210 Day Health / Weight Update (Apr 2020)

The following is the 7th monthly (210 days “-ish”) update on my attempt to lose weight and get healthier.  As always, it’s a longer post than my “normal” daily post, so if your (still) not “into” reading about “another person’s” diet (again and again!), I’ll understand if you stop here and come back another day.  You’ve been warned!!  Here goes…
(As in previous posts:)  On September 16, 2019, I switched from my 18 days of “juice / blend” fasting / diet to an Intermittent Time Fasting (ITF) “Diet / Lifestyle”.  My starting weight on 29 August, for the juice / blending fast was:  373lbs.  My starting weight for the ITF was:  356lbs.  My current weight (this morning) was:  358lbs.  Based on these “initial” numbers, I’ve lost 15lbs from the end of August 2019, gained 2lbs from the start of the ITF and lost 2lbs in the last 30 days.  This feels like a drop in the ocean.
If you’ve viewed any of my prior month’s postings on this string / topic, you’ll see I’m “missing” my charts.  As it turns out, I am subject to the limits of my technology.  Fitbit isn’t reporting my calories for any days prior to the end of March.  And, no, I don’t know why…  This means I can’t report the data in a chart format.  Oh, well…
My long-term goal is weight loss and remains to drop 1.5 to 2 pounds per week (not per month).  In theory, this will prevent the two worst parts of extreme weight loss:  a permanent (and excessive) drop in BMR (which makes it easier to regain lost weight) and a large amount of floppy / saggy skin (pure vanity).  As of the holiday season (Nov. 2019), I’ve not been very successful.  I yo-yo’d down / up / down and up again.
Two final observations:
First, in the last week I’ve gained and lost 20lbs.  A five pound overnight increase;  a twenty (!!) pound overnight increase (a loss of ten pounds during the same day);  and then a second five pound overnight increase.  Tied to this, I’ve had painful kidney stones (grains) passing.  Today’s was the largest in quite a while and was the size of an ant.  I also passed over a half dozen “grain of sand” size stones.  There “seems” to be a rough correspondence between the bloating and the grain passing, but it’s not exactly the same, so it’s a problem saying THAT’s what’s causing the rapid weight gain and loss.  Since I am not stuffing myself and then tossing / passing the food, it seems to be pure water weight (gains and losses).   At least that’s my opinion…
The second point is that, in all honesty, I’m only VERY loosely following the modified intermittent time fasting regimen.  I am still eating later in the morning, but I am rarely (otherwise) following the schedule or stopping at the designated evening hour.  Realistically, I’m off the program.  Even more than working out, I need to get back on the program as I still feel it made a significant difference when I was actually adhering to it.  Slowly, slowly…
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On This Day In:
2023	Cause For Admiration
	Heart Update
2022	Widening The Moat
2021	Core Strength
	Thinking Of You (You Were Always On My Mind)
2020	Rising Danger
	210 Day Health / Weight Update (Apr 2020)
2019	Never Let ‘Em See You Sweat
2018	Just Two?
2017	Living Without Love
	Good News!
2016	At This Moment
2015	Still Dreaming
2014	Good Wins
2013	Before
2012	Look To This Day
2011	One View Of Man

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Rising Danger

Stochastic Terrorism
n.  Acts of violence by random extremists, triggered by political demagoguery.
When President Trump tweeted a video of himself body-slamming the CNN logo in 2017, most ­people took it as a stupid joke.  For Cesar Sayoc, it may have been a call to arms:  Last October the avowed Trump fan allegedly mailed a pipe bomb to CNN headquarters.
No one told Sayoc to do it, but the fact that it happened was really no surprise.  In 2011, after the shooting of US representative Gabby Giffords, a Daily Kos blog warned of a new threat the writer called stochastic terrorism:  the use of mass media to incite attacks by random nut jobs — acts that are “statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.”  The writer had in mind right-wing radio and TV agitators, but in 2016, Rolling Stone accused then-candidate Trump of using the same playbook when he joked that “Second Amendment people” might “do” something if Hillary Clinton won the election.
Of course, Trump’s people later said he meant they might … “vote.”  That’s how it works:  Stochastic terrorism lets bullies operate in the open with full deniability, since the random element erases any provable causation.
Tellingly, the word stochastic comes from the Greek stochastikos, meaning “proceeding by guesswork” and “skillful in aiming.”  Both are apt here.  It takes a master demagogue to weaponize unstable individuals and aim them at political enemies.
—    Jonathon Keats
From his article:  “Jargon Watch: The Rising Danger of Stochastic Terrorism“
Appearing in:  Wired Magazine;  dtd:  Feb. 2019
The article also appears online at:  https://www.wired.com/story/jargon-watch-rising-danger-stochastic-terrorism/
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On This Day In:
2023	Cause For Admiration
	Heart Update
2022	Widening The Moat
2021	Core Strength
	Thinking Of You (You Were Always On My Mind)
2020	Rising Danger
	210 Day Health / Weight Update (Apr 2020)
2019	Never Let ‘Em See You Sweat
2018	Just Two?
2017	Living Without Love
	Good News!
2016	At This Moment
2015	Still Dreaming
2014	Good Wins
2013	Before
2012	Look To This Day
2011	One View Of Man

Read Full Post »