"Health-scare stories, even those that are not overblown, draw their special power from the fact that we go through the days denying our mortality. Each one reminds us anew that there’s no way out.

Unable to avoid this tragic and absurd-seeming condition, we lash out against our fates by finding fresh reasons to make a villain out of the one thing that is doing its part to keep us alive: food."

 

Why Everything is Bad For You
           by Jim Windolf - 9/22/2015 - New York Times

When I was growing up in the same New Jersey suburbs so expertly described in Todd Solondz movies and Tom Perrotta novels, the usual lunch for me was a sandwich consisting of Wonder Bread spread thick with Land O’ Lakes butter, a wad of Oscar Mayer bologna and a slice of American cheese.

The beverage was whole milk, Tang or Coke. A stack of salty Pringles rounded off the meal.

Even if I had known back then that people who eat a lot of processed meat tend to die of heart disease or cancer, and that processed cheese is held together by emulsifiers that may lead to kidney problems, and that white bread has almost zero nutritional value, and that soft drinks are sludge, and that Pringles may not qualify as potato chips, I wouldn’t have cared. I had a lot on my mind, what with school and all the playing, and I had yet to develop the fear of death.

But now that I’m an adult who apparently has nothing better to do than bathe in the light of computer screens 16 hours a day, I have plenty of time to scroll through articles eager to convince me that food is killing me.

Like everyone else, I believe every word in those articles. And when my gaze reaches the fifth paragraph, the one that inevitably quotes the university professor who has conducted the latest fear-inducing study, I nod slightly and tell myself that somehow I knew it all along, that I always had a feeling that this meat, or that vegetable, was quickening my demise.
Which is strange because at the same time, I believe that food is keeping me alive.

We’re all going to die. And we all eat food. Therefore, food must be the culprit.

 That seems to be the absurd syllogism that lies beneath the surface of many articles in the health, food and science press.

By now we can recite the list. Too much red meat may lead to stroke, cancer and heart disease; until this year, chicken sold in supermarkets may have included arsenic; and even small amounts of pork, when undercooked, can give you trichinellosis, which is no picnic.

Fish that live high on the food chain, the especially delicious ones like king mackerel and tuna, may contain mercury, which leaves us with little choice but to order the squishy creatures at the bottom of the sea, like clams, oysters, mussels, cockles, lobsters, crabs and, don’t forget, those tasty periwinkles.

But while some health advocates are gung-ho about the bivalve shellfish, others remind us that they tend to soak up toxins, viruses and bacteria that may afflict people who eat them with three types of shellfish poisoning. The toxins that cause the poisonings, furthermore, “are not destroyed by cooking,” the Canadian Food Inspection Agency warns.

So there’s that.

Fruits and vegetables in general present a dilemma: the ones that are commercially grown may include pesticides linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; the organic variety may be no better, according to a Stanford study that found “little evidence of health benefits” for those with an organic diet.

Like those federal agents who brought down Al Capone on a charge of tax evasion, we are not above indicting certain food items for reasons having nothing to do with the health risks they may pose. Almonds, for example, are packed with protein, but if you imagined that you could eat them without compunction, you are not familiar with an article in The Atlantic, “The Dark Side of Almond Use,” by Dr. James Hamblin.

He reports that a single almond soaks up 1.1 gallons of water before he goes on to argue, quite persuasively, that anyone who eats this tree nut exacerbates the disastrous ecological conditions brought on by the drought in almond-rich California.

Salad eaters are perhaps equally numb to environmental concerns, according to a recent Washington Post article, which makes the case that the lettuce crop takes up too much arable space for the nutrition it delivers.

Even water has become a target. Recent articles point out that drinking eight glasses per day, long thought to be a good idea, is a fool’s game, and that too much water can kill you.

Such stories stick in the mind because of their inherent irony: The very things that provide us with sustenance, they seem to argue, may be out to get us.

I hope you don’t mind the idea of dining on dung beetles, caterpillars and locusts, among other such critters, because that’s what the United Nations recommends in an exhaustive report. We need to get over our aversion to entomophagy, its authors argue, if we are to survive on an overpopulated planet wracked with climate change.

Cooks.com, jumping on the bandwagon, offers a recipe for a protein-rich dish, earthworm chow.

Another foodstuff of sorts now considered less of a problem than, say, meat, is dirt. Actual dirt. Until recently, the practice of eating it was classified as pathological. No more. It turns out that geophagia is widespread, relatively harmless and may protect the body from toxins.

Health-scare stories, even those that are not overblown, draw their special power from the fact that we go through the days denying our mortality. Each one reminds us anew that there’s no way out.

Unable to avoid this tragic and absurd-seeming condition, we lash out against our fates by finding fresh reasons to make a villain out of the one thing that is doing its part to keep us alive: food.

We add salt to the psychic wound when we momentarily trick ourselves into believing that bugs, worms and dirt are the only things fit for human consumption.

I’m not falling for it anymore. I’m going back to bologna and cheese.

          

The longer I do this, the harder it is to find any type of eating or non-eating low-calorie concept that I feel motivated to experiment with.

However, somehow, I always seem to find some type of diet or non-diet that gets my interest long enough for me to try it out.

Of course, I continue to consistently record all of my food intake every day in a computer food journal.  I have now done this every day for 11 years, and this is my most valuable dieting tool.

This past couple of months I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting again. 

I started by personalizing a 24 hr alternate day fast, similar to Eat Stop Eat, but designed for my own personal preferences.  I followed that for about 3 weeks, then I did one 36 hr fast, from dinner one day, skipped all food one day, ate breakfast the following day.  That seemed to work well for me, and the following week I did a 72 hr fast, where for 3 days I had water only with up to one cup of bouillon per day.  I had hoped to have a 5 to 7 day fast, but my body decided otherwise.  Day 1 was as I expected, Day 2 was far easier than I expected and on Day 3 I felt quite weak and nauseated. I woke up on Day 4 feeling ill, and ended the fast.

Although, I do like the concept of Fasting and want to run some more experiments, for a few weeks after the 72 hr fast, I was simply unwilling to fast any more, and followed my "normal" eating plan of trying to eat an average of under 1000 calories per day - eating whatever, whenever.

On Monday, Sept 14, I began another water fast, aiming for the goal of 7 days, with the understanding that I would stop when, and if, my body gave me the symptoms it did during the 3 day fast.  My fast went as expected, and this time the symptoms didn't show up until the evening of the 6th day.  My night was uncomfortable and I ended my fast at breakfast time the following day. Sunday, Sept 20. 

Today is the morning of the 3rd post-fast day.  The 1st day I broke my fast with a 6 oz can of tomato juice, then an hour or so later, 1/4 of an avocado. Several hours later my lunch was a saucer plate containing 1 1/2 oz roasted chicken, 1/2 cup green beans, and 1/4 of an avocado. Several hours later I ate 1/2 raw apple with 1 oz cheddar cheese.  I finished up the day with another 6 oz tomato juice. About a 1/2 hr after first taking food, my nausea receded and stomach cramps lessened, but all day I felt weak, tired, and crampy. I felt better the 2nd day, yesterday, but still very weak. This morning, the 3rd day, I feel normal.

Weight results of all this fasting?  My total net weight results of the month-and-a-half-before my recent 6 day fast ... which includes the return of water-weight-loss after my 3 day fast.  My best efforts resulted in about a 1 pound net weight loss. Knowledgeable medical experts are agreed that a "normal" person can only expect to lose about 1/2 pound of body fat during each day of a total water fast.  All the rest is water that will be regained after resuming food intake. My 6 day fast resulted in a 10 pound loss which I know is primarily water, and if I had the body of a "normal" person, I could expect a net loss of about 3 fat pounds.  However, probably for me the maximum fat loss will probably be more like 1/4 pound daily, which would mean I could reasonably expect about a net 1 1/2 pound loss.  This, of course, will depend on whether or not I can keep my calories consistently low during the next 3 weeks or so.  It's always emotionally hard to watch those pounds come back on daily when I am consistently and successfully eating very low-calorie, even when intellectually I know exactly why this is happening and even expect it. 

Since I am feeling "normal" today, my plan for the next several weeks is to eat according to my personalized plan for Alternate Day 24 hr Fasting.  I am a retired person at home all the time, and as a lifestyle I can't tolerate consistently missing breakfast or lunch or dinner. Lunch is my favorite meal, but I also love breakfast, and I love dinner. I also find it difficult on one day to eat all 3 meals, but then on the following day, to eat only one meal.  Here's a graph I made that explains my personalized concept, the one I find to be the easiest and most functional for me.

This plan allows me to eat lunch every day, along with breakfast on one day, and dinner on the following day. Repeat.

 
This article is mainly about WHEN I'm eating. I'm experimenting with whether, or not, lowering insulin through fasting will halt the creeping weight gain that I've been having - even with a very consistent, very low-calorie, food intake.  I've never had type 2 diabetes. I've had my blood glucose tested, but never a direct test of my insulin alone, since this isn't a test doctors do for normally healthy people.  I'm interested in Dr. Jason Fung's theories about Insulin Resistance, and about Insulin being lowered by fasting. Sometime I'll write a detailed article, but anyone interested can check out the series of fasting articles at his blog, Intensive Dietary Management.

As for WHAT I'm eating, I am working to eat an average of under 1000 calories per day; the ideal would be somewhere between 600 & 800 calories per day. I have no forbidden foods. I eat only foods that I like. At this point, the only macronutrient I pay attention to is Protein. (There are some some detailed articles in the DietHobby Archives explaining why.) My computer records tell me that, normally, my total day's food choices inadvertently wind up being close to the same percentage amounts of Protein, Carbs, and Fat - all 3 macronutrients equally.   With my calorie limits always in mind, I eat at mealtimes when I'm hungry (I'm always hungry at mealtimes), and stop when what I've served myself is gone OR when my body feels satisfied (even if I have not eaten all the food portion that I've pre-measured and allowed for myself).  I take a daily multivitamin pill and no other medication or supplements.

If anyone thinks I'm eating too few calories, before telling me that, read the more than 1,000 articles that are posted here in the DietHobby ARCHIVES.  While its okay to sympathize, I get annoyed by advice given by anyone who doesn't know ALL the details of MY personal weight struggles, AND who doesn't know at least as much as I do about the many different "medical expert" takes on diet and weight and health.