Neal Asher's Blog, page 18

Fasting Update 2

Okay, I’ve been doing some fasting over the last two weeks. Monday and Tuesday each week I ate bugger all, and on each Wednesday did not eat till the evening one week and the afternoon the next, so effectively 72 hours and 68. I also fasted on the Thursday of the first week and on the second ate late in the day. In between times I was eating less than my (supposed) base metabolic rate (BMR).

Here’s some stuff I’ve learned: It made no difference to my ability to exercise. Water loss could be lot and cause large variations in weight. Ketosis was variable but certainly kicked in more on the second week; ketosis is also not a good measure since it too varies with exercise or hydration. Drinking an electrolyte consisting of salts of sodium, potassium and magnesium certainly makes one feel better, it also kills hunger somewhat. At the end of this time my ‘fed’ weight was a minimum of 6lbs lower.

Over the weekend I ate plenty on the principle that my body needed materials to rebuild itself, also because constant dieting is not good for insulin resistance. I did eat nasty carbs (crumpets in the mornings) but that was about all. The rest of the food was veggies, salad and protein. I noticed over the weekend a delay in weight loss. On Saturday morning I was 182.6lbs yet, on Sunday morning after eating on Saturday, I was down to 181.6. On Sunday I ate a lot, finishing off in the evening with rather a lot of preserved sausage (I shouldn’t have) and this morning my weight was 184.4lbs.

I hit the gym early then came home prepared for another day’s fasting. I abruptly felt very tired and light headed and ended up having a snooze at 9.00AM. But then I didn’t sleep well the night before, getting just five hours. Even after I woke I still felt light headed and weak. I checked if I was in ketosis and found I wasn’t. A half litre of electrolyte and a cup of oxo gradually pulled me out of this. I did my 2,000 words.

I’m now interested to find out how much I’ll weigh tomorrow morning.           

Fasting Update

I did some lengthy fasting last week then in the ensuing days and the weekend didn’t eat vast amounts. The most I had was on Sunday when I ate two crumpets with butter, marmite and peanut butter on them in the morning, a small portion of chips midway in a 13 mile walk early afternoon and then a salad in the evening. Total calories was probably about 1500Kcals which, with a BMR of 1700kcals and the walk ranging between 900 and 1300kcals, still left me with a hell of a deficit. And this week I fasted again on Monday and Tuesday, and will continue through till this evening – effectively 3 days since that salad on Sunday night.

I’m happy with the weight loss. Prior to the week before last I was averaging 188lbs – often straying up over 190. I weight myself in the morning before I’ve eaten or drunk anything and, obviously because of fasting, this morning I was dehydrated, but still I cracked the 180 barrier at 179.4lbs.

Noticeable this time has been ketosis. I bought some ketosis sticks to check on this and last week was disappointed with a reading (pale pink) that indicated a minimum ketone level in my urine of 0.5 to 1.5mmol/l. However, reading up on the subject I found that lots of things can affect this. Hydration dilutes those ketones while, if you exercise, you burn them. The ketones are fuel from your fat so finding them in your urine means unburnt fuel. Still, nice to have some indicator of how I’m doing beyond the weight drop. On Monday I was still getting the same reading. However, on Tuesday evening I started salivating and my pee smelt of fruit (which is an indicator). The reading today is now up to 3.0mmol/l+. Hydration is a factor, but still, I’m happy about that.

Now I have also checked back to when I last fasted the February before last. I notice that I dropped plenty of weight going from approx. 185 to 172, but apparently I didn’t record my weight thereafter for two months. I think I understand why. The fast had been an easy quick fix I felt I could do any time, so I didn’t bother about what I might be putting on. Turns out, two months later, I was nudging 190lbs. Thereafter I often felt very tired and subsequent attempts at fasting often failed. I now, having read a series of blogs on the subject, know why.

It’s all about the body conserving its energy. If you just diet (my fast was just a one-off so didn’t have the required effect) the body tries to hold onto its resources by burning less. This is why dieting has such a dismal success rate. A person will diet, the body resets, and then when they continue eating a lesser amount, because they are burning less they retain more. Also, because of that reset, they feel more tired and miserable eating a lesser amount – a recipe for failure. It is all about insulin and, if you are interested, you need to read through the blog linked on that subject. Conventional wisdom has it that it’s all about calories in, with calories out being secondary. I believed this too but now know it is more complicated than that. It’s about your body’s ability to burn calories. It is more about the calories out than the calories in. And insulin is the lighter.

So what to do? Apparently you need to fast, intermittently, for a longer period – maybe a month – to get your insulin down and reset your body to run how you want it to run. It’s stubborn, the body, and resists change. Read that blog - there are 27 posts.

To this end I intend to make intermittent fasting a habit. I will continue with it strongly until I am down to a suitable weight. I have always had a low regard for BMI calculations because, apparently, I need to be between 130 (9st 4lb) and 170 (12st 2lb). BMI is all very well until you start weight training, I felt. The idea of going midrange here at about 150 (11st 10lbs) seemed frankly ridiculous. Now I am not so sure. I remember, shortly after my wife died, getting down to that weight. Mentally I was a mess, but physically I was very good. I felt light, clothing fitted well, and, as I recollect, I was fit enough to do10 miles of gorge walking in the Cretan mountains followed by a swim of a mile. The method was effectively the same as I intend now, which is not eating much and exercising a lot, though the impetus behind it was not so good. I intend to aim for that region, but for better reasons.

However, I have been weight training and put on a lot of muscle, so, it seems feasible that my ideal weight should be somewhere in the upper range of my BMI. 12st seems like a good target. I’ll aim for that and see how it goes. In the end it comes down not so much to BMI or weight, but how much fat there is around my waist and, as I once noted long ago, whether or not I can tuck in a T-shirt and feel I don’t have to hold in my gut.

Salvation - Peter Hamilton

Structured a bit like Hyperion with a group of travellers heading towards a McGuffin and telling their stories along the way. In Hyperion the connecting thread is the Shrike the travellers eventually encounter, and that’s about all (as far as I can remember). I didn’t think I would like this book because I’ve often found stories told within a story irritating and irrelevant to the main plot. Page fillers. Here, however, there are multiple connections between stories and the destination of these characters. At no point in any of them did I think, oh get on with it, but then they’re liberally sprinkled with boosted mercs, weird aliens, agents and double agents, nasty weapons and advanced technology. The main advanced technology here is that of the entangled portals used for transport around Earth and beyond. Mr Hamilton obviously had some fun thinking about the implications of that. Lots of interconnected, one might say entangled threads, steadily weaving together towards a revelation, and a thoroughly enjoyable read I polished off in a day and a half. There’s more to come too, and I’m looking forward to the next books. 

Recommended.

    

Fasting Again

Here’s a Facebook post from Tuesday:

Noting that, despite the weight training two to three times a week and the walks of twenty or so miles in total each week, my waistline has been getting no smaller, I've decided to fast. Since my last fast over a year ago I've tried on numerous occasions and failed at the finish line, gobbling down loads of food in the evening. Yesterday I finally succeeded and intend to continue today. I want to do something like the 5/2 diet. That strategy for a man is to eat 600kcals two days a week. My way is to take in my only calories on two consecutive days through the milk in my tea. I want to get into ketosis fast, and to continue limiting my eating on the five other days. If I do fail a complete fast on those two days, I'll limit that failure to the aforesaid 600kcals. Fed up with this spare tyre!

My last fast was more than over a year ago. It was back in February of 2017. Here are a couple of my posts from that time: Burning Muscle and One Week Fast. Rereading those now I’ve made a few corrections, but still probably haven’t got it right. I still believe muscle wasting does not occur on the level claimed by some who want to sell their snake oil, but wouldn’t be surprised if some does on the basis of my logic there: to keep the most essential organ functioning, the brain.

Thursday 6th September:

Monday was hard, but I seem to have reclaimed that earlier mindset. It’s difficult to ascertain why. I take a lot of supplements and decided, as is my want, that there is too much bullshit out there on the subject, and that I would quit them. This caused a return of some anxiety, so I started them again, telling myself I would give them up as they ran out then see how I feel. My aim then would be (if I felt rough, tired or whatever) to take a more scientific approach: trying one at a time to see its effect. In the midst of these considerations I read about supplements, tiredness and anxiety and remembered something. I used to take B vitamins for mood, the most essential one being B12, of which my brother (so similar genetic makeup) suffered a deficiency. I started taking it and quickly felt an increase in energy. Placebo effect? Maybe, but I carried on.

Another thing might be that I am in a much better state mentally. My private life has vastly improved, I’ve written to (almost) completion the Rise of the Jain trilogy and have been belting along with the next book, called Jack Four (thus far), while it has also been well over four years since the death of my wife, Caroline. At a bereavement group I was told that on average it takes about five years to get back to anywhere near normal. What is cause and what is effect is debateable, and will remain so. Life has no easy answers.     

Tuesday was not so difficult but, wary of my previous failures I kept a rigid mental grip on myself. I really wanted to get through the day, and especially the evening, without turning into a glutton. I did take in calories in the form of milk in tea and coffee, three small glasses of creamy milk in which to mix a lipophilic supplement and other supplements. The total would have been at most about two hundred calories each day. On Monday I hit the gym for 45 minutes, then on Wednesday I carried on with gym again and then no food throughout the day, then a 7 mile walk in the evening followed by food. The fast was effectively 3 days and the salad I ate was about 700kcals.

Difficult to ascertain weight loss since there is a huge water loss involved which despite drinking a lot, it doesn’t come up to normal when one is pissing like a race horse. I was averaging about 188lbs before and went down to 182.6lbs at one point. However, my deficit was about 2,000 + 1,500 + 2,000 = 5,500 and we are told that fat is about 3,000kcals a pound, which works out at, miserably, under 3lbs. Since I don’t feel particularly hungry today, haven’t eaten anything and it is now near midday, I intend to fast through till bedtime. 

Wish me luck.

The Spatterjay Trilogy on Audible UK

A little while ago some complained to me that this trilogy was not available on Audible in the UK. Bella Pagan investigated this and now tells me Audible's licence for it had expired. Macmillan has now bought their audible file and the trilogy will be reappearing in all the usual places on 29th November this year.

The Medicis to Borgia

I do like historical dramas because I often learn something I never knew before, either watching the thing itself or because it piqued my interest and I do a bit of research. But, as ever, only if they are done well. I was interested in this because my first editor, Peter Lavery, loves Italy, and had talked about its history on occasion. So I had great hopes for the Medicis.

The first couple of episodes I enjoyed, but thereafter the whole thing began to fall apart. Cosimo De Medici was an interesting character who moved into power in Florence with much Machiavellian manoeuvring. He thereafter caused (or assisted) a bit of a renaissance there by funding arts, artists and rebuilding. He ruthlessly acquired power and wealth and then used it to a good end, besides feathering his own bed, of course. He expanded the Medici Bank all across Europe. But here, after the first few episodes, there wasn’t much about this. 
It seemed, to the program makers, Cosimo De Medici was a man who spent most of his time staring at people with a mean-and-moody expression. He was a bit naïve and ineffectual and rose mostly by luck and happenstance. And, political correctness rearing its ugly head, the women around him were stronger and more manipulative than him. Yes, they might have been that way, but in reality the power they were allowed mainly concerned family life. The bad guy in this was also a silly cipher – cardboard. Meanwhile, this series having lost its way, far too much time was spent with people staring into each other’s eyes, while the music volume cranked up to try and make it all dramatic. 
Next looking for something else in a similar vein we started watching Borgia. The accent of Roderigo Borgia immediately put me off, especially when in contrast with Art Malik who spent much time talking at his shoulder. It was like, many many years ago, hearing John Wayne as a Roman soldier saying, ‘Truly this mayn was the son of Gaad’. Having watched and much enjoyed the 1981 BBC production The Borgias, I prepared myself to be disappointed. However, thus far, I haven’t been.

It’s a truth that if a drama has been on Netflix for a number of years and there is only one series, it’s probably crap. There’s only one series of The Medicis, but there are three of Borgia. I grew used to Roderigo’s out-of-place accent and was drawn into his ruthless pursuit of power, and idiot nepotism. The drama is played well with all the characters pulling their weight. I much enjoyed the portrayal of the cardinals' religious debates that often ended in fist-fights, and their manoeuvring for power and wealth. And I am learning something about the political structure of Italy with its city states back then, and the world. It can be horribly bloody at times – I am thinking of a man hung upside down and the introduction of a saw – but not unnecessarily so, and strikes me as sincere thus far. I hope it does not lose its way later on, since we are presently only watching series one. 

Breaking the Twitter Addiction

I recently quit Twitter or, rather, I deleted it from my computer and Ipad so as to remove that temptation. My Twitter account is still linked to my Facebook account so anything I put on the latter appears on the former. 
The social media have been promotional tools, or at least that’s what I told myself. They are also a support in a profession that is pretty introverted. I get to chat with fans, some of whom have turned into friends. I tell them what I’m doing, have exchanges about science fiction, science and politics but, as ever, it is this last that is a problem.
There’s a difference between Twitter and Facebook to me. It could be that Facebook has a more mature demographic than Twitter. It might also be that the latter is more amenable for the drive-by comments, the trolling and brief spats during which no one has the time or words to calmly explain themselves . . . or that the medium attracts those who don’t want to. However, as people have suggested, it is more likely that this is just a matter of who I allow to be ‘friends’ and who I either block or mute. This has some validity since for years I’ve been very selective on Facebook in cutting out those whose opinions annoy me. But the problem I feel is also me. 
On Twitter I allowed more of the angry political stuff and vented more myself. Ranting has its attractions, it’s letting off steam, allowing oneself to blow . . . but as time goes on it becomes an addiction. I find myself scrolling through Twitter (I visualize myself staring at the screen with a moronic expression) just looking for stuff to be angry about; looking for stuff I can make cutting comments on. This is all very well if you have time to waste, but I do not. I have books, blog posts and other stuff to write, a website to update, a garden and a house to keep tidy, books to read, a life. 
Anger is also a negative emotion, and I have had quite enough of those for four years now. I can go on Twitter, get only involved peripherally in some spat, and it still makes me feel sour. And what does any of this achieve on the political front (where most of the anger resides)? In the end our effect on the politics of our country is limited to one vote every now and again and, as has been demonstrated recently, that vote can be all but ignored. Some argue that one must make a stand on the basis of the old aphorism that ‘for evil to prosper all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing’, which I have to counter with the reality most sensible people have come to understand, that arguments on the social media change no one’s mind, they just leave people pissed off. 
So I’m out of that. I’ll leave Twitter alone for a couple of weeks, then go back to do some muting and blocking. I’ll also adjust my settings to limit comments to my followers only. Thereafter I’ll check in only intermittently. 
This is better for me. The sour political world of Twitter can bugger off.  

Beyond Skyline and Warcraft

Having dived back into reading (I’ve read more books this year than in the previous 5) I reckon it’s been a month since I turned on my television. Scanning through what was available on Netflix I felt no urge to get back involved with any of the interminably extended franchises so looked at the films. 


First up was Beyond Skyline – an enjoyable, derivative and all-over-the-place sfnal romp. It is science fiction you can enjoy just so long as you’re prepared to NOT take it seriously. It has aliens in there that are like Predator, a bit of, ‘Oh my God it sucked out his brain!’, plenty of Kung Fu Fighting and is full of enough holes to drop a space ship through. I would style its attitude as close to Guardians of the Galaxy, but with more people ending up dead.

Next up, because I did not feel at all tired, did not want to read now and was in sofa sloth mode, was Warcraft. It had caught my attention before whereupon my response was, hmm, that’s going to be some crap fantasy based on a game. I decided I would lose nothing by taking a look at it and, damn, straight in with some of the best fantasy CGI I’ve seen. The orcs were brilliant and, it could be argued, had almost more character than the human actors. But I’m not disparaging the human actors – they were damned good too. It grabbed me and I realised that here was a great story, with characters I cared about, battles and fight scenes that were excellent, interactions that worked. I enjoyed it immensely.
I understand that this film has been panned and I totally disagree. Recommended. 

The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance

It’s interesting returning to the kind of stuff I used to read rather more years ago than I care to think about. Some writers are now just an immediate ‘no’ because too much in their books has dated. Social mores and technology have changed so much since these books were written that some of them are risible. Also, since having written a fair few books (I dunno, 25?) I see stuff now I wouldn’t have seen when I was a naïve teenager. I see the holes, the ideas started and abandoned during the book, the diversions, the padding or rather lack of an editorial hatchet.

Thus far those that had stood ‘my’ test of time have been books by A E Van Vogt and now to him I add Jack Vance.

The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance has a damned good idea as its basis: changing a culture by changing the languages the people speak. In fact, having learned a lot of Greek, I can see how strongly a language reflects its culture and how a reversal, as in this book, might be true. I enjoyed this, the characters, the strange cultures described, and the conclusion. It is notable how both Vance and Vogt are very vague about the technologies their characters deploy – here we do have tech that is indistinguishable from magic – and describe settings that are only loosely based on the writers’ own time. In this way it is much less likely for their books to go past their use-by date.

The Cosmic Engineers

This one was a no-no right from the start. Two reporters on a space ship, one of them turning a dial to tune in the radio, gave me difficulties with suspension of disbelief right at the start. People from the 50s supposedly in a future three thousand years away from us. Other things in the science and the narrative were appalling. A guy getting into a pressurized spaceship through the front screen was risible. Then there was a woman, after a 1,000 years in hibernation during which she was conscious, waking up and behaving as if she's been a bit stir crazy for a few days and, incidentally, speaking the same language as the reporter who freed her. Nah. This makes me realize how much SF I swallowed with a naive hunger when I was younger.


This is not really a review since I didn't get more than a chapter or two into the book.