So what if you have a little snack before bed?

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

dykask wrote: »

I have a slightly different viewpoint. It isn't that you hurt yourself, you didn't really as the body is quite flexible, it is you just missed an opportunity. It was already 6 hours since you ate and you were going to go to sleep anyway, unless hunger keeps you from sleeping why not just go to bed? That would just put more pressure on your body to burn a little bit more fat. It happens because your blood sugar gets low and the body is more likely to use your stored fat.

Now one night doesn't make much of a difference in actual fat loss. It does though show that you can do something a little more. It turns out there are possibly a lot of benefits from short fasting periods. People even build diets around it because of the benefits and the fact that it is easier to manage one's eating when eating fewer hours of the day.

This does not strike me as good advice in this particular case, because OP was below calorie goal and hungry. The "opportunity" you mention is an opportunity to starve yourself unnecessarily. If you're at goal and still a little bit hungry, sure, go to bed instead of eating, but if you're under, eat something (and if you're really hungry, I would say eat even if it takes you over goal as you don't want your sleep disturbed).

Fasting isn't starving oneself and if you choose to, you can make up the calories the next time you do eat. That is a choice. The fasting was already started. It is just a choice to continue it. The idea that missing 250 kc in one day is starving oneself isn't realistic. There isn't an internal calorie counter in your body.

As far as sleep goes, most people sleep just fine hungry and it is very likely the OP would have woke up in the morning with even less hunger than normal. That is because the body is using more stored fat to feed itself. I know about the reduced hunger from first hand experience. In fact I prefer to skip dinner rather than skip breakfast the next morning. However, many people do practice intermitted fasting by skipping breakfast and not eating until the afternoon. Some people do claim it is easier to sleep full, so there is some variation there.

Now if you are a child with low body fat, then it isn't such a good idea to go to bed hungry although it is unlikely even to harm them. However a child may have a harder time falling asleep than an adult would. Any reasonable healthy adult should be able to easily handle missing a meal. Calorie goals don't mean anything in the short term and even in the long term your body isn't counting calories.

Now if you fast for multiple days, starvation processes do start, but normally that takes around 72+ hours to get going. In the short-term it is even benefical to fast as it pushes the body to a leaner hormone balance. It can even provide a modest increase to metabolism. (Search on Intermittent Fasting)

The reason why it was a missed opportunity is that it gives one another tool to use. Fasting has actually been used for thousands of years. Short fasts are quite safe. It is only in very modern history that the idea that we must eat meals throughout the day ever day took hold. For most of human history, fasting has been a common event.

Carlos_421 wrote: »

dykask wrote: »

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

dykask wrote: »

I have a slightly different viewpoint. It isn't that you hurt yourself, you didn't really as the body is quite flexible, it is you just missed an opportunity. It was already 6 hours since you ate and you were going to go to sleep anyway, unless hunger keeps you from sleeping why not just go to bed? That would just put more pressure on your body to burn a little bit more fat. It happens because your blood sugar gets low and the body is more likely to use your stored fat.

Now one night doesn't make much of a difference in actual fat loss. It does though show that you can do something a little more. It turns out there are possibly a lot of benefits from short fasting periods. People even build diets around it because of the benefits and the fact that it is easier to manage one's eating when eating fewer hours of the day.

This does not strike me as good advice in this particular case, because OP was below calorie goal and hungry. The "opportunity" you mention is an opportunity to starve yourself unnecessarily. If you're at goal and still a little bit hungry, sure, go to bed instead of eating, but if you're under, eat something (and if you're really hungry, I would say eat even if it takes you over goal as you don't want your sleep disturbed).

Fasting isn't starving oneself and if you choose to, you can make up the calories the next time you do eat. That is a choice. The fasting was already started. It is just a choice to continue it. The idea that missing 250 kc in one day is starving oneself isn't realistic. There isn't an internal calorie counter in your body.

As far as sleep goes, most people sleep just fine hungry and it is very likely the OP would have woke up in the morning with even less hunger than normal. That is because the body is using more stored fat to feed itself. I know about the reduced hunger from first hand experience. In fact I prefer to skip dinner rather than skip breakfast the next morning. However, many people do practice intermitted fasting by skipping breakfast and not eating until the afternoon. Some people do claim it is easier to sleep full, so there is some variation there.

Now if you are a child with low body fat, then it isn't such a good idea to go to bed hungry although it is unlikely even to harm them. However a child may have a harder time falling asleep than an adult would. Any reasonable healthy adult should be able to easily handle missing a meal. Calorie goals don't mean anything in the short term and even in the long term your body isn't counting calories.

Now if you fast for multiple days, starvation processes do start, but normally that takes around 72+ hours to get going. In the short-term it is even benefical to fast as it pushes the body to a leaner hormone balance. It can even provide a modest increase to metabolism. (Search on Intermittent Fasting)

The reason why it was a missed opportunity is that it gives one another tool to use. Fasting has actually been used for thousands of years. Short fasts are quite safe. It is only in very modern history that the idea that we must eat meals throughout the day ever day took hold. For most of human history, fasting has been a common event.

Fact: the OP was still under goal even after eating
Fact: the OP does not seem to practice fasting
Fact: fasting would not have magically added any additional benefits beyond an increased deficit
Fact: we do not know OP's calorie goal and it is possible that fasting would have caused a needlessly severe deficit
Fact: fasting without eating to within a reasonable deficit during the eating window is indeed starving one's self

Saying that the OP missed an opportunity to fast in this instance is like saying someone who used scissors to cut paper missed an opportunity to use a hacksaw.

It seems you don't know that much about fasting, perhaps you should do a little research. There isn't anything magical about it, but short fasts can have dramatic positive impacts. I didn't believe it at first, but I've noticed that I preform much better in workouts after 15+ hours of fasting. I've pushed as far as doing longer runs and even my slower runs when fasted are beating my faster normal runs. There can be big differences because of hormone levels. I just have more energy and no warmup when I've skipped dinner and run before eating the next day. It is very easy to notice the difference after a couple of km of running. Even with fasting I'm averaging over 2500 kc / day in food consumption. Not even close to starving myself.

It is nonsense to claim that 250 kc in one day will have a grave impact. The human body doesn't really care if you don't get enough calories one day but get enough the next day. If that was an issue, humans would have died out a long time ago. Short term fasting isn't any more starving oneself than living in a modest calorie deficit is. Again it takes multiple days of fasting to kick in real starvation. Our bodies don't care about short term calorie goals.

There are a lot of false beliefs around dieting. While only considering a calorie deficit it may not matter when you eat, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter to overall health. Meal timing does have large impacts on blood sugar and many diets are designed around controlling blood sugar levels. Short term fasting is another way to not only control blood sugar but also put your body in a favorable state to burn fat. After all burning fat is normally the goal of calorie deficit diet.

This is a blog I read sometime ago that first got me thinking about fasting. Before that and even after reading the blog I was negative about it. https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-a-history-part-i/

Besides fasting several times a week I did do a 30+ hour fast before flying west to the states and I was able to drive 800+ miles the next day after flying. I just started eating US time after the fast and my body sync'ed to US time very quickly. Normally it took me several days to adjust to US time, as I'm 16 hours ahead of US PDT.

It isn't magic, it just using a tool that has mostly been forgotten.