All over the board...

I have some very non-contiguous thoughts I need to put on (digital) paper, and I don't promise smooth segues, but I'm going to jam it all in a single post somehow.

Firstly, my brother sent me a 3-character text message today. It said "167" and not another word. I knew exactly what he meant, because he's been trying to get his weight down to 165 pounds unsuccessfully for quite some time, and he's one of the reasons I started The Big 5.  He had been letting me know of all his just-under 170 readings for a bit (which were closer to his goal than he'd been in a long time). I suggested he try a form of IF, or intermittent fasting, to drop the last few pounds, and he googled it and told me that basically, that's how he'd been eating and partly why he had already lost the 6 or 7 pounds he'd struggled so hard to drop before. Getting to the gym more probably didn't hurt him, but I've also had great success with eating 2 meals a day, 5-8 hours apart and pretty much fasting in-between. I do put a nice dollop of cream or half and half in my morning coffee, but since I've been eating my lunch at work and a meal at 5 or 5:30 on weekdays, I've maintained a weight I used to struggle to make for competitions effortlessly and hungerlessly.

There are benefits to your endocrine, immune, and other systems of long periods of not eating (17-20 hours isn't really a long period, but it's probably enough to see a lot of the benefits). Remember that our ancestors probably regularly went much longer periods without any real nutrition and thrived and survived and eventually managed to create you.

The next thing I sort of have on my mind is the connection we lack with our food. I remember as a very small child asking my mother how come the food on my plate and the bird in my coloring book were both called "chicken." We just don't have any involvement with our food other than picking it out of an aisle and storing it in the freezer until we are ready to throw it in the microwave. It's really no wonder we make such terrible choices when it comes to how and what we eat most of the time.

Finally, I've found a new author/blogger/podcaster I really think everyone should read/listen to. This should be at the top of your reading/listening list if you care about yourself at all.

That's it for now. I'm learning a lot from Nora and various others about the hormonal response to eating and how blatantly obvious it is that humans are made to live and prosper on a high saturated fat diet.

That's it for the moment. I have thousands of things on my mind, I've promised to do some research and respond about my findings, and I'm still planning to do all of that. I wish I could find a little more time to do the homework for here, but those who know me understand I have a lot on my plate at the moment. Apologies to you all.