Look Ma, No Critical Thinking Skills

It's almost amusing how stupid supposedly smart people can be. I'm not even going to bother refuting this "research" point by point. Just go read Dr. Eades' Blog for a while and discover how woefully inept this "research" is.

Diet Soda Bad For You?

So says a recent study:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070723/us_nm/heart_softdrinks_dc

Note to self...finally follow through on quitting soda, diet or real, for good.

IF Update: Day #35 (Fasting)

Very strange...after an eating day in which I took in more carbs than I should, I lost some weight. This morning was my first weigh-in under 190 lbs at 189.8 lbs. It's been two years since I've been to that weight, but I was carrying far less muscle at the time.

IF Update: Day #34 (Eating)

It seems I'm stuck. 191.1 lbs this morning with 14.1% body fat last night. I even did 1 hour of Yoga and 15 minutes of interval running on Day #32 without seeing any progress. Even though my physique is much improved, I still have some fat around my midsection that needs to go. If the fat won't move in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to add protein shakes to my fasting days and try to put on more muscle.

In the meantime, I'll try to behave myself on my diet a little better. The fasting days are easy and something I even look forward to, but I let too much sugar creep back into my eating days.

IF Update: Day #27 (Eating)

At the end of yesterday's fast, I hit 189.2, but I jumped back up to 191 this morning. Too much fat and carbs last night I guess and less exercise than normal due to a minor back injury. Anyway, body fat jumped to 16.5% again, but I'm convinced these morning measurements are useless. I may start posting everything from evening measurements.

IF Update: Day #25 (Eating)

190 lbs, 15.5% body fat

There is definitely a correlation between protein consumption and weight loss with this diet. The more protein I eat...the more weight I lose. Carbs seem to be okay as long as I stay away from simple sugars.

Side Note: Evening body fat measurements with the Tanita scale are down in the 12-13% range. I'm not sure morning measurements are all that productive.

IF Update: Day #20 (Eating)

192.8 lbs and 16.6% body fat

Waist: 35.5"
Chest: ~38"
Bicep: 14.5"

IF Update: Day #18 (Eating)

193.2 lbs and 16.4% body fat

IF Update: Day #17 (Fasting)

A little setback over the weekend. 194.6 lbs and 16.8% body fat. Likely the result of changing my schedule a bit, eating too many carbs, and not exercising enough.

IF Update: Day #15 (Eating)

194.5 lbs and 17% body fat

I'm changing up my schedule today by starting my fast after lunch and breaking it at lunch tomorrow.

IF Update: Day #14 (Fasting)

A couple of surprises today. I dropped some weight to get to 193.6 lbs, but my body fat ticked up to 17%. Yesterday I ate less protein with more carbs/fat than I have been so that might explain the body fat change, but I'm surprised by the weight change.

IF Update: Day #13 (Eating)

I was a little off with my prediction. This morning, I was 195 lbs and 16.4% body fat.

IF Update: Day #12 (Continued)

Out of sheer curiosity, I weighed myself at the end of my fast today (around 6:30 PM), and I came in at 194.6 lbs and 14.5% body fat. So, I dropped 2.5 lbs during the waking hours of my fast. If I hold to form, I should be around 196 lbs by morning and in the mid-16's on body fat.

IF Update: Day #12 (Fasting)

With a protein heavy day yesterday, I was able to get back down to 197 with 16.5% body fat. For activity, I did 30 minutes of weight training on Day #11 prior to eating breakfast and 45 minutes of Yoga this morning.

If you are interested in Yoga, I highly recommend Yoga Today. Even though some spiritual commentary is mixed in, it's not so much as to provide me any discomfort, and the instructors do an excellent job of leading you through the poses. I use iTunes to download their video podcasts, but you can also get an HD version through their site. The podcast resolution is just enough that it's not too distracting, but you may disagree. I'm hopeful they'll bump up to 640x480 now that iPods and iTunes support it.

IF Update: Day #11

As of today, I'm 198 lbs and 15.5% body fat.

To explain how I've gone up, we went out of town over the weekend to visit family. On Saturday morning, I started my fast by skipping breakfast, but the social pressure of lunch caused me to break the fast early. I then ate through lunch on Sunday and fasted through mid-afternoon Monday. During this time, I ate poorly and excessively so I'm sure that contributed.

I plan to get back on my previous schedule tonight by eating a high protein meal before 6 pm tonight and fasting tomorrow.

One thing I should note as I'm going through this is that I do indeed exercise. I've been strength training since I was 15 years old and have only very rarely stopped training during my life. Earlier this year was one of those times, but right now, I usually manage to get in 2-3 30 minute workouts per week. Lately, I've been using some of the concepts of Cross Fit along with my traditional training methods. I've also recently started Yoga (more for joint problems and asthma than conditioning) and usually manage to get in 2-3 1 hour sessions per week.

IF Update: Day #7

195 lbs, 18.5% body fat.

Obviously, there's something funny going on with the Tanita scale and its body fat measurement. Looks like tomorrow I'll have to get out the tape and keep track of chest, waist, biceps, and maybe thighs. That might give a better indication of progress on fat vs. muscle.

IF Update: Day #6

195.8 lbs, 15.5% body fat

IF Update: Day #5

Weight: 196.8 lbs
Body Fat: 17.8%

The Tanita scale is a little flakey with the body fat percentage. I may start measuring weight and body fat at night to see if hydration brings more consistency. I clocked in at 18.5% before drinking anything and then took my morning medication with water to end up at 17.8. Yesterday's readings were after my morning pill so I thought it would be a better gauge.

Anyway, not a huge concern as I'm looking for a longer term trend due to the variability of the scale.

Intermittent Fasting

For some strange reason, I was motivated to begin a fast last week. Fasts or near fasts are not unusual to me as I often retreat into a fasting mode to avoid some of the digestive issues that plague me. Long car trips, air travel, and vacation are all times when I skip meals in favor of water to help avoid any nuisance problems. Typically, I still eat, but the amount of food isn't anywhere near the usual 3,000 calories of my typical day.

My most formal fast prior to last week came on the heels of eating at Subway more frequently. Whether it was the wrap, spinach, green peppers, or something else in my unusual, custom concoction, it did a number on my digestive system. To get things back in order, I just stopped eating for a while. Afterward, I felt dramatically better.

I wasn't feeling particularly bad last week like with the Subway incident, but I had been doing a lot of exercise and nutrition improvements without the desired results. Following the tried and true "stoke the fire", 6 meals a day plan, I felt daily pressure to meet some imaginary goal. And, at the end of each day I often met with spectacular failure as I felt the need to cram myself with carbohydrates to quell the pangs of hunger. Mmmm...I can still taste those pop-tarts now...

Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking about just taking a few days off from eating. If nothing else, it would give my system some time to rest and recuperate. After doing some reading online, I decided to go for it.

Originally, I planned to fast for 5-7 days...something I might repeat once or twice a year maximum if I derived any benefit. There was nothing magical about the number, but based on my reading, I felt it was a short enough time to avoid drastic muscle loss but long enough to still receive some of the benefits of fasting.

The first 12-15 hours brought hunger pains, shakiness, and headaches. Setting those aside, though, I noticed a distinct lack of pain in my abdomen. It's an odd experience to have something so familiar just vanish, and it wasn't the only annoyance to clear up. Being Fall, I've also been wrestling with my allergies. Whether it's the increased water intake of a fast or the elimination of a food irritant, my congestion went away after about 24 hours.

Because of the positives, I began researching fasting in earnest. While there are a wide variety of views on the subject, there seems to be some consensus that fasting has enough positive effects on health to be worth the loss of muscle associated with it. The argument then becomes one of time. How long should you fast?

I don't claim to know the answer, but I stumbled onto several articles on Intermittent Fasting of various lengths as leading to improved health. The one that convinced me to end my current fast at 33 hours was Fast Way to Better Health by Dr. Michael Eades of Protein Power. In it, he describes his own experiment with an every other day fast and presents some research that has been done in the field. With the positives I had seen and the additional positives noted in the article, integrating fasting into my daily diet sounded like a great idea.
Consequently, I broke my fast at around 33 hours and planned to attempt an Intermittent Fasting (IF) diet in earnest.

As of now, I'm following Dr. Eades' fasting schedule to the letter except that I'm basically eating a full dinner on my eating days whereas he was eating only breakfast, lunch, and some snacks. I'm also trying to limit carbohydrates, especially in the evening, to help burn off some of my excess fat. If that doesn't seem to work for me, I'll drop dinner on the eating days in favor of smaller snacks earlier in the afternoon. Another change I will eventually make is to vary the schedule by throwing in a couple of eating days here and there or an extended fasting day. As you learn in strength training, the body adapts pretty easily, and you have to keep it off-balance to continue making gains.

As of today, I'm on my second fast day. To be honest, it's ridiculously simple to get through the fast, and so far, it seems to be paying off in fat loss. My only concern right now is about my ability to build muscle, but we'll see what happens with that if I'm able to burn off the excess fat.

So, the purpose of this post is to start tracking my stats on this blog in a formal way so I can see how this plan is working. As of this morning, I have the following stats:

• Height: 6'0"


• Weight: 198.2 lbs


• *** Body Fat: 16.8%

*** Note that I'm taking my body fat measurements with a Tanita scale using Biometrical Impedence Analysis. These measurements are taken first thing in the morning meaning I'm dehydrated and are subsequently highly inaccurate (as per Tanita's documentation). The tracking is to show trends, not to determine an actual body fat percentage. 16.8% is probably significantly lower than my true body fat percentage.

In the future, I'll also try to include some key measurements to better determine the potential muscle loss, and it should be noted that I'm doing both Yoga and strength training along with the occasional running, basketball, and/or tennis.