Day 6: Almost There

The end of day six and the start of day seven…  Today completes the first week of blend fasting.
Morning weight:  362lbs.  (on Day 7)
I am down / down “2/11”.  As in, 2lbs down from yesterday and 11lbs down from my fasting start weight:  373lbs (the morning of Day 1).
Yesterday, was a peculiar day.  I had to give a blood sample in the morning for a doctor’s appointment on Friday.  This meant I had to “fast” (no eating of drinking of my blend) for 12 hours.  I stopped about 9pm the night before.  I got up and walked the dog about 9am, so I was on time.  I got to the office about 10:15am and gave the sample a little after 11am.  I almost never make an appointment to give blood.  I just bring a book or read email on my cell.  In this case, I did both.  Some time this week, I’ll get my results with my cholesterol and triglycerides levels and the doctor will review them with me to see where I stand.  Hopefully, both will be down (at least slightly) and I’ll be able to avoid any statins.  I was taking them in pill form for a number of years and been having a negative reaction (muscle pains and joint stiffness), but my cardiologist feels I will need to go back on something.  He’s recommending some new drug (new to me) which is administered via shot.   I’m not keen on drugs or shots (in particular), so I have another reason to make a go of fasting and losing weight.
After giving blood, I had a shot of OJ and then went out to mow the front lawn.  That took about an hour.  I settled in to drink at least a quart of my blend.  I watched a bit of TV and read a bit and then took a nap for about 2hrs.  After that, I watched some Netflix and then went to the pool for an evening swim (60 minutes / breast stroke).  I felt like it was exhilarating but (again) I tired quickly (after about 30 minutes).  So, it was another gut check to finish the time.  I just set a nice relaxing pace and got through it…  I can pretty easily do 40 lengths (25 yard lengths) in under 55 minutes, so I say I’m doing 42 to 44 lengths an hour.  That’s a little more than one half mile (36 lengths).  It may not sound great to any young readers, but I started out in April taking between 75 and 80 minutes to do just 40 lengths, so I’ve made reasonable progress for an ol’ geezer.
Today is actually Day 7 of the fast and tomorrow I’ll be posting a photo of my progress.  Tonight I’ll make a decision about going for another week or just going day to day.  At this moment, I’m feeling great, so I’m leaning towards committing to a second full week and then switching.  The thing about “committing” is if I fall off the wagon, I’ll start beating myself up about it, whereas “day to day” is just until yesterday.  I know it’s psychologically wrong, but that’s the way (formerly) A+ personality types think.  “Set a goal.  MUST make it.  MUST make it.  MUST aaauurrgghh!”
Why Studying Dieting Doesn’t Work…
On this journey I’ve struggled with dieting for most of my adult life.  I’ve almost always succeeded (for a while) in losing some weight, and then rebounded – sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly.  I’ve tried every diet plan I could reasonably afford, and almost all of them have worked (for a while).  For me, the problem has been, “What’s next?”  Sure, this or that diet works for a week or two, but what happens next?  I don’t want to “diet” forever.  This means over the last 20 years I’ve used “fasting” as my hack to a non-healthy eating lifestyle.  I either eat too much or I eat too frequently – or both.  For the longest time I’d felt this was some kind of psychological failure / adaptation on my part.  Although not poor while growing up, we certainly didn’t have the quality or quantity of food which I experienced when eating over at my friends houses.
It’s only in the last ten years I’ve thought maybe it’s not me with the problem.  Okay.  Yes, it is ME, but it’s not necessarily my brain’s (a lack of self-discipline) fault.  It’s not that I’m weak.  It’s that modern food is addicting and it’s promoted in advertising as a substitute for happiness.  I don’t mean psychologically addicting, by the way, although there is definitely some of that, too.  I mean modern food is full of chemicals (mainly) – sugar and flavor enhancers – which are meant to stimulate our appetites without giving us a sense of fullness (to tell us to stop stuffing our faces / stomachs).  I mean that modern food is physically addicting.  (Our stomachs, in fact, have sensors which tell our brain “we’re full, stop eating for a while”.  This is why drinking water before eating somewhat deadens our appetites.  The water – which has zero calories – takes up space and generates a sense of fullness in the stomach.)
The human body has served us well for thousands of years and until fairly recently, obesity (and in particular morbid obesity) has been rare.  The trend over the last ten to twenty years has been to blame what we eat (junk food / fast food), how much we eat (portions and frequency), and, everybody’s favorite culprit:  High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  The problem we (as individuals and as a society) have is correlation is not causation and food science is closer to a “soft” science (like psychology) than it is to a “hard” science (like chemistry).  This is because we have little to no ability to create valid controls for a scientific test.  The primary variable is the human body and, despite appearances (we all “seem” pretty much the same), in fact, we have wildly different individual reactions to different types of food AND we have no longitudinal studies (that I am aware of) which show the same person has the same reactions to different types of food across their individual life spans.  What longitudinal studies we do have tend to be voluntary, subjective and self-reported.  We are, therefore, highly dependent on the person reporting to provide accurate and honest information / data for our analysis.  We then use statistics and hope accuracy and honesty will level out under our Bell Curve.
More of my random thoughts to come…
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On This Day In:
2021	A Little Forgetfulness
	Thoughts While Driving To Work
2020	Making Potential Come True
	Predating / Predicting Nerdhood
2019	Duration Unknown
	Day 6: Almost There
2018	Just Trying To Be Me
	Day 39: Half This Game Is 90% Mental
2017	A Letter To 45
	Some Small Place
2016	REDs
2015	Cities
2014	Still
2013	Dare = Hope
2012	Check My Math
2011	Just Asking

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Duration Unknown

[The subject for this interview was Retired General James Mattis (Gen. Mattis was also Secretary of Defense serving from January 20, 2017 to January 1, 2019).  The answers are regarding the racially motivated mass shooting in El Paso and his feelings about politics in America…    —     kmab]
About El Paso he said:  “You know, on that day we were all Hispanics.  That’s the way we have to think about this.  If it happens to any one of us, it happens to all of us.”
But about this treacherous political moment?
“You’ve got to avoid looking at what’s happening in isolation from everything else,” he said.  “We can’t hold what Trump is doing in isolation.  We’ve got to address the things that put him there in the first place.”  Mattis speaks often about affection:  the affection that commanders feel for their soldiers, and that soldiers ought to feel for one another  —  and the affection that Americans should feel for one another and for their country but often, these days, don’t.  “ ’With malice toward none, with charity for all,’ ” he said.  “Lincoln said that in the middle of a war.  In the middle of a war!  He could see beyond the hatred of the moment.”
I thought back to what he’d told me earlier in the summer, when I had asked him to describe something Trump could say or do that would trigger him to launch a frontal attack on the president.  He’d demurred, as I had expected.  But then he’d issued a caveat:  “There is a period in which I owe my silence.  It’s not eternal.  It’s not going to be forever.”
—     Jeffrey Goldberg
Excerpt from his article:  “The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore“
The article appears in:  “The Atlantic Magazine”  https://www.theatlantic.com/
And the article is online at:  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/james-mattis-trump/596665/
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On This Day In:
2021	A Little Forgetfulness
	Thoughts While Driving To Work
2020	Making Potential Come True
	Predating / Predicting Nerdhood
2019	Duration Unknown
	Day 6: Almost There
2018	Just Trying To Be Me
	Day 39: Half This Game Is 90% Mental
2017	A Letter To 45
	Some Small Place
2016	REDs
2015	Cities
2014	Still
2013	Dare = Hope
2012	Check My Math
2011	Just Asking

Read Full Post »