Stress Fracture

Been a while since I consumed anything but the two cups of coffee and one whey protein shake pictured here, plus a few glasses of water that didn’t seem worth capturing in photos.  I’m thinking probably another of the whey protein drinks between now and bed, and then I’m done until tomorrow as long as I can sleep.  (A dicey matter the best of times, although perhaps a little detoxification might actually help. Whether it will help more than it annoys with a rumbly stomach, we’ll see.)

Tomorrow I will try to be up early enough to have a (very) low carb breakfast with some solid food to it, and perhaps go back to this until dinnertime.  Frankly, that might not be a bad daily plan in general; lunchtime is when I often eat the worst, spend ridiculous money doing so, and use up a bunch of time away from the office that could be spent in the gym and the coffee shop. (Yes, that costs money, too, but far less than lunch and they have free wifi while I drink my bottomless coffee.  Panera — I can’t eat their food, but I still like their establishment.)

Tomorrow, though, cautious, incremental changes.  My blood glucose level at this moment (I stopped writing this to check it) reads as a perfect — absolutely perfect — 83 mg/dL.  I’d like to see a lot more of that.

Oh, if you’re interested in what the Bernstein folks call the WOE (I always find that an unfortunate acronym, myself) — the Way of Eating (as opposed to dieting) — done dead right in photo diary form, do check out Sara’s blog for just that purpose.  She has the enthusiasm and discipline of the newly converted, to be sure, but hopefully she’ll stick with it and be an excellent model for diabetics and “prediabetics” (there’s really no difference, and Sara explains how that is) alike. I know I’ve been following it and asking myself why I got so far off track.


Good eating,

R

Preamble: I haven’t felt well all week, and have decided that what may help at this point is putting myself on a fast.  (More than the several hours while asleep that should be coming right up, you understand, and no, I don’t really know how long it’ll be.)  This led me to want to discuss what I’m up to, why I’m up to it, and what fasting is, anyway.  Naturally, I ultimately decided to do that in an entirely arbitrary order.

Fasting is, according to Wikipedia, “primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. A fast may be total or partial concerning that from which one fasts, and may be prolonged or intermittent as to the period of fasting. Fasting practices may preclude sexual activity as well as food, in addition to refraining from eating certain types or groups of foods; for example, one might refrain from eating meat. A complete fast in its traditional definition is abstinence of all food and liquids except for water.”  We’ll go with that.  It may be religious (or at least spiritual), or it may not.  In my current case, it depends on what you consider spiritual.  Let me go ahead and address the question of what I’m up to.

The first point is to give my system some time to recover from whatever I’ve been beating it up with.  This seems fairly obvious, perhaps, but actually there’s some fairly interesting recent research behind the notion that goes farther than you might suppose.  The general idea is that eating, and in particular eating more than is strictly necessary, can over the long term lead to inflammation and oxidative stress and, well, you’d rather not have those, as they lead to things like the deterioration we associate with age.  Let me interject now that I am not a scientist and I am not pretending to be one; what you get here is what little I’ve been able to make sense of myself.  Where was I?  Right, eating more than one needs, and in particular of what we pass off as food, tough on the system.  (I’m diabetic, so a lot more of it is a lot tougher on me, but even so.)  And so we get the notion of not eating — or fasting — to recover from those stressors. There are quite a number of people keen on intermittent fasting, wherein they do something along the lines of eat every other day, or eat only during a five-hour period each day, or whatever.  I have toyed with it a bit myself but it’s never stuck, and I’m not specifically trying to do it now.  I’m just trying to give my body a breather.

The second point is a little more ethereal, perhaps; it is very important that I control my eating, instead of letting my eating control me.  Very, very important.  Life or death important. One way to exert control over eating, or so it seems to me, is to decline to do it. If I can not eat, then that’s the first step to eating exactly as I must, not however the urge strikes me. It is by no means an easy move from one to the other, but it’s a start.  So that’s also on my mind — doing a little mind over matter, if you will.

So, am I going without food and drink?  No.  For one thing, you can only go without drink for a relatively short period. I recall hearing once the rule of threes — three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, three weeks without food. Sounds overly general, but still, one gets the point. I don’t know that I’m going to be trying to do this for a few days straight, but no sense taking chances. Also, I think hydration is pretty important. (Not the ridiculous half gallon of water a day or whatever, but, you know, some.) And frankly, the point here is not austerity. So beverages that don’t have significant calories (and certainly no sugar, but that probably goes without saying) are in. Diet Coke (even mine with Splenda) is, however, out, because it contains, well, things I don’t even know from. The one thing with noteworthy calories I will be having for the duration is whey protein drinks, probably but not necessarily at mealtimes. They’re about 120 calories, as I recall, but it’s very nearly all protein, so that the body is not entirely without fuel. If you like, you might consider it serious calorie restriction. Whatever.

Enjoying food (particularly if it’s actually, you know, food) within the boundaries of good sense is a fine thing. Being ruled by food, or by any other desire, really, is not. Not physically, not emotionally, and not, I think, morally. (And not religiously, for that matter.)

So. Enjoy your weekend, and I plan to enjoy mine. Just not facedown in food.

R