Don't force yourself to eat, listen to your body.

Only eat when hungry. Period. Your body is smarter than you. Trust it.
There is no "within reason" if you're considering eating just for the sake of eating even when not hungry.
You've got weight to lose? If you're not hungry it's because your body is content to grab a snack from the onboard cupboards.

There's a whole arc's worth of different animals on the keto-bus....

After listening to Dr. Bernstein warn people about losing muscle mass on LP/LCHF diets, I've come to the conclusion that for moi (diabetic, lost lean tissue in keto-year 1), I need to spread 90-100g of protein throughout the day.

So if I'm not hungry, well, I get my protein down anyhow.

Also, hormones are in play, including hunger and satiety hormones (leptin levels can vary quite a bit); the older some people get, the less thirsty they are regardless of hydration levels, etc.

Finally, how do you know if your body is asking you to donate a brownie, a sardine, or a shot of MCT oil?

SymbolismNZ wrote: »

@RalfLott - I've had to actually break out of doing intermittent fasting solely because in order to get the most of the 100g of protein I give myself, I try and get it into three or four servings spread at least three hours apart from each other.

I'll probably do a weekly 24 hour fast to get the benefits instead of my daily 18 hour fasting that I was keeping up.

Well, discontinuing IF is where I've come down, too - at least for now. (I'm trying to figure out how long to wait to do a follow-up DXA scan to see if my body comp improves with more protein and resistance exercise.)

What's the point of a protein-free 24-hour fast vs. 18:6?

It's interesting to hear professional scientists theorize about whether our Ur-Ancestors fasted for days on end, gnawed on wheatberries all the live-long day, preserved food in any way, followed vultures around, slept a lot more when food was scarce, etc. I'll bet it's a laugh-riot for professional anthropologists.

SymbolismNZ wrote: »

@RalfLott - 24 hour total fast, I'm still keen to gain the benefits of fasting, as there are a ton of them and certain nutritional scientists are advocating once a week, having a full 24 hour fast. I do wonder if fasting in general evolved through the fact that a meal wasn't always readily available and some could go days without food before having a big feast once they scored a kill.

But optimally, from what I've read, you want an hour per 10g ingested to get full synthesis of the protein into BCAA, so throughout the day, being able to have 20g-30g servings and let your body process it means IF becomes a little less plausible, especially if you're wanting to build muscle mass.

In terms of the weekly fasting, there was an interesting article I read about how the Mediterranean diet was not nearly as successful when transplanted as it was in the initial area from which they got it where there was basically no heart disease, diabetes, etc. When this was looked into further, it was noted the initial area was Orthodox which meant nearly everyone there fasted one day a week and sometimes twice for religious purposes. One conclusion would be that the fasting part was as important as the diet.

Of course, this is epidemiological observation and not clinical trials, but I thought it was pretty compelling given the research that has been done on fasting.

collegefbfan wrote: »

A question though: if not that hungry like for breakfast or lunch, how does one get in the amount of protein in in one meal?

Thanks.

Some cheeses have quite a bit of protein as well.....