Maintenance: Fasting and Diet

22:52 Tuesday, 28 January 2014
Words: 1383

A few weeks ago, I caught part of a Diane Rehm show that included a panel of doctors discussing the latest research on intermittent fasting. I went to her web site to listen to the entire show, and ended up buying the book The FastDiet.

In a nutshell, the "diet" that the book recommends is two non-consecutive fasting days a week. That's it.

It turns out that on fasting days, if you choose, you can consume up to 500 calories (for men, 400 for women), of low-glycemic index foods, in one or two meals. Most of the book consists of low-calorie meals for fasting days.

I'm not much of a "dieter." I try to eat healthy, but I enjoy eating and I don't enjoy deprivation. I exercise, I work to stay fit. I'm a little overweight, but all my numbers have been pretty good for the last several years. After dealing with an ongoing problem with my achilles, both of them, I seem to have finally determined a way that I can run and keep my achilles from becoming inflamed. So I've been runnning again, and paying a bit more attention to what I eat, but my weight is staying stubbornly at 200 pounds. When I trained for a marathon in 2009 (race was January 2010), I got down to 178 pounds. Some people said I looked too thin, even though that's probably fifteen pounds above my "ideal" weight.

Anyway, hearing these guys discuss this research intrigued me, so I did some more reading and it all seems to make sense.

Briefly, our physiologies have evolved highly effective mechanisms for maintaining health in times of famine. These mechanisms are only "turned on" when the body gets a signal that food is in short supply. In our contemporary lifestyle, that signal never gets sent. We're always consuming calories of one kind or another. By fasting, we send the proper signals to activate those mechanisms. The result is greater longevity.

There are a number of challenges with fasting, and various approaches to doing it. If you listen to the show, you'll hear about alternate day fasting, controlled fasting for four days or more, the "fast five" where you only eat during a five hour window every day, effectively getting nineteen hours of fast each day. Dr. Michael Mosley tried a few of these approaches, and determined that, for him, the two day a week fast was most workable for him. He lost weight, and all his numbers improved.

I'm partly interested in the weight loss, but I'm mostly interested in the longevity effects. Having said that, the aspect of longevity that I'm most interested in is not living longer, but in maintaining optimal health further into my later years, such that I'll be able to enjoy myself, or feel as though I can engage with life in a vigorous fashion.

So, I'm going to try this. If I don't encounter any unexpected problems, my intention is to make this my ongoing lifestyle. Dr. Mosley did the two-day regime until he reached his goal weight, then went to a single fasting day to maintain his weight. He indicated in the book that he will return to the two-day regime if his weight goes up or his numbers begin to show undesirable changes.

One issue researchers looked at was whether fasters would consume enough calories on the non-fasting days to make up for the calories foregone on the fasting days. It turns out that they do eat about 15% more than they normally would, but not enough to overcome the entire deficit, so weight loss is achievable and almost inevitable.

Yesterday was my first fasting day. I elected to not eat any meals, just to see if it was possible. I had a hard-boiled egg, an apple and a banana on hand in case I felt like I had to have something, but my intention was to get through the day eating nothing.

I mostly made it. About 8:30 last night, I had one remaining Magic Hat Nr. 9 left in the fridge, and recalled that Diane said she had a glass of champagne on her fasting days, so I drank it. In hindsight, I think I'd have preferred to skip it. I wanted to see what effect fasting may have on my sleep pattern (which sucks). The beer may have muddied that issue.

For most of the day, I felt fine. I started with what was to be a three mile run, but my partner has been having issues with leg cramps and we ended up walking most of it. I never felt hypoglycemic at any point during the day. I never had any severe hunger pangs. I had an appetite, and when it began to be a distraction, I changed my activity. I took Bodhi for a walk, or put an episode of a favorite TV show on, or vacuumed the floor. Then I'd drink a glass of water. I never felt any urge to eat the apple or the banana or the egg. I think the beer kind of snuck up on me, because I'd been visiting friends earlier in the evening and they were having beer and I was abstaining. When I got home, my intention was to sit down and begin watching the TV series, The Good Wife, and I recalled I did have one beer in the fridge and, recalling Diane's champagne admission, I succumbed.

I slept as badly as I usually do, so no improvement there, but it's not a valid data point. I didn't feel hungry while I slept, or as I laid there, awake.

When I got up this morning, I still didn't feel ravenously hungry. I had an appetite and I was looking forward to making and eating breakfast, but I was comfortable.

The first semi-negative experience I've had appears to be the transition from fat-burning while fasting, to carbohydrate fuel. I had a couple of slices of toast, a two-egg frittata with some cornbread in it, two squares of dark chocolate, and some pineapple chunks. That's pretty representative of the kinds of things I normally eat for breakfast, though the toast was just because I'd baked a loaf of bread on Sunday. As the morning wore on, I felt a little "jittery" inside, and later a bit irritable as I was driving around doing errands. I stopped by the grocery store and indulged myself in a small serving of Ben & Jerry's, and I feel fine now. For the record, small servings of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough are a frequent indulgence.

I'll eat just as I normally do today and tomorrow, and Thursday I'll fast, once again trying to forego any food at all. Then I'll see how Friday goes with the transition. I may want to go more toward the protein and fat early, and gradually add the carbs. The toast and cornbread may have spiked my blood sugar, and then without sufficient reserves of glycogen, triggered the jitters and irritability.

Monday and Thursday seem like the ideal days to fast, as they bookend the weekend, when I most often choose to indulge. I have a neighbor who's a former chef who enjoys cooking for his friends, and that's usually a weekend thing. Football season will be over Sunday, but there are other social events on the weekends. The key thing is, I don't have to feel as though I have to deprive myself during those very social days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Monday is a good day to atone for the weekend, and Thursday is a good day to kind of bank some good food karma ahead of the weekend!

Part of what makes this manageable is the knowledge that you can eat pretty much whatever you want the next day, coupled with the thought that you're giving your body an opportunity to do something positive for you without too much suffering.

I'll check back in here from time to time and let you know how it's going. I've got a physical coming up on the 17th of February. I don't think I'll have been doing this long enough to have a measurable effect, but it's another set of numbers. We'll see.

Note to self...

03:59 Thursday, 28 January 2021
Current Wx: Temp: Pressure: Humidity: Wind:
Words: 774

Writing is harder than it used to be. Not that I was ever any good at it, or that it was ever really "easy." It seems to require a set of conditions that seldom obtain anymore. Solitude. Quiet. Something to say.

I know it's even harder to write when I'm angry, and I've been very angry lately.

Anger is a feeling, and feelings pass. One thing I've learned is that it's often wise not to act based on a feeling. Well, when it comes to writing, that seems to take care of itself if I'm angry enough. There's simply too much of everything to get it down; and the awareness that it's going to be as exhausting for the reader as it is for me. So it's seldom productive.

But I'm fortunate in one sense. I've had these sorts of episodes before, and I've learned that the anger isn't because of something "out there," it's all coming from within. That's the truth of "owning your feelings." People and events can't "make" anyone angry, we make ourselves angry in response to those people and events; and if we don't like that, then we have to look within. Or wait for the feeling to pass. But then you miss the opportunity to understand something about yourself.

I'm not sure where I am on that right now. I think I'm mostly just exhausted, and relieved that I'm not feeling so angry. Not that everything's fine, it's not. Neither "out there," nor "in here." I'm still quite reactive, but less so and it seems to pass more quickly. Perhaps when I'm feeling less exhausted, I'll try and figure out what's going on inside.

I'm glad I quit Facebook and deleted my account. I'm pretty sure it's actually deleted this time because PayPal sent me a note that my FB account was disconnected from PayPal. I never knew they were connected! Or, more likely, had forgotten they were. Probably used PayPal to donate some money or something.

Twitter isn't as bad. It's not great, but it's not quite as radioactive. "Followers" are less demanding than "friends." I don't feel obligated to follow people I knew in high school and have seldom seen since, so I don't have to have any awareness of whatever it is they choose to share. Thank God. I miss some of my friends on it, but overall, this is better.

And in this "socially distant" environment, twitter is what often provides the only substantive (Yeah, I know. But some of it is.) social interaction with someone other than my wife, and the passing greetings of neighbors while walking our dogs.

Photography is consuming a lot of my attention, and pension. I don't know, but I suspect that I'm using it as a distraction from current events, social media and the shit-storm that's going on inside. Better than drinking beer, I suppose.

I just bought a drone, a little DJI Mini 2. Kinda scares the hell out of me to fly it, but I'm slowly getting over that. Why did I buy a drone? Well, there's the distraction bit, and that's probably a lot of it. But it's also the fact that we get some very nice sunsets here, and I can't appreciate them. Photos on iOS has a widget that throws up a picture from "this day" some number of years ago that it "thinks" is nice. It's often right. And probably half of them are sunrises or sunsets from when I lived at Belleza. We had two large retention ponds a short walk from my condo that afforded fairly large, unobstructed views of the sky and a fairly distant horizon. Here, I live in tract housing and my horizon is seldom more than a hundred feet away.

So I'll see an orange or a red sky through my office window or our glass front door. I'll grab a camera and step outside and take a picture of the neighbor across the street's house beneath half of a red sky. Boring.

Hence, the drone. I missed a spectacular sunset the other night, because I was out walking Schotzie. I got to see it, but I didn't get back in time to get the drone up to capture it. The transient nature of all phenomena.

So, I've got some ideas. Need to do some re-wiring here in the woodchuck hole to incorporate more images into whatever this thing is. I'll work on that, it'll be a harmless distraction.

So, more pics. Less anger. Hopefully.

The lights are still on. We'll try and make the best of it.

Stay well and thanks for dropping by.

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John P. Weiss Burden

08:23 Saturday, 28 January 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 45.48°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 13

John P. Weiss with another blog post well worth reading on making meaning.

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Editor's Note

08:26 Saturday, 28 January 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 45.48°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 1134

I don't intend for the marmot to just be a link-blog, but I've been a little busy.

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I've been acquiring more crap, chiefly Nintendo games for the GameCube, Wii and Wii U. That itch appears to have been scratched for now, but the clutter factor was pegging the needle, so action was required.

I've got another stack of books ready to go to Goodwill. I don't know what they do with books, I mostly bought them on ebay. They're all older titles, most more than 30 years old, dealing with technical things I thought I had time (or interest) to learn about.

But the needle was still pegged, so something besides books had to go. I looked at my camera shelves and thought I should consolidate my cameras from three shelves to one. Well, it turns out that I could only manage two. I may return to this effort soon, but for now two is all I can emotionally manage, because it's certainly not rational.

At first, I was just going to take a big box of cameras to the photography club's next meeting and give them away. But who knows if they would take them, and then there's the issue of answering questions, providing some level of support. Too hard.

So I went on KEH.COM and started entering cameras for a quote. Came back at $1000, which isn't bad for a box of cameras I was going to give away. But it does require packaging them up and finding all the appropriate chargers and so on.

Since these cameras use mostly the same batteries, I went through and checked all the dates of manufacture for the batteries. I kept all the newest batteries for the cameras I still have. Because we're only talking about three types of batteries, most of the chargers were in a box in the garage, so I had to dig that out and all their associated cords.

Now I've got to package them up. The nearest shopping center is anchored by a Publix, but there's a UPS Store in the complex. I figured I could get bubble wrap from one of them. (There was a bunch of bubble wrap in the garage, but nowhere near enough.) Well the grocery store didn't carry it, and the UPS Store wanted $10.00 for a role of a few feet of that big-bubble wrap! Yikes! And I wasn't buying styrofoam peanuts (which weren't priced anyway).

So this morning I'm headed over to Walmart because I seem to recall they have a good selection of packing supplies from our move.

This morning's project is to get everything all boxed up and ready to ship. Once KEH gets them, they'll evaluate them and let me know what they'll actually give me. I'm guessing it'll be somewhere around $700. I was conservative in my condition assessment. The high-dollar bodies were my OM-D E-M1 Mk2 and OM-D E-M5 Mk2. They're both in great shape, but who knows? The rest are a large number of PEN cameras.

I have a bunch of lenses I'll offer them as well, but I figured I'd just start with the cameras.

My irrational choices are hanging onto an original E-M5, which is a camera model I'd bought at release and later sold to KEH. A few years later, I felt that I missed it. I liked the images it made, so I bought a used one. (From KEH.) I don't shoot with it much, but I do like it so I couldn't part with it this time.

I loved the E-M1 Mk2, but I have the Mk3 and the E-M1X and the new OM-1, so it was totally redundant. Same with the original E-M1, which I also bought at release. Shot that one so much the rear rubber came off. I bought a replacement from Olympus but never applied it. I'm including it in the package to KEH.

The E-M1X is a one-of-a-kind body and I quite like it. I also like the built-in GPS, compass, manometer and thermometer. It's built like a tank, and I think it kind of represents what might have been Olympus' last no-compromises effort in micro-four thirds.

The OM-1 was probably on the drawing board when JIP acquired Olympus' imaging division and created OM Digital Solutions; and it supposedly is a no-compromises body, and it still bears the Olympus brand, but it's not from Olympus. Again, not strictly rational. I hope OM Digital Solutions succeeds and survives, but I'm not certain it will. And I admired Olympus as an underdog innovator in the camera industry, so I'll kind of treasure the E-M1X as an example of Olympus at its best.

Technically, the E-M1 Mk3 came after the 1X, and included the Starry Sky autofocus feature, not present on the 1X (which was never added as a firmware update to the 1X, alas). But the Mk 3 was designed as a less featured body than the 1X, and doesn't include subject recognition auto-focus. So I think the 1X still represents Olympus designers' peak vision as Olympus. Just my opinion, but I really like the camera.

I fully expect those three bodies will outlast my ability to carry and shoot with them.

Of course I kept the PEN-F and I kept one PEN Light, the E-PL7. I have an E-PL8 that's going to KEH. I bought it new, and it has far fewer shutter activations, I've hardly shot with it. But I really enjoyed the E-PL7 and have taken it on many trips. I like the grip better too. What finally tipped the balance in favor of the 7 over the 8 was the sound of the shutter. I think they should be about the same, but the 7's is just kind of silky smooth while the 8's is more mechanical.

Put a small prime on it, or the 14-42EZ powered zoom, and carry it on my wrist when I'm out and about and not expecting birds. Nice little camera, won't draw much attention. Fun to shoot with.

Of course, now I'm thinking about how I'll spend the money. The E-P7 isn't sold in North America, but is readily obtainable on ebay from Japan. Much or all of the JPEG in-camera customization of the PEN-F is in the P7, and it doesn't seem to suffer from the auto-focus hesitation the PEN-F sometimes exhibits.

If I get rid of a few compact cameras, there should be room on the shelf for another PEN. Probably the last of its kind too.

You know how this story ends.

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Grumpy Old Man Post

06:58 Sunday, 28 January 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 67.98°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 87% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 516

Perhaps it's because I'm getting old and "stuck in my ways," or because the world is on fire, but I don't get exercised about Apple's corporate behavior and the European Union. I follow a number of "tech bloggers" (developers and "tech pundits" for lack of a better word), and I wish I could filter out any post that mentioned "DMA."

I don't care.

It just takes up finite attention. I skip the post, but I wish I could filter it from my feed.

This is the feature that's missing from NetNewsWire that I most want. A keyword list that will hide posts containing them.

I like the Miami Herald as a paper, and I subscribe to support its coverage of Florida. I like the fact that it has an RSS feed. It only contains click-bait titles and one-line teasers, but it's still a nice feature. It's made much less nice by including all the horror stories from other states about people killing each other for all the stupid reasons that people kill each other. And, for some reason, it carries a lot of stories about state lottery winners! I wish I could filter all that stuff out.

Back to the "app store" kerfuffle... Apps are like junk food. Candy. There are 278 "items" in my Applications folder on my iMac. Believe it or not, there are 59 apps in my Dock! I could probably get by with less than half of those. I have a lot of apps because I read about them, and I wanted to "see what it does." And then it would just sit there, taking up space. They're like cameras and calculators that way.

This is an artifact of a society with too much wealth that is too inter-connected and chasing all the wrong rewards.

Or it could be that I'm just a weak and sorry excuse for a human being. I suppose it could be that too.

Probably both.

Most of the things I kick myself over these days are the time and money I waste on "stuff." I never look at the app store unless someone writes about an app and says something remarkable about it. Which, if you spend any time in the tech world, is a lot. I suppose it's a testament to the strength of my character or the state of my checking account that I have only 278 "items" in my Applications folder.

I just paid to upgrade BBEdit. Why? Because it has super-powers? Because "I might need it someday"?

Yesterday I used Duplicate Detective for maybe the third or fourth time ever. I've had it for years, I don't know how many. Why did I use it? Because I'm a digital hoarder. Could I have done the same thing for free from the command line? I'm sure I could, but then I'd have to learn something.

Maybe it's time I did some kind of digital purge.

Binge and purge. Fall of the Roman empire. Is there a connection?

I should try to be kinder to myself. Soon enough, it won't matter.

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Furniture

09:38 Sunday, 28 January 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 66.15°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 589

I've been re-arranging the furniture in anticipation of Mitzi's sister's arrival. Due to her injury, she requires the use of an armed chair to stand up until she's fully recovered. I was thinking a small .32 automatic. (I'm here all week.)

Well, we have a large, expensive couch where each segment can recline. I usually sit at the same spot because there's an end table there, and I'm a guy and I can never be too far from a horizontal surface that needs cluttering. This has recently become something of an issue in what is otherwise a picture of domestic bliss. It may have something to do with the way the upholstery is responding to my body, or maybe she just wants the end table. Could be both.

Anyway, her sister won't be able to extricate herself from the couch, so my armed recliner has been moved from my office to the living room, where it doesn't really fit, but it's only temporary. I'm debating whether we should remove a section of the couch and store it somewhere (where?), replacing it with the recliner. It'd look stupid, but no more so than the present configuration.

I nap in that recliner, so that's going to be something of a sacrifice. It's only a 15-minute nap (I set a timer), but I usually find it refreshing. I also read in the recliner. I'll have to find some other accommodation.

I've also been relocating Mitzi's office equipment. I took the opportunity to update her OS as well. I made an account for her sister on Mitzi's laptop, so she'll have a machine to do her email and online banking and so on.

Mitzi ordered some kind of toilet seat replacement that has arms, which I'm to install once it's delivered. She sent me the order confirmation email, so I checked out the reviews. They weren't great. She said they looked at dozens of them, and they all had similar complaints. We'll see. I suppose it depends on the user. Mitzi's sister is as thin as a reed, so it's not like she's going to be putting a lot of stress on the thing. It'll probably be fine.

I've rolled up the rug in the living room and stashed that in the garage. It's got something of a profile at the edges, and might be a trip hazard. Our tile floors in the kitchen and bathrooms are slippery when wet, so I've asked her to make sure she has shower shoes, something with some grip so she won't slip. The shower contains two substantial grab bars, and Mitzi will be attending her as well. I gather we're also getting a chair for the shower.

For an over-55 community, Pulte made some genuinely stupid design choices that we were unable to change. We have a walk-in shower, but you step down into it. It's got a glass wall and door, so there's no assist bar there. When I remodeled my condo, I designed the shower with a three-quarter height wall fronting the alcove, and no shower door, and especially no glass. I hate glass in showers, if for no other reason than water marks. But it's just a bad material choice in a home for older adults.

I expect we'll do a remodel of the bathroom in a few years, before anything else, to specifically address that issue.

Well, just wanted to take a break afterA Tale of Two Toasters rearranging all this stuff. About time to call Mom.

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Cancel Prime

07:49 Wednesday, 28 January 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 6.06°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 9.26mph
Words: 185

I canceled Prime this morning. Now, it's not as satisfactory or satisfying as canceling a month-to-month in subscription, since it's paid a year in advance. So it'll effectively be canceled in May.

Fuck Amazon. Fuck Bezos. Fuck anyone making shows to air on Prime.

It's not just Melania's vanity project, apparently AWS hosts the database of "domestic terrorists" these ICE and CBP cretins have been populating with the personal information of all the protesters they've been seizing and then releasing. Read Heather Cox Richardson's piece from last night.

I've been buying from Amazon less than in years past. I'm confident that I can get by without Amazon in my life. It'll be a little more inconvenient, maybe a bit more expensive, but... (and I type three periods just to piss off the typography "plain text" prima donnas)

Fuck Bezos. Fuck Amazon. Fuck Prime. Fuck DHS. Fuck ICE. Fuck Trump.

Will that get me a record in the NSPM-7 database?

Free speech? It's on life support. If we want to keep what's left of it, we're going to have to fight for it.

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The Boss

12:35 Wednesday, 28 January 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 14.11°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 57% Wind: 11.34mph
Words: 41

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Profiles In Courage

12:50 Wednesday, 28 January 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 15.1°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 56% Wind: 10.22mph
Words: 22

Stella Carlson, an articulate spokesperson for the truth, and a brave woman who stood her ground with a whistle and a phone.

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Profiles in Courage

12:57 Wednesday, 28 January 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 15.1°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 56% Wind: 10.22mph
Words: 148

Patrick J. Schiltz, Chief Judge, United States District Court, District of Minneapolis.

It is important to emphasize that what the U.S. Attorney requested is unheard of in our district or, as best as I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit. I have surveyed all of our judges —some of whom have been judges in our District for over 40 years —and no one can remember the government asking a district judge to review amagistrate judge's denial of an arrest warrant. I have also surveyed the chief judges of all of the districts in the Eighth Circuit. I have heard back from almost all of them, and all of those responding have said that, to their knowledge, no district judge has ever reviewed the decision of a magistrate judge to deny an arrest warrant.

Read the whole thing.

And then read this.

Seriously.

Read it.

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Montour Falls 1-28-26

13:55 Wednesday, 28 January 2026

Current Wx: Temp: 16.3°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 54% Wind: 8.21mph
Words: 32

Got my hair cut today then went to Montour to shoot the falls. Beautiful sunny day. Cold, but no wind, so it was nice.

If it weren't for nature, I'd go nuts.

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Profiles in Courage

19:08 Wednesday, 28 January 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 8.2°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 3.83mph
Words: 108

Cardinal Joseph Tobin.

"I think if we are serious about putting our faith in action, we need to say 'no,' each one of us," Tobin said. What saying "no" looks like today, he continued, is by telling the truth about what is happening and honoring those whose lives are upended.

"One way that we say 'no' is that we mourn, we do not celebrate death, and, what is probably worse, we do not pretend it doesn't happen. We say names. We pray for the dead," Tobin said. "We mourn for a world, a country, that allows 5-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered."

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