intermittent fasting

Fasting is a powerful, life-changing idea because it's simple, clear, easy to follow. A diet plan that involves counting calories requires work to figure out what you can and cannot eat. The lines are fuzzy and there's an incentive to cheat. And ultimately it maintains the structure of your previous eating habits: if you're still eating three meals a day, preparing food, etc. then your new life looks a lot like your old life and it'll be easy to slip from the restricted habits back to the old habits.

By contrast, fasting for a day is clear. You just don't eat anything. There's no room for argument. And it breaks habits. If you don't eat when you used to, then the rituals associated with eating don't happen, for example, you don't reflexively sit down in front of the TV.

There should be a name for the class of intervention that includes things like fasting. The properties include:

• Extreme by normal standards, but the extremity actually makes it easier to implement than less-extreme solutions.
• A simple, easily communicated rule---not subject to confusion or subjective interpretation---from which many positive effects follow.

Are there other things in this class? You really need at least two examples before defining a general-purpose concept, lol.

Imagine we had an computational life coach that could recommend interventions in your life. Not every intervention is right for every person: it depends on the problems you're trying to solve, and the circumstances in which you're trying to solve them. Someone trying to gain weight won't benefit from fasting, and someone in a culture where the family eats meals together every day might have a hard time implementing it. What would be the criteria to recommend fasting?

• 'losing weight' is one problem that can be addresses by fasting.
• But I also expect some other beneficial effects. I gain a lot of free time, break bad habits, and develop a stronger sense of discipline. And (hopefully) the fasting improves my energy and focus as well.