Here's my notes from last year b_b: Thursday, July 10, 2014
Fasting
Last month I decided to do a 3-day fast. But there has been one reason after another why I couldn't start fasting. Dinner with my boss. An important presentation that would fall on day 3 of fasting. Breakfast party at work. And on and on. Now I've got a little vacation time, and of course vacation is for eating good food! And I've been eating lots of good food and maybe a little too much good food. So this morning I realized my schedule for the next few days is perfect for a 3-day fast. No big plans. I just wish I had decided yesterday that I would start fasting today, then I would have eaten a much healthier dinner. Instead I had very little dinner: corn chips and cheese dip and a couple of glasses of wine. It's hard to find data on what is allowable to drink during this kind of fast. The goal is to kick the body into an immune system regeneration mode. This happens with 3 days of complete fasting, or 5 days of restricted calorie fasting (750/day). Some folks say coffee is ok, a little oil is good, boullion is ok, some folks say vegetable or berry juices are ok but not apple or orange, some folks say only water, some folks say only steam-distilled water (which they claim actually sucks out impurities from your system (cough-cough-bs). There's a lot of folklore out there. The scientists who ran the studies on mice and humans show that a 3-day fast does indeed stimulate new stem-cell production and kills damage immune cells, results they ascertain through blood tests. So that's real. All the other stuff is mostly people talking. It's again the question of how much should you believe folk wisdom. There is truth in folk wisdom, but without science it's impossible to tell what is real, what ideas were formed through superstition (or correlation if you will), and what is wishful thinking. And the problem is, the scientists aren't putting out claims about what you can and cannot eat to trigger the bodies starvation response that produces stem cells. It seems to me that it is best to just drink water. No nutrition at all. However, if the response can be triggered after 5 days of restricted caloric intake, it seems to reason that a small amount of nutrients is allowable. Some plans allow coffee and encourage oil and say minerals are ok. So I'm going to allow myself water, tea, coffee (which contains oil), and a cup of boullion a day (which contains salt and fat and 15 calories). I do like salt. 15 hours in and I'm not so hungry. Friday, July 11, 2014
26 hours
Today I rode a bike a couple of miles, played pickleball for a couple of hours, and ate nothing but a sprinkle of salt. Resolve was tested when on the way to the movies we stopped at a restaurant ... and the restaurant was a buffalo wings joint. My favorite. Onion rings. And deep fried pickles. Still, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I've not been hungry today although a little tummy rumbling. So far, so good. Friday, July 11, 2014
37 hours
Slept great, woke with headache. Not hungry.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
46 hours
So far today I've had 4 cups of coffee, a cup of green tea, many glasses of water, and few pinches of salt. The salt really makes my mouth happy. I'm surprised at my good energy today. In the morning I did stretching and pushups and lots of writing with very good clarity. Then I played 2 games of pickle ball and went to the range to shoot clay pigeons. On the way back I began thinking of food. How delicious it tastes. And while I'm not physically hungry, mmmm food sure does taste delicious. Maybe this is hunger? I often don't feel hunger. Sometimes when I'm on my own I will forget to eat, and only realize that I need food because I get cold. So maybe it's no surprise that I have't been that hungry. The family is cooking out right now and they've just finished preparing food. I'm going to excuse myself and not watch them eat dinner this time around.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
63 hours
You have a lot of extra time when you're a nothingtarian like me. We spend a lot of each day in pursuit of eating. Yesterday as we drove past the Meijers at 3:00 I wondered if we needed to stop to get anything for dinner. My mind automatically ran down a sequence of events to follow - buying meat, coming home, summoning help, gathering utensils, setting up the kitchen and the grill, preparing vegetables, grilling and cooking and whatnot, dinner, cleanup, and then freetime. About 3 hours of food rituals. But I would not be eating. What would I do with all this time?
Dinner was already planned. The sausages on the grill smelled good. I enjoyed their smell and put a little salt on my tongue. They looked good. But they could wait. I excused myself from the meal last night and no one seemed to mind. I did miss the ritual and the company, though. So much empty time without eating! If I were a supervillian, I would not eat. I would use all the extra time planning how to take over the world. Going to sleep last night felt awesome, like I could skip ahead 8 or 9 hours in the program. But I felt different when I woke up this morning. A little dizzy, a little buzzing in my bones. My stomach hurt for a few minutes at one point, but I still wasn't hungry. To test myself, I cooked up bacon and pancakes for the kids. Oh, that bacon looked and smelled so good. And those pancakes fluffed up. And the kids were scarfing them down with butter and maple syrup and orange juice. But it was okay. I cleaned up while they ate. You have a lot of extra time when you're a nothingtarian, didn't you know? I can continue to feel a strangeness, and I know that something is happening inside of me. My body is shifting into a mode where my immune system kills off any weak cells, including those damaged from chemo. At the same time, new stem cells are growing which will build a new immune system in its place. Fabulous! Saturday, July 12, 2014
69 hours
Went to the movies. The kids had popcorn. With extra butter. I'm getting hungry now, I wonder if it's because I know I will eat in a couple of hours. I wonder if I knew I wouldn't be eating until tomorrow if I would feel hungry. I don't think I would. I'm feeling good. I haven't pushed myself physically today, but I have plenty of energy. Think I'll go do some pushups.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
72 hours
Dinner tonight was tasty. I have read folks recommending things like start eating slowly after fasting – just a small amount of yogurt to get your stomach used to food again! I didn't really believe that, I ate like normal, ate a little more than usual in fact, two helpings of chicken and mashed potatoes, coleslaw, broccoli, fruit, milk and a pile of honey-roasted peanuts. The fast is over, and it was easy.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
3-day fast, the morning after Immune system reboot is underway! Wasn't sure what to expect this morning. My intestines would be filling up with food during the night... would it be strange? It wasn't. I feel great this morning, not hungry but a little bit sore from all the physical activity I've had the past few days. It's nice to know that if I ever need to go without food for, say, a week, that I can do it with little difficulty and still have energy (to gather and hunt for example). Certainly my stone-age ancestors went for long periods without food.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
The next afternoon
I ate a full breakfast. Could have kept on eating and eating, but I stopped when I was full. I had little rumbling in my belly around lunch time -- my body wants food now! For lunch I ate nuts and milk and yogurt and coffee, and all is right in the world. --
I thought maybe I had posted this to hubski last year but I couldn't find it. There's a bit more in one of my blogs here if you want more about the aftermath. I think it did my a lot of good and I'm eager to do it again. I had planned to do it every six months, but I'm closing in on the 1-year mark and out of excuses!
Thanks; very illuminating. I was planning to drink salt water with a similar salt content to normal saline (0.9%, which is roughly 1.5 tablespoons per liter). It's not actually that unpalatable, but perhaps just eating pinches of salt is better. Monday, then. It's a plan.
I've long thought the suggested calorie guidelines are nonsense. Are you plowing a field, or tapping at a keyboard? We wouldn't think that leaving a car to idle in the driveway or driving 100 miles would use the same amount of fuel. I would guess my daily intake is around 1200 calories, sometimes more, sometimes less. If I were eating 2000 calories per day, I would start putting on weight. If I kept it up for a year, I'd probably be overweight. Also, I am sure that 2000 calories of steak isn't the same as 2000 calories of rice, or 2000 calories of soda. Rather than caloric guidelines, I think the focus should be on weight. If you are over your ideal weight, you are eating more than you need for your lifestyle.The average adult man in America needs about 2000 to 3000 calories daily; people following calorie restriction may limit themselves to as few as 1200 calories.
" Also, I am sure that 2000 calories of steak isn't the same as 2000 calories of rice, or 2000 calories of soda." Well, that depends on what you mean. The soda probably would not be very satiating, and you're probably be hungrier. It does not have the protein of the steak, nor the fiber of the rice. But weight-gain wise, you'd gain or lose the same amount of weight so long as your total calorie consumption was identical. It's just thermodynamics. A calorie is a unit of energy [Food calories are : the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water through 1 °C], your body takes a certain amount of energy to do all its tasks, and the excess is laid down as fat, because fat is the most dense way of storing excess energy your body has. So, from a "fat-building" standpoint, 2000 calories is 2000 calories. Otherwise, they're pretty different. Just for fun, let's look at the nutritional profiles you suggested:
Rice: around 1570 grams of rice gives us 2000 calories, 41 grams of protein, 68% of your daily sodium ,etc. http://imgur.com/Nd3kwLV Steak: around 960 grams gets you to 2003 calories, with 244 grams of protein and 29% of your daily sodium. http://i.imgur.com/HsVeBdA.gif Soda: about 14 and 1/4 12oz cans of the syrup would get you to 1995 calories, with no protein, but 185% of your alloted carbs.
I'm not sure that is true. However, I admit that I know little about nutritional science. I am a physicist by training, and from that point of view, it is possible that different amounts of energy are required to release the energy stored in the different types of food. The total energy available in a theoretical sense would be the Gibbs free energy. I don't know if nutritionists use combustion or something else when determining the caloric density.
Well, I should have spoke with a little less certainty (not unusual). So I revoke that, apologies. http://www.precisionnutrition.com/digesting-whole-vs-processed-foods Mentions what you are talking about "the cost of extracting energy" if you will. That includes: calories from chewing, cutting, and digesting food through different pathways. This particular article cites proteins as taking around 20-30% of their caloric content, carbs taking 5-10, and fats between 0-3%. That being said, this time I'll qualify this information appropriately, instead of being an ass. Human nutrition is a complicated field, and very VERY expensive to examine appropriately, because of all the variables at play. I should not have said 2000 calories of anything will EXACTLY impact your body in the same way, but I think a revised statement might work. "Within a margin of 30%, any calorie will impact you the same way." You could either adjust your dietary calculations to account of this discrepancy, or, as most people do when they successfully manipulate their intake, just leave a wide enough margin (positive or negative) to absorb those differences and still achieve your desired net goal.
If I'm not mistaken, all those considerations are taken into account when they calculate caloric information on labels. If the package says 100 kcal, that means that eating it will give your body 100 kcal to burn for fuel, build into muscle or store as fat. Obviously if you did something like convert the matter into energy direct by means of nuclear fusion you'd get a hell of a lot more than 100 kcal out of it, but the label is meant to be understood as the amount of net energy the average human body can extraxt from the product. In terms of strictly weight gain and weight loss, a calorie is a calorie. In terms of general nutrition there are other considerations (which basically boil down to: eat lots of vegetables and lean sources of protein, and get your carbs from foods that are high in fiber), but the number on the scale will directly correspond to the number on the nutritional information.
I did this last summer, 72 hours. I ALMOST started this morning, and then realized I have a party I'm hosting in 3 days and I didn't want to start drinking immediately afterwards. Funny to see this pop up today of all days! I will start my 3 day fast on Monday. Anyone want to join me?
I'm considering it. My wife will be out of town, so it's a good time to do something crazy. I have one worry though that stems from the fact that I play hockey on Tuesdays. I'm wondering if I'll be able to exert energy at the level I need to to actually ice skate. It's a minor concern, but still a valid one, I think. This would be a big accomplishment for me, because I often find myself having to eat between breakfast and lunch. I'm not a tough person when it comes to food.
When I fasted last summer, I had good energy. Went for bike rides, played a lot of pickleball. It was really no problem at all. The activity made me forget being hungry. In fact, I wasn't really hungry very often during the period. I'll dig up my notes and post them here...
Similarly I practice intermittent fasting. It's helped me cut weight for my upcoming powerlifting meet without having to restrict calories too much. This is something I'm going to continue to do after my meet.
I know that mk and mike both fast. I think I may give this a shot this weekend but I'd like some parameters.Researchers report that following the diet for just 5 days a month improves several measures of health, including reducing the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
do they ever state what "the" diet is?