Archive for the ‘Body and Health’ Category

Day 10: first fasting was a success!

Friday, March 27th, 2009

(note: I’ve changed the format from “tenth day” to “day 10”. It makes the titles more readable.)

I’m pleased to report full success after my first 24 hours of fasting (from one breakfast to another). I slept a good night’s sleep, and wasn’t even hungry at all when I woke up; in fact, much like during the rest of my breakfast trial, I ate because I had decided to, not because I felt like it or wanted any of it. I believe I could have easily fasted for another 24 hours, if I wanted to.

Breakfast was a scrambled egg with cheese. As always, it tasted good, but it was as if my body was asking me: “why are you eating so early? I’m not hungry!”.

Exercise was, again, the usual, light stuff: Wii Fit jogging and hula hoops.

Weight: 80.1 kg, which means I lost 1.1 kg since yesterday. Not bad, not bad at all. :) This gives me a BMI of exactly 25.0, which is the threshold for being “overweight”; 24.9 already means “normal”. Of course (as I see some angry girls coming at me with knives), weight loss is not my goal, it’s just an easy measure of part of it; I’m still far from “athletic”. I need to find a way to exercise more, too.

I’ll be eating normally today and during the weekend, but I plan to fast again next Tuesday and Thursday. As I said last post, after hearing so many horror stories, I was surprised by how easy it was. Maybe the fact that I’ve skipped breakfast and afternoon tea for years has made my body not “panic” by the slightest sensation of hunger, like many of the “6 meals a day” people seem to do. Plus, having the equivalent of 27-hour days twice a week is nice. :)

Initial thoughts on Intermittent Fasting, after one day

Friday, March 27th, 2009

It’s much too early to speak about results, of course. But, so far, my impressions are positive.

As I write this, I haven’t eaten anything for about 14 hours (since breakfast; it’s now half past midnight), and have only drank water and a little Diet Coke. How do I feel?

In terms of hunger, I’m hungry (as in “I could eat something”), but not starving in any way. I haven’t been thinking about food during the day, except an hour or so after lunchtime, when my body was clearly expecting something; after it “understood” that food wasn’t forthcoming, my sensation of hunger actually diminished, and, as I said, I’m not “craving” food. Indeed, if it doesn’t get worse than this (I still have a night – about 8 hours – to go before next breakfast, when I’ll eat again, but I’ll be asleep during that time), then fasting is easy, at least for me. After hearing so many horror stories about people feeling starved, slow-minded, and unable to think about anything except food, I’m discovering that those are just that – horror stories. At least until now.

One weakness, though: if I smell food, I really get a craving for it. It goes away quickly after I leave the smell’s range, though. :)

Incidentally, I haven’t felt myself “slowing down” or anything like that. On the contrary, I think I’ve actually felt more awake and active than I do most of the time. Being full often makes you sleepy, and I guess that digestion also takes some energy from you, which I haven’t spent today.

One interesting fact not related to nutrition at all: this day felt much longer. At least 3 hours longer than usual. I felt that I spent much more time both at work and at home, and, indeed, had to come up with things to do; I’m used to much shorter days, with two interruptions of 60-90 minutes each; by removing those interruptions, it felt as if I had a “27-hour day”, so to speak. Having so much more time to do things can be a big difference in one’s life; our daily routine tends to grow up to fill the “vacuum” of the day, and suddenly it’s as if some days become much longer, with more free time than you know what to do with.

It remains to be seen how I’ll be feeling tomorrow just before breakfast. But, so far, so good – and I intend to try this out for the entire month of April; hopefully two days each week. If this is as “bad” as it gets, I know I can do it. As for my health, we’ll see. I’m not worried, as many religions have, for centuries, included fasting as part of their rituals, and people in general don’t die from it. Not to mention that, compared to how long humans have existed, agriculture (and, therefore, regular meals) is a very recent invention; the human race has existed for most of its “life” without it.

By the way, with one exception, everyone I told about what I’ve been doing today was alarmed: “are you crazy? you mustn’t do that! you’ll ruin your health!”. While I appreciate that my friends care for me, it’s interesting to note how they almost panic, as if I was endangering my health or even my life merely by not eating for about 24 hours. Are people taught to be so terrified of ever feeling hunger? Or are we all so brainwashed by the media that we think it’s a “sin” against our bodies to ever go more than 2 hours (sometimes even less than that) without eating? Really, people, I’m OK. I feel fine. Don’t worry. ;)

Diets and more diets

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

One of my traits is that I love to learn, and whenever I have some free time, I’m always investigating something. In this case, just by following the weight loss Wikipedia entry, I arrived at an intriguing idea: intermittent fasting. The concept is directly opposed to the conventional wisdom that says that you should have many short meals (at least 6) a day, which I’ve always found too restrictive for me – one would spend more time planning and preparing meals and eating than, well, living. At least, that’s what it’s always looked like to me.

So, naturally, I find these ideas appealing. Wikipedia mentions two authors: Martin Berkhan, whose suggestion is basically what I already have done for the past years (except probably for the booze :) ): big meals at lunch and dinner, and spend most of the day (from dinner to next day’s lunch) without eating. I’m sure that some details are different (I just found out about the site, and there’s a lot I have yet to read), but it’s good to know that what I’ve done for years – even if I did it due to laziness, not health – was not completely absurd. :) Martin’s approach seems to be more oriented towards muscle gain than weight loss, but both are, of course, a good thing.

A different approach is Brad Pilon’s “Eat Stop Eat”. Brad sells a book, so there aren’t any big details on his web page, naturally, but according to Wikipedia it involves fasting (as in just drinking non-caloric liquids) for one or two 24-hour periods every week. According to Brad, that’s not as hard as it sounds, once you get used to it; most people, supposedly, eat more because they’re “addicted” to eating, than because they’re actually feeling hungry, or are in need of food. He claims that this approach doesn’t make you feel hungry or “slowing down”, and doesn’t interfere with any exercise you do on those days.

This, of course, makes me curious, and it will be my next trial, beginning early April. Until then, I still want to extend my “eat breakfast even though I’m not hungry in the morning” trial, until at least the end of March.

Fourth day

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

Weight: 80.9 kg. I don’t think I’ve weighed so little in years. If everything goes well, I’ll move from “overweight” to “normal”, in terms of BMI, in less than a week. Of course, that doesn’t mean the work is done… it is never done. But it’s a start. Will my Mii in Wii Fit change his appearance? :)

Exercise: the usual; that is, sit-ups, Wii Fit jogging, and I also tried one yoga exercise there. I really think I should do more of them when I have the time, as I don’t have the agility and “stretchability” I should have.

Breakfast: one scrambled egg with cheese. Tasted great, and I’m not feeling too “bloated” anymore.

Incidentally, 2 days ago, in the evening, I thought about an interesting post I wanted to write here (to prevent the blog from being just “I did this; I ate that”), about relationships, I believe, but I completely forgot what it was going to be about, specifically… even though I spent a lot of time yesterday, in the afternoon, trying to remember. Oh, well, I expect it’ll come back to me eventually.

One other thing: unlike, say, the rest of the week, today I expect to socialize, which may mean a setback in my diet (I may even drink alcohol, since I won’t be doing it alone), but, of course, it’s worth it (in fact, it’s one of the other problems I wanted to solve with this blog). That may also mean no “daily progress” post this evening. We’ll see.

What about coffee?

Friday, March 20th, 2009

You may have noticed that I mentioned alcohol and my need to lower its consumption (especially by not drinking alone) both in Body and Health and Habits. But what about coffee? Isn’t it a problem?

Nope. Been there, done that. In the early 2000s, while I wouldn’t call myself an addict, I averaged about 4-5 cups of coffee a day. The fact that there was a (free) coffee machine at the offices where I worked make “going for a coffee” a frequently desirable rest; besides, I enjoyed the taste (and still do).

It had its price, though. If I spent about 24 hours without any caffeine, I would have the mother of all headaches. Dizziness and nausea, too. I was addicted – not “dangerously”, like one can become to alcohol or drugs, but, still, my body was dependent on caffeine to work properly.

What changed? Honestly, I didn’t even notice when it happened, but for the last couple of jobs I’ve had, there has been no coffee machine in the office. Also, I didn’t really make any friends in either of those jobs, removing the “hey, wanna go for a coffee?” hard-to-refuse frequent invitations I used to have. So, these days I only drink coffee 1) in the morning, with soy milk, and 2) after a meal in a restaurant (not at home). My daily average, then, is currently one cup, since due to lack of money (among other things) I don’t go to restaurants as often as I did in the past. And I really don’t miss any more; unlike many, I’m not one of those “don’t talk to me now; I need a cup of coffee before my brain wakes up” people. :)

So, no, coffee isn’t a problem, though it’s still a small part of my life.

Third day

Friday, March 20th, 2009

Woke up before the alarm clock, which is always a good thing: it means I don’t spend the whole day like a zombie.

Breakfast: instant chicken-flavored noodles. Go on, call me crazy. :) Still feeling a bit full, but much less than yesterday, even though the actual quantity of matter eaten was mostly the same.

Exercise: after the usual sit-ups (ouch!), I did the “long running” exercise on Wii Fit, and tried out the recently unlocked boxing exercise. It’s actually much more like step aerobics than actual boxing, since the hard part is the patterns you have to do with your feet; the “boxing” part is simple, easy and not tiring. For exercise purposes, I’d guess the boxing event in Wii Sports is much better than Wii Fit’s.

Weight (according to Wii Fit): 81.4 kg, which is 0.3 kg more than yesterday. This is quite normal (and even Wii Fit says so), as weight fluctuates up and down even if you’re losing it in the long run; this is, in fact, why they say you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day. But since I know the reasons and am not emotionally affected by it, it’s OK. :) Besides, being a computer geek, I like looking at graphs. :)

Daily progress: March 19th, 2009

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Not a lot to add to my previous posts from earlier today. I went to my father’s to have dinner, and I thought he looked touched from my “happy father’s day”, which was always nice to see. :) I ended up cooking some hamburgers there, for me and my sibilings, and ate one and a half with some rice and beans – not a lot, as I’m really trying to eat less. Indeed, everything tasted so good that, normally, I’d have eaten twice as much. :)

My nausea from the morning and afternoon eventually passed, and I fell good now, though still more sleepy than I should. I’ll try to go to sleep earlier, tonight. Tomorrow is Friday (always good), and I have a new boxing mini-game to try out in Wii Fit. :) Plus, I’ll try a different kind of breakfast, to see if it makes me feel better than today’s did.

Slightly nauseated :(

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

I don’t necessarily blame my first solid breakfast in months for it, but I’ve been feeling kind of nauseated since morning. The reason I don’t blame it is that, unlike, say, yesterday, when I woke up before the alarm clock and felt full of energy during the entire day, today I was woken up by the alarm, and I was still quite sleepy.

However, having that breakfast made me feel “bloated” during the entire morning, and I ate very little at lunch. Sadly, the “bloated” sensation hasn’t vanished yet, I’m still sleepy, and simply don’t feel well.

Well, a trial is a trial, so I will keep my promise and have a breakfast every day until Sunday. I’ll try something different tomorrow, perhaps. And, of course, I intend to eat very little at dinner (at my father’s) today.

One more day

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

No, I’m not talking about the (possibly) worst Spider-Man comic of all time. :)

Well, the second day has begun. I’ve already exercised, and while my abs were hurting a bit and forced me to go easy on the sit-ups, on the other hand I didn’t lose my breath when doing a bit of Wii Fit jogging, unlike yesterday. I also unlocked a new aerobic boxing exercise, but that one’s for tomorrow. :) Oh, and Wii Fit said I lost about 0.5 kg since yesterday. I must be doing something right. :) However, while my target now is a BMI of 25 (the threshold between “normal” and “overweight”), what I have programmed in Wii Fit as a goal is 22, which is in fact what Wii Fit suggests as a target for every new player (male, at least).

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m experimenting with that weird concept of “breakfast” until next Sunday, to see if it makes me feel better, worse, or the same. I had a scrambled egg and some leftover salad from yesterday’s dinner, and, while everything tasted good, I still felt like I wasn’t “supposed” to be eating so early; I wasn’t hungry at all when I started eating, and right now I feel a bit “bloated” (even though it wasn’t a lot of food). We’ll see if I feel “more energetic” during the morning, or whether I’m less (or more) hungry at lunchtime.

Today is Father’s Day here in Portugal, so I’ll try to have dinner at my family’s place and spend some time with my father and the rest of the family.

Daily progress: March 18th, 2009

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

The first day went well, I think. I felt I had more “energy” than usual, and that I am needing less sleep since I have stopped drinking for the last couple of days, but today I noticed it much more; the novelty here was the 10 minutes or so of exercise in the morning, so that must have been it. Let’s see how sore my body is tomorrow (yes, I’m that much out of shape).

Both lunch and dinner were green salads with bits of ham and cheese, so carbohydrates are low. No breakfast (unless you count a glass of soy milk and coffee) or mid-afternoon meal, but that’s the norm for me, though, as the last post suggests, I will be experimenting with the odd concept of “breakfast” for the next few days. We’ll see how it goes.

No dishes to wash right now, which is always a good thing. :)

No expenses, either, as I’ve been having lunch at home, and as I work near it, the spending of gas is very low. Unfortunately, I have an itch to buy a bunch of Richard Dawkins DVDs… but I’ll have to wait. And, no, downloading them is not fine. Oh, well, this should all be solved in a few months.

Trial #1: having breakfast, for a change

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Because I claim to be relatively open-minded, and also because I love testing and learning things for myself, without either dismissing or believing them just because “everyone says so”, “it’s the accepted wisdom”, or even “that’s how it works for me”, I therefore announce (drum roll) that my first trial will be… to have a “normal” breakfast from tomorrow (Thursday) to at least Sunday.

It’s not a very long period of time, but I hope to see some difference. Will I “have more energy” during the morning (when I don’t feel any lack of it already)? Will it help, hinder or not affect my weight loss? Will I feel “better” in general, or notice no difference? Will I be more or less hungry at lunchtime?

See you (about this; the rest of the blog won’t stop) next Monday. :)

The breakfast challenge

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

As a very good friend of mine commented on the previous post, I usually don’t have breakfast. I used to, when I was a child or a teen living with my grandmother, who prepared it for me (usually cereal), but I haven’t had that habit for years. In fact, I don’t understand how other people can even eat solid food just after getting out of bed; not only am I absolutely not hungry (until a few hours later), but the very idea of swallowing something solid feels… almost, but not quite, painful.

And yet, since childhood, I’ve been hearing and reading: “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” My question is: why?

The idea I had, and still have, is that most people here would reply with one or more of the following:

  1. because you need energy / nutrients for the morning
  2. because otherwise you’ll be starving an hour or two later, and will probably snack on far less healthy food
  3. because otherwise you’ll be starving at lunch, and will then eat too much
  4. because not eating for so long a time is “bad” for you (why? how?)
  5. “I couldn’t do anything in the morning without it”
  6. because “the body needs it” (without any justification)
  7. “just because”
  8. “duh, everyone knows it”

Number 6 is circular logic, numbers 7 and 8 are childish, and 5 is a personal experience which doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone. 4 is unexplained, so it doesn’t really say anything. So what about the first three? Well, I can say that 2 and 3 really don’t apply to me; I never eat snacks in mid-morning, nor do I spend the entire morning craving food, nor am I starving at lunchtime. In fact, I think that the few times I did eat breakfast, I was actually more hungry at midday.

Energy… well, my current job is not very demanding, so maybe things would be different if it were, but I’m really not like many people I know, the “I can’t think or do anything until I’ve had breakfast and coffee” kind. This morning, without a real breakfast, I’ve exercised (while being completely out of shape), went to work, came back home for lunch, had a nice (not huge) green salad with bits of ham, and here I am at work again, not starving or feeling depleted.

Anyway, I googled for “why breakfast is important”, and read through the first five results. The justifications were always the first three on the list above, nothing more. Nope, that’s really not me.

Now, admittedly, I’m weird. :)

But, well, here’s a challenge to you: please tell me, in a comment, why having breakfast is important. The challenge is this: don’t use a variant of the above 8 answers. (Exception: if you can justify answer 4, it’s acceptable.) If you know of another good reason, please let me know. Links to nutritional / medical information are welcome.

Note that I’m not doubting accepted medical wisdom; I simply find the explanations I’ve found so far to be either non-explanatory, or not applying to me, as far as I can see. Which is why I’m asking  for a better explanation. I’m like this: I need to understand things, instead of accepting them on faith.

More about breakfast in the next post…