Why I’m Trying a Fast or Feast Diet

Dan Sanchez
Jul 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Actor Terry Crews only eats between 2pm and 10pm. General Stanley McChrystal eats one meal a day. Intermittent fasting is said to have all sorts of huge benefits in terms of health, cognitive performance, happiness, and longevity.

For the past two and a half days, I have been eating one meal a day: one big early dinner (early so digestion doesn’t disturb my sleep). Happily, the benefits touted have indeed panned out. I’ve been thinking more quickly and clearly. For example, writing a full, publishable essay yesterday was fluid, fast, and easy.

And my energy and willpower levels have been more constant throughout the day. I enjoyed a burst of productive energy in the evening that I used to effortlessly and rapidly power through a great number of small work tasks. Usually at that time of night work is more difficult than that.

This is all in spite of (or perhaps in part because of) reducing caffeine intake at the same time. I’ve leveled down to one small cup of black coffee a day, in the morning.

I’m hoping that intermittent fasting will also give my body a chance to clear out some of the unhealthy stuff that has built up after decades of eating all kinds of food (including some pretty unhealthy stuff) with only a handful of hours in between meals.

During the times I used to eat breakfast and lunch I feel physically hungry (growling stomach, etc), but paradoxically I have far less psychological cravings for food. And the physical hunger passes more quickly with each breakfasttime/lunchtime I skip as my body adapts to the new routine.

During my big meal I haven’t been limiting myself at all: whether in terms of portion or macronutrients. In spite of that I lost a pound an a half after the first day. However, I actually gained a half a pound after the second day. Warning: even if you only eat one meal a day, you can still gain weight if that meal is a whole Chipotle bowl with guac and chips. But I’m not too concerned about that. The reason I finished the whole bowl was all about a compulsion I’ve always had to finish whatever has been served to me, and had nothing to do with being ravenous after a day of fasting.

I still count that day as progress, because I persevered again in skipping breakfast and lunch, thus further adapting my body to a routine that will surely yield weight loss over time, on top of other benefits.

I will fast and feast again today, but I’ll limit myself to a big dinner as opposed to an enormous one. And after I fully adjust to one-meal-a-day, I’ll also start progressively limiting carbs. Doing so should reduce hunger and cravings even further. I may even limit carbs to the point of adopting a paleo or even a keto diet.

I’ve done keto before for a few weeks, and lost ten pounds with it. But quitting carbs cold-turkey while still eating throughout the day was a lot more arduous than switching to one meal a day has been. I’m hoping that intermittent fasting with a gradual reduction of carbs will be more simple and sustainable (not to mention cheaper) and I won’t have to go through a long period of feeling mentally loopy like I did with keto.

This all made me wonder something I’m sure has been considered by others before: should intermittent fasting be considered a crucial component of a truly “paleo” diet? The main idea of a paleo diet is to eat the kinds of food that our Paleolithic ancestors ate. The rationale is that the agricultural revolution was too recent in human history for us to have evolved to the point where a diet largely consisting of grains is biologically optimal. Therefore, it is said, we should eat the kinds of things that hunter-gatherers ate. (I’m not sure if I buy this story, but it’s interesting.)

By the same token, should we eat according to a similar timeframe as hunter-gatherers? If so, then intermittent fasting would seem to be the way to go. Regular readers may marvel that, yes, I will now find a way to cite my favorite historian Will Durant even in a post about diet. In The Story of Civilization, Durant wrote (beginning with a quotation from the Encyclopedia Brittanica):

“‘Three meals a day are a highly advanced institution. Savages gorge themselves or fast.’ The wilder tribes among the American Indians considered it weak-kneed and unseemly to preserve food for the next day. The natives of Australia are incapable of any labor whose reward is not immediate; every Hottentot is a gentleman of leisure; and with the Bushmen of Africa it is always “either a feast or a famine.”

What Durant wrote next isn’t about health per se, and I don’t even agree with it. But it’s so splendidly written I can’t help but close with it:

There is a mute wisdom in this improvidence, as in many “savage” ways. The moment man begins to take thought of the morrow he passes out of the Garden of Eden into the vale of anxiety; the pale cast of worry settles down upon him, greed is sharpened, property begins, and the good cheer of the “thoughtless” native disappears. (…) “Of what are you thinking?” Peary asked one of his Eskimo guides. “I do not have to think,” was the answer; “I have plenty of meat.” Not to think unless we have to — there is much to be said for this as the summation of wisdom.”

Dan Sanchez

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Essayist, Editor, & Educator | dansanchez.me

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