First, an article that discusses this alternate-day pseudo-fasting diet that I'm on. This article was published in the Atlantic, but it refers to research by a number of different scientists on a range of diets similar to this one. What I'm doing involves eating normally one day, then the next eating only 500 calories. I think this would be impossible or even damaging, honestly, if I didn't have access to and knowledge of good food. I'm finding that on "eating days" I crave a wide range of foods, most of them really healthy--and I assume that's because my body needs the nutrients in carrots and cheese and whole wheat bread and garlic and yoghurt and split-pea soup and...(can you tell today is a "fasting day"?)
There are some things I like about this diet, even if I'm still holding back in some skeptical corner of my brain. One thing is how it's helping me manage sugar. There was an "eating" day last week when I went a little nuts and ate a lot of sugar--my son had brought home Valentine's chocolates--and I felt awful for two days. Not just guilty-awful or grumpy-belly awful, but depressed and low-energy and incapable. I have a pretty serious sugar addiction under normal circumstances, but I won't do that again. I think this diet may actually help me break that addiction, as a side-benefit to dropping a few pounds that were slowing me down.
Anyway, here's the article.
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And, just for fun, here's a video of that comedian's rant about homeopathy that I mentioned today in class. I really like this line: "Just because Science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you!" It's certainly true that medical science is...often more art, than science. But its limitations shouldn't mean that we toss it out entirely, I think. Here's Dara O'Briain:
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