Intermittent Fasting Experiment

There have been several studies with animals that show intermittent fasting — feeding the animal every other day instead of daily — can increase longevity and improve general health. Limited studies have also been done with humans, but nothing very long-term and usually with only a small number of subjects. The results from those have been mixed, some showing some health benefits, others indicating some problems with blood-sugar regulation. Of course none of the human studies have even looked at longevity, that just takes too long with people.

Encouraged by the animal studies, and suspicious of the study-design in the human experiments, my wife and I have decided to try an alternating 24 hour fast, 24 hour feed schedule. Like many others who have tried this, our plan is to eat every day, but time meals so that there is a 24 hour fast from the end of one day to the beginning of the next.

Most people who have reported trying this eat the typical American three meals of breakfast – lunch – dinner, so they eat dinner every day, and skip breakfast and lunch on alternate days. We live in Mexico, where the largest meal of the day is traditionally eaten in early afternoon — comida –  so we eat breakfast around 9:00 am, the main meal between 2:00 and 3:00 pm, then a light snack about 10:00 pm. That light snack might be as large as a sandwich if we are unusually hungry, but more typically is two tacos, or a shared bowl of popcorn.

So for our fast, we eat the main meal every day, just as in the American examples, but we also get a second meal — either breakfast or the night-time snack, but never both. Thus, we fast from the end of our main meal one day, until the main meal the next day, then eat a night-time snack that night. The next day we start with breakfast, then comida and start another 24 hour fast.

We just began this regime March 4, 2008, so we have only had one fast so far — but I found it no problem at all. My wife reported a slight headache that may or may-not have been due to the fast. We both weighed ourselves, and will see if we lose any weight — I am 190 cm tall and weigh 99.1 kg. My wife’s weight is a well-guarded secret!  We will report here our progress in the coming weeks.