Blueberry waffles
Life on Eagle Ledge continues on its languid pace. Colleen took Ambiana and Jakobi to Cambridge VT on Friday to have an outing biking on the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail with Sarah, Erika and Ollie and then back to their place for ice cream sundaes. It was only the 2nd outing since this all began for the girls. I get out sometimes 5 days a week with my job but they have pretty much remained at home communicating with friends by phone and text and the occassional ZOOM session down at the school piggy backing on their wifi.
Jakobi continues to make breakfast on the weekends and this Saturday it was blueberry waffles and turkey bacon. We had a mellow weekend, ditched out plans to climb Hobart Mountain because the girls were tired from their 7 mile bike ride on Friday. I tiled the window casing on Friday with left over black back splash tile and grouted it on Sunday.The bathroom is looking sweet.
We had our country line dance Wii session on Saturday night and Brenda and Billy came over to hang out which was nice. It is amazing how easily we maintain 6′ of social distance as if we have always lived this way.
Work
Work continues to be busy but we are getting the hang of managing it spreading the work of the pick out over 3 days. Down in Boston there seeems to be more people out and about albeit all wearing masks. I drove solo for the 1st time in 3 weeks and managed the sites just fine with one less pair of hands. Am listening to My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Oteessa Moshfegh on my drive down and 21 Questions for the 21st Century by Yuvsl Noah Harai on the way home
Intermittent Fasting
The New England Journal of Medicine published in December of 2019 an article reviewing all the health benefits of Intermittent Fasting. It is quite a list. Not only do you lose weight IF support cell repair, reduces inflammation reduces risk of cancer and tumors, extends life span and reduces risk of disease. In this age of Covid 19 we need tools at our disposal and it is my belief that we should all be eating this way in this time and in the times to come
I first heard about intermittent fasting while listening to Flat Earth Podcast back in August. (I listen to lots of things, it’s pretty interesting listening to flat earth theories, after all why do we believe the earth is a sphere? Is it something we know from 1st hand experience or is it something we’ve been told. It’s good to keep an open mind though I must say the case for a sphere is pretty strong. Anyway The hosts of the podcast mentioned intermittent fasting and since my pants were getting tight around the waist I did a quick search and found the Intermittent Fasting Podcast and began listening to it and decided that night at work to begin.
Basically Intermittent fasting is only eating during a specific window and not eating outside of that window. We had dinner at work at 6pm so i resolved not to eat breakfast until 10am the next day. Now I love breakfast and for as long as I can remember I wake up and make my granola and bagel breakfast and eat right away so I was a bit concerned that I would miss this and I must admit I anxiusly counted down the minutes until I could eat at 10am. I continued with the 16:8 fasting regime and resolved to give it 4 months to Christmas when we would be in Hawaii to see if it was working. The first 2 weeks I did not stick to this schedule on Saturdays to give my self a break but soon found that it was no hardship to not eat for 12-16 hours at a time and I did not miss the snacking at night after dinner. My schedule is such that I could always get in at least a 14 hour fast and within 6 weeks my pants were loose on me and people were asking me if I had lost weight. I was sleeping better, had less anxiety and loved getting up and doing a brief workout and chores before settling down to eat with the rest of the family who have always slept later and break fasted later than me. Now we were all eating breakfast together.
At the same time I had come across a book called the High Blood Pressure Solution by Richard D Moore because getting my blood pressure taken caused me anxiety over the numbers. My blood pressure had been consistently in the 130’s/80’s but with anxiety over whether I had high blood pressure sometimes the number spiked in the 150’s/90’s. In a nutshell this book prescribed a diet high in Potassium and low in Sodium as these minerals drive the mechanisms of the cells and control vascular muscles which regulate our blood pressure. I began to read labels on all the food I was consuming and was shocked to see how high the sodium content was in so many things that I never would have considered before. Overall my diet was pretty good with 2 exceptions: Bread and Cheese. So I cut these drastically out of my diet, foregoing cheese except on Pizza which we eat twice a month and only eating bread 1 day a week and then only 2-3 slices at most.
By the time we were in Hawaii I had lost 18 pounds and my last blood pressure reading was 130/80. I would like to be in the 120’s but still get anxious when it is taken so at least it isn’t 150/100. I have been intermittent fasting for 8 months now and it is now a normal part of my daily routine and does not take much of a conscious effort. I just not the time I finish dinner and then don’t eat again until 16-18 hours later.
