot catch up. So I spent a little time on this long vacation to study the more popular fasting in recent years, a combination of articles and videos from various gods, the following are my notes: 1.
- the human body after tens of thousands of years of evolution, the muscle adapted to the ancient mode of life. And the way to carbohydrate as the main source of energy, only 3000 years. The modern way of eating with high sugar, high protein and high fat in sufficient quantity 24 hours a day has been available for less than 50 years.
According to 1, then there is inference 1: the natural evolution of the human body lags far behind the changes in dietary structure and habits; and in turn there is inference 2: the human body is not adapted to the current dietary structure and habits.
Consider the life pattern of the ancient people, with outbound hunting as the main focus and gathering as a supplement. This means that it is impossible to have something to eat at all times, and constantly under a state of hunger. However, if the starvation state, the performance of the muscles decreased significantly, it means the extinction of the population. Therefore, the myotome is bound to evolve a way of working that is adapted to it. (Narrative argument)
Physiological basis: The brain can use glucose as a source of energy and use it preferentially because of its fast effectiveness. At the same time, when glucose is insufficient, the brain can also work in a different way to get energy by consuming fat, that is, for burning fat instead of burning glucose. In other words, the brain uses the glucose working mode when there is enough food and the fat working mode when there is hunger. (Physiological empirical evidence)
Suppose the body is in a state of hunger and goes out to hunt. Then, if in the fat working mode, the output effectiveness is much lower than the glucose working mode, then the muscle will inevitably enter a vicious circle, the more hungry the weaker, and eventually cause species extinction. Therefore, in fact, the fat work mode, the brain’s reaction speed is enhanced, muscle contraction speed up, blood sugar remains stable to avoid mood swings, so for hunting instead of a great help. At the same time, the body enters energy-saving mode, turning on autophagy to break down and recycle mutilated and diseased cells as a way to supply energy to normal cells, allowing the muscle to start self-examination and self-healing, increasing the chances of survival. (Paper support)
Based on 3 and 4, it is possible to get Corollary 3:: Modern people are unable to evoke the fat working mode due to unlimited access to food, and the body always proceeds in the glucose working mode, which in turn leads to high blood sugar, obesity, insulin resistance, inflammation, cancer, etc. Naturally, there is also the inference 4: If modern people implement fasting or intermittent eating, they can make the muscle restart the fat working mode.
The arguments are as follows.
a) Insulin secretion, then inhibits fat burning. Because, in other words, the body does not allow double opening, burning glucose and fat at the same time, which is not good for the living organism and consumes too much too fast.
b) Insulin secretion, because of eating. Then, without eating insulin is not secreted. (c) Insulin is not secreted, while the muscle is still active and consuming, it turns on the fat work mode.
c) Fasting or intermittent eating is designed to artificially create a window of more than 14 hours. Without eating during this window, there is no insulin requirement and no way to supply energy through glucose in the body, only to turn on fat consumption.
Based on this, then blood sugar returns to normal, insulin resistance decreases, the muscle starts to repair itself and the rate of fat consumption increases.
Meanwhile: d) Fasting or intermittent eating, in any case, is lower than the caloric intake of three meals a day. Corollary 5: It is possible to lose weight, even at the level of maintaining the original daily exercise consumption, because of fat burning and weight loss, and a decrease in body fat percentage.
End of notes.
The human body has evolved over tens of thousands of years to be sophisticated and complex. The discourse on fasting and intermittent eating is also quite complex. Both this theory, and the ketogenic diet theory a bit before it, are based on the same assumption: the evolution of the human body, far behind the evolution of human society. In recent years, this assumption has been applied more and more. But is this true, is there a limit to human adaptability, and what is the relationship between the damage to the body when the limit is exceeded? It does not seem to be well argued either.
Most of the solutions given are four words: go back to the past. Primitive people with wooden sticks wandering around the mountains, catching the prey will be a meal finished, all holding their stomachs rolled around the fire. Not caught to eat some berries to deal with, we look at each other hungry blue eyes, waiting for tomorrow to continue to wander. So, modern people should also experience hunger from time to time, rather than 24 hours a day to open the refrigerator and click on the App there is an unlimited supply of food. In this way, our bodies will be as healthy as those of the ancients.
But then I have two doubts.
- If the ancients ate so well, why did they die so early?
- in this description, the key factor is whether it is a full meal and a hungry meal, or walking 2 or 30 kilometers with a stick every day?
In other words, what was the reason for the generally short life span of the ancients? Sanitary conditions, natural conditions, life security level, etc. could be the reason. So, how much does diet play a part in it? You can’t say that the ancients were healthier than modern people because of this diet structure, no heart disease, diabetes, Ozheimer, but died before 40 years old. Wouldn’t it be inferred that maybe the ancients didn’t get these diseases because they died before they could live long enough to get them, and not because of their dietary structure?
Likewise, do we need to consider life patterns when discussing dietary patterns? Suppose that the ancients were really strong and healthy and did not suffer from all diseases. So, was it because the dietary pattern contributed more to their bodies, or was it because climbing high and walking low for dozens of kilometers every day contributed more to their bodies? I think, to carry a stick every day, and a group of hula brothers in the jungle so walk, probably in any case can not be fat. But the high level of mental stress, can hit three wild boars a week, probably can not cure stomach ulcers. What would be the effect of modern people picking the diet pattern of the ancients, but the life pattern has not changed?
I don’t know why I always have doubts about theories that are particularly fluent and well understood. When I was in school, I had to put a lot of effort into learning any theorem, turning the fan in my little brain to the maximum in order to chew it down a little. I believe that with the complexity and sophistication of the human body, it is no simpler than any of the mathematical theorems or laws of physics that I have learned. And about the relationship between food and the human body, there are always endless theories, and each of them is “overturn your perception”, are extremely reasonable to hear, unusually smooth to understand the principles, which makes me hesitate a little, “good news constantly " sense is too strong.
I hope someone can explain some knowledge to me, so as to remove the doubts in my mind. But no matter what, it’s always good to have the lard back and the eggs back, at least the egg fried rice finally smells as good as it did in my childhood.
Title photo by Subfader
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