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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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…

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On the positive side, Wii Fit said I just weigh 82 kg, instead of the 85 I thought I did. Now, I haven’t eaten anything today yet, so that probably helps; still, that’s when you should weigh yourself, right? Also, Wii Fit said I was 2 kg below the last time I used it (about 2 months ago), so things may indeed be looking up.

Now for a shower, and then off to work.

P.S. – note that this is not the first daily progress post. That one will come — naturally — at the end of the day.

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I’m not actually an “unhealthy” person. I rarely get sick, and every part of my body works “as advertised”.

My diet, while far from ideal, would probably get me labeled as a “health nut” in many parts of the world: while I don’t take special care about what I eat (count calories, avoid this or that unhealthy food, and so on), I actually like (and often eat) salads, vegetables and “green stuff” in general (I often say that a meal without something green on the plate isn’t a real meal), fish, boiled food, etc.. I don’t add sugar to anything, nor am I addicted to salt. I almost never eat bread, cakes, or other sweets. I don’t currently have any addictions, I think, although there were times in the past (years ago) when I was addicted to caffeine.

I do have a problem, though: I drink alcohol often. I wouldn’t call myself an alcoholic, and I believe I’m being honest about that, at least by comparing myself to the normal characteristics of “real” alcoholics. I can perfectly choose not to drink, and don’t find myself “craving” it; in fact, I think I drink mostly for social reasons, because I’m usually very shy when sober (but that’s for another post in the future), than because “I really need a drink” or anything. Still, drinking wine at most meals – and not just a glass or two, either – can’t be healthy, or good for my waistline.

While I’m not unhealthy, I’m totally out of shape. I haven’t really exercised in years, so while I can, say, run fast, I get tired quickly. Even ascending a few flights of stairs can get me panting. Because of that, and also because I should certainly eat and drink less, I am “overweight”, both in weight and in body shape. I’m not really “fat”, and being tall helps, but I certainly don’t look athletic either.

For the record, I’m 1,79 m tall, and weigh 85 kg right now (see this post’s date). (If you don’t “speak” metric, see the FAQ.) According to this calculator, I have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 26.5, making me “overweight”.

Goals:

Naturally, to become (and look) healthy. This will surely involve paying more attention to what I eat and drink (including doing less of both), and finding a way to (gulp) do some regular exercise. The latter is a problem to me, because I get utterly and completely bored when I have to do something for a time that needs attention but doesn’t occupy my mind in any substantial way; in other words, if I’m doing nothing at all, my mind wanders and I don’t get bored, but if I have to keep paying attention to something, it’s mind-numbingly boring (much like travelling by bus: if I’m seated, it’s fine, but if there is no free seat and I have to stand, then I have to keep my balance, avoid other people, keep my wallet from pickpockets… and I “feel” every minute of the trip). Still, I have to find a way. Posting results here (including my weight) should help motivate me.

As for alcohol, I don’t intend to cut it down completely. Drinking, and enjoying its effects with similarly-drinking friends is no “sin”. What I do intend, though, is to stop drinking alone. That includes meals. Even in restaurants.

Concerning weight, I want to get my BMI to 25 or less, which means losing 5 kg or more. Not too hard, I expect, as long as I really change my habits.

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