Really? My understanding is that fasting, if you stick with it, is unbeatable. (Rimshot.)

Most of what I’ve read encourages dieters to eat more often. Smaller, lower carb portions as much as 6 times a day.

That kind of pattern keeps blood sugar up and keeps metabolism burning at optimal rates. But it’s as unnatural a pattern as carb restriction. Not that I think that 3-meals a day is necessarily our natural pattern, either. There’s just such a compelling logic to beginning, middle, end that it’s no wonder we adopted it.

Still, I wonder what kind of pattern our hunter-gatherer ancestors observed? I imagine it was seasonal, with periods of eating five or six times a day punctuated with periods of going a couple or three days without eating.

Then came the news about SIR2

http://www.speculist.com/archives/000835.html

and now this news. Apparently it’s not as simple as running an engine too much, and that’s good news for anybody who’d like to live a long time. If we can pinpoint what happens during fasting that promotes long life and make it happen without fasting, then we’re getting somewhere.

I’m not sure fasting is an effective long-term weight loss system. Most of what I’ve read encourages dieters to eat more often. Smaller, lower carb portions as much as 6 times a day.