I did a down day on Sunday, both to support Shannon, and because my weight had remained at 4lbs above my pre-(pre-surgery-fattening) weight. I lost ~6lbs in the first few days, but was then flat for the next couple weeks.

Anyway, 1 down day was all it took to get my weight back down! Must be a water weight thing. Although given my minimal exercising, I'm sure my body composition is going steadily downhill. No big deal though, fixing that is fun and easy :).

One thing I would like to know is whether fasting promotes or retards bone healing. I googled but was unable to find good evidence, just a single often-copied, extremely pro-fasting, and study-free article that claims fasting speeds bone healing.

I've been delighted but humbled by the people who have started doing alternate-day fasting, and are better at it than me.

I normally eat 700 calories on down days, occasionally as much as 1000 if I get a lot of physical activity or have a business lunch (that's the top end of my range on the UDDDD website diet calculator, about 45%). I occasionally eat as little as 500, but it is unusual and I find it difficult. I mentioned to jhogan one day when I'd only eaten 500 the previous day...and he said that he ate 500 on all his down days.

Shannon & I have tried doing down days while traveling, and occasionally even succeeded, but without a kitchen full of fruits and vegetables, we find it difficult. We ate dinner w/ brec last night, who refrained from eating, and said that when traveling he just brings measured quantities of nuts for his down days. Which are also 500 calories.

Anyway, awesome that this is catching on. In 5-10 years I think we'll be able to take pills to simulate fasting, but for now it seems like a pretty good life extension technique.

Speaking of which, as I mentioned to brec, if you are over 40 I recommend looking into Deprenyl (generic: Selegeline), to preserve your dopamine neurons (and thus your joie de vivre). I don't blog about it b/c the slow death of dopamine neurons doesn't really kick in until 40, but from what I've read I think it is worthwhile.

There is a serious of 6 detailed posts up at Modern Forager about What Happens To Your Body When You Fast?, that may be of interest.

I posted on Tuesday about having 1.5oz of Jack Daniels b/c I had so much calorie budget left. Yesterday I ended up having just 565 calories, when my target of 40% of my requirements is 750. Here's what I ate:

milk in tea: 60
Apple, 2 slices canadian bacon: 135
fish oil: 100
orange: 25
2 pickles: 10
dinner: campbells chicken noodle soup + veggies: 210 (soup: 150, carrots: 25, 3oz tomato: 15, 5 oz celery: 20, spices: 0)
orange: 25
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total: 565

And this morning, w/ my usual low morning hunger, 1 orange was enough. I'll eat a solid lunch and dinner, I'm sure. Of note is that Wed. night we stumbled across a new Fondue / Hot Stone restaurant in downtown Sunnyvale, and had a huge fondue dinner there. So that helps, I'm sure.

Wow, ADCR sure does get easier! After 2 weeks of somewhat difficult down-days, today I was hardly hungry all day long. 380 calories by 8pm was no problem. As a result of all that slack in my calorie budget, I had 1.5 oz of Jack Daniels (90 cals), and so now 20% of today's cals so far are ethanol. Mmm....

Note: fasting w/ Jack Daniels is not officially recommended by the Patri Health Plan. Don't try this at home. For advanced practitioners only.

Which reminds me of the 12 Beer Diet.

So I've switched from a mix of Warrior and Eat Stop Eat to doing the Johnson Diet (Alternate-Day Calorie Restriction), because the latter seems to have solider evidence for activation of SIRT, and it's the first thing which seems to be making progress on my stubborn fat.

But as someone who finds Warrior very natural, ADCR is kinda tough. The down days (700 calories) are a little tough (I eat *lots* of fruits and vegetables!), and on the up days I don't feel that much extra hunger. Today I had breakfast and lunch (neither huge), and at 9pm after my workout, I still wasn't hungry for dinner. 1.5 meals a day is plenty for my body, I guess. But if I don't eat more on the up days, I think the down days would be even harder.

I'm going to try ADCR for a couple more weeks and see if it gets easier, but given that I need to find a "lifestyle", not a "diet" (ie something that I can stick to for the rest of my life), I dunno if it will work for me. Maybe some variant like 60% of cals on down days, and no breakfast the day after would work. (I'm on 40% of cals for down days as I don't need much weight loss, the author is on 50% and says that is enough for SIRT activation although he recommends less).

I will again "talk my book" by saying that if you don't have a good diet and exercise program, you are not maximizing your power in life. (Unless you're under 30, in which case you have the power of youth, you little scamp, but it will soon desert you and leave you wondering why you keep gaining weight and looking rounder and rounder in the mirror every year until you actively do something about it. Unless you're one of those metabolic freaks who stays naturally thin all through life. Damn you).

For my own reference, since I've started doing alternate-day-calorie restriction (700 calories on Tu, Th, and Sat). These are the sorts of things I eat on my down days:

1/2 cup milk: 75
fish oil pill: 10
clementine (small orange): 40
Bartlett pear: 100
Fuji Apple: 80
tomato: 30
bell pepper: 30
celery: 6 cals / medium stalk
large kosher dill pickle: 5
1 pack of baby carrots: 35
1 warrior protein bar: 190
1 fried egg: 90

---

Eating 700 calories really isn't that bad (although it may get worse as I continue)? I can have 2 eggs for brunch (180), plus milk in my tea (80), a shangri-la dose for lunch (100 cals of fish oil taken as pills w/ no flavor for an hour before or after), and a huge dinner of vegetables (A full plate of apples, oranges, bell peppers, tomatos, celery, cucumber, pickles, sweet peppers...) and a little protein (100-200 cals of protein in a shake, bar, or deli meats). Not only is it healthy b/c it is fasting, but note that part of doing low cal w/o too much hunger is to load up on your fruits and vegetables. I also have some protein to reduce muscle wasting.

I gotta say, the increased mood that happens whenever I start a fasting program is quite nice! In the past it hasn't lasted, we'll see whether it does on this program, which is the result of some testing and analysis of how to keep high levels of SIRT gene expression w/o going into starvation mode or having to restrict yourself for more than 2 days running.

I'm using 40% of my cal requirement for down days, the author does 50% but recommends 20% if you can handle it. Since my goal is not weight loss (or rather, just a tiny bit of stubborn fat loss), 40% seemed pretty reasonable to me.

In a post of mine awhile back, triath objected to the characterization of sugar as a drug. I just read an excellent book on Alternate-Day CalorIe Restriction (shown on the right), which had this passage:

The regulation of food intake is a complex feedback system affected by environment and pyschological factors, but that system is made dysfunctional when we eat foods rich in fat and sugar.

These foods activate the brain's "reward" system, which means that we are eating not because we need the calories for energy but because our brain is responding to the food in the same way it responds to an addictive drug. Levels of brain substances that make us feel good - such as dopamine, serotonin, and endogenous opiates - rise, and because of this we eat longer and more ("going back for seconds") than we normally would

At the same time, these foods blunt the satiety signals that would normally tell us it's time to stop eating.

Over time, we adapt to high-fat, high sugar foods by increasing the amount we eat in order to get that mental "fix". It feels like we're just satisfying our hunger, but from the standpoint of brain function, we are reacting as if we were enjoying the effects of a drug "high."

Note that what is going on here is more general than just a drug. Similar (possibly identical) brain circuits are invoked in addiction to gambling, for example. Generally what we're talking about is activities that strongly activate the brain's reward circuitry.

Now, it may be that there are distinctions between eating foods that strongly activate the reward circuitry and drugs like nicotine or heroin that do the same. Those distinctions may matter, such that we shouldn't call food a "drug", as we wouldn't call gambling a "drug". On the other hand, the similarities are strong enough that any such distinctions are subtle. Not only the patterns of use and abuse - of craving, tolerance, dose increasing, rationalization, and addiction, but also the neurochemistry itself tightly links all of these activities that result from overdoing something that invokes our reward circuitry.

I like calling sugar a drug (you put it in your mouth, it raises serotonin and dopamine, and you get conditioned to want to do it more), but I'm not saying it is a slam-dunk case. But as the passage above indicates, the case for calling our relationship with sugar (and calories) "an addiction" is pretty strong.

And while the effects are chronic, not acute, and so not as noticeable as drug addiction, it is fair to say that as a nation we are killing ourselves by overdoing eating. Calories consumed, obesity, and all the diseases that go with it have skyrocketed in past decades, and if current trends continue, in 30 years only 10% of the population (the 10% who can eat ad libitum and not gain weight) will not be obese. The same is true in Europe - even France, one held up as an example of a thin first-world culture.

Anyway, this book is awesome, and if you are interested in extending your lifespan and/or improving inflammatory diseases (asthma, arthritis, artheriosclerosis, type-2 diabetes...), check it out.

If you're interested in IF, 3 of the authors I read did a roundtable discussion.

I linked to another one earlier, but here's a nice page for alternate-day calorie restriction, with very compelling studies:

Oxidative stress (damage) is the ongoing damage to our proteins, lipids and DNA due to free radicals which are generated under normal conditions. Oxidative stress is the basic source of aging and diseases associated with aging. We found striking reduction in measures of oxidative stress in an eight week study (see article) of subjects following our diet. The chart below shows a 90% decline in nitrotyrosine levels over an eight week period. Nitrotyrosine is a commonly used indicator of oxidative stress. It is elevated in people with heart disease and has been shown to be 100 times more sensitive an indicator of impending heart attack than the standard Framingham risk factors - cholesterol, blood pressure, etc (see article).

There wasn't a control group (other than the initial population on day zero), but "No other dietary intervention or drug has been shown to produce this degree of reduction in oxidative stress."

It's great that there is so much research happening around these kinds of diets right now. And not just one type, but variations - ADCR, various lengths of fasting, alternate-week systems, etc. They all work via similar mechanisms, so each piece of evidence for one is evidence for all of them (Warrior Diet, etc.) And don't think this is just about weight, or even "just" about lifespan:

"Based on a variety of sources of evidence, following the Johnson UpDayDownDay Diet™ will prevent, delay or improve a wide range of diseases associated with age. These include asthma, arthritis, atherosclerosis (heart disease, stroke), allergies, auto-immune disease, infectious diseases of viral, bacterial and fungal origin, diabetes, cancer and central nervous system disorders such as Alzheimers, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis."

Keep in mind that pre-industrial populations eating their natural diets *don't get cancer or artherosclerosis*. These are the two major killers on our culture, and they are caused by our toxic environment (most likely diet). Time after time, when a population like the Inuit has switched over to a more western diet, cancer and heart disease have suddenly appeared (along with appendicitis, gum disease, diabetes, and a number of other illness). I'm no Luddite, obviously, I love technology, but the evidence that some aspects of modern life are deeply harmful is very compelling. Fortunately, I think it is mainly diet, so we may be able to keep most aspects of our lifestyle, while greatly improving our health.

A bunch of people have told me in person that they like hearing about my crazy diets, so here's a long rambly update.

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Here's another instantiation (website, book, etc.) of alternate-day fasting.

I just got the Eat Stop Eat book and will read it soon.

It hasn't taken long to get used to The Warrior Diet (TWD), or at least, my version of it, so it's already time for a 1 month retrospective. To see the primary source, here is Ori's introduction, or you can read the first few chapters on Google Books. I'll describe my version of the diet, which leaves out a lot of the complexities.

Rather than eating throughout the day, I do daily Intermittent Fasting, with a 16-18 hour "no eating" period, a 4-6 hour "undereating" period, and a 2-4 hour "overeating" period. Essentially it's "one big meal a day". I don't eat anything until around noon-2pm. From then until about 6-7pm, I eat very little.

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A french fry is a ship of carbs carrying a load of grease. For a young teenager, each french fry represents a blemish of acne on the face. I think the carb and fat load must have been an extremely rare event in the evolution of our species. In ancestral times of 100,000 years ago, fat would have accompanied protein, not a simple carb. I don’t think our metabolism really “knows” how to handle the combination without complications. Our metabolic networks have to be stressed and routed into less than optimal responses to this mixed and previously rare signal. The carbs release insulin which shuts down fat burning. I would guess the high fat load and high blood sugar that results becomes a heavy sludge in the blood stream, bruising the epithelium and stressing the vessel. The high insulin opens the epithelium to the intrusion of fats. The fats are oxidized, driven by the inflammatory response to the high blood glucose; oxidizing fat on a stream of glucose mediated free radicals inflames the vasculature promoting cardiovascular disease. The liver is confused, I think, when it sees the high insulin, blood glucose, and high fat; what should the response be to this odd signal?

"A Mound of Brown"

I love the merging of nutrition and aesthetics that is the multi-colored diet rule: your diet should contain a variety of colors. It really is true (unless you hack it with food coloring, obviously).

BTW, I'm still loving the undereating/overeating diet, (I can't quite call it The Warrior Diet, having read the full book, because there is a lot of other stuff I don't do). I'm losing weight and feeling great. The daily cycle of deprivation and satisfaction involved in "One big meal a day, in the evening" is wonderful. Main downside is that local CrossFit classes are in the evening, and this system means exercising in the evening just doesn't work.

I'm trying to set up w/ a personal trainer but I've been extremely busy lately. Been making up for it somewhat by using a pullup bar I put in a few months ago, and am finally making good use of.

Why a Calories Isn't Always a Calorie by Michael Eades is a fascinating dietary post. He compares two different studies, the famous Keys starvation study, and a much more recent low-carb diet study. The results?

In both cases, study participants had their diets tracked closely by researchers. In the Keys study, the participants (conscientious objectors to WWII) were confined and forced to eat a starvation diet. In the Yudkin study, "the subjects were asked to take between 10 and 20 oz milk daily (about 300-600 ml), and as much meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, margarine, cream and leafy vegetables as they wished. The amount of carbohydrate in other food was listed in “units” with each unit consisting of 5 g carbohydrate; the subjects were told to limit these foods to not more than 10 units (or 50 g) carbohydrate daily."

The kicker? The subjects of both studies ended up eating the same number of calories! Yet the compositions were very different, and so were the results:

Both studies provided between 1500 and 1600 kcal per day, but with huge differences in outcome. In the Key’s semi-starvation study (high-carb, low-fat) the subjects starved and obsessed on food constantly. In the Yudkin study (low-carb, high-fat), the subjects, who had no restriction on the amount of food they ate, volitionally consumed the same number of calories that the semi-starvation group did, yet reported that they had “an increases feeling of well-being.” Instead of lethargy and depression reported by the Keys subjects on their low-fat, high-carb 1570 calories, those on the same number of low-carb, high-fat calories experienced “decreased lassitude.”

Both groups of subjects were consuming the same number of calories, but one group starved while the other did just fine. One group had to be locked down to ensure they didn’t eat more than their alloted 1570 calories; the other group voluntarily dropped their intake to 1560 calories and felt great. What was the difference? Subjects in both groups ate the same number of calories.

Maybe, just maybe it’s not the number of calories that makes the difference, but the composition of the calories instead.

The theory that "a calorie is just a calorie" is bullshit. It does not match up with decades of research about the widely varying endocrinological effects of different nutrients.

I'm sure y'all are tired of hearing about this diet by now, but I just got to a part of the book that really fits my experience, so I'm going to quote it:

What Makes You Stay on the Warrior Diet?

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I hope this intermittent fasting/warrior diet/fast 5 thing where I hardly eat anything until dinner is healthy. Because I'm finding it very easy and natural to stick to. My body seems perfectly happy eating almost nothing all day, and then one big meal and a snack or two in the evening. Really, you'd think I'd be starving during the day, but I'm not. And if I do get hungry, I eat something - celery, carrots, a hard-boiled egg, a piece of fruit. I get a little grumpy and headachy in the late afternoon, but mostly I feel great. And I think there is less post-lunch coma.

This ease is some evidence that the diet is suited to me, and some (but less) evidence that it is suited to homo sapiens, as the evolutionarily-inspired authors claim.

So, like I said, I hope the claims that this is good for the body are true, because I'm liking it. Art Devany favors very random fasting, which is somewhat different from this. I seem to be losing some weight. I'm going to start weightlifting again, probably tonight.

via nancylebov I found fast-5.com, which has a free 100 page ebook on their diet. The system is that you don't eat until 5pm, then you eat whatever you want 5pm-10pm. That's it.

It has the same binary attractiveness as Intermittent Fasting several times a week.

* green beans with onions, green & red bell peppers.
* salad - green and red lettuce, carrots, pineapple (not a veggie, but a few pieces is fine)
* salsa - tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, with fresh lime juice

Fasting never tasted so good...

I've been eating badly for awhile now, ever since I stopped weightlifting after the accident, I think. There sure is a lot of reinforcement in how well I eat. I've been thinking about trying intermittent fasting, 2-3x/week. The advantages are:

* Some think fasting is good for you. It's part of our evolutionary past, and it gets some of the benefits of calorie restriction. And it helps you lose weight.
* It makes willpower more binary: on some days, you eat little to nothing, on others you can eat whatever you want. It seems as though this is much easier than trying to weigh health vs. yumminess at every meal, where short-term interests and rationalization will tend to sneak in.
* People who try it report that it helps them get used to hunger, reduce cravings, and differentiate hunger from craving.

I don't feel like calorie counting or meal planning, so I'm thinking about trying a simple rule of "Only eat vegetables" for my fasting days. (obviously root vegetables and other calorie-laden pseudo-veggies won't count). I figure whatever my calorie target for those days is, it'll be hard to get to with carrots and celery. Plus, they'll help me feel full, and are good for me.

So today I'm going to try to eat nothing but veggies. We'll see how it works. Any of y'all tried it / written up anything about it? (besides lightling, who discusses it here)

And my rib has felt better for a week, so I'm going to try weightlifting again next week.

Also, I've ordered some nose clips, since nose-clipping while eating is a hot new technique for the Shangri-La Diet, as an alternative to oil or sugar water for appetite reduction.