As far as I know, I have never skipped a meal in my life until recently. In school days, I vividly remember throwing a fit when I was asked to skip one meal for my mom's death anniversary. Frankly, I should thank my stars to be born in such an environment where I got to eat more than 3 gourmet meals a day. I would get cranky when I get hungry. Not knowing any better, I assumed that my blood sugar was low. The only way I knew to fix it then was by eating. I didn't let anything to get in my way of eating. Some of my friends and family know it very well. :)
Imagine my surprise when I heard from Dr. Jason Fung that hunger pangs goes away after some time as it is hormone driven. Hormones work in a wave pattern according to circadian rhythm. I have never ever waited long enough to let hunger go away on its own. The hunger hormone is called ghrelin. Our stomach secretes ghrelin when the stomach is empty. It typically takes 4 hours approx to digest a meal. Then when we eat and the stomach becomes full again, our stomach stops ghrelin secretion. But what about people who can't afford food or the time to eat it, ghrelin does not keep increasing. Ghrelin decreases after some time. Our stomach has got used to getting food at regular intervals, say every 4 hours. But for someone who only eats 2 meals a day, the ghrelin wave adjusts accordingly.
What about low blood sugar? Unless you are on diabetic medication, our blood sugar does not get low enough to warrant any intervention. It is because our liver has a reserve of energy for 8 hours approx in the form of glycogen. Think cache for those working with computers. Whenever, blood sugar goes down, glycogen is converted to glucose by our liver and released into our bloodstream. This is also how our blood sugar levels are maintained during our sleep when we don't eat for 8 hours. Without us knowing, we all fast at least once a day, during our sleep.
Our body stores the excess fat that we consume in the adipose tissue under the skin, subcutaneous fat. Excess carbohydrates must be converted by our liver into fat for storage. We are consuming way much more and importantly more frequently in the form of snacks, which are actually full meals in composition, our liver is not able to export the converted fat to our adipose tissue. So, instead, it gets stored near the liver and sometimes in the liver itself. Think fatty liver. This fat around our organs is called visceral fat and is the cause of our expanding waistline. Visceral fat is unhealthy because visceral fat is sent directly back to the liver through the portal vein, leading to more fat in our liver.
Our body has enough energy to last 2 months without any food. How do I know? Let's do the math. Typically, 20% of our body weight is fat. Most of us have more not less. So, a man of 70 kg would have 14 kg of fat. In calories, that is 126,000 as 1g of fat has 9 calories. Assuming we require 2,000 calories a day, we can easily survive for 63 days without any food. At the age of 64, Mahatma Gandhi did a water fast for 21 days to express his disapproval of untouchability. Occasionally, he would add salt and sour lime.
Intermittent fasting is an artificial way of introducing starvation to our way of life where food is in abundance though not always nutritious. There are many flavors of intermittent fasting. The one I follow is to skip meals in the morning. So, my breakfast is at 12:30 PM. The next meal is dinner, at 7:30 PM. So, daily, my long fast is 17 hours between dinner and breakfast. The short fast is 6 hours between breakfast and dinner. During the fasting periods, the glycogen reserve in my liver is depleted twice daily. As we saw above, all who sleep 6-8 hours, their liver glycogen store is depleted once daily. Since I skip breakfast, my fat reserves are used up next and also seen by the decrease in my waist and weight. The glycogen reserve is dictated by what we eat. Since I have cut down on simple carbs, my glycogen reserves are smaller. []
In terms of lifestyle change, the latest one is intermittent fasting. I have always prioritized sleep, thanks to my dad who forbid me from studying late at night even during exams. I have always stayed away from processed foods and paid attention to what I eat. I have always did light exercise in terms of stretching right from my school days, thanks to a couple of friends. In addition, I have added yoga for the last 2 years thanks to a friend as well. I am following my passion in running my own company. So, work is joyful. Being back in India with extended family is very comforting. I mention all of the above because I believe it's not one thing which will help us stay healthy but a combination of things need to go right. There is no silver bullet when it comes to health.
I weighed 65 kgs when I went to do my Masters in USA. So, at the age of 21, my BMI was 24. Now at 42, I am back to the same weight. In between my weight went up as high as 77 kgs. My waist size has decreased so much that I need a belt to keep my trousers on. The rule of thumb is our waist size must be less than half of our height. So, at 86 cm, my waist needs to go down a little further. Even my stool has become well formed than before. It consistently falls into the Type 3 or 4 of the Bristol Stool chart. Getting here is not enough. The harder part is to maintain it. Wish me luck. ! I will periodically update my weight in here.
Every major religion I know has fasting ingrained in it. Fasting for religious reasons is a sure way to stick to it. So, in fact we are just re-discovering something our ancestors have been doing for a long time. Go figure.
Weight (kg) | Waist (cm) | |
Oct 1, 2022 | 65 | 86 |
Nov 21, 2023 | 68.6 | 87 |
Dec 22, 2024 | 64.8 | 82 |
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