How Often Should You Eat: The Lost Art of Infrequent Feeding

Personally, for those of you who care about my personal affairs, I eat, on the main, two meals a day. 

I eat a lot of eggs. I eat a lot of bacon. And I watch a lot of Matlock.

The two former keep me fit; the latter happy.

And I think, for those of you who care about what I think—which I hope there to be at least two of you—that with only a handful of exceptions, most people’s remediable health issues could be easily remedied by following a diet that contains no unnecessary meals and by eating meals that contain no unnecessary foods.

To keep this simple, let us say that an unnecessary food is any food that does not promote a healthy gut and a healthy hormonal response. To briefly illustrate this point let us rail against Goldilocks and her imprudent taste for porridge. 

Whether the porridge be too hot, too cold, or just right, I don’t give a damn, because porridge is pointless, which is to say that there is nothing worthwhile found in porridge that can’t be found elsewhere for less carbs and less calories.

I will talk more on this some other day, but not today, because I’m frankly just not in the mood to talk about porridge. What I’d like to speak on is feeding frequency, and specifically address the question of “how often should we eat?”

The answer—out of respect for brevity—is not often.

I sing the gospel of infrequent feedings and fasting, because eating frequency (how often we eat) dictates whether we age like fine wine or a bin of fruit, and if you are interested, even slightly, in self-preservation, then you ought to generally eat less; and by less I don’t always mean less calories—although that is sometimes the case—what I mean to say is less often.

The evidence supports my sermons. Pay attention now to how feeding infrequently slows the aging process and promotes successful aging. Pay closer attention even to how eating less often, not eating more often, slays body fat and surges natural human growth hormone.

Now, if the business of burning fat and building muscle intrigues you, then promises of surging growth hormone should excite you.

So Pat, you might now ask, how many meals a day is ideal?

I’ll venture the suggestion that three meals a day is serviceable, but if you want to be like me—which is to say (INSERT YOUR OWN COMPLIMENT HERE)—then eat two. For seven bonus points, mix in a full 24 hour fast in once a week. For twenty three bonus points, follow The Birth of a Hero.

Now my critics, who customarily lack any sort of intellectual decency, will cry “blasphemy(!)” from the rooftops when they hear the ringing of this tune—as most fools from the prairies do when they find themselves in over their depth.

These folk are too busy with their forks to practice any sort of intellect, and are left with no other alternative than to subscribe to conventional wisdom, which holds that if you fail to feed every twenty minutes or so, that “your metabolism will slow down.”

There is no more a fatuous delusion than this, and my advice is that the ignoramuses that sing this gospel are best served ignored, as my evidence and experience blasts their buffoonery.

Aside from chopping fat, food abstinence may also aid in constructing muscle—if you so let it, which is to say that fasting, even short term fasting, improves insulin sensitivity and potentiates the muscle building mechanisms, which in itself is to say that fasting makes it possible to gain lean mass more efficiently.

What is more, is that fasting and reduced meal frequency seems to encourage the growth of new brain cells. Is this to say that there is hope yet to elevate the collective IQ of the human race above 16? This I doubt, but fasting may prove to be a useful device to ward off the odds of developing Alzheimer’s or some other form of neurological hiccup down the line.

There is a crowd, and it seems to be a growing one, that bashes fasting, and they are, for the most part, a disorderly bunch of nincompoops. I have found that those who dismiss fasting, for the most part, have done so not because fasting doesn’t work, but because they lack the discipline to make it work.

This is a common theme amongst simpletons who yet again get in over their depth—to declare anything that is beyond their depth to be simply nonsense. Nonsense I tell you.

Again, thank you for reading today. I like to talk about this stuff so please drop any questions or comments you have in the comment section

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