Robert Kesterson wrote:

>> I used to think this too, but I read something that made me think  
>> otherwise.  ...this new-fangled "warrior diet" (eating only in the  
>> evenings during a 4-hour time period).  It was hardly paleo, as it  
>> basically condensed a standard western day's food into a few hours.  
>> So  you'd have cornflakes at 6pm, sandwiches at 7, steak and chips 
>> and ice  cream at 8 and a cake at 10, or something like that.  
>> Surprisingly they  found that on average, the test subjects lost weight.
>
>
> Probably because they were starving.  If you don't eat all day, your 
> body  is going to be catabolic, burning itself (fat and/or muscle 
> protein) for  fuel.  Then when the evening comes, trying to stuff a 
> whole day's worth of  food into your belly is just going to make you 
> disgusted and not want to  eat nearly as much as you ordinarily would.
> I guess it comes under the heading of "whatever works", but personally 
> I  wouldn't want to eat that way.


It's not about starvation at all.  Your liver stores enough glycogen for 
about 36 hours of normal activity, so the tissues that need glucose get 
enough without resorting to cannibalizing muscle--which should not be a 
problem anyway if one gets enough carbs and protein at that one meal.  
Animal studies show that animals fed once a day, but allowed to eat as 
much as they want, end up eating 30% less than they do if fed multiple 
times (but also allowed to eat all they want).  I've been experimenting 
with this way of eating, and I find that I do roughly the same thing.  I 
don't use the 4 hour model; I just eat one large meal at dinner time.  
On this list, Richard Geller has been promoting this way of eating for 
some time, so I thought I'd give it another try, particularly after 
reading Cordain's article on HG meal patterns, which tend towards 1-1.5 
meals per day.  My goal is to reduce overall exposure to insulin, and I 
think this may be the best way to do it.  I may consume 1,500-2,000 
kcals at that meal, causing a large surge of insulin activity, it only 
lasts four hours or so, I believe (I've checked my BG and it returns not 
quite to pre-meal fasting level after 4 hours, but close, and I expect 
this to improve over time).  At the end of five hours I'm back to 
baseline.  So I'm at baseline for 19 out of 24 hours.  Eating more 
calories, spread out over more meals, may produce smaller/shorter 
surges, but I think the total is still greater.  For example, suppose I 
were to eat five 500 kcal meals, each of which caused only a 2-hour 
surge in BG and insulin.  That's still ten hours a day away from 
baseline, twice what I'm currently getting.  Furthermore, baseline is 
*slowly* dropping.  My fasting BG is gradually falling, from mid 90s to 
low 90s, with the occasional high 80s reading.  This suggests improved 
insulin sensitivity, which is also what animal studies indicate.  My 
goal is fasting BG in low 80s; I don't know if that's doable.

Todd Moody
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