Fascinating - good research too.

A few thoughts:

First, the idea that spacing meals at least 4 hours apart is good for EVERYONE is problematic.

One thing I love about the "precision nutrition" approach is recognizing that for some, lo carb is the only solution. For others, hi carb (complex carbs, of cousre) is great. Some do well on lo fat, some hi fat, some vegan, some paleo. No one size fits all (unfortunately, Precision Nutrition along with countless others insisting this idea of individualized diets is some radical new advance in science. Dieticians have been prescribing individualized meal plans for over half a century, but I guess it doesn't sell many products to say, "hey, you may not know this, but it's been the accepted science for decades")

One more comment about accepted science. your opening, that we have an average of 6200 thoughts a day, caught my attention, as i've been assuming the estimate of 60K to 80K was widely accepted.

So I see that a 2020 study was done that yielded the 6200 thought number. Here's a quote from one of the authors of the study: “What we call thought worms are adjacent points in a simplified representation of activity patterns in the brain. The brain occupies a different point in this ‘state space’ at every moment,”

You don' t need a study of any kind to refute the idea that science - in its current state - could possibly give an accurate estimate of thoughts.

You can do this experiment.

Set the alarm on your phone for 1 minute. Now close your eyes, and count how many thoughts occur.

Do you see the problem?

When does A thought end and a NEW thought begin?

I first heard this exercise from Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa, but it's become quite popular among insight meditation and mindfulness teachers.

I've taught it over 20 years or more, and I haven't found a single student who doesn't come up against this problem. I always tell them it doesn't matter - getting the count right is not the point (and it's impossible, as you'll clearly see if you try it). It's just a brief exercise to help you get a little more detachment from your thoughts.