Fasting for just one day, after two years of eating anything at any time, really cleared up my mind. Most religions of the world have some form of semi-regular fasting, probably for good reason.
I've been doing IF for probably 9 or 10 years now. I never feel hungry for breakfast, and would normally eat around 1 or 2pm. This felt/feels very natural to me.
However, I've been surprised while reading Peter Attia's book Outlive, that there are very few fasting studies that show benefits in humans.
I'm reconsidering my approach, though in reality, I'll probably still skip breakfast and just focus on ensuring I get adequate protein, which I probably wasn't.
Maybe your reasons to think about changing your eating habits do not stem from this article but it sounds like you seem to think fasting may be harmful.
But just for your information that's not what this article is implying, neuronal autophagy may sound scary (it sounded to me when reading the title) but is considered beneficial.
If your desire to change ways does not stem from this study where does it come from? If it feels natural to you and you have been doing it a long time I don't see the point.
And if you are worried about protein absorption/usage by the body I'm confident there were studies showing that while eating fast digesting protein like whey the proper usage by the body was limited to about 20g this effect went away when consuming slow digesting protein or fast protein in one or two big, slow to digest meals.
It’s been my lived experience that Dr. Attia’s concerns about loss of muscle mass during extended fasting are extremely overblown, if not outright incorrect.
One can always find positive and negative outcomes related to any intervention to a biological system. Fasting is no exception.
The question is when and where is it beneficial, and what are the trade-offs. I'm sure if one has a clean, healthy diet, and consistent sleep and routine, it likely does not matter in the long run at what time one decides to eat or not eat. If the effect size were noticeable we'd have seen it already in smaller samples.
If one is overeating, or eating garbage all the time, then I'd hypothesize fasting to be beneficial by giving the biological system a break to try and bring itself back to a better steady-state without so much forced external input.
