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Authors: David Zinczenko
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expand because there’s so much to think about: where that big bear keeps his den, where the berries ripened last spring, where the water lasted longest during the summer drought. Their muscles grow and their bellies shrink in like measure, to make it easy for them to run to those places.
So you see how the combination of a lean belly and a big brain could increase the odds that you survived a long time and mated successfully. Who wouldn’t want to get busy with an animal like that?
And that’s just what the 8-Hour Diet can give you.
Dr. Mattson points at his map, studded with hazards and opportunities and showing an animal that can range far and wide to guarantee his survival. Skipping meals inspires the animal to peak efficiency, physically and mentally. That’s the world our bodies are genetically wired to thrive in. All of these marvelous mechanisms kick in to protect us from harm and increase our odds of thriving in a difficult environment when we trigger them with intermittent fasting.
The only bad news: We’re not living 10,000 years ago. We don’t need to remember where the wildebeests feed or the crocodiles roam. Today,we need only remember how many paces there are between our cubicle and the vending machine.
On to Dr. Mattson’s last map, labeled, ominously, “Transition to the Sedentary/Overfed/Obese Phenotype.” This Google map of gluttony shows beings who are capable of traveling much farther distances, but it strips away the hazards and hunger and replaces them with Hardees and Five Guys. In place of healthy running figures, it swaps in a little jeep symbol, which stands for “effort-sparing technologies.” Plentiful food and little effort. You can probably guess what happens to the lean, healthy homo sapien.
In the upper left-hand corner of the map, Dr. Mattson has included a damning stat. The two previous maps featured animals that had a body mass index—a measure of fat—in the 19 to 24 range, enough to sustain us if a food shortage threatens, but not undermine our health in the long run. In the current age, that BMI figure balloons above 25 and threatens everything we hold dear: our looks, our sex lives, our health, our life expectancy.
And that’s why Dr. Mattson, one of the foremost anti-aging experts in the world, lives the kind of life he, and we, are genetically evolved to excel in. Here’s how he pulls it off: “The fast I’m doing: Skip breakfast and lunch and exercise instead, then eat a nice meal over dinner.”
Of course, Dr. Mattson gets paid to be his own guinea pig, and his is not a lifestyle that everyone would want to follow. But you don’t need to be anywhere near as rigorous to see the benefits of the 8-Hour Diet. He mentions two studies he did with groups of 21st century homo sapiens, intermittently restricting meals. One study was half a year in duration, another 2 months. “The only subjects who dropped out dropped out within the first 2 weeks,” Dr. Mattson says. “After 2 to 3 weeks they got to like the diet mainly because they started losing weight and started feeling better.
“It doesn’t matter which fast a person does,” he continues. “If they can do it and stick to it, they’re going to lose weight and their health is going to improve. I think the more healthy diets that are available to people, the more likely they are to incorporate one of them into their lifestyle.”
Reassuringly, it’s not as if he wants you to outlive your reasons forliving: “What we want to do is understand how we can help people live long lives without disease,” he notes. “Have less focus on extending maximum life span—not necessarily helping people live to 150.”
A Life of Living at Peak Power
If you had to name your worst nightmare about aging, what would it be—aside from still wearing leather pants at age 63, like Gene Simmons of the once-popular group Kiss?
Right: It’s that you’ll descend into the mental fog of Alzheimer’s disease, slowly losing
So you see how the combination of a lean belly and a big brain could increase the odds that you survived a long time and mated successfully. Who wouldn’t want to get busy with an animal like that?
And that’s just what the 8-Hour Diet can give you.
Dr. Mattson points at his map, studded with hazards and opportunities and showing an animal that can range far and wide to guarantee his survival. Skipping meals inspires the animal to peak efficiency, physically and mentally. That’s the world our bodies are genetically wired to thrive in. All of these marvelous mechanisms kick in to protect us from harm and increase our odds of thriving in a difficult environment when we trigger them with intermittent fasting.
The only bad news: We’re not living 10,000 years ago. We don’t need to remember where the wildebeests feed or the crocodiles roam. Today,we need only remember how many paces there are between our cubicle and the vending machine.
On to Dr. Mattson’s last map, labeled, ominously, “Transition to the Sedentary/Overfed/Obese Phenotype.” This Google map of gluttony shows beings who are capable of traveling much farther distances, but it strips away the hazards and hunger and replaces them with Hardees and Five Guys. In place of healthy running figures, it swaps in a little jeep symbol, which stands for “effort-sparing technologies.” Plentiful food and little effort. You can probably guess what happens to the lean, healthy homo sapien.
In the upper left-hand corner of the map, Dr. Mattson has included a damning stat. The two previous maps featured animals that had a body mass index—a measure of fat—in the 19 to 24 range, enough to sustain us if a food shortage threatens, but not undermine our health in the long run. In the current age, that BMI figure balloons above 25 and threatens everything we hold dear: our looks, our sex lives, our health, our life expectancy.
And that’s why Dr. Mattson, one of the foremost anti-aging experts in the world, lives the kind of life he, and we, are genetically evolved to excel in. Here’s how he pulls it off: “The fast I’m doing: Skip breakfast and lunch and exercise instead, then eat a nice meal over dinner.”
Of course, Dr. Mattson gets paid to be his own guinea pig, and his is not a lifestyle that everyone would want to follow. But you don’t need to be anywhere near as rigorous to see the benefits of the 8-Hour Diet. He mentions two studies he did with groups of 21st century homo sapiens, intermittently restricting meals. One study was half a year in duration, another 2 months. “The only subjects who dropped out dropped out within the first 2 weeks,” Dr. Mattson says. “After 2 to 3 weeks they got to like the diet mainly because they started losing weight and started feeling better.
“It doesn’t matter which fast a person does,” he continues. “If they can do it and stick to it, they’re going to lose weight and their health is going to improve. I think the more healthy diets that are available to people, the more likely they are to incorporate one of them into their lifestyle.”
Reassuringly, it’s not as if he wants you to outlive your reasons forliving: “What we want to do is understand how we can help people live long lives without disease,” he notes. “Have less focus on extending maximum life span—not necessarily helping people live to 150.”
A Life of Living at Peak Power
If you had to name your worst nightmare about aging, what would it be—aside from still wearing leather pants at age 63, like Gene Simmons of the once-popular group Kiss?
Right: It’s that you’ll descend into the mental fog of Alzheimer’s disease, slowly losing
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