Day 3 of Fast

More restless sleep, more muscle cramping.

1. 0600  --  260.4lbs - 120/73 

This was the lightest I have been since November.... 2017...  That was extremely motivating!

With the help of a little more bone broth (90 calories I made it to the 72 hour mark). So all of 170 calories in 3 days. Broke my fast proper with a visit to a Vietnamese Pho place (so more bone broth! But this stuff was so much better).

Overall impressions? I can do this, and I think I can do this for longer (I can't believe I am writing this but I would be interested in doing a 7 day fast sometime in the future). I might even be able to incorporate back in my exercise into this (I think in particular in the beginning, as an effort to burn out the sugar in the bloodstream and speed the transition to ketosis). I really wasn't crazy hungry and things were busy enough.  I think this would be easier without kids (because they need things like food and it is hard to be around food when doing this). I definitely wouldn't do another 3 day where it goes over weekend (though with this being a drill weekend I was away and busy).  I really didn't feel as off as I expected, a pleasant surprise.

After re-feeding and a full cycle of meals, 48 hours after that weight I was 265.8, which was still better than a when I started.

Day 2

Restless sleep (but somehow a Fitbit sleep score of 78 on 7:26 of sleep). Some Crazy more muscle cramping, I was in a meeting and had 3-4 muscles all messing with me at the same time.

1. 0700  --  263.9lbs - 133/87 69bpm
2. 1230 --  Still feeling mostly fine other than the cramping issue. Amazingly my stomach is not crying out right now for food as I expected/feared. Coffee and an electrolyte mix (I really like this one, Ultima Replenisher Electrolyte Hydration Powder, Grape ) have kept me going, will probably switch to macha tea in the afternoon to ease the caffeine load. 40 hours in  
3. 1600  --  265.9lbs
4. 2137  -- 264.8lb

I broke down a touch (though it depends where you read if it was ok) and had a package of bone broth in the evening. So all of 80 calories in more than 2 days.

Day 1

Last food was at roughly 1900 last night.  Slept poorly but there is something about the taco's we had for dinner that doesn't settle well (massive acidity in stomach.. I am trying different variations to find what is causing it, onions just got excluded). Overall this will be the easy day, at least until 1800 or so, because that is normally when I break a 24 (ish) hour fast.  60bpm resting heart rate.

1. 0800  --  268.6lbs - 44 waist
2. 1600  --  267lbs - 44 waist.  129/98 67bpm

Only odd effect so far has been some cramping. That and some grumbling from my stomach.... But I have been prone to cramping for a long time so I cannot blame this (yet).....

I started with this which got me into 24 hour fasts:

Eat Stop Eat: Intermittent Fasting for Health and Weight Loss

Then I moved to my reference for this:
The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended


Note: Today I had a physical. Then I had to take our sick cat Legend in.Who the vet not so subtly told me needs to be put down, there is no return to normal (pain free) for him. FML, I almost broke this thing before it started since I _really_ wanted a drink after that news...

Not quite dead (but I may feel like it in a few days)

Going to use this to sort of live blog my new experiment, trying a longer fast. I have been doing a number of short 20-24 hour fasts for several months now (minus travel, holidays and extreme stress times). So given the fact that I may have to be taped this weekend (but no PT test) I figured it would be chance to maybe lose an inch or so from the waist and try to extend my to (*gulp*) 72 hours. I already had to fast for both my annual physical as well as my annual Army physical, so why not combine them.
I have been reading so many good things about the benefits of extended fasting that I am kind of interested to see how it goes. Not horribly excited, but interested to see how it goes.  I predict that Thursday night will be the worst because my body is used to eating after a 24 hour fast and isn't going to be happy.

The 24 hour (ish) Fasting Experiment

I like experimenting with various ways to try to lose weight.  I am in the Army National Guard and at this point don't want to get kicked out for my weight, as I will have just completed 14 years of service at the end of this month.

Over the years I have tried Adkin's, Keto, Intermittent Fasting(IF), etc. I like the science behind fasting but honestly, I find IF burdensome as, while it claims to be intermittent in practice most people do it 5-7 days a week. I actually like breakfast (even after my time in AFG where it was my dinner for 6 months) so I was never good at following a consistent IF plan. Then early last month I found some references to a book, "Eat, Stop, Eat," (by Brad Pilon) that intrigued me. Basically the book breaks down to just trying to go for 24 hours 2x a week (for those of us who are overweight... so America as a whole, then if you get really close you can drop to 1x week). I love that the book has something like 20 page of scientific citations at the end. And even besides fat loss there are additional health benefits to a 24 hour fast that made it an easy sell to me.  

So the basic numbers when I started the first fast on 13FEB19:

Weight: 275.1 lbs

RHR: 62 bpm

After 3 full weeks of 2x Fasting for 24hrs (08MAR19):

Weight: 265.2 lbs

RHR: 55 bpm

Interesting note, you can see my RHR spike during drill(1-3MAR)....  I was less than good going to the gym (only 2-3 time a week) during this period, but because I have a record APFT coming up, I need to get moving on that.

I also had a checkup on 28FEB19 and I will need to have some more blood work done in 3 months, so that should have some interesting nuggets. (one desire of this trip is to not need BP meds anymore)

I will check back in next month to see how things are going.  I find that while I am hungry, I don't feel tempted to cheat.  During these fast periods I try to be as strict as I can be, developing a taste for black (but with fake sugar) coffee and lots of water. I generally break the fast with some probiotics (fermented garlic, sauerkraut, plus maybe some kefir) and carrots/hummis.

The 21 year old me vs the 42yo me

Right around my 42nd birthday I was going out with a few Soldiers from my unit and one of them was a girl who was turning 21 that evening. Beyond the amusement of her trying to educate bartenders on the quirks of alcohol sales (she could buy from our ABC stores on the day before her birthday, but bartenders were not willing to take that risk). It got me to ponder the vast differences between 21yo me and the 42yo me. So in an totally un-ranked and unsorted list: (Old me is indented)

• Drinks coffee, tea. Has maybe a diet soda 2-3 times a week
• Swills soda (sugared). A case+ per week(!).
• Drinks beer (almost everything but IPA's), occasional whisky/bourbon, tons of red wine
• goldschlager and the ilk
• Cooks somewhat complicated meals, can bake if I have the right ingredients 
• Ramen... Maybe fried rice
• 2 kids and a wife
• Not even dating
• Is a Captain with good odds of being promoted to Major in the Army
• Military what?
• Regular gym goer. Lifts and Runs 5k's, 10Milers and as completed a Marathon
• Run if threatened
• Manager. Rarely looks at code. Runs a team of 8 hackers. Has 20+ people working for me on my part time job.
• Thinks he will spend his life coding

It amazes me when you stop to think that you can change so much over time.

* Note I wrote most of this around my 42nd birthday, then left it.  Oddly enough I was literally thinking about these same things today, March 2019.

My 529 Plan Plan

I have 2 kids, a 4yo Girl and a 2yo (we will round up 3 weeks) Boy. As soon as I got their SSN's (which takes a surprising amount of time, weeks to months after you file the initial Birth Certificate) my kids were the proud owners of a bank account and a 529 plan (they also have an investment account... I like to keep the money they get as gifts in their cash/investment accounts).

So then I came up with the 529 Plan Plan -- how to, with our own money (avoiding any presumption of windfalls/etc) to fund their college education. My parents paid for mine and I want to pay it forward as much as feasible (we are already funding ~25% of our net into our retirement accounts(plus another 8-9% to taxable accounts), so we already are paying ourselves first). Not seen on here is that thanks to a trip to Afghanistan I was able to sign my Post-9/11 GI Bill to my kids, so each gets 2 years of 50% college costs + books + a housing stipend. And who knows what college is going to look like in 14 years, I cannot see the current trend continuing.... But at least I am making the effort to cover them. And since my state plan (Virginia) allows me to deduct contributions from my State taxes it at least reduces the burden on us.

The plan is simple, 100 dollars a month, increasing that amount by 10 dollars every birthday.  One catch to the plan in that there a 130 dollar a month jump on their 5/6th birthday. That is the celebration of them not being in daycare anymore, it represents less than 10% of the monthly cost.... (side note, there is a plan for at least some of that money as well... while post-daycare the kids costs will seem light as feather, it is better to save and bank that money (50%) to cover things like camp, after-school, etc). I also programmed in conservative returns for the duration.

Below is a screenshot of my google sheets that contains the original plan, combined with the actual's (since I like seeing how the battle plan matches up with reality).

August Reads

More long car trips (it is 3ish hours down to Ft. Pickett, where I had to go twice this month) plus more walking plus more working out equals more books read.

• Grunge (Monster Hunter Memoirs #1) by John Ringo, Larry Correia
• xx
• The Rhesus Chart (Laundry Files #5) by Charles Stross
•  asd
• The Nelson Touch (Ark Royal #2) by Christopher Nuttall
• asd
• The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files #6) by Charles Stross
• asd
• Technomancer (Unspeakable Things #1) by B.V. Larson
• The Hot Gate (Troy Rising #3) by John Ringo
• Re-read. Such a great series. I am a big fan of John Ringo in case you cannot figure that out yet. I liked this series because it was a big picture (but also micro by covering the stories of the general populace as well), going from the underemployed web comic writer who discovers the secret sauce that helped Earth earned its independence. All the way up to becoming a major regional player.
• Citadel (Troy Rising, #2) by John Ringo
• Live Free or Die (Troy Rising, #1) by John Ringo

December Reads

• Battle Cruiser (Lost Colonies Trilogy #1) by B.V. Larson
• A giant solar flare knocks a rapidly expanding Earth back, affecting the technology as well as the transportation system that Earth used to get to its colonies 160 years before the start of this book. The main character, LCDR Sparhawk, is a member of the ruling (this is a hereditary democracy (not that we can comment, Bush family for example), complicated by cloning. They are called *cough* Public Servants *cough* and Sparhawk has rebelled and joined the Space Guard) families and after long isolation the universe is coming to visit the Earth again. As it often happens, a lot of big activities all center around our hero.
  Overall a fun read, complicated by... interesting politics and some really odd 180's by some characters, this story kept me entertained for a long day of driving. (3/5)
• The Nightmare Stacks (Laundry Files #7) by Charles Stross
• This story changes a lot of the Laundry Universe. While the last book introduced giving the perspective of a non-Bob character, this one pretty much removes him from the equation completely (except for a few references and borrows Bob's most notable sidekicks, Pinky and Brain). Told from the perspective of Alex, the moderately capable vampire (don't be silly, Vampires don't exist) and in Leeds (vs London). So much happens that my head is spinning a bit and I am deeply curious how things, given that the Laundry basically gets aired by the time everything is done.
  This is probably the most approachable (and one of the top 3 of the series) book of the series other than the first book, since while it helps to have read the first 6 books you really could come into this book cold and be able to understand what is going on. (4/5)

Quite (from being so busy)

Kids, travel (work and my wife's), work all combine to kill my blogging time. I still go through a lot of books (mostly Audible) which you can see if you become friends with me on Goodreads ( https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/10193172-daniel )

Work has a lot of stuff going on.. That's about all I can say there. My part-time (hah!) job with the Army has taken some turns. I finally attended the first part of the Signal Captains Career Course (it was nice to see Fort Gordon again after a 9 year gap), got notified that I have been selected to be the BDE S6 (Main Communication guy for a 4,000 person Brigade), of course finally got my Command position posted (so I can move on to new job) and did the myriad of things that I basically have to do to support both positions.The good news is that I should get promoted to Major out of this, so that should be fun.

Kids are doing well and running my wife and I ragged. They are so smart, energetic and clever that we have to work hard to keep ahead of them.

I am going to try to post more now that I seem to have moved past the crazy busy hump, it is good to exercise my writing in something other than work.