Why Fasting Works

Ancient Romans were onto something

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Ancient Romans found the idea of breakfast repellent. They were “obsessed with digestion,” according to the historian Caroline Yeldham, and believed eating more than one meal a day was unhealthy and gluttonous.

If that’s the case, the likes of Cicero and Marcus Aurelius were early adherents of “intermittent fasting,” which is a catchall term for a…