Longevity & Why I Eat Once a Day
Nutrition & Our Hybrid Body In the 1950’s, my friend Bill was a very
gifted Engineer who made an extraordinary car. The car’s main fuel source was electricity,
and gasoline was to be put in whenever available. It was fine for the car to use gasoline every
other day or so, but the problem was that people ran it on gasoline nearly 90% of the
time. This resulted in the car breaking down frequently,
all the while Bill was trying to tell people "Use it the way it was designed!” Despite his advice, people continued to theorize
about how to properly use the car. Bill went bankrupt and left the Automotive
industry soon after. This situation my poor imaginary friend Bill
found himself in is quite like our modern Health Environment. How did eating get so complicated? Most of us just want to feel good, look good
and live a long life. You would think by now there would be a straightforward
consensus on what our eating habits should look like, but we’re faced with countless
trains of thought on the topic. Maybe we’re supposed to be doing the ABC
diet or XYZ diet or something in between? One of the first “diets” was proposed
by a man named George Cheyne in 1724. Now, on Amazon you can find over 50,000 different
books on the topic. Like Bill’s car, surely there is a simple
way we should be fueling our bodies that is most suitable for its design. Obviously we’re not engineered, but we Homo
Sapiens emerged around 200,000 years ago and the majority of that time, the food environment
could not have been anything like today’s food environment. Agriculture didn’t even exist for a good
190,000 years of that time. Not even the fruits and vegetables we have
today would have been similar as we hadn’t cultivated them to our liking. Just 700 years ago here’s what a banana
would have looked like. So what way of eating did we adapt to? The environment would have chosen our diet
rather than us. Your choices would have been to eat what was
available or be dead. The idea that our body must have adapted to
a certain ratio of macronutrients available in the environment is not novel; and recently
has become quite well known due to the “Paleo Diet”. However, what I’m getting at is our body
would have also had to have adapted to how often the food was available – there should
be a natural frequency of eating that promotes health and longevity. Where to start? The logic would be that more nourishment,
more food would make you healthier and live longer. But let’s take a look at this from the First
Principles method as described by Elon Musk: “It’s kind of mentally easier to reason
by analogy rather than from first principles. First Principles is kind of a Physics way
of looking at the world. And what that really means is you kind of
boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say ‘OK what are we sure is true?’
and then reason up from there. That takes a lot more mental energy.” So what do we know about longevity? Other than exercise, the word “superfood”
might come to mind. Maybe more Omega-3’s or some Red Wine or
making sure to take supplements and drink less alcohol. There are a lot of things that contribute
to longevity, but there is one method accepted by science that you can use to consistently
increase longevity. "If I take any organism on the planet earth
from yeast cells to spiders, insects, rabbits, dogs... and I reduce their caloric intake
by 30%, they live 30% longer. The only organism which has not yet been deliberately
tested by scientists are Homo-Sapiens!" Let's start here. For some time, the conventional wisdom has
been that you need to get 3 balanced meals a day to stay healthy. Ever since I was a kid, “Breakfast, Lunch
and Dinner” seemed as natural as sleeping or going to the bathroom. Breakfast was the most important meal of the
day, I needed a healthy lunch to focus the rest of the school day and being sent to bed
without Dinner was child abuse. The situation is basically the same in Japan
where I now live, as with the rest of the world. If we want to reduce caloric intake to increase
lifespan, the only choice then is to eat less at each meal, because we need 3 meals, right? But where did this 3 meals a day idea come
from? As Abigail Carroll suggests in her book “Three
Squares: The Invention of the American Meal”: Eating three meals a day was basically invented
due to culture, When European settlers got to America, they found Native Americans were
basically just eating whenever they felt the urge to, rather than at specified times. The Europeans took their lack of defined eating
times as evidence that they were uncivilized and had them change. In short: The 3 meals a day paradigm is not
based off of our biological needs. How our environment designed us
In a Hunter Gatherer culture it wasn’t surprising at all to feast on a big catch, then survive
on very little or no food for an extended period of time until they were in need of
another big source of fat and protein. In fact, the environment up until now would
suggest that if we could not do that, we probably wouldn’t be alive to be reading about dieting. The Pirahã people, an indigenous hunter-gatherer
group of the Amazon Rainforest was extensively studied by an anthropological linguist named
Daniel Everett. He found they do not eat every day or even
attempt to do so. They were even aware of food storage techniques
yet never used them except to barter with Brazilian traders. When questioned about why they do not store
food for themselves they explained “I store meat in the belly of my brother”. Until the advent of Agriculture, eating 3
meals a day and in some cases even eating every day was a near impossibility. Some of you may be pointing to the fact that
the life expectancy in the Paleolithic era was much lower than now at around 33 years,
as a sign that our modern eating habits are healthier. However, infant mortality rate was a big factor
in bringing that number down. You have to understand that one of the effects
of modern civilization and technology is that you can be unresourceful or made up of weak
genetic material and not die. As Doug McGuff explains about the life expectancy
back then: “It didn’t really have anything to do with anabolic catabolic balance or long
term health benefits because there were older survivors and the fossil evidence of those
older survivors based on ligamentous attachments and bony assessment and bone mineral density
was: they were extraordinarily robust.” Glucose Metabolism & How “conventional wisdom”
screwed us The common misconception is that a stable
blood glucose is necessary for survival, which would biologically justify 3 meals a day. Bear with me through a bit of Biochemistry
to understand why constantly consuming Carbohydrates to maintain blood glucose is not only unnecessary
but can be a detrimental and vicious cycle. So, After you eat some carbohydrates- Bread,
Pasta, Candy, Whatever. Glucose enters the bloodstream and insulin
is secreted to distribute the glucose properly. Via an insulin receptor, glucose enters the
cells to produce energy. This can only happen at a certain rate, so
to overload the cell with glucose or have glucose sit in the bloodstream, 70 grams can
be stored in the liver and 200 grams in the muscle. So you have your morning bagel and some Frappa-
"Whatever you want, some vanilla bullshit latte cappa thing, you know whatever you got,
I don't care." and you’ve stored all the glucose you can store. So it has to go into your body fat. As well as storing it as energy, your body
puts it in your body fat because the fat cells have less complex machinery as the other cells. Too much glucose can bind to the proteins
and muck up the machinery of the cells in a harmful inflammatory process called Glycation. It's kind of like pouring pancake syrup into
a car engine. The problem here is that if your energy levels
start to wane, you can't tap the energy out of your stored body fat because the hormone
that does that- hormone sensitive lipase is sensitive to insulin. Insulin will not allow you to tap body fat
for energy. If you have a bunch of insulin sitting in
your blood from processing a bunch of glucose before and you need energy, you're going to
get ravenously hungry and will need to jack your blood sugar up short term with a snack
or something to raise your energy levels again. This is why if you’re following the recommended
American diet, you’re usually going to be stuck in this loop of wanting to eat every
time your blood glucose drops and 3 meals a day will feel very necessary. Even Medical Doctor Peter Attia fell victim
to this: “Despite exercising 3 or 4 hours every single day and following the food pyramid
to the letter, I gained a lot of weight and developed something called ‘Metabolic Syndrome’
“ Ketosis to the rescue
If you stop eating glucose for about 10 to 12 hours, your glucose stores will deplete
and your body will start breaking down fat so that the liver can produce something called
Ketone bodies. Ketone bodies produce energy for your cells
through similar pathways as glucose but are much more stable, efficient and don't cause
complications like we just talked about. You may have heard of this Ketosis state referred
to as “Starvation Mode” in school, but this by no means suggests you are about to
starve. I particularly dislike this term because it
suggests that glucose/carbohydrates is our body’s primary fuel source, when in fact
it is possible to live entirely without carbohydrates. "Humans have absolutely no requirement for
Carbohydrate. Not 1 gram do we require. We have this fabulous liver that produces
as much glucose as you require." Case in point: A 456 pound 27 year old man
in Scotland fasted an incredible 382 days consuming only water and vitamin supplements. He lost 276 pounds and completed the fast
with no ill effects. He was technically in “Starvation mode”
this entire time and his body was using his stored body fat for energy. Quick note: Ketosis and Diabetic KetoAcidosis
are NOT the same thing. Several years back, when I first heard about
low carb diets, I was skeptical and frankly when I heard my close friend’s mother was
trying the Atkins diet, I was worried for her. However, after understanding the biochemistry
behind it, I started doing the ‘Paleo diet’. I felt great in general, had a better physique
with less effort and much more stable energy levels. The downside was it got kind of annoying to
have to plan my meals so much, so I would cheat a lot here and there. The Benefits of Fasting
Even after people were in environments where they could eat much more frequently, the concept
of fasting for health benefits has been around for some time. An Egyptian Pyramid Inscription from around
3800 B.C. reads “Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-quarters
lives their doctor.” Plato apparently fasted for greater mental
efficiency, the “Luther of Medicine” Philippus Paracelsus called fasting “the greatest
remedy” and Mark Twain suggested fasting to be more effective than any medicine. The Romans even found that they cure people
who were possessed with demons by shutting them in a room without food. To simplify an incredibly complex process,
aging in essence is the result of cumulative damage to your DNA. Professor of Genetics, David Sinclair and
his team found that not eating stimulates the Sirtuin proteins which are directly responsible
for DNA repair. Professor of Neuroscience Mark Mattson, at
John Hopkins University Neuroscience showed how fasting promotes the growth of new neurons
in the brain. This explains why fasting has been linked
to the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. This information got me excited about Intermittent
fasting. With intermittent fasting you’re not eating
for 16 hours of the day which gives your body time to deplete the glucose stores and start
burning fat as well as reap the benefits discussed above. So many sources are pointing to the key here
being that whether you are doing extended fasting, intermittent fasting or simply eating
less, you are giving your body a chance to deplete its Glucose stores and dip into ketosis,
leading to the health benefits discussed. I was keen on the fact that I could get similar
effects to Paleo with more leeway in my diet. The problem with Intermittent Fasting was
I found with myself craving food outside of the 8 hour eating period, and I still had
to be somewhat strict with what I ate (although not as strict as my 3 meals a day regimin) Upton Sinclair who was born in the the late
1800’s and lived to the swell age of 90, published a book in 1911 called “The Fasting
Cure”. The book was inspired by the personal accounts
of 250 people who cured some ailment with extended fasting. The ailments ranged from colds, headaches,
constipation to arthritis, valvular heart disease and cancer. Dr. Alan Goldhamer spoke about how in 2012,
a 42 year old patient cured her cancer (stage 3 follicular lymphoma) with a 21 day fast. All this opened me up to try my first week
long fast... but I ended up around the 4th day even though I didn’t feel particularly
bad. While I missed my goal and I didn’t really
feel all that different afterward, over the following days I started to notice something. I used to enjoy eating some refined sugar
crap here and there, but after the fast I wasn't so interested. It was like it reset my eating preferences. Around this time I came across a book called
"Kuufuku ga hito o kenkou ni suru" - by Dr. Yoshinori Nagumo. The title means ”Hunger makes people healthy”. And it provides an incredibly compelling argument
for limiting yourself to one meal per day. It touched upon many of the things I’ve
talked about here, some things I didn’t and it dispelled some worries I had like malnutrition
and whatnot. (Also, It was easy to trust him since he’s
30 years older than me and looks younger than I do.) I decided to try eating once per day for 2
weeks. For 3 weeks prior to starting, I had been
showing my little sister around Tokyo while eating basically anything and everything that
looked good. I started the Nagumo plan the day after she
left and the first three days were definitely the hardest. When the clock hit around 11AM, I realized
I wasn’t getting the joy from eating that I was used to around this time of day and
started really wanting to eat. My stomach didn’t particularly hurt, it
was the equivalent of not being able to play video games when getting home from Middle
School. Around 4PM was when I was convinced that I
was really hungry and needed to eat. Waiting another 30 minutes until 4.30PM to
eat was like pushing through a last set of squats. The next two days were slightly easier, and
come the 4th day I realized I wasn’t looking at the clock thinking “Ah...Only 4 more
hours to go!”. A week later I decided to put the diet to
the test by doing a 50 kilometer bike ride to Atsugi from Tokyo. I hadn’t been working out all that much
and a usual bike ride for me was about 3 kilometers. It was unsurprisingly difficult, but I never
felt really physically weak. I had hunger pangs earlier than normal, but
I didn’t feel like I had less strength from a lack of food. This made me decide to stick with eating once
per day. It’s been a month since I started and I
feel great in general, my energy levels are very stable, I feel more focused and surprisingly
I have less problems with hunger compared to Intermittent Fasting. Even if I don’t eat the healthiest meal
I can now feel confident that my body will have more than enough time to empty out whatever
excess glucose or toxins I ingested. (The only time I do crave unhealthy food is
when I’ve had some alcohol.) Looking back, it’s hard to imagine having
to pile so much food into my stomach throughout the day. Other than the health benefits, one other
reason I do this is the same reason Steve Jobs wore basically the same thing everyday:
It makes choosing easier and it frees my brain up to focus on other things. At least For myself, the amount of new information
I get only changes my behavior by a small factor. For example if I increase my knowledge about
the detriments of alcohol by say... 60% maybe I’ll cut my intake by 30%. With this article alone I’m not expecting
you to suddenly start eating once per day, but hopefully you can start giving your body
a break and eat when you need to, not when the clock says you should. If you liked this, be sure to subscribe. I'm trying my best to have a new video out
at least every two weeks so stay tuned. You can see my last video here.
This is the video that initially got me into IF!
If anything this makes me wanna look up the book on fasting by Upton Sinclair!
What is a good source to use to know what is okay and not okay when intermittent fasting? What things break a fast? I am basically doing this inadvertently just based on my work schedule, but I drink all day long. I drink Diet Pepsi and water flavored with low cal drink sweeteners (Products similar to Crystal Light). I’ve been told those things “break” a fast. I eat one meal usually around lunch time and NEVER eat after 6pm.
Hi mate, I have a question! what does your current one meal consists of? how many grams of protein/meat/whatever you get protein from? how much green? what and in what quantity do you eat?????
I thank you deeply in advance
EDIT: I'm sorry, I just realized it was just the title of the video.
Still, would op or anyone else care to share how much food should I eat on a day? or better, HOW can I determine it, since I know every BODY is DIFFERENT?!!!
Thanks all!
This video isn’t particularly rigorous. Caloric restriction and fasting overlap, but they are not one and the same.
Another relevant question is this: what exactly is caloric restriction? I’m an athlete - 6’4” 200lbs ~8% body fat - and I eat a LOT of calories. But I am very active. Clearly those calories are not excessive, since I carry little body fat. Would a 30% reduction in my caloric intake lead to a greater lifespan for me?
In other words, I would hypothesize that the caloric reduction works better in disease models (i.e. obesity) than it does for healthy, young athletes. If anyone has seen relevant research on this, please send it over :)
I’m definitely only eating up to maybe 1200 calories, tops. I’m only eating one meal a day along with flavored water and a couple diet Pepsi’s a day.
Elon Musk and Hi-Chew is all the proof I need.