Intermittent Fasting: A Toe In the Water

Forgive me with the title, but I couldn't resist. As my last post showed in the last photo, I have an unexpected toe injury.

It's healing, but I've restricted my physical activity this week in an effort to heal as much as possible (in hopes that I can do the trail 10K I'm already registered for this weekend).

In non-toe-news, I've been thinking of trying a 24-hour water fast for a while now.  I've studied enough Buddhism to find fasting a very fascinating discipline.  Of course, I've toyed with the idea of trying it over the years, but I'd never done so.

However, you may have noticed that intermittent fasting is all over the nutrition/health news these days.

Intrigued by the recent hype, I'd looked a little deeper, and the science around intermittent fasting looked relatively solid (to my oh-so-brief-scan-of-the-most-recent-published-study-abstracts). At a minimum, I figured that it if it turned out water fasting wasn't a huge burden, then it might benefit me, or worst case, it would just give me the same benefits of an equal decrease in calories on a constant calorically restricted diet.  Either way, I knew a short mid-week fast wouldn't hurt me.

Based on everything I'd read and heard about fasting over the years, I knew I didn't want my first attempt to be during any sort of heavy physical activity.

So, enter the busted toe.  Clearly, I needed to take advantage of the situation and try one of the intermittent fast options and see how it treated me.

Bonus: E and I needed to detox from our Alaska trip (surprisingly, despite a diet full of fried things, the cold shivering metabolic demands were such that we were both shocked to arrive home without either of us gaining weight -- Clearly this is a miracle, as we were there for less than a week and I alone consumed many things I wouldn't ordinarily including a cheesesteak, brunch with hollandaise, mac and cheese, fried mozzarella sticks, nachos a few times, chili, and more.)

Did I mention E and I needed to detox?  So, when we arrived home Tuesday evening, I made a vegetable soup of puréed roast cauliflower, broccoli, onions, garlic, broth and some spices.  (Of course we added cheese.)  It was delicious, but also light and healthy.

Wednesday, still on good behavior, we both ate light lunches and the remainder of the soup for dinner, followed by bed with herbal tea and reading.  My last bite of soup was at 8:20 PM and thanks to the inactivity required by my toe, I decided it was a good time to attempt a 24-hour water (tea/coffee/lemon) fast.

I don't eat breakfast, so I regularly hit 15-16 hours between calories (hence, one of the reasons I've been intrigued by the intermittent fast trend -- it's in sync with the eating patterns I've found work best for me).

Cut to last night -- I was committed to 24 hours, but frankly, I was a little scared. Mainly, my concerns were around how I tend to get HANGRY.

Turns out, for me, a 24-hour water fast was relatively easy (sort of).  I sincerely enjoyed it on a few levels.

For the last several weeks, I've been trying to work in at least 1-2 sets of 7 minutes+ of 30 seconds on/ 10 second off high intensity intervals of body-weight strength work.  Since the toe injury, this is one of the only work-outs I can do, other than stretching.  So, Wednesday, I did the HIIT 2X7 minutes, showered, ate dinner and started the fast.

I slept relatively well.  I woke this AM, had my coffee, and before I knew it I was already 12-hours in (50% done!) I worked, edited documents, took calls, and didn't really even think about hunger 'til my Junior Attorney brought back spare chips and salsa for me from her lunch run since she saw that it looked like I was skipping lunch (so kind, and yet... so cruel). 

At this point, I'll admit, I started keeping score.  12:20 was 16 hours.  1:30 was 17+.  3 PM was almost 19 hours and time for another coffee.  Leaving the last client's office at 5:25 was less than 3 hours to go and I knew I had it in the bag.  (With 2 hours to go, I fit in a 2X7 min HIIT workout followed by 30 minutes of easy yoga stretching, knowing it would kill my appetite from experience.)

I never got lightheaded, a headache, pains or anything debilitating.  A few times I got mild hunger pains but coffee, herbal tea, water, and life seemed to make those disappear relatively easily.

Overall, while the break-fast meal was ready to go and I took my first bite at 8:21 on the dot, I was surprised at how easy this was for me.

In fact, I ate much less for dinner than I expected.  I made myself a huge bowl of miso soup with an entire box of silken tofu and tons of seaweed, chili oil, and more.  I fully expected to eat the whole pot.  Instead, I had a nice big bowl, a glass of wine, and I was satiated.

The reason I say it was (sort of) easy for me is that a funny thing happened this morning.  I woke up.  I made my coffee.  I poured myself some sparkling water with lemon.  And then I opened the pickle jar.  I remember thinking, "I can drink pickle juice, it doesn't have calories.  In fact, it's got electrolytes that I probably need since I'll be diluting all day with water and diuretics like tea and coffee."

Except somewhere in that analysis my brain shut off.  And I ate a pickle out of the jar.  When I finished the pickle, I closed the jar, looking for a kitchen towel for my hands before realizing I'd blown my 24 hour fast about 12.5 hours in.  I laughed.

I realized I probably eat a pickle every AM without realizing it.  I tell myself I don't eat breakfast, but truly, my breakfast is actually usually made up of coffee (with sugar and milk/cream if we have it), sparkling water (with lemon) and a pickle.

And that, my friends, may be the biggest most important take home from my 24-hour water fast.  If nothing else, if you do one, you will realize things about your eating patterns and hunger patterns and relationship to food and those around you that you've never considered.

So for that reason (regardless of the other benefits you may accrue) I recommend it.  Given that it wasn't as difficult as I expected, I suspect I may deploy it more frequently over the coming months (or years/decades, as some studies cite it as a useful tool vs. menopause) as a compensatory measure whenever I find I need to detox from some serious gorging or when I'm in a situation where I'm unable to workout as much as I like.  

Alaska!

Last week, we headed up to Fairbanks, Alaska so I could do a visiting lecture at the University and we could hang out with friends, try to see the Aurora, and enjoy the natural beauty of the Alaskan Interior.

Running was, predictably due to the travel, quite light.  Mileage for the week totaled 19.83 including several hiking miles and about 2 hours of snow-hiking (which is no cardiovascular joke!).

We got *very* lucky, and on our first full night, we saw a beautiful Aurora display.  We'd planned our visit specifically with the goal of seeing the Aurora, so we were very pleased.  This trip reminded me every single day that a camera phone is nowhere near as great as a real camera, and I'm hopeful I'll take this lesson and actually do something about it soon...

Work for both of us was a bit more hectic than we'd hoped, so we didn't get Friday or Monday off entirely, but Saturday and Sunday were glorious days off, on Alaskan time, which is much slower than SV time, with deliberate space for weather calamities, unplanned social interactions with small-town friends, hours between cell service, etc.

Just out for a drive along the Alaska Range

Seriously.  How gorgeous is this?

The Alaska Pipeline.

The view from one of the turnouts -- breathtaking and not a car in sight.

The four of us: me, E, D, and Arvay

One of many gorgeous photo ops from the drive.

Sunday, we drove out to Chena Hot Springs and hiked to the summit of one of the trails before soaking and dinner with D & Arvay.  It was a perfect way to spend the day.

See the hot springs steam behind us?

I'd never done true snow-hiking before.  Cardio!

The Summit!

The only real downside was that I cut my big toe in the hot springs while trying to clamber out of the hot water.  The algae on the rocks was quite slippery, and the edges were sharp.  The first time I needed a break from the heat, I surprised myself by using my residual upper body strength and bouldering out with shoulders and back and finger strength and direct foot force against the slippery algae.  There might have been a discussion of mu and force diagrams...  (4 engineers get in a hot spring...)

Emboldened by my initial success, I thought I could do it again after 30+ minutes of hot spring water relaxing my muscles... Wrong.  I angled slightly, the algae did, in fact, have a very low mu value, and my foot slid right over the oh-so-sharp edge of the rock I was trying to climb.

This is a nice clean slice, but fairly deep, unfortunately.

 

Thankfully, between the mineral spring water and antibiotic cream, I seem to have avoided an infection.  So now, I'm focused on workouts for the remainder of the week that don't aggravate my toe.  I'd hoped to do a trail 10K on Saturday, but I'm skeptical that it's a good idea at this point.  The plan is to do non-running toe-friction-free cardio 'til Friday and then tape it up and go for a test run.  If it holds up, I'll shoot for the 10K.  If it seems remotely likely to rip open, I'll likely play it safe.  Wish me luck...

Last Week -- A nerdy date night & day

Last week's mileage totaled a mellow 23.76 including much walking/hiking and not much running.

Work was crazy.  Much to my surprise, despite a week working remotely from LA, I closed out September with the highest billable month I've done since I started my firm, invoicing 19 clients (which in terms of clients isn't too far off the average) but the hours for a few of them were crazy, pushing the total into somewhat ridiculous territory.  Honestly, it's a bit overwhelming.

Good, business and career-wise.

Not so good in terms of being committed to any sort of work-out regime.

Last weekend, E & I took a date night in SF at one of our favorite restaurants.  They brought us dessert to celebrate the 15th anniversary of our first true date.

After dinner we met up with SoCal friends at an Inner Sunset wine bar.  It was so great to see them and catch up.  I wish they lived closer.

The next morning, we did a truly nerdy thing -- we visited the Marin Headlands Nike Missile Site.  Every 1st Saturday of the month, the local vets come and give tours, so we were there for that, but we arrived early, dodging all the cyclists and tourists to hike a nice loop around the Marin Headlands Rodeo Lagoon from the visitor's center and with a few detours on the beach and bluffs for a decent 3+ mile hike before the fun.

View of Rodeo Lagoon and Rodeo beach from the Nike Missile site.

If you are a cold-war history nerd or into missiles, the Nike Site is not to be missed.  This is the only site in the US that is allowed to keep its machinery in good enough shape to raise the (decommissioned) missiles.  Very educational and interesting.

They pushed the missiles into place on these rails by hand.

Raised above ground, ready to be set to launch.

Almost at launch attack angle.

Ready for launch.  The 19 year old boys who worked these sites would sit in a concrete bunker and wait for instructions after they were armed.  Insane, really.

And with that, I'm caught up through last week.  This week, I worked my butt off and came to Alaska.  Turns out, infrastructure is a bit more complicated in Alaska than at home.  So, I'll update when I can, but in the meantime trust that if there's one thing Alaska has taught me, it's that California does not offer enough fried things on menus.

Lunar Eclipse

How cool is this?

Lunar Eclipse from our yard.

It was overcast at the start but cleared up towards the end.  So cool

Today's 10K? Meh.

Today, I ran the Rock 'n Roll San Jose 10K.

It was fine.  Not great.  But I finished.  Any time you finish a race, I think you have to acknowledge that it's a good thing.  So Yay! 

I took the first mile by effort and finished in 9:24.  Things Looked good.  It wasn't actually as hot as I'd worried it would be.  I figured I'd slow a bit over the miles, but hoped to cross the finish line with a sub-10 min/mile average pace.

Mile 2 was 10:04.  Not great, but I wasn't pushing it or even looking at my Garmin except at the mile splits, so I wasn't too concerned.  I figured I just needed to increase my effort level.

Mile 3 I walked through the water station, and afterwards, I started looking at my Garmin, trying to pick up the pace to compensate for the break.  While I did get the pace to decrease over the course of the mile, I failed to get it below 10 minutes. (10:28 including the water walk break). 

At this point, I figured anything sub-10 min/mile average was the goal where I should focus.

Except. 

Except, my belly was not on board with this plan.  I needed a porta-john, and there weren't any at any point in Mile 4 (10:46).

The situation was getting dire, and I was very uncomfortable.  After the Mile 4 marker, I did 0.22 painful miles at a struggling pace of 11:29/mile until I finally saw a porta-john.

I stopped, and stood in a line of about 10 people who I assume were all wondering (like me) what the HELL happened with the lack of toilets on Mile 4.

5 minutes and 44 seconds later, my heart rate had slowed, my legs had cooled down, and I was back on the course, trying to rally.

I had visions of busting out 2 hard miles at full effort.  Instead, I put up a 10:15 mile followed by a 10:41 mile. 

Thanks to the long stop, there was no one running near me for those last 2 miles that was anything close to my pace.  And, I just couldn't motivate to go any faster.  I was passing people consistently the entire time (and was being passed by the leaders of the half marathon blazing in the lane to my right on their final mile), but I couldn't seem to find a way to pass the folks in my lane *faster*.

Oh well.  It was a solid run (AVG 10:18/mile for the running portions says the Garmin).  Certainly a good workout. 

Total mileage for the week was a good 33.4 (including some hiking and trail running with local bay area runners at a park on Saturday followed by a delicious brunch).  I'm looking forward to my next 10K, which is a trail run.     

2015 Books Read, Part II

Books 1-14 for the year are here.  The next 15 are below.

15	Boys In The Boat	Daniel James Brown	Book club book.  Very interesting insight into the reality of the dust bowl and the Depression as it affected those in the pacific northwest.  A feel-good tale of hard work and perserverence.  Excellent way to learn a bit about rowing, crew, the 1932 and 1936 Olympics and the propaganda machine of Hitler.  If you like real-life feel-good sports stories, this one is a great member of the cannon.
16	Grimm — Children's and Household Tales	Lucy Crane Translation from the Original German with Walter Crane illustrations	First required reading for the online Sci-Fi and Fantasy course I deluded myself into thinking I had time to complete.  A bit repetitive, but overall, fun to see the origins of many of the tales that Americans learn in their kinder-gentler versions.
17	The Human Division	John Scalzi	An impressive serial novel.  If you care about the complexities of building coherent characters and worlds, this will impress you.  If you aren't a Scalzi fan before you read this and this doesn't convert you into one, you should probably call it a day with him, as I feel this book is a collection of some of his greatest tricks, which for me, was very fun and entertaining.  If it wasn't for you, you probably just don't really enjoy this guy’s writing, and that's fine too.
18	The Atrocity Archives	Charles Stross	Sequel to the Jennifer Morgue, in the Laundry Files.  Similar in style -- fast, geeky, otherworldly, fun, and a bit hard to follow at times, but in a stretch-your-imagination kind of way.
19	Daisy Miller	Henry James	A 58-page novella, much discussed in Reading Lolita in Tehran.  I read it to help round out the books discussed in RLIT.  Historically, it's an interesting piece of writing, putting the difference between the individuality of America vs. the conformity to society of Europe at the time in sharp contrast.  As promised, the sentences were long and convoluted, but they worked.  This one is an example of a book I read for book club that makes me feel more educated and well read, primarily because it has great historical context and I doubt I would have picked it up on my own.
20	Little Brother	Cory Doctorow	If you know Cory Doctorow's philosophy, this story will fit neatly into your understanding of his position on the world.  Book club book.  Enjoyable.
21	Accelerando	Charles Stross	A fascinating, but very difficult to follow thought experiment with many forks.  Uploaded consciousness, humanity, space travel, and post-human consciousness.  Very enjoyable for me, but it would not be something I'd recommend to folks who are on the fence about sci-fi.  I think I'll likely re-visit in a year or two.  I really enjoyed it, it was just very difficult work to maintain connection to anything that was happening... it's running quickly and confusingly and you're just along for the ride.
22	Off To Be The Wizard	Scott Meyer	This was a gift from my sister-in-law and she knows me well.  It was a fun concept.  Essentially, a programmer finds the master file that governs all human life and manipulates it to his own benefit until law enforcement catches up with him.  He then banishes himself into medieval England and lives as a wizard.  Adventures ensue.  Simplicistic writing -- at times it felt like it had to be a Young Adult book, but it's well executed and great light brain candy.  FWIW, E found the writing annoying enough that he had no interest in finishing the series, so I moved to audiobooks for the last 2.
23	Find the Good	Heather Lende	Sappy?  Yes.  A bit.  But still worth it for the wonderful life lessons and glass-half-full perspective of a small-town Alaskan obituary writer.  A gift from a friend that I will re-gift soon.
24	The Peace War	Vernor Vinge	Unmistakenly Vinge.  Time travel.  Political power and intrigue built around fundamental humanity/singularity/consciousness conflicts that make you think hard about what it means to be alive and human.  Linguistic head nods to Chinese and Spanish that call out his time in California in a way that make this multi-generational Californian smile with recognition.  Unlike many hard sci-fi writers of his era, his writing is so impressively inclusive, strong characters appear in both genders, multiple sexual orientations, every racial identity (although that concept is stretched imaginatively), and more.  Perhaps my favorite thing about this book was the concept of "bobbling" and the thought experiment it allowed in his book as well as the one it forced me to engage in.  If you love hard sci-fi, this book is a must-read for you.  If you like the idea of hard sci-fi, but struggle with the history of the overtly alpha white male perspective voice, this book is a great option to show that just because the author is a white male born in the 40s doesn't mean he can't imagine and write great characters and plot lines well outside of his experience (which, frankly, is the whole point of speculative fiction, and so I don't really get the whole Puppy drama at this year's Hugo Awards, but that's neither here not there).
25	The Fuller Memorandum	Charles Stross	3nd in the Laundry Series -- fast paced bond-like, other worldly, math = interstellar magic-science fun.  Very enjoyable and a perfect beach read.
26	Flash Boys	Michael Lewis	I love me some Michael Lewis.  He can simultaneously educate and entertain like no other.  Suffice it to say that Wall Street is Fucked Up.  And there was a brief time in the last decade before some honest brave folks stepped up where it was even *more* fucked up.  Of course, the fact that it's openly discussed likely means that the current reality is much worse, but even so, this should be required reading for anyone who espouses that "the efficient markets will take care of it."  Turns out, fairness and efficiency aren't in the best interests of those who can exploit inefficiencies.  They'll "take care" of it all right...
27	Marooned in Realtime	Vernor Vinge	Sequel to the Peace War.  Very well done and enjoyable.  Predictably thought provoking about how to manage society in  a future where technology is so different and yet survival and human political and personal needs are still so very much the same.
28	Jane Eyre	Charlotte Bronte	I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did.  I put it in the "good like vitamins" category of reading that we select for book club: Something that will be good for me, expand my horizons, make me better educated, etc.  But it's a *good* story.  It moves well.  It entertains.  Interestingly, while I didn't love the character of Mr. Rochester, I found myself deeply disliking Mr. St. John.  It would appear that I am willing to forgive quite a bit for romantic love, and not so much for a harsh and unfeeling religious conviction.
29	Wide Sargasso Sea	Jean Rhys	The story of "Bertha" -- one of the major plot devices in Jane Eyre.  A completely different writing style, a totally different backdrop, and a very different portrayal of Mr. Rochester than Jane Eyre.  Fun to read and discuss with book club in connection with Jane Eyre.

An Actual Race Report!

Today, E and I ran the 49ers Rush, a 4.9K race.

The night before, we went out for Mexican food and margaritas.  Our favorite local Mexican restaurant is closing (moving, but closing the location where its been for 24 years, down the street from our house and regularly visited by us for 12 years).  Going and visiting one last time (or perhaps the 2nd to the last time -- we'll see how this week goes) was too important to let pre-race nutrition get in the way.

So, we woke sort-of prepared at 7 AM on Saturday, enjoyed some coffee, and drove to the new Levi Stadium.  Neither of us had seen it before, so that made the day a bit more fun as well.

I was hopeful that the speed intervals and heat training in LA would put me in a decent spot, but honestly, I didn't totally know what to expect, fitness-wise, as it's been a very long time since I actually *raced* a race.

The last several races I've participated in, I've just done them to get them done.  I haven't really pushed myself to the edge of my fitness since The Oakland Half Marathon, but pacing well through a half is very different than pushing on a shorter race.

Based on my speed intervals in Venice and what I perceived to be my general fitness, I decided I should shoot for sub-30 as a very doable goal (even with the crowds, stairs into the stadium, ridiculous numbers of turns, and walkers and unpredictable families/groups).  I told E I'd be thrilled with anything sub-28.

There were 3 start waves, but no enforcement, and by the time we went to line up, wave 1 was packed elbow-to-elbow with many folks who looked like they'd probably be walking a least a little bit.

We opted into wave 2, and watched wave 1 head out.  About 10 minutes later, they started wave 2.

Or rather, they tried to start wave 2.

There were drummers and cheerleaders and the announcer worked up the crowd, letting us know we would be starting soon, shouting 5-4-3-2-1, and then blowing his referee's whistle into the microphone (just like what he'd done for wave 1).

For some reason *all* of the people lined up on the front of the start line didn't go on the whistle.  The rest of the crowd leaned forward yelling, "Go!!!!" and finally, they went and we were off.

I'd angled for a position near the start, and I took off faster than I otherwise would with a goal of maneuvering through the folks who'd lined up at the start but were likely going to jog or walk rather than run.  After about 200 meters, E and I were in the first 20 folks or so of our wave and we hung on to that position for the first mile.  It was quite fun to look at hundreds of folks stretched out behind us as we headed back towards the stadium.  I'd never been that close to the "leaders" in a big race, ever.

E asked me for our pace at around 0.8 miles and I found myself surprised to report that we were on track for an 8:44 mile.  My effort was where I wanted it for a 5K, but I'd expected to be closer to 9:20/mile or so.  This was good stuff.

Did I mention it was cool this AM?  Thank you LA heat training!

We hit the Mile 1 marker at 0.95 miles on my Garmin and I assumed the course would likely be short.  Mile 2 slowed us down significantly as we starting needing to weave through the walkers from wave one (also, I was fairly certain there wasn't really any way I could sustain the 8:44/mile pace my Garmin claimed we hit for mile 1).

I told E I wanted to walk up the stairs into the stadium rather than run them, and he slowed to stay with me.  At the top, we passed the Mile 2 marker but my Garmin said it was 1.85 miles.  At this point, we entered the covered main concourse, so my Garmin wasn't super useful -- after a few minutes under the cover, it claimed we hit mile 2 at 18:45, which seems a little slow, but possibly correct.

For the last "mile", E paced a few steps in front of me until we turned the last corner into the stadium after the switchback down ramps.  He took off like crazy towards the finish and I kicked up my effort a bit, but not so much as to pass an adorable little girl of 6 or so, whose father encouraged, "See the Finish Line?  Give it all you've got!"  She was sped up to a speedy pace, passing folks on her way in, and while I could have (probably?) passed her, it seemed like a silly thing to try to do.

I crossed the finish line and my Garmin claims it was 2.61 miles in 25:59.30 (9:58/mile pace).  If the course was a true 4.9K, that would be an 8:33/mile average pace, which would be awesome, but I'm not buying it.

So, I blew by my sub-28 minute goal.  But, based on the mile marker placement at 1 and 2, I'm assuming the course was short.  I don't think it was *as* short at my Garmin said due to the covered portion, but I do think I slowed a bit after that blazing (for me) first mile.  So, I'm going to split the difference and assume the course was around 2.8 miles, which puts me at a 9:17/mile average pace.

Overall, I'm very happy (particularly because E enjoyed himself so much that on the way home he said, "We should try to run more local 5Ks."). 

It was fun to remember how good it feels to actually race, to see the new stadium, to finish on this year's Super Bowl field, and to spend the morning running with E.  Also, I'm very pleased to learn that I actually did make some fitness gains in the last few weeks, despite all of the travel.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how things play out in next week's 10K.

A Real Running Week!

Oh, such a happy post.

Last week, E and I were working from Venice, California.

Every morning except two, I woke and headed out to run on this gorgeous beach path.

Unsurprisingly, the venue did wonders for my running motivation.  The weekly mileage total? 28.7.  But more impressive, most of the workouts were quality in one form or another.  Unlike many of my previous weeks, very little of the mileage was walking.

Instead, I did 5 miles sub 10 min/mile, plus two workouts with intervals totaling 13X2:00hard/2:00recover intervals with the fast bits in the 9s or 8s/mile.

I also did the slowest 7 miler *ever* averaging 12:32/mile, but in my defense, I had to stop at every public beach bathroom and take a drink from the water fountain and use the shower to get some water on my head.  LA was in a heat wave, and I was in direct sun with no shade at 90F by 9:30 AM, which I hadn't intended.

I took today off my feet, opting to cycle on a recumbent bike whilst reading Jane Eyre to try to finish it before the book club.  I suspect my running may be on hiatus until book club on Wednesday.  Even so, I'm excited about last week's efforts and the likely benefits of the speed and heat training.