Optimum diet: feedback

From supermemo.guru
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Optimum diet feedback

My text Optimum diet delivered some instant feedback via mail. However, a great deal of that feedback comes from not fully understanding my main line of reasoning. The fault is partly mine. The text is very long and still not fully clarified and summarized. Most of all, the purpose of "optimum diet" is not weight loss (as my own case might have suggested). The purpose of the optimum diet is to uncover the true equilibrium set by the appestat. This may mean that my suggestions may actually result in an increase in body weight. If the settings by the appestat are unsatisfactory, or provably wrong, the solutions need to be found in the lifestyle (e.g. meal timing, stress, sleep, etc.). Below I will list most interesting suggestions that arrived via mail. I leave them uncredited (unless credit was specifically requested).

Warrior diet

You should consider Warrior diet. Basically, the only difference from the Warrior Diet and what you've been doing, is that instead of your main meal taking place at "Lunch" time, i.e., 6-7 hour after waking before the siesta, at that time (and during the day) you would only eat a light-to-moderate meal, and the huge dinner, where you can eat whatever you want in what quantity you feel like, would take place at the end of the day

There is a major problem with that late meal idea. Siesta without a meal is not a problem, but it might be a major wasted digestive and anabolic opportunity. Secondly, circadian peak appetite wanes within 2-3 hours, and a good meal at the right circadian time in the second half of the day might encroach on the gut rest phase. This also an observation mentioned by others in feedback mail.

It is not only a theoretical claim, I experimentally tried that late meal suggestion. Among others, I noticed that the exactly same "main meal" does not taste as well when taken at the evening appetite peak. It is a hint that the readiness to process is not the same as the meal in the middle of the day.

Obviously, adaptation should be possible, and Warrior diet might be easier to adopt with slightly earlier "main meal" on monophasic lifestyle. However, for creative productivity, biphasic lifestyle is clearly superior, and is an unmovable assumption on input.

Incidentally, I disagree with Ori Hofmekler's criticism of running. My reasoning is closer to that of Christopher McDougall (of "Born to Run").