After taking Tovar to gymnastics and then school, I was starving. Needed food now, no time to wait until work. Got a 210 cal McD fruit & walnut & yogurt, diet coke, and dbl cheeseburger (planning to toss bun and eat just patties).

Ate half the fruit/walnut/yogurt and drank half a diet coke, and I'm stuffed. That's like 125 cals. A good demonstration of the value of eating a little then waiting during down periods, to see if that's enough.

What can I say, The Warrior Diet is very natural for me. Too bad, because it seems to be the weakest form of IF, from my experience, and because it is quantitatively the least fasting compared to other forms. ADCR is the 2nd easiest for me, and the best combination of ease and effectiveness. Followed by 24hr dinner to dinner fasts.

I learned something from The Warrior Diet which I hadn't thought of but which is obvious in retrospect - intra-meal timing matters.

Think about it this way: do you notice the difference between a cocktail at the bar while waiting for a seat, and one at the end of the meal? I sure do!

Well, sugar (by which I mean any fast-burning carbs) is the same way. The worst thing about sugar is that it spikes your insulin. This insulin spike is much higher if you have the sugar on an empty stomach than a full one, because the latter moderates the speed at which glucose enters your bloodstream.

In some ways perhaps the alcohol example is a bad one, because both drinks get you to just about the same blood alcohol level, one is just quicker. If BAC is the key metric, then timing doesn't really matter. But for sugar, the rapidity is actually the problem, not the volume. (that's why we care about fast-burning vs. slow-burning carbs). Hence timing really matters.

So if you want to live a long and healthy life, avoiding the "diseases of civilization" that come with insulin resistance, you don't need to pass up a small dessert. Just don't eat the bread they bring you as an appetizer. (And obviously, don't load up your meal w/ carbs).

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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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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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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After 3 pretty easy days, I woke up hungry. So I ate half a grapefruit and a couple eggs for breakfast. No reason to go crazy about this thing - I'm going to do what my body wants. I'll try to minimize eating during the rest of the day, if it feels good. Yesterday I had 1 hard-boiled egg, 1 kiwi, 1 small cup of carrot juice, and one piece of string cheese before 7pm, and it was easy to eat that light. And I did a short workout, no cardio. Got a little grumpy around 6pm-7pm, I think I should have eaten earlier.

Haven't done CrossFit since the rib injury, but I did 2 light workouts on my own this week. Weights and a 500m row on Monday, weights & abs yesterday. I'll do another one this weekend and hopefully start CF again next week. I miss it!

I've been pretty hyper this week due to job & hobby-related excitement, so I'm not sure to what degree that is making the Warrior Diet easier. My hyperness is sort of funny in light of Shannon's condition in that if she had the same symptoms I've had, we'd be worried and calling her psychiatrist and maybe upping her meds. After all, I think hypomania is an accurate term for my condition, so in her it would be dangerous. But of course I know from 10-15 years of experience that my hypomania never turns into actual mania, or leads to depression. I hope we can find a med balance that lets Shannon experience hypomania safely, b/c unipolar hypomania rules!