Let’s do a word-association game. Ready?
The first four were just for fun but when I say pulse, you probably think heart. However, that word (for our purposes) can refer to the rhythm of any nutrient intake. The squishier nutrients of love, belonging, purpose, mastery, etc. are tough to pinpoint with numbers. So, let’s just agree that they’re important. There is tremendous variance in physical health too, of course. However, we don’t wind up spinning off into the cosmos here because we have predictable ranges rooted in the biological world.
We live within those ranges. Some of these are tightly regulated, such as the pH or glucose levels of our blood (which is why claims about alkaline foods altering blood pH are largely shenanigans). Other factors, like sleep or eating patterns, can vary more substantially.
These are the pulses I'm referring to. You don't, strictly speaking, have to eat three meals a day to be healthy. You don't necessarily have to eat any meals per day. However, there is a range of intake that supports survival and health. It’s made up of amplitudes and frequencies – how much and how often. The hard limits are what we can absorb and store. You can’t just eat one really big meal once per year, for example. What an event that would be, though.
Our ability to store energy and nutrients gives us a leg-up on bacteria, larvae and crustaceans, which don’t have any legs at all and also require a constant nutrient supply. This difference is what allows us to go out and explore from time to time. These are the grace notes between the pulses.
Of course, survival and optimal health are different. When you are in nice, healthy ranges, you tolerate disruption better than when you are not. Without getting into the mental and emotional pieces of this, it's because you are nutritionally topped-up and have a reserve.
There are some nutrients that we can only hang onto for day or two, like water-soluble vitamins Bs and C. Fat-soluble vitamins (A, E, D, and K) can stick around longer by bunking with stored calories AKA fats. Beyond that, we go into more structural methods of storage, keeping calcium and magnesium in the ole bone bank, for example. Or how we store proteins in/as our muscles. I don’t recommend making a lot of withdrawals from any of these places; these are better thought of as emergency funds than day-to-day tactics. Context is everything. Which is why we have previously discussed how fasting can be a health strategy if your default settings are to live in caloric surplus. On the other hand, it can be an anti-health strategy if you cruise around in a caloric deficit or are already at capacity for stressors.
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