Evolutionary argument: Meal frequency and Intermittent fasting rule the jungle of "diets"
I hate the word diet: you need to find a way to live that's healthy, and here it is!
This post will be a short and sweet (uncited) evolutionary argument. There will be a complementary post for paid subscribers that really digs into the science of meal frequency and intermittent fasting. The main reason it’s uncited is that we can’t do science to prove evolutionary arguments because we can’t repeat the history that created the human. That said, I’m very confident in its approximate correctness. Some small parts may end up being false, but the main idea is true, which puts it leaps and bounds ahead of any scheme with the gall to call itself a “diet”. There will be a paid post where I construct a scientifically backed, falsifiable theory supporting everything said in this post.
For anyone who believes in the gift of knowledge, send a friend (or yourself!) a subscription so they can learn the science-backed theory that argues that intermittent fasting and low meal frequencies are the kings of the jungle when it comes to the wilderness of online “diets”, “lifestyle-plans”, “Instagram-influencer-get-lean-quick-schemes”:
To begin, we must give a crash course in evolution. It’s incredibly simple and exists at scales much different than just our genetics, which is how it’s usually presented. If the genetics of a person are better, where better only means that their genetics give them an advantage when it comes to having more children than others do, and those children will also have more children than others’ children, …, etc. This means two main things:
Genes that encourage survival through many generations are genes that will survive.
Genes that make you more fertile, or increase the chances of successful sexual reproduction will survive.
So what kind of things will happen if we zoom out to say, a 10-year generation span in the modern times? We see famines (e.g. great depression). During a famine, people starve — they tend to “fast” (although it is involuntary fasting, evolution doesn’t care about the difference). When famine strikes, there are some genes that suddenly become relevant that unfortunately, not everyone has. If we zoom out 20000 years, suddenly, we have hundreds, if not thousands of famines, These famines will have followed harsh winters, or dry summers with little to no rain leading to poor agricultural harvests and widespread edible plant deaths. When plants die, wild animals die, making hunting more difficult. So, we are now ready to dispel the first myth that even now in 2023, far too many believe.
Myth: Intermittent fasting will cause muscle loss. An extreme of this myth, still believed by many, is that if you don’t have a slow-digesting protein shake before bed, you will lose muscle while you sleep! (We can take a moment here to step back and wonder how this belief came to be rooted in fitness culture — think about who makes money selling slow-digesting protein).
Busting the myth: if intermittent fasting for 1 day causes muscle loss, then how did any animals ever survive an extended famine? Creating muscle is an extremely risky process (when viewed at an evolutionary cellular level). It requires the expenditure of energy and amino acids to construct more protein. This protein, and energy, could be used for other things such as organ repair, brain repair, heart tissue repair, etc. The list goes on, but the key idea is that should muscles have grown in size, this is because they needed to. Either because the organism needed more muscle to hunt more efficiently, or because they needed to climb trees more efficiently to get food, or whatever — the point is they needed to! So when famine strikes, those with genetics such that their muscle tissue is not protected, are the first to become weak. Should famine last for an extended period of time, these organisms are the first to die.
Such an evolutionary pressure means that the animals that prioritized using fatty acids first during a famine will have the advantage to hunt and succeed in gathering food both during and after the famine (because other animals are losing their strength, endurance, etc). They will be much more competitive in the survival of the fittest competition that is natural life.
Myth: more small meals a day is healthier than fewer larger meals a day, also it helps you lose weight.
It is important to define that a meal is anything you consume with calories. So if you’re snacking every 60 minutes all day long, you’re eating 16 meals if you’re awake for 16 hours.
Busting the myth: evolutionarily speaking, this is bullshit. For thousands of years worth of evolution, our ancestors didn’t know how to preserve food. This means our organs will not have evolved to handle circumstances where they are constantly being exposed to bumps in our blood sugar and blood nutrient levels. In fact, it’s much more likely that their first meal was the smallest, the next meal (if they even ate more than 1-2 meals a day) was small, and the final meal was the largest (and a social meal). This would be because people would return to camp with their successful catches (or nothing) and pool food communally and cook it and share it over a social meal. TL;DR: refrigerators and salt hadn’t been invented yet. NOTE: My scenario here may be wrong. Maybe people didn’t eat socially, maybe they ate 3-5 meals a day and never less than 3. We will never know the entire truth. What we do know is, science tells us that lower meal frequencies are good for insulin sensitivity, assist the pancreas in recovering, and prevent diabetes (in fact pre-diabetes can almost always be reversed by abstaining from food for 5 consecutive days). Pancreas and liver health are essential for both weight loss and building muscle.
So with respect to this story, the “true history” does not matter. What we do know is that our ancestors weren’t eating 3+ meals a day unless they were (probably) royalty. So the vast majority of humans have bodies that evolved to function optimally with probably 2-3 meals a day. If they didn’t, then why is type-2 diabetes completely preventable by just eating 1-2 meals a day?
The takehome message: if fasting is too hard for you because your body dislikes it, then simply reduce your meal frequency to get a similar health benefit — and remember, if you’re healthy, you’ll look healthy, and at the end of the day, this is ultimately what you want if you’re reading this Substack. When it comes to looking good, there’s no better look than lean muscle.