Experiences with offsetting aging effects

This theme came up from discussion in a Reddit aging related sub-group, here.  The title for that post was "experiences with reversing aging," which this title version probably corrects a bit.  You can really offset some of the effects, maybe even reversing what is regarded as an irreversible outcome in some cases, but in general it's about positively affecting general health, not turning back the clock.  

To me it's not about aesthetics, but it could be for others.  It also doesn't tie so closely to health markers, from doing bloodwork (general health assessment), but I did just check those results within the last couple of months, and they look ok.  I missed the last two company health checks or I could've assessed changes.  I've started fasting practices and have escalated running volume over the last 2 1/2 years; those recent markers should be better than earlier ones.

Let's start with that post; it also includes limited intro, so a lot of that would be overdoing it:

It's not really one of my things, as it is with Bryan Johnson and those other typically sketchy aging research guys, but I've had limited experience with seeing the effects of aging reverse. My hair was greying some years ago, and it has almost entirely returned to the original color. To be more specific my son counted 13 grey hairs about two years ago, and there are just a few at my lower temple now.

To back up a little I'm 56. In some other ways, partly related to appearance, I haven't aged as fast as I might, with my skin holding up decently, not using reading glasses, still exercising, etc. I can't know direct causes but I'll speculate about that here.

I took up periodic fasting just over 2 years ago, now fasting 5 days at a time, 4 times a year, but it was more that first year, nearly a month in total. I've been running a lot for 3 or 4 years, but I've levelled off at being able to run 10 km three times a week; I can't seem to recover from more than that. I don't know if it makes a difference but I've been eating a little goji berry most days for a number of years (said to help maintain eye health). I've improved my diet quite a bit based on resetting it related to fasting, and have been keeping up with sleep for years. A long cycle of meditation practice may have helped with memory issues.

I have kids, and had them late, so most of that didn't apply in my 40s. I was definitely out of shape over that decade, not exercising much, but I stayed active. I suspect that being a little underweight during my 20s and 30s, related to being a vegetarian then, may have been an earlier cause for slower aging.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that people try to suspend aging, but maintaining exceptional health seems reasonable.

Feb. 2025; looking a bit middle-aged, ok for 56

The "typically sketchy" part, about aging researchers, relates to them often seeming to package a product as much as search for answers for the benefit of society.  It's as well to not get side-tracked on that critique; parts of the research must hold up to further review, and will benefit many people.

Commentary

That group focus on a narrow range helped shaped what I tried to communicate there, on aging as affecting appearance and some narrow ranges of health.  Without that group-location framing I'd tend to focus more on discussion of just improving health, in general.  I'm also in a biohacking group on Reddit, which I might comment in but never post to, which would be more concerned with supplements, especially experimental versions.  Some people there see fasting as a functional form of biohacking.

Since I don't know the cause and effect sequences of making a few lifestyle input changes it's all vague enough.  I think fasting made a lot of difference, but any positive changes could have related mainly to better diet and getting more exercise.  I'll run through some potential positive changes in more detail here.

Life and location change as a possible input:  three years ago my family moved our kids to Honolulu, Hawaii to go to school here instead of Bangkok, intending to relocate my work, which never worked out.  I've been back and forth since, spending most of my time still in Bangkok, and working remotely part of the time.  

It may be that living a more active life in Hawaii changes things, even though I've only been spending 3 months a year here, while they spend 9.  I swam a lot this spring (in March through the end of May); an input like that couldn't hurt.  "A lot" is relative; I was swimming about 500 meters about 3 days a week, in the open ocean, out to a flag and back in a swim lane.  My son trains for competitive swimming and his daily practices cover a lot more distance, every day versus my weekly total.

out for an early run around Diamondhead

I swim out to that flag, and see turtles there (tourist for scale)

Diamondhead from my daughter's former school

Genetic factors:  one input I see as relating to appearing younger is kind of a random thing:  I have oily skin.  If I don't shower twice a day I end up looking a bit greasy, while living in a warm or hot climate.  That may be relatively equivalent to people using a lot of moisturizer in a cooler and dryer place (which I don't use).  My sister also looks quite young, also in her 50s, and good genetics for aging gradually probably go well beyond that.

these guys are holding up well

Food preferences probably have a lot of effect, along with eating what might be considered a good diet.  The luck of the draw might factor in, related to the former.  Thai food is typically based on natural, whole foods, not involving that much processing, even though use of frying and addition of some sugar does come up. 

I drink an awful lot of tea; it's odd that I didn't mention that in passing in that post.  I've considered before that beyond some polyphenols potentially supporting health, or offsetting aging effects, just ingesting extra minerals every day might make a difference.  Tea plants collect and store minerals, in addition to some contaminants, so I may be keeping topped up on a range of minerals.  Who knows about effects beyond that; maybe it is unusually healthy.

I started drinking coffee again within the last 6 months.  I can't imagine that's having a lot of effect either way, especially since I never drink more than one large cup a day (maybe 10 to 12 ounces), but it's an example of how other inputs keep shifting.  I last meditated regularly nearly two years ago; that's another example of ongoing changes.

Supplements, including anti-aging supplements:  I mostly take a multivitamin, magnesium, and D when I'm not getting that much sun.  I was also taking fish oil for awhile, and replace some salt intake with a potassium chloride based salt product; that's about it.

I also eat some goji berries most days, which is said to contain zeaxanthin, one of two compounds that promote eye health (along with lutein).  My wife said that it would help with eye health and hair loss, but who knows about traditional Thai medical claims.  It seemed like a bit of extra vitamin A couldn't hurt; those are supposedly a good source of that.

There are a broad range of other supplement or drug compounds being developed and tested now, but I don't really investigate those much, never mind taking any.  I'm more ok with aging normally than being a test subject, even though I am concerned enough about health to put effort into all of it.

Recommendations, and justification for them

Exercise:  there's no need to justify endorsing exercise, right?  I can add that running just a little early in my practice, starting nearly 7 years ago, seemed to make a lot of difference, but my cardio conditioning only improved once I ramped up volume.  I run 20 miles / 30 km a week when I'm more active, and maybe two thirds of that when I'm inconsistent, with some extra multiple week periods "off" in the past year or so.  I was more consistent and diligent before moving back and forth to Hawaii made that difficult.  It's not about making the time, or jet-lag disruption, but instead valuing the time with my kids in a different way after we re-unite.

If I run consistently for about 6 weeks my conditioning will change a good bit right around that time, but if I run consistently for only a month it won't.  I'm not implying that your health would change a lot, if you could lean into it all for 2 to 3 months.  Maybe that's true, and probably race conditioning works like that, but I don't know what supports general health well enough, versus what will "drop time" on training paces.

Fasting:  I suspect that fasting makes a lot of difference, but I'm not completely sold on hearsay related to autophagy, the process of your body recycling mis-folded proteins or whatever other damaged material.  Supposedly this always occurs in your body, and helps offset varying long term health issues, but vigorous exercise triggers more of it, or fasting for around 48 hours or longer does.  But if you try to look up research papers linking that this does occur, and that it relates to specific health-related outcomes, it's not easy making the connections.  

Again this isn't a claim either way.  I suspect that I am slightly mentally clearer related to periodic extended fasting, but who knows.  You could observe what you expect to, to some extent.  I also feel like I have more energy when running, that maybe greater "metabolic flexibility" helps with that, training my body to also use fat as an energy source.  I don't mind at all when meals run late, or skipping one is fine; I'm a lot less constrained by habitual eating now.

Diet changes:  my diet was never bad enough for me to see change effects in the same way someone moving off a truly bad diet could.  I took up being a vegetarian over 30 years ago, and tried to eat a healthy, balanced diet based on essentially no actual meat input for that next 17 years.  I was the "lacto-ovo" type; I still ate dairy and eggs, thinking that it would help me avoid deficiencies.  Then I think the deficiencies did enter in, around 13 years ago now, and my immune system stopped working normally.  I had been fine for that first decade, living in the US, watching my diet and eating supplements to help, but after I moved to Thailand I ate meat-based dishes without the meat, and it wasn't the same.  More idle speculation, probably, but that was my take.

So I'm describing improving an already pretty decent diet over the last few years, already based on input of plenty of fruits and vegetables, and whole grains, along with good quality meats input.  I've not eaten much for junk food, processed snacks, and fast food for a long time, with the exception of eating a good bit of ice cream.  Moving back to the US did add some challenges, since it's easy to appreciate different kinds of snack foods, that weren't options back in Thailand.  Those tubs of chocolate chip cookie dough are nice; I may have noticed the input of eating that on my body weight and cholesterol score.

Summary perspective:  the implied claim here, in all of this, is that I feel like I'm really 30 or 40, and not 56, and I guess that sort of holds up.  My exercise recovery is a lot slower; it's all that I can do to recover from around 30 km of running a week (20 miles), which to me doesn't seem like that much.  I switched to 12 km runs here in Honolulu, with hill sections (running around Diamondhead), and I could keep that up indefinitely on an 8-day, 3 run cycle, but not quite 3 times a week.  With more conditioning I could've got there; I was trying to ramp up and maintain that within a 2 month or so cycle.  But it's hard to make changes to training volume or intensity at this age, and I've experienced very minor injuries before that highlight that those can only occur gradually.

I guess that I feel fine.  I keep busy and active, walking a lot, doing many other things, and never feel like it's too much.  I don't notice much for aches and pains, or digestive system changes, or whatever else.  I really did feel less clear in my early 40s, when I was still adjusting to a busy office-life experience, but adding running seems to have resolved some of that.

I wouldn't consider TRT / HRT because all of that seems fine to me.  I don't see anything wrong with others making that choice, but I don't experience any of the other symptoms it's supposed to correct for (low energy, mood issues, problems with exercise, body composition, or sexual function, etc.).

Recommendations:  I should close this by recommending truly low-hanging fruit, what I think would make the most difference the fastest.  It's diet change.  For people accustomed to drinking soda just dropping that out would make a lot of difference.  Drinking water should be fine, or tea or coffee as a healthy input, or tisanes, herb teas.  Maybe drinking enough water alone would make a difference, versus falling short daily, or just getting enough sleep.

Changing diet could relate to making small, periodic changes, like swapping out fast food for cooking healthy natural food versions, or chips for nuts, or maybe replacing processed deserts with fruit.  Fasting makes this easy, because it's easy to see each break and renewed eating cycle as a reset.  But there must be other ways to push the same effect, like making a few small changes at the start of every month.  I "only" fast about 20 days a year, so not a high proportion, and I've gained weight over the past two years, so using fasting to lose weight would require a more specific focus on that.

Listening to your body is important.  The amount of sleep that's enough would vary by person.  Poor diet inputs or unusually helpful inputs also would vary by person in relation to positive or negative impact.  Related to exercise more would be better up to a point, but at middle age injury is an early warning sign that you're progressing too fast, and that's no good.

Being open to life changes may make a difference.  Of course it would help if those are positive.  I went through a period of meditating a lot, the second I've experienced in my life, and that seemed to help.  Getting a new pet can change things in a positive way (although losing one can also be really rough).  Life connections and activities seem to make a lot of difference.

Having kids late seemed to help.  I've been playing in kids' play areas for years (14 or 15), going to water parks, ice skating (a lot; the kids took lessons), biking and hiking with them, and so on.  That decade off exercise involved a lot of activity.  Some of it is just mental, not seeing yourself as sedentary and inactive, but it seems important for that to connect to physical activity.  I don't think it needs to be all that strenuous; hanging out laundry or doing gardening could be enough, to maintain flexibility through varied movement.

my other babies; I miss them terribly, while I'm away for this month

Beyond all of this I think accepting long-term transitions like aging is helpful.  You can focus on health, and change that, and some "symptoms" might diminish.  But in general life is about change, and walking a changing path, so feeling negatively about that context could be unhelpful.  Leaning into whatever activity works for you could tie in with feeling positive about your capacity, and enjoying different activities.  We--as a family, essentially--took up pickleball this year; it's nice when those can involve some limited exercise.

more on this here, especially relevant to people in Honolulu

good experience of meaning can't hurt

Anti-aging protocol

 

This is something I've ended up discussing a good bit over the past few years, one of many subjects I've become interested in.  My fasting practice ties to an interest in this, even though it started as a result of a chance contact saying that it would bring about spiritual practice benefits (and maybe it did?  hard to say, since that is hard to track).

I'm no expert on avoiding aging effects, but I am a good example of how it can work out.  I'm 56 now and could pass for 40, or maybe even 30-something, and I am active to say the least.  I've just switched my runs back to 12 km per outing, not quite at 3 times per week, but it will level off to at least 30 km / 20 miles per week.  It's hard to justify that I'm more active in general, or more flexible related to being open to new experiences and learning, the less explicit themes related to aging.  It seems so, to me, but it's hard to support that.

56 compared to 16, but I think his genetic potential might be even better

It's strange using yourself as an example like that.  The same general theme came up related to discussing intelligence on Quora before, a favorite topic earlier on.  I'll skip passing on an IQ stat but mine has been tested at significantly higher than the 130 cut-off for grade-school gifted program participation.  People there--Quora--would always claim "intelligent people are less socially oriented," or something such, prone to whatever other malaise, but to me a lot of that ends up being hearsay patterns that don't necessarily hold up in most cases.  Intelligence is like any other aptitude; it can couple with a broad range of personal characters or other aptitudes and weaknesses.  

The nerd or geek persona is separate from intelligence; the two themes may tend to correspond, but they are not tightly causally connected.  Maybe people embracing those character or self-identification themes tend to be above average in intelligence, but it's not as if one is a sign of the other, or that intelligence leads directly to preference of those forms of experience (an interest in sci-fi or computers, etc.).  Somehow it all naturally groups together, that people with certain capacities tend to explore using them in similar ways, but there is no necessary connection.  Plenty of people with sports aptitude are couch potatoes, and plenty of people with very limited athletic potential are still active in sports anyway, they just couldn't excel at the highest levels of competition.

Back to the aging theme; I was responding to this question on Reddit:

If you are aging, what if any supplements did you take in order that you thought might reverse aging or made you feel decades younger again? I mean do you have a sip of certain juice a day or take something to make yourself feel decades younger?

Who isn't aging?  Of course people there recommended diet and exercise, as I did.  But I added some less standard thoughts and practices.

Nothing like that [referring to the magic bullet / take a pill potential], but I can suggest things I know work, for sure, and a couple that might help that are less certain:

exercise: you should try to get at least 3 hours of medium intensity exercise per week. If you want to use weightlifting as this input, to double up on improving muscle conditioning and joint health, you can just increase overall intensity by rushing the sets. Some input should be cardio though; intense beyond walking pace input.

sleep: 8 hours per day is an absolute minimum, unless you somehow don't need much sleep. Coupling a bit of extra sleep with bumping up exercise input will change everything, along with diet change.

diet: cut out processed foods, sugar, junk foods, fast food, unhealthy snacks, etc. Eat natural foods, meats, vegetables and fruits, some whole-grain starch input. Nuts and beans can help with keeping protein intake up, which is important for exercise recovery. You probably don't need to supplement much if your diet is great, but taking a multivitamin couldn't hurt, and some basics like extra magnesium and D.

drugs, cigarettes, alcohol: get away from ingesting any.

tea (onto less certain input): I drink lots of varied tea, of good quality, and that may make a difference (I'm holding up great for being 56). Lots of the polyphenols are probably helpful, along with mineral input. People claim green tea is best for heart health (cardiovascular health), but I think drinking diverse versions would be better, black, green, oolong, sheng pu'er, some hei cha, etc.

goji berry: I eat a little of this daily, re-hydrated dried versions soaked in hot water for some minutes. The extra vitamin A (beta carotine) and xeaxanthin might be most helpful. It's probably good for eye health to also take in a good bit of lutein, but eating leafy green vegetables would cover that.

fasting: this should probably be back in the "certain" grouping. Fasting for 3 to 5 days at a time, at least 4 times per year, could change everything related to aging experience. I think my greying hair reversed mainly because of this input; it had been partly grey, and now isn't. Brain health seems to also improve, mental clarity and memory, which is difficult to achieve.

from 2024, but I don't have many clear photos of myself

Expanding on that:

What about new types of supplements anti-aging gurus promote?  Maybe those could work.  I wouldn't know, since I'm not on any.  I've not even had my hormone levels checked, a far earlier and more basic starting point than taking up hormone inputs or exotic supplements.

What about specific exercise inputs, adjusted sleep forms, less developed supplementation (taking zinc or turmeric / curcumin), specific diet forms (towards keto, Mediterranean, etc.)?  Sure, lots of approaches or inputs might be positive.  Per my understanding being quite active is the main helpful input, walking a lot, doing lots of low intensity activities, like laundry, cutting firewood, walking and hiking, swimming, and so on.  Even gardening, doing lots of very low intensity tasks, supports maintaining flexibility, by forcing you to move in different ways, with significant exposure level.

Getting some sun alone could be helpful.  It could be hard separating causes and effects, related to an input like that.  If someone were to swap out lying motionless while watching streamed video content for walking in the sun they'd never know which input helped most, the sun, the walking, or just not lying motionless.

I think diet alone has the most potential for change, especially if someone is on the standard American diet.  I've been moving back and forth between Bangkok and Honolulu and it takes a lot more focus to maintain a decent diet here (I'm in Hawaii just now).  In Bangkok fresh fruit is sold everywhere, exotic and delicious tropical versions, and even street foods can be relatively healthy, those literally sold from carts out on the sidewalks.  And inexpensive; it costs $20 for just about any meal in Hawaii, and probably over $30 if it's actually healthy.  

"Juicing" has lots of potential; drinking a bit of mixed vegetable juice every day, as the kind of extra bump the original question was asking about.  I practiced that at two different times in my life, probably over a period of at least a half dozen years, or maybe closer to a decade.  I was also a vegetarian for 17 years; maybe that helped?  Often with special diets the inclination to avoid some inputs, like over-eating, or junk foods, might be more important than what you actually consume.  A vegetarian and keto or carnivore diet might end up providing similar benefits for similar reasons, for those limitations, even though the apparent diet input is completely opposite.  Maintaining moderate body weight could be the overall main factor, in limiting aging, and eating a good diet and exercising could help lead to this, but from different directions.

Of course exercise inputs have plenty of potential too.  My health radically improved when I took up running, back at 50, and it improved again when I conditioned enough to ramp up training intensity and volume.  Swimming here in Hawaii has seemed to improve my muscle tone and flexibility quite a bit.  Doing yoga when I was 50 to 52 made a lot of difference, but Covid closed our local favorite yoga studio, so I let that go.

I swim in a swim lane between coral reefs not far from here

Fasting practice is especially promising.  It's too long a subject to add much more about why I think it helps (in a word, autophagy), or approaches that might be best.

I can't really place tea as a positive input either.  Research evidence of tea being quite healthy is very mixed in forms and results.  It probably is, but it's not the simplest thing to test for, and there is limited academic interest in reviewing that, since there is limited corporate commercial interest in leveraging tea sales as a health input.  In the US health care of sick people is far more profitable than preventing illness, especially through inexpensive food inputs.  There's a lot one might consider in relation to Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective on how tea is healthy, and in what optimum forms, which would vary by individual related to best fit or best overall balance.  I drank a lot of tisanes from the age of 22 up to 40; it's not just "real tea" that would have a lot of potential. 

Health risks related to tea are a potential concern, but there isn't a lot to look out for.  Caffeine intake should only go so far, and fluoride input is something to think through.  If you drink high quality tea (less mass-produced, chemical supported growth versions) risks from pesticides and heavy metal inputs are probably quite limited.  There are outliers claiming there are more significant, common risks to avoid, but in my opinion as long as you don't take a "more is better" approach to input tea is very safe.  Consuming up to 20 grams per day of it should be fine.  

You can offset any potential risks by varying types and sources.  You could maximize those risks in the opposite way, buying a kilogram of the most inexpensive, questionable tea you can find from an Indian or Chinese market source, maximizing your contact with those somewhat rare inputs by concentrating the same exposure form.  I don't necessarily trust all the "wild origin" claims I hear, but if half of the tea I consume really is of that form that seems positive, and at this point most of what I drink is represented as such.

One might wonder what all of this is based on, beyond my own personal experience, and where it ends, what aging is likely to be like in one's 70s or 80s, if all goes well.  My parents have observed many of these practices, and are in great health at nearly 80.  Many of my family members lived healthy lives well into their 90s (which of course introduces a potential genetic input).  My Thai mother-in-law is from a family where people tend to not experience much of their 60s and she is holding up well at over 80 now.  Activity seemed to make a difference, and decent diet.  Her sleep regimen is awful, and she never does significant cardio stress exercise; one might get away with letting one of these positive inputs drop.  Her mobility is severely limited now; any gap may come at a price.

I hope that some of this is helpful to others.  There's more I could add about perspective shift that might help, about meditation as an input, for example, but I'll get back to that kind of thing more later.

my wife Eye also holds up pretty well in spite of only experiencing some of these themes

Fasting for 5 days, running, and meditation

 

I'm trying out fasting again, for the fifth time.  Twice before I fasted for 5 days, and two other times I stopped before that due to problems, probably mostly related to electrolyte balance.

A main point:  why do it?  It was always to experiment with the experience, to see if some of the associated health benefits seem to occur.  Weight loss wasn't necessarily one of those, for me.  I did gain a little weight over the last two years, up from 71 kg to 74, from around 156 pounds to 163, but that seems fine, even though I have bit of a gut.  It's claimed that fasting can improve mental clarity, and initiate autophagy, which can remove some visceral fat, some fat problematically located actually inside or around internal organs, and even potentially lower cancer risk.  Who knows; some research I checked indicates there could be something to a lot of that, but research findings don't seem to confirm most of it.  Of that list you might only notice the mental clarity; I don't think it's possible to change pants size.

To me the main benefits have been serving as a reset for diet habits and improving metabolic flexibility, my body's ability to use fat for energy.  How would I notice that, without fasting, and judging degree of suffering from switching to ketosis?  My energy level when running seems better, more continuous and consistent.  Of course if a meal runs late, or I miss one, then that doesn't seem like a problem, related to acclimation.  

My diet wasn't terrible before but the few fasting trials helped me dial it in to be closer to optimum, very low on sugar and other junk foods, based on very limited between meal snacking, and only moderate sized normal meals.  I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, limited meat, eggs, and dairy (so I actually supplement protein a little), including diverse rice, grains, some bread, and beans.  I've switched from eating chocolate for a snack to nuts.

The main concern in trying fasting is electrolyte supplementation, which I've addressed in earlier posts.  It's tricky.  It seems like it should be simple, add some salt, potassium, and magnesium, but it's a lot more of those first two salts than you'd expect.

blue pea / butterfly tisane, picked from the garden to drink once during the fast

it's from here, beside the house

I'll write out how this went, starting writing this post on day 3.

Days 1 and 2:  in the past these were rough times, working through a lot of hunger and loss of energy, and some impact to mental clarity.  For the most part none of that happened.  Even hunger experience was very moderate; it just didn't seem like I was skipping eating most of that time.  

I think if I was hearing of that from someone else I'd be skeptical; two days of not eating was easy, no impact?  It kind of was, especially in comparison with the first three trials.  On the fourth attempt the first day was really easy, but I went out for a speed-work run, a training form relatively new to me, and I think that might have thrown off my electrolyte balance.  Or maybe it was too much for energy conversion from body fat, going beyond what I was adapted to?  Sleep disruption is a normal side effect of fasting, especially if your magnesium level runs low, and I went through that too that time, and then stopped.  

Hunger level, on that fourth trial and for these two days, was like when lunch or dinner runs an hour late; you can feel it, but it's not bad yet.  For someone accustomed to a strict eating schedule maybe an hour late would already be uncomfortable, and it wasn't even that bad.  It was strange.

Energy level and the rest seemed fine too.  I didn't worry about drinking some tisane (herb tea) on the first day to offset the gap from experiencing any food intake, but I did brew some blue pea flowers, chrysanthemum, and stevia the second day, which I drank with potassium and sodium salts added.  

This time I kept drinking a good bit of that salt water, which can be nasty, but didn't use the approach of measuring it out, which I suppose adds a bit of risk, getting it wrong again.  I've had some tea every day, the leftover of some sheng on the first day, shu pu'er on the second (easiest on your stomach, the natural call), and aged white tea today, which worked out.

The oddest part was a lack of impact.  I felt fine on the second evening so I went out to try a short run, just 2 miles, limiting the distance to avoid going through any energy level or electrolyte balance disruption, to see how I felt.  I ran the first two km at an easy 6 1/2 minute pace and set a faster cruise of 6 minutes for the third.  That felt fine, like I could keep it up, or could've pushed faster to run at 5 1/2 min / km speed if I'd wanted, but I had already pushed it too far the last trial, so didn't.  I meditated after that run, but I think I'll cover what that's all about in a separate section.

Day 3:  right away in the morning it really caught up to me, the disrupted, low energy, off feeling.  Not eating for the prior two days definitely didn't lead to an experience of increased mental clarity.  I took the cat to the vet too, running an unpleasant errand, and went via a stupid route for getting it all wrong, missing a couple of turns.  I botch driving here sometimes but not like that.  Waiting at the vet when you haven't eaten isn't much worse than when you have; it's still a bit annoying.  That's even for bringing a laptop so I could check in with work, and catch part of a meeting, before my appointment time interrupted that.

The cat has gingivitis, a mild gum infection.  She's almost 16 so I was worried she might be nearing the end, but after a shot, taking antibiotics in pill form later, and special mouthwash rinse for however long she should be ok.  She scratched the vet because I wasn't holding her legs tightly enough; maybe another focus issue.  It'll probably be my turn to see my own blood tomorrow when I try to rinse her mouth alone.

I'm not sure how the next 2 1/2 days will go.  I hadn't planned to run again right away but if I feel normal later I might try to run for 4 miles, my normal short loop, two routes around the local royal palace.  Muscle and other tissue recovery can be an issue when you don't eat but I didn't feel any soreness from that short 2 mile run.

I'm not fasting mostly for weight loss but it might be nice to lose a few pounds.  I'm up to around 165 pounds / 74 kg now, and I think the earlier fasting might have caused my body to worry about a shortage of food, to go into a winter mode.  That's probably good in the long term related to offsetting rate of aging.  There's a related long story about why I think being a vegetarian for 17 years probably slowed my metabolic rate for a long time.  That low metabolism allows me to run 20 or more miles a week (30 km) and eat relatively little food and still not lose any weight.  Being lighter would make running easier.  As far as aesthetics go it doesn't matter; I look ok, and it would be fine if I didn't.

I feel like I've not really communicated what the nagging symptom of hunger is like, what it really takes to adapt to not eating for days on end.  It becomes normal, to an extent, but you have to internally accept it rather than reject it, or it would definitely be much worse.  Maybe that leads into the part on meditation well enough, and I can put that in the middle of this day by day account.

Meditation:

Again, why do it?  I'm separated from my kids, who are back at school in Honolulu, while I take care of the cats, watch the house, and work locally here in Bangkok.  I can work remotely but someone needs to cover those two tasks, and Eye's mother--their grandmother--is there with them.  She's concerned the months she is separated from them might be some of her last, because she's getting up there in age, but it's also not easy for me to miss some.

my only form of contact with my daughter for now

So I'm making the most of it by meditating, running, and fasting, and holding a tea event here or there (one so far, planning a second).  And some job hunting, but it's hard to log a lot of hours at that activity, so I just keep plugging away at it here and there.

I've settled on meditating for 45 minutes at a time, almost every evening, missing a few sessions if a day ran long or if a run seemed to drain me too much.  It's really hard to describe results.  I might first add that I meditated some as an experiment when I was much younger, seeing interesting results from that, then again 15 years ago when I was ordained as a monk for two months, undergoing limited training at a meditation center.  

Nothing extreme changes as an outcome (usually).  It might give you a bit more mental clarity and focus; that's about it.  I've noticed that I carry tension in my body and experience the background noise in my mind slightly differently than I did early on, 2 1/2 to 3 weeks ago.  My mind seems more settled, and the tension I was holding in my upper shoulders has mostly dissipated.  My lower back tension isn't resolved, and maybe from running my legs tend to hold it too, which may settle out further within a couple more weeks.

Running is also a form of meditation, in a sense.  I have to set my mind to support that exertion level for an extended time, for around an hour for my standard run of 10 km (6+ miles).  Then I sometimes cut that short if heat exposure gets to be a bit much, often when I run at mid-day.  That heat effect feels a little like tiring from running but not exactly like that, more feeling a little off.

As far as the meditation experience itself goes following your breath is a standard practice, to help still your mind, or putting focus in one particular place within your body, maybe your lower stomach, around the diaphragm, or where the breath enters your nose.  Counting can help.  I try to let my mind quiet naturally and only use counting or other focusing techniques when that's not working, although there is always some chatter.  The experience of body tension can be uncomfortable, especially after the half an hour point.  It seems to me that's coming from mental disturbance, as much as retained tension, and that the expectation or desire to stop the meditation is causing it.  

I can settle to be much more comfortable just sitting than 3 weeks ago but I'm far from "there," if there even is such a level.  I set an alarm and it's hard to stop fleeting thoughts from wondering when it will go off, which seem partly triggered by body tension that is uncomfortable.  

Uncomfortable is all relative; maybe it's like the effort and tension from when you walk and carry groceries, and you'd like to put them down, but it's not to the point of a strain like a cramp.  I don't mean 100 yards / meters to a car; in Honolulu we had (/ have) no car so at times we would carry groceries quite far, along with using the bus at other times.  After a km or two the groceries get heavy, even though they're not really heavy, unless you think a couple of gallons of milk plus that much food is.  I could add that my wife switched us to large, sturdy re-usable bags back when that was trendy here a half-dozen years back, saving on plastic use, so it's not as if that looked exactly like someone walking down the street from a grocery store, but it's not that different.  It was odd.

What about meditation plus fasting; how has that changed things?  My patience seems just a little reduced.  If anything my mind might be a little quieter, more calm, but past the half hour point--which I don't track; I'm not watching a clock--there's more "when is this going to end?" feedback.  Physically I might be slightly more relaxed, which could support my theory that my mind's quietude and body tension level are connected.  

Maybe meditation is helping me not experience eating disruption as unpleasant, as it should normally be?  I'm not sure, and at a guess acclimation from prior fasts is more of a cause of that.  My body gets it, that this is one more normal state of being I'll go through.  The same must apply to running or carrying groceries an absurd distance, that after it normalizes one more internal negative feedback loop goes mostly quiet.  I actually like running now, which is strange, since it started as an easy way to exercise in a short period of time instead.  Even running in cross country and track in high school (long ago) I always had mixed feelings about it.

Day 3, later on:  I'm feeling it.  It would've made for a good story to have ran for three days but due to feeling off, tired, and at times very slightly dizzy I shouldn't try.  I've been drinking that nasty sodium and potassium salt water all day but tomorrow I'll measure out what I see as more optimum and parse that out across the day.  Hunger still isn't too bad; odd.  Different foods sound ok, and I feel a bit empty, but I don't spend much time thinking about that.  

Given the way I take these 5 day spans I'll eat at the end of the 5th day, not pushing on for what is really 5 1/2 that next morning, as the clock goes, so I really only have one more full day to go, then most of one.  I don't even stay strict about timing; if I end up fasting for 4 days and 22 hours because dinner timing varies that's fine.  It would be easy to add another half day, and eat the next morning, but it's nice getting the recovery done that extra day earlier, and getting back to normal the next.  

I don't "go big" and eat a lot at the end, and it's really not even possible to, without feeling sick (for me; others who fast say that they can).  Healthy and simple foods taste great at that point; I should probably try breaking the fast with homemade cheeseburgers.  Sort of healthy, I mean.

Day 4, mid-day:  I've really been feeling it all day.  I woke in the night feeling off and re-upped electrolyte intake, then slept well, but it was another rough morning.  I've not had normal energy, clarity, or focus all day.  I think it's not really electrolyte level issues; I measured out the daily salts intake this morning and took a magnesium tablet, plus multivitamin and calcium.  It seems like I'm just not accustomed to ketosis, what people sometimes call "keto flu."  Your body will adjust, but I've probably only been fully in ketosis for the past two days, using the last of what I was digesting or holding as glycogen on both Saturday and Sunday.

Hunger isn't much of an issue; I barely think of food.  That's another thing I didn't mention about meditation, that food might cross my mind, but no more so than what shows I've been watching, one more minor part of mental background noise.

I drank a mild black tea today and that was fine, no problem.  Shu pu'er is most sensible, easiest on the stomach, but just avoiding green tea, sheng pu'er, or very low oxidation level oolong is enough.

I expect that I'll feel a little better tomorrow.  I'd like to try running again this evening, to see if I can push it for forcing my body to convert fat energy.  It would be a stretch though.  I could essentially just crash for the next 12 hours or so afterwards, but I don't know what that fallout would be like.  Other somewhat scary symptoms go with the territory for fasting and electrolyte imbalance:  irregular heartbeat, dizziness, problems sleeping.  Walking for half an hour would be playing it safe but that's a tough call as a runner.  Not very many runners ever sort out if they can keep running after 4 days off food though.

Day 4, after a run:  I felt "keto flu" symptoms all day, only recovering after a nap after work.  Then I felt ok, so I went out for a run.  No matter how that went I planned to keep it short, because I just spent two days feeling quite off.  It went well, it felt normal, and slipped back into a normal 6 mile per km pace for the last 1 1/2.  I probably feel as good as I've felt over this fast now.  I experienced a little leg cramping during a stretch, a sign my electrolyte balance might not be right, so I came back and drank another cup of salt water and took a magnesium capsule (adding up to double the daily requirement; I guess that's fine).

I think if I fast again within the next month or so I could probably do those 2 mile runs daily, for being better acclimated, or even bump it up to 4 miles for a couple, at a slow pace.  Better safe than sorry this time; it's as well to not rush fasting experiences, as I've learned from a couple of failures.

Day 5, morning:  I was up in the night again, drinking more salt water at 5 or so.  I did drink shu pu'er this morning.  I feel much better than the last two days but still not normal, still disrupted.  It all makes me question if it's a good thing to even try this.  I won't know if most of the supposed benefits occur (more mental clarity, later on, autophagy, visceral fat reduction), and I don't expect to lose weight.  My diet was as good as it's likely to ever be, so that reset function doesn't apply.  I feel relatively ok today, not so tired and slightly out of it, but perhaps still not completely normal.

On the other side I think it all would normalize, if someone kept it up, I guess if they were pursuing weight loss (the main reason), or were really convinced of those benefits.  In the Reddit fasting sub people discuss applying radical rotating fasting approaches, rolling 48s or 72s, not eating half the time on either a 2 day or 3 day cycle (or 4 or 6 counting both parts).  One person recently commented they ate only 2 days a week, so with 5 days off, for an extended time.  Those people often mention body weights and loss amounts that related to more extreme circumstances.  

Even someone really wanting to lose only an extra 20 pounds of fat may use fasting.  One guy commenting in the Reddit fasting sub was at optimal body weight but was very low in muscle tissue, with a high percentage body fat, and he was asking if fasting and working out would help him.  My guess is that eating a moderated caloric input but healthy diet while working out would be better under those circumstances.

Day 5, at about the end:  towards the end it's natural to keep thinking that ending an extra hour early would be fine.  I went to the grocery store during lunch, since there's no food here, and being around food wasn't a problem.  I felt a little off earlier and drank the last of the saltwater mix I had made up and I'm fine.  Energy level and clarity have been close to normal today.

I only drank a tisane that once; I didn't miss eating enough to try to replicate it.  My throat felt odd so I drank the juice of a small lime on the last day.  Google says that I might have ingested 20 calories doing that.  There must be people out there who would see that as not really true fasting.

Related to the meditation again I keep thinking why am I really doing this.  I'm not that far in the hole related to mental clarity and focus, although my memory is slipping.  I don't think that I feel cranky but but it's not easy to maintain the same stability and sense of ease dropping out something as fundamental as eating.  My wife was yelling at me about something (over a call) and I yelled back, when normally I could just ignore it and let her have her say.  She's under a few levels of pressure too, and if it comes out in being cranky with me over something minor I should be fine with that.

Not much of a final retrospect take here, or new perspective.  It's possible that this practice could become really easy after one or two more trials, I just need to sort out if there is really any reason to keep trying it.  What if I am preventing cancer, suspending aging, improving internal organ function, and boosting my mental clarity?  Or what if every single potential health benefit isn't really happening?  I'm not even bringing up the "detox" theme, or letting my body drop off insulin resistance, which would be more of a concern if I was eating more sugar than I am.

Concerns about fasting; should people fast?

I've been thinking lately about whether I would recommend this to others or not.  I think not.  For people who feel like they need it, mostly for weight loss, or if they have a burning desire to mess around with how their body works, sure, it's fine.  For almost everyone it's just too disruptive, difficult, and unpleasant.  I kept saying that hunger wasn't much of a concern, and energy issues and loss of clarity only happened on 2 days out of 5, but that feeling of your body being empty of food never goes away.  Some people report feeling a related sort of euphoria, getting a high from it, but I seem not to.

One recurring theme in the Reddit fasting sub is communicating about fasting; many claim it's better to never bring it up, like that Fight Club rule about not talking about it.  The concern is probably over others taking it wrong, them being overly concerned, or you coming across as saying "woe is me!," when it's clearly an intentional personal choice, and definitely not a necessary one.  It absolutely has to become normal or it won't work.  

This includes impact to other daily life activities, beyond perspective and communication.  Few people could forego work or other activities for days to work through eating disruption, but I guess if someone has nothing going on laying on a couch for 5 days would work.  Even that defeats one of the main purpose though; if you drop normal activity level your metabolism will plummet, and weight loss won't occur to the same degree.

Related to other potential impact I slept like a baby, beyond getting up to drink salt water however many times, but then I tend to do that.  I might usually wake up to use a restroom and stay up for 15 minutes messing around online but my middle of the night insomnia days are behind me, since it's been a few years since kids have woke up frequently.  Storms wake my daughter, and then she wakes me up, but that's different, infrequent now.

It was cool that it seems like I could do longer runs if I try again, or probably could have this time.  Will that translate to feeling more energy on longer runs now?  I took an extra day off running after the fast because I felt soreness in my calves, maybe from disruption of normal recovery process, since I usually run a lot more than 4 miles in 5 days, often 6 miles in an outing.  But I'll run again and can check.  It would be nice if I didn't live in one of the hottest and most humid places on earth so I could check on that without disruption, the constant near heatstroke.  

I guess at a bare minimum I'll appreciate eating more again; there's nothing like fresh, plain, healthy food when you don't take eating for granted.

cheeseburgers and sweet potato, yam, and regular fries; that tasted good

the next day; chicken breasts are really easy to cook too

Protein, muscle, aging, and longevity

Two references I've recently ran across seem to say two completely opposite things about aging, or rather managing and reducing the rate of aging.  Both relate to one particular input, to adjusting protein consumption and amount of bodily muscle tissue.  Offsetting aging is an aggressive goal, but whether that's practical or not it can be interesting to hear about potential approaches, or even uncertain background.

One set of statements and claims by Leo (Laith) of the Leo and Longevity YouTube channel claims that reduced calorie intake, and specifically reduced protein intake, increases lifespan. Another article connects lack of muscle with aging issues, and claims that substantial protein intake is necessary to maintain higher levels of muscle tissue, which increases both longevity and health in later life. I think we can unpack both and resolve this apparent contradiction, to some limited extent. 

A lot of this will be my own speculation, to be clear, and I'm not some sort of medical professional.  I will mention some unusual personal exposure along the way, but that's not intended as clearly defined evidence, just extra anecdotal input.

Let's start with the pro-muscle development article, Muscle Is the Cornerstone of Longevity:

Pumping iron, weight-lifting, strength training—call it what you want, but it is key to living longer, according to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon...

  

“The more muscle mass, the more survivability against diseases,” Dr. Lyon explained. But muscle mass must be maintained to have these effects. It’s a use-it-or-lose-it part of our biology due to sarcopenia. Sarcopenia, as defined by the National Institute on Aging, is “a decline in muscle mass, strength, and function...” ...Weight training is essential to mitigate these effects as we age. When you “stimulate skeletal muscle,” stated Dr. Lyon, “ [you] maintain mobility, mental clarity, hormonal balance, and improve mood.” 

The National Institute on Aging explains that “a big culprit for losing our physical abilities as we grow older is the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength…in addition to making everyday tasks difficult, mobility limitations are also linked to higher rates of falls, chronic disease, nursing home admission, and mortality.” Dr. Lyon emphasized that we should be “focusing on building muscles rather than losing fat. [Muscle] will help you build your body armor to protect you throughout life.” 

...Adiposity [being overweight] is the result of a health problem, not the starting point. It is the same with other chronic diseases “such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver.” According to Dr. Howard J. Luks, an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon, in his article, Muscle Mass, Strength, and Longevity, he writes “losing active [muscle] tissue can have dramatic consequences. Muscles help us control our glucose levels, use glucose as fuel, and have a role in insulin resistance.” So, instead of thinking of fat as the root cause of health problems, we must understand that it’s no more than the middleman. The actual chain of command is unhealthy muscle tissue, adiposity, then disease. 

But to build healthy muscle tissue, you need protein. “Protein is necessary for nearly every function in the body and every structure,” explained Lyon. “There are 20 different amino acids. We need the nine essentials—histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine—to support many processes that happen within our body. Each amino acid has more than one role; they function as a metabolic signal and are necessary building blocks.” 

So there we have it; per this longer set of conclusions losing core strength and functional muscle tissue causes lots of other health problems, which can all be avoided by weight training and eating enough protein.  The part about core strength limiting risk from falls is familiar enough, but the rest not so much.  I don't want to include too many tangents but this reminds me of an interesting Instagram channel, that relates to how to control glucose spikes in the body, the Glucose Goddess channel:

You probably get the idea; you can adjust what you eat together to prevent blood sugar spikes.  Which are obviously a bad thing, right?  Sort of, or probably, but part of what I'm interpreting that last long cited passage to mean is that with substantial muscle tissue in your body you can store that glucose better, to use it throughout the day, while if you have very little muscle tissue it's going to potentially be more impactful having that sudden digestion input fall a bit out of balance.  

It could've been clearer that muscle tissue actually helps with storing glucose, since one read is that muscles burn more energy, in the statement "muscles help us control our glucose levels, use glucose as fuel, and have a role in insulin resistance."  I think I've drawn that from other background, like this statement by the Cleveland Clinic:

Glycogen is a form of glucose, a main source of energy that your body stores primarily in your liver and muscles...  Your body mainly stores glycogen in your liver and skeletal muscles (the muscles attached to your bones and tendons), with small amounts in your brain.

So with very little muscle tissue your body will either need to work through a blood sugar spike or else convert that energy to fat to do something with it, but muscle lets you store more for medium term use.  Moving on, Leo asserts something else, in the video Protein:  the Key to Longevity, and related to two other follow-up videos in a three part set.

Based on different starting points and evidence, Leo rejects the common "building blocks" model of analyzing dietary inputs, that your body uses proteins, carbohydrates, and fats as energy sources and tissue building inputs (which is certainly correct, but it's only one part of what's going on).  He claims that this model is one partly accurate and descriptive construct, but not the only valid frame of reference. 

At a finer level of internal body process review signaling models apply, that what you ingest triggers specific physiological processes that can be active or inactive, or partially active, not all relating to only energy use or storing fat energy.  Even his complete video, that I'm summarizing here, clearly states he isn't unpacking a large proportion of this background, and narrowing related body processes down to two examples, versus treating how a larger range of them interrelate and apply.

Leo is citing a lot of well known references to low calorie intake being associated with longer lifespan, with links in that video--that part is already familiar to many.  It's very problematic for people to restrict their calorie intake for extended periods of time, for years, so attempts at "dietary restriction" take other practical forms today, including intermittent fasting.  

Leo goes further, claiming that lower protein intake alone can have the same effect, lengthening lifespan, especially related to limiting high levels of specific amino acids (protein building blocks), most specifically two related to red meat consumption, present at far lower levels in vegetarian proteins.  This isn't a guess based on his own reasoning; he is citing the same kind of documented, peer-reviewed animal studies that initiated these earlier conclusions related to calorie restrictions, in studies conducted on fish and rodents.

If the two references are saying opposite things, and the first is based on direct input from a longevity research professional, and the second is based on many seemingly sound research sources, who can we trust? Can both be right? Maybe. I'll not fully unpack or resolve this, but it's possible that the contradiction is only apparent. I'll get to that part, but first I wanted to raise one more anecdotal input, about not personally experiencing aging as much as I expected.  It does connect, and some works as a good framework of ideas for how this might play out in actual application.

A personal account of atypical aging experience

I'm 54 and in pretty good shape. Good diet and some exercise can account for that, or good genetics and luck. But my hair isn't greying much more than in my 20s, my skin isn't wrinkling much, I'm retaining more muscle mass than I think I need, but then maybe that is useful after all, given some of this input. 

I suspect that staying active accounts for a lot of it (I run), but it also seems possible that spending 17 years as a vegetarian helped by keeping my body weight moderate, or even low.  For early adulthood, teens out to close to 40, I weighed about 145 pounds (65 kg) at 5' 8" (170 cm), and I've only recently increased that to 165 pounds / 74 kg.  I wasn't trying to be thin, or to not eat much, it just worked out that way.  

That diet may have led to moderate protein intake over a long time period, and the distribution of amino acids from vegetarian sources would be slightly different (something Leo addressed specifically, best reviewed by watching that video). Even now I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and a generally clean diet, and need to work on it to include enough protein to support exercise recovery, from the running.

Genetics is surely a main input; my mother aged somewhat slowly, and my sister also does.  It's probably not a coincidence that both maintained low body weights for their entire lives.  I suspect that eating a very good diet comes into play, along with getting some exercise, or other activity, moderating input of drugs and alcohol, getting enough sleep, and so on, general healthy living.

That first article seems to waive off body weight and fat level as most relevant (or more clearly seeing that as an outcome, not a cause). Maybe it's all relevant, activity level, muscle development, amount of body weight, and positive diet inputs, nutrient levels and on from there.  The modern reductionist tendency for people to look for one key cause is probably misguided, one independent "life-hack" to adjust complex inputs towards a different result by making one or two simple adjustments.

  

It's even more indirect and hearsay based, but it's a commonly expressed theme in bodybuilding circles that maintaining high body weight from either fat or muscle tissue adds stress to the body, and could impact longevity and long term health.  Of course that's not to be wrongly regarded as directly opposing the initial point that maintaining healthy muscle tissue levels contradicts this view, that carrying excess muscle tissue is a problem.  Higher level male bodybuilders can maintain moderate body fat levels while weighing between 250 and 300 pounds, with female bodybuilders typically not matching that atypical body size, which would be stressful for bodily systems.  Of course intake of drugs enabling that form of growth is a secondary risk factor; no one is "naturally" gaining that kind of muscle tissue weight, and steroids and growth hormone use pose other risks.

All this isn't to speculate that we should just be healthy; that would be an oversimplification.  Retaining a typical younger-life, high activity level of both fitness and muscle tissue probably are healthy.  Leo wasn't claiming that carrying any level of muscle tissue is a problem; he was pointing out that internal physiological processes are "turned on or turned off" when signaled by protein intake, and other factors.  He was seeing an indirect outcome from higher protein intake as a problem.  Let's consider further one such process, the main one he was discussing, from a Google search results reference, on MTOR:

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) regulates cell proliferation, autophagy, and apoptosis by participating in multiple signaling pathways in the body. Studies have shown that the mTOR signaling pathway is also associated with cancer, arthritis, insulin resistance, osteoporosis, and other diseases. The mTOR signaling pathway, which is often activated in tumors, not only regulates gene transcription and protein synthesis to regulate cell proliferation and immune cell differentiation but also plays an important role in tumor metabolism. Therefore, the mTOR signaling pathway is a hot target in anti-tumor therapy research. In recent years, a variety of newly discovered mTOR inhibitors have entered clinical studies, and a variety of drugs have been proven to have high activity in combination with mTOR inhibitors.

It sounds like this MTOR is a bad thing, and we should stop doing that, but it's not nearly that simple.  It's a key bodily function (internal process), that is required, so the concern here is how often or how long it is "turned on" or active, and the positive and negative effects of maintaining a greater frequency or duration of that internal process (or set of those; it's all not completely clear).  Let's simplify that down a little from a Wikipedia reference:

mTOR integrates the input from upstream pathways, including insulin, growth factors (such as IGF-1 and IGF-2), and amino acids.[11] mTOR also senses cellular nutrient, oxygen, and energy levels.[30] The mTOR pathway is a central regulator of mammalian metabolism and physiology, with important roles in the function of tissues including liver, muscle, white and brown adipose tissue,[31] and the brain, and is dysregulated in human diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, depression, and certain cancers.  

Sounds more positive there, but none of this lends itself to simple interpretation.  As Leo summarized it you can't prevent the mTOR signaling pathway (if I'm using that term correctly), but as he frames it you can help your body regulate how often and to what degree this is active.  He feels that it would be a good thing to do so, and consistently eating a lot of protein throughout the day could actually be very unhealthy.  It's my impression that he's linking general and broad studies that claim that, that higher protein intake levels in animals (fish and rodents, I think it was) correlate with reduced lifespans, and then he's trying to work back to why that would be, even though maybe this isn't a clear and singular cause.  Personally it's hard for me to completely accept any simple conclusions distilled from complex inputs; it's back to this being more interesting to consider than relating to obviously correct conclusions.

Potential resolution

Per my impression of that first long cited passage they are discussing problems with loss of normal levels of muscle tissue, not necessarily related to people being on a spectrum of having more or less.  Exercise inputs, genetics, and those dietary inputs (eating enough or a surplus of protein) would relate to gaining and retaining muscle mass, instead of there being one main input.

Per a common sense interpretation if someone spent a period of years weightlifting to build strength, and muscle mass, and coupled that with a higher than average and high protein diet, this wouldn't be as impactful as spending a much longer time on a primarily carnivorous diet, or even an all-meat diet (a recent health trend, an offshoot of the "keto" fad).  Of course maintaining normal but significant amounts of muscle tissue on a moderate protein intake diet is possible.

This reminded me of how an athlete like Alex Honnold might see this issue, a vegetarian rock climber famous for free soloing El Capitan.  His take:

Humans definitely need protein to maintain muscle mass and be healthy, and athletes certainly need more than sedentary people. But I think that protein is wildly over-emphasized. The average person, in the U.S. anyway, eats far more than they need.

There's evidence that humans have optimum health with a diet around 10-percent protein - that's easily met by just eating greens like spinach. So, it's not like a typical American needs to be seeking out more protein. That said, proteins and fats do help me feel fuller so I do think about the macronutrient breakdown of what I'm eating. 

The part about getting enough protein from spinach is a bit striking, isn't it?  In a GQ article his typical daily diet does sound like something no normal person could live on, never mind a high level athlete, with nothing in it including a substantial amount of protein:

Breakfast:  Muesli with flax meal, banana, hemp milk.

On-the-wall snacks:  Apples, nuts, avocado sandwich (fresh avocado on bread)

Dinner:  Macaroni and cheese with spinach, red peppers and yellow squash, topped with pumpkin seeds.

An average person living on fruit, nuts, vegetables, and granola wouldn't be that impressive, but his feat of athleticism, skill, and mental focus in that one free solo feat is all but unmatched across all of sports, pulled off on a diet most people think couldn't sustain them, whether they exercise or not.

One thing I didn't mention about my own experiences (with a very limited protein-input vegetarian diet) was that I was snowboarding and hiking a lot back then, living in a ski resort, and working long hours in demanding jobs as a restaurant server.  I even rock climbed a little.  I wasn't giving it much thought but in retrospect it's odd how it all worked out, even though none of that is impressive at all compared to high level rock climbing, or any competitive professional sports.

sometime in the 90s, out doing 15+ mile daily desert hikes for fun

last week; I am aging, just not so quickly for mid-50s

It makes you wonder how hormone replacement might factor in, but that's too complicated and involved to pair with these other completely separate concerns.  I suspect that maintaining a high activity level sustains adequate hormone balance, even into advanced age, but what do I know.  

I've known plenty of earlier generation family members who were very active and healthy, some into their 90s, but isolated cases like that aren't necessarily helpful for establishing generalities.  Those old-school, rural-life family members ate from gardens more than markets or grocery stores, and my family hunted as much meat as they bought, but again I'm not reducing that to claims here.  I think that eating a diverse and balanced diet is important, for me ideally including plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and then we can place input like these two sets of claims however we like within or beyond that.

Post script:  Leo Rex of Leo and Longevity died not so long ago (Laith really; Leo is an adopted name), and it seems appropriate to mention that here.  It's quite sad, to me, because in one sense it wasn't his time yet, as someone so young, bright, charismatic, and eager to help others.  

Related to his sharing of information online critiques sometimes came up, that he was too eager to experiment with risky "bio-hacking" themes, and offer information that others might base their own unsafe practices on.  This summarized topic example isn't that; eating a lot of protein, or very little of it, surely wouldn't pose or reduce health risks much in comparison with adjusting sleep cycles, using nootropics (mental enhancement drugs), steroids, or using other experimental exercise recovery support drugs.

I have greatly valued Leo's content and input, and wish to honor his contributions by remembering him positively here.  He was a fellow seeker, that many would recognize aspects of in themselves.  Sometimes even the parts that could be negative in some ways, the intensity and focus on shifting topics, and good intentions at times extended towards obsession, or pursuing a search for truth on to involving personal conflict.  Rest in peace, friend.

5 days of fasting including exercise and tea drinking

 

I'm starting this post on day 2 to include some general context and current perspective, but I won't finish and post it until it's over.  That made citing a length of time in the working title strange; I included 6 days as a guess, but really I'll fast for at least 5 and maybe go as long as 7 if it seems comfortable.  Odd that I'd expect not eating for 5 days to a week to be agreeable and pleasant, right?  In retrospect, added in later, it was fine for the most part, light duty compared to two earlier trials, but I still stopped it after 5 days.

But it is much more moderate to experience this time; I'm hungry, and was on day 1 too, but it's nothing like those first two trials.  I think that's mostly because my expectation related to not eating has changed, not because my body is dealing with it better, although that could factor in.  I drank some tisane yesterday, blue pea / butterfly herb with stevia, but didn't notice it making any difference.  I was still hungry, and my stomach still rumbled a bit, especially related to drinking the salt mixture.  In a Reddit sub on fasting they recommend supplementing sodium (salt, or mixing that with baking soda), potassium (salt substitute works), and magnesium, which I ingest as a dissolvable tablet supplement.  Food grade epsom salt can be used for magnesium, but they say it has laxative properties, and I didn't see that handy at a local grocery store or pharmacy.

these are from a vine growing at the house, so all very fresh

That brings up the theme of conventional wisdom of drinking only water, versus supplementing minerals, versus taking that next step, including tea and tisanes, or coffee, lemon or lime along with water, or whatever else.  It's commonly expressed that you can drink only water for a day or two, no problem, but that it adds potential impact, or even risk, if you go longer without electrolyte input, of course with individual experiences varying a lot.  

On my first trial I didn't supplement those minerals (salts, really), beyond taking a multivitamin, then part-way through sorted out that levels included weren't even close to sufficient.  I could've kept on with a trial anyway, but felt what I perceived to be an irregular heartbeat at about 3 days in, and stopped the fast.  Maybe it was just something I imagined; it's easy to let concerns about that kind of thing get to you, and minor sleep disruption when changing diet so drastically is probably normal, so it's easy to be up in the night wondering how ok you feel.  

The mineral supplement step serves two purposes then:  offsetting risk of muscle function disruption (and your heart is a muscle), and adding peace of mind.  Dialing in supplementation takes some doing, and I think everyone would experience laxative effect from rushing ingestion at some point in trials, or maybe even sporadically later.  It helps having an empty digestive system, but not as completely as one would expect.

I'm not sure that any perspective on pros and cons of adding coffee, tea, tisanes, and whatever else emerges from checking out that sub's discussions, or watching popular content Youtube videos about fasting (many of which are not so great, clearly just content producers passing on bits they've heard, as this writing also conveys).  

As I see it a main concern is if autophagy is offset or decreased by ingesting anything.  That's a body process of recycling damaged or atypical cells in your body when you don't eat, one supposed benefit and goal of fasting over a couple of days worth of time, which supposedly extends to reducing cancer risk (more on that here).  I didn't mean if you eat anything with caloric value; you just aren't fasting if you consume calories.  Exercise is also said to initiate autophagy, but beyond that inputs and related conditions aren't clear.  Supposedly it occurs after a couple of days of not eating, and I have no idea how ingesting coffee, tea, or tisanes factors in.  

Then there is concern people bring up that even artificial sweeteners, or stevia, can trigger digestive or energy processing internal processes that aren't ideal (insulin release, I guess), tricking your body into thinking you just ate sugar, when you didn't.  This trial is about passing on experiential account related to that, but of course I can't track my digestive system changes, or insulin production, and I am not measuring blood glucose levels.

I drank blue pea tisane yesterday (day 1), and both Shui Xian roasted oolong and Jing Mai sheng pu'er today, more inclined to crave any beverage input since I'm not eating.  I felt the usual caffeine withdrawal headache yesterday, and energy loss, but I feel pretty normal today (at time of writing the initial draft, on day 2).  Compared to the first two trials hunger is a non-issue, but again my guess is that's from acclimation to the idea of not eating.  There are still snacks on the table I'm sitting at, tons of them, cashew butter cookies, digestive biscuits, dried strawberries and mango, and strange snacks my mother-in-law eats that I don't, odd crackers and dried pork snacks, but I'm not fixated on eating it.  As you walk around and see things it might be normal to think a snack sounds good, and of course I'm more prone to that now, but beyond an odd emptiness and baseline of moderate, limited hunger I feel normal.

I plan to run tomorrow; that'll be new.  I felt like doing it today but I just ran the most I have yet in a week, four 8 km intermediate pace runs, and my legs are too blasted, on a second rest day after all that.  I ran the last 3 of those outings slightly sore, which is why it sounds good to me anyway, because it's normal now.  But there's no rush, so I should acclimate to the fast and take an extra rest day to be on the safe side.  Maybe because it's crazy cold out now for Bangkok, down to 20 C / 68 F at night, I'll try to run in the morning tomorrow, but I'm not a morning person, so I tend to not feel like that at 7 AM.

Day 3

Sleep could've went better but otherwise all goes well, and even for that I just woke up and slept again a few times.  Drinking water helped me sleep again; I may not be drinking enough.  I'm still hungry today but nothing like the first three days both other times.  Today I tried exercise for the first time, a 4 km / 2 1/2 mile run, and that felt pretty normal, not unusual.

For tea I drank shu pu'er as a breakfast, of sorts, and am trying out a Thai sheng in the afternoon.  Shu really settled my stomach, and the sheng isn't as smooth, but writing about Thai teas had me craving it.  Sticking mostly to shu and Wuyi Yancha (roasted oolongs) might make sense.  I thought chrysanthemum would be ideal for fasting but haven't tried it out yet.  A sheng version yesterday didn't bother my empty stomach at all, and that one today did, a little, maybe for being younger, not softening in character with as much age (bitterness and astringency).

that Chawang Shop Jinggu pu'er reviewed here; much better after a year of settling

what that looks like brewed (comparison tasting)

Day 4

Mixed results today; again sleep wasn't so great, but my energy level was good today, and right on cue hunger almost dropped out.  That's relatively speaking; the idea of eating is there in the background, but the feeling of hunger and repetition of thinking of food wasn't.  I walked about 3 km / 2 miles doing an errand today, and felt fine.  Later on, around 7 PM, I really crashed, not just feeling low energy, but feeling not ok, and slept if off for 45 minutes.  I don't know why; maybe related to drinking electrolyte mix too fast, or a stevia sweetened chrysanthemum and rosemary blend.  On day 1 I drank a tisane with stevia and nothing negative came of that, but I was probably still settling into ketosis.

I'll end this fast in the evening tomorrow, at 5 days, because two papaya grown at the house and a bunch of bananas are ripe, and it's enough, it'll be good to eat again.  I may run tomorrow, to finish testing out that input.

my nemesis; he figured out plastic bags were covering some because they were almost ripe

Day 5

I think I'm getting something slightly wrong with electrolytes; my energy level isn't great, or clarity, and my calf muscles feel a little odd.  Probably that's too little intake instead of too much, so bumping it just a little could resolve it.  All the same I'll probably drop the running idea, and leave that at one trial for this fast.

Later, after ending the fast

Looking back on that calf muscle thing I think I was just sore, that I had ran one day and walked some the next and I wasn't recovering as I normally do, probably because I was days into not eating.  Fasting is like that though, at least early on, you have to wonder if every minor sign isn't related to it, and wonder if it's not more serious than it seems.  My wife's last advice was to just not cause myself to have a heart attack, and that's it, probably not eating for a week (on some appropriate electrolytes) isn't very dangerous, but it makes you wonder, because you can't be sure.

On the other side of that not eating for a few days seems like something any animal or person could be built to deal with.  It's a little rough psychologically, but physically it should be ok.  For people with health problems of course doctor input would be required, and it wouldn't be good to find out about health problems you don't know about while not eating.

This time was by far the easiest of three attempts, the last two of which both lasted 5 days (minus a couple hours; I went dinner on Saturday to dinner on Thursday, and drank some milk after dinner on Saturday, so that it wouldn't spoil over the fast).  But then I did experience an unusual crash on day 4, and day 5 wasn't as easy as the first half of day 4.  On the last day I went out to run an errand and went grocery shopping; that's not so easy.  I smelled prepared foods, and walked by stalls selling plenty of it.  It was still just normal but it brought me back to the earlier days' experience of hunger.

What about lessons learned?

-it gets easier every time:  that's been covered here.  Mental clarity and energy level were much better this time, and by day 5 I stopped thinking about food, until I went grocery shopping, and that didn't help.  I just saw someone mentioning how the difficulty, overcoming that bit of adversity (hunger) is something they see as a benefit, so I guess for some it's as well that's it's not too easy.

-running can be fine:  it's no problem, but it's at least possible that recovery time is slowed.  My guess is that at least the running experience you could keep extending as you acclimate, but I am concerned about recovery.  To be clear on context I'm 54, and I run a bit harder than really makes sense, pushing pace to close to my limit at the end of a lot of runs, which may or may not be a good practice.  Conventional wisdom in running circles is that you shouldn't do that, that running slowly 80% of the time builds a base and speeds recovery time, and works better.  I couldn't run every day given that context, but I'm not trying to log 50 mile weeks to work up to a marathon, it's just limited exercise.

[Final edit]:  I did feel very minor leg cramping, even after eating in the evening of the last fast day, leading me to think it was an electrolyte issue, but then I'm also sore, and have recovered a lot from that throughout that one day.  I think the issue was that I didn't recover well from a light run and walking two days after, so for me every other day runs while fasting would probably go badly, no matter how short or light.  I like the idea of running on stored fat energy too; maybe I could try it early, even on day 1, to move on to ketosis, and then be ready to run again by day 4.

-tea doesn't seem to change a lot, one way or the other.  It's nice drinking something familiar, retaining part of an eating experience, and still necessary to consider drinking it on an empty stomach.  The second time I drank sheng I felt that, in a bad way.  I had one mug of roasted oolong this last day but got caught up in trying to down a good bit of salt water, the electrolytes, and extra water, to avoid dehydration risk, so I'm cold brewing the second potential infusion from those leaves in the refrigerator to drink again tomorrow.  Shu pu'er felt the most comfortable; no surprise there.

-tisanes might not have any effect, and stevia seemed not to.  But then I don't know; once I drank a tisane, stevia, and electrolytes in a relatively short period and felt that crash then.  One part I didn't mention is that mixing the blue pea tisane with the salt (electrolyte) water made it quite palatable; it might be possible to experiment with a best-results saltwater cover tisane flavor.  If some of that disgusting salt water tasted more like a Gatorade that would be great, and there's no reason why fruit range couldn't help with that, even without calories.  It would work to peel the outside of an entire orange (the zest) using a fruit peeler, dry that, and then brew a whole orange's worth of outer peel later while fasting to make up an orange flavored Gatorade version.

The odd part is that I don't know if any health benefits are being realized.  I didn't weigh myself before, during, or after, but I doubt I've changed weight at all, or if I did feeling more like eating for a few days will restore it.  I see it as a chance to reset diet, but my normal diet is fine, unusually healthy.  It's just one more thing to experiment with for me, I guess, and somehow it does seem to help with energy level while running, maybe because my body can switch over to an alternate energy source easier with that extra acclimation.

Another odd part is that I like the idea of an exercise in willpower, living with somewhat significant and constant discomfort for some days.  It's only terrible if you think it is, but still there's an underlying and constant pressure.  It makes it easier to notice what you are eating continually afterwards, to see it as an energy source and health input in addition to an urge response.  It might pair well with some kind of intuitive eating approach, something I took up decades ago, but that's another long story for another day.