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The Big IF
Yes, we’re back to me bitching about my health but it’s my blog and I’ll talk about what I want to.
Now what?
On an exhausted field, only weeds grow. ~Henryk Sienkiewicz
For whatever reason, I’ve been absolutely dead lately. I have no energy to start with and it only gets worse from there. Add to that a pressing need to nap after an extended drive or while reading a book and I’m pretty much perpetually sleeping.
So, what to do?
One of the strange side-effects of sleeping so much is that you actually wind up with insomnia. Since I have a crazy sleep schedule, I wind up lying there at “proper” bedtime thinking a lot in order to try to get myself to sleep. It actually occurred to me that the enormous reserves of visceral fat I’m carrying around constitute a fuel source. My body is supposed to be burning that instead of carrying it around.
So, what to do?
Well, naturally, I got out of bed and went for a bit of research. What I found was that getting on a fasting schedule would kickstart the fat burning process.
Intermittent Fasting
So, the human body tricks itself into doing some absurd things. Our culture of plenty has trained us to eat almost obsessively. I know that I’m a nervous eater and will graze all day long if I don’t think about it.
Not good.
It’s put me in a very bad state and it’s well past time to do something about it. So, I am.
My research suggested that even with my hypothyroid situation, intermittent fasting is an excellent solution for turning all that visceral fat into the energy that I have been sorely lacking. The worst part of it is that it’s visceral fat instead of subcutaneous fat.
What’s that?
Subcutaneous fat is body fat that is directly under the skin. This is the kind that makes people look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. When people have puffy, fluffy limbs and bodies that show no muscle tone, it’s because there’s a layer of fat between the skin and the muscles. Even though it makes a person look swollen and obese, it’s actually less harmful than visceral fat.
What’s that?
Visceral fat is actually below the musculature and is stuffed all into your body around your organs. This is me. I have visibly toned arms and legs but my chest and midsection are regrettably overstuffed. More tragically, it’s overstuffed with this organ-coating fat. Because the fat is right there on the organs, there are collateral impacts to the function of the organs and the chemicals and enzymes they release. Fortunately, I haven’t succumbed to diabetes or high blood pressure. I do have some concerning cholesterol levels, but I’m taking these steps to alleviate the problem by ridding myself of this visceral fat that will have the follow-on benefit of addressing the cholesterol situation.
So, what to do?
The trick seems to be settling on a specific eight hour “eating window”. For now, I’m going with a window of 1 pm through 9 pm. When 9 pm rolls around, that’s it until 1 pm tomorrow. Until then, it’s water or other beverages that will not cause an insulin response that breaks the fasting period. I’ve been doing research on what beverages are suitable, but clearly, water is the best. I’ve always liked my water to be coffee, tea or juice mix flavored. The sweeter the better, but for fasting sugar is a no-no.
Fortunately, I’m aware of the alternative known as Stevia. There are products in the green packets, but these are ridiculously processed and might just as well be saccharine or aspartame. Ideally, I’m going to want the actual plant Stevia from a health store. This stuff is ridiculously sweet. I brewed a pot of coffee with a pinch (seriously, a tiny pinch) of herbal Stevia in the grounds and the resulting beverage was every bit as sweet as if I’d put a cup of sugar in the pot after it had brewed up. That can be problematic. It’s so sweet that you don’t recognize it as sweet and it starts to taste weird instead of sweet.
In any case, I’ve just started this so I’ll let you know how it’s going. I’m anticipating some false starts and surprises, but hopefully, there will be some observable results in the not-too-distant future.
Meditation
So, why hadn’t any of that fairly obvious insight come to me before? Because I had my head securely up my wazoo. I have been so addled for so long. Stress actually forced my brain to reboot a few years ago. It was a very slow recovery process that I’m not even completely finished with.
I mentioned previously that another leap forward in my recovery was the insight that perhaps I should begin meditating again. I should have been doing so all along. Maybe I wouldn’t have suffered a stress-induced burnout if I’d been meditating all along. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten so stressed that my brain went BSOD for two months and then rebooted for the following two or three years. Maybe I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in physically and mentally. Maybe.
In any case, I’m doing it now and it is giving me these little flashes of insight that used to be part and parcel of my everyday life before the burnout. Wow! Almost feeling like my old self again is a real treat. I didn’t think that was going to be possible. I was living in a really dreadful, hopeless state.
I’m giving full credit to my practice of mindful meditation for these tiny breakthroughs to my once and future self. If you’re feeling like a shell of your former self, consider practicing a regimen of mindful meditation to get you back online.
Yes, it’s taking me forever to get into a state of mind and body where I can function like a somewhat normal human being. I’m hoping that this disclosure will serve as an inspiration to you. If you’re wondering what you can do to get out of a funk, try mindful meditation and intermittent fasting to get back to your finely focused, best self.