Life and death of a Bangkok street cat

If you are sensitive related to the subject of death you shouldn't read this; this will be the only trigger warning.

A series of events related to a local Bangkok street cat has been troubling me lately, related to navigating the role I should play, and now to how it worked out.  A street cat has been visiting our house and our cats for years; it's about him, who I'll call Ei Dum (pronounced ee dum, more or less "the black one," after his color).  He's not the first; friendly and unfriendly cats have visited before.  One fought with another of our cats once, causing him to fall from roof space, and he later died from an injury from that.  Of course that haunts me to this day, not doing something differently to save him.  I didn't see that occur, and he seemed fine later, but he wasn't fine.

This cat hasn't exactly been a friend to our cats, but he's tolerated, not an enemy.  My son Keoni once said that he thought the cat thinks of himself as the husband to our oldest cat, Nong On, but that she doesn't see it that way.  Who knows what they think, or how they feel about a range of things.

He has been sick lately, not looking very good for the past two months that my wife and kids have been living back in the States.  I'm still living in Bangkok, working, watching the cats, and taking care of the house (just being here, tending the plants and making sure nothing goes wrong).  I fed Ei Dum; that's not how that went before for him.  The hope was that his health could return, or at least that he would be doing better at the end of his life.  

Over the past week or so his health has declined further, maybe rapidly, or maybe it's just that I've noticed it more.  His tongue sticks out, all the time, he walks rigidly, and even breathing seems to cost him effort.  For the first time he will lay around our house areas sleeping, where before he would just hang out a little, and then go back to wherever he spent more time.  It would have been nice if I could pick him up and take him to the vet, but he hissed at me even just walking near him, or even in the process of feeding him.  All that concerned me, since it all overlaps some with signs of rabies.  Him being sick was troubling, but our cats being in contact with a deadly disease is even more of a concern.

So I kept asking others for advice, if those symptoms sound troubling, and what my options might be.  I wanted to get him help.  If someone said that sounds a lot like rabies I would become alarmed, and if they said something else maybe that could be calming.  No one I asked seemed to have any clear thoughts on it, or likely judgement.

In the past we had a rat get in our house (that can happen; we live in a heavily vegetated garden space), and my wife called local animal control staff to remove him, from being trapped in our bathroom.  Anyone else might have trapped the rat, or sorted out a way to kill him, but as a Buddhist family taking part in killing any animals isn't accepted.  Then it's odd how that works out related to eating meat, being a cause for animal deaths every single day.  It's fine if someone else does the killing; that's part of their karma.

It's too easy a perspective, it seems to me, as someone originally from a rural area.  I raised pigs for consumption as a 10 year old, and hunted at 13.  Visiting a chicken farm at around the age of 23 was one input to deciding to not take any further part in that cycle, and I became a vegetarian, for 17 years.  Then eventually effects from not balancing nutrition caused me to drop it again.  I still don't eat much meat.

Anyway, back to that cat.  My wife helped me reach out to another animal control agency, and they set up plans to check on the cat, and then to make arrangements to get him.  That was complicated, since they visited when he was here to check, then when he wasn't to capture him, and then left a trap (a box version with a door that closes behind him).  It didn't work at first, but I reset the trap and caught him, and he was taken away today, to get medical care.

It's all good right, a happy ending, as much as there could be one?  That extra day of delay in capturing him allowed me plenty of time to think it all through, and to hang out with Ei Dum one last time, sitting out in the driveway.  We weren't so close; I never petted him, and couldn't have if I had wanted to.  But he seemed to visit to have a space he could feel safe in, and I can't help but feel that I've betrayed him, even though it was for the purpose of getting him medical attention.  Maybe it brings up feelings related to losing that other cat, who we loved, as we love our other cats.

The process for treating him is getting him medical care through a government vet, then he will be cured and released to a farm area to stay in, surely provided with food there.  He will never return, and I can't know if he did recover or not.  It's hard to not be pessimistic about his chances.  

Does he have rabies though; is it really a condition that's dangerous to our cats, or to me?  I'm not that worried about me being bitten; I was once bit by a local shop cat (named Happy), and had those shots about two years ago, and I could go through it again.  She had rabies shots prior but given that disease is deadly the doctor I consulted said that it's best to be on the safe side, and get the vaccination shots.  

I still pet that cat; if she bites me again I'll go through it again.  She lost her freedom through that event, the little she had; she now generally stays in a cage, instead of just on a leash outside the shop, although they sometimes relax that back to leashing her.  Then at night she is more free, staying in open spaces within the shop and their living area.  The cause for her to lash out against me had probably been fighting with street cats upsetting her, even though she had known me since she was a small kitten, and I usually visit with her several times every week.  Do I sound strange yet, forming these odd attachments?

Happy as a little girl

I don't know if Ei Dum has rabies.  Maybe not?  No one could ever make any informed comment about what it means when a cat's tongue sticks out for days, or his other symptoms.  My mother is a registered nurse and her input was "that doesn't sound good."  Right, but what does it mean? 

What do I learn from all this, beyond working through the uncertainty, and feeling that I betrayed him?  In retrospect I could have visited a private vet, one part of a university program, borrowed a cage, and brought him back to them, paying for his treatment.  So that, that in hindsight there had been a way to capture him and get him treated, just not a straightforward one, and not one I considered in time.  

Also everything is much more difficult when you can't communicate well in the language everyone else uses.  I can order at a restaurant, or eavesdrop on work meetings, when I already know parts of what is being said, but my Thai language skills fall short long before I can discuss the health issues experienced by a street cat.  I don't know how it would have went for a vet to treat a cat that isn't accustomed to people.

It feels like this situation is triggering underlying feelings about death, loss, risk of illness, and responsibility to others that I'm not able to deal with consciously.  I did fulfill responsibility to protect my cats, and if they might become infected and carry rabies--as someone suggested might happen if they had vaccination shots, as of course they did--then all of this could relate to protecting my children.  It still doesn't feel like I did all that I could do, or the clearly right things.  It will probably prove difficult to return Ei Dum to good health, and instead of dying here he will die elsewhere.

It's a short next step to add "not around people who loved or cared about him," but then who did?  Someone else in this soi (side alley street) must have been feeding him for him to have lived this long, and maybe they cared about him more than we did.  

I can speak some Thai but I couldn't ask around about him, and I'm not on close terms with any neighbors anyway, beyond those in two local shops who are not based within this side street.  All of the neighbors collected on that first day when animal control staff came to pick him up, and failed, so the word got out, and there was no mention of anyone "owning" that cat.

One more of many tangents:  there are different categories of unowned cats here.  One of our cats was from a neighbor's cat having kittens, one was a "temple cat," and the other was born in a vocational college, to a mother that was no one's pet cat.  People often feed stray animals here; it's part of the culture.

Myra has a sweet habit of holding your face when you hold her

awhile back; 16 years ago next month

So Ei Dum lived a free but somewhat solitary life of being tolerated by some local cats, and fed by a couple of different people, but probably never truly cared for.  It's no wonder that the one other street cat was so malicious, living like that, but Ei Dum was not mean-spirited.  I guess to connect an ill-fitting happy ending onto his sad tale someone did take steps to get him medical care when he clearly needed it, but it's hard to accept that as a summary of events.  There is a small chance he will go on to lead a better life, but even then he may hate that life.  Or love it, if it works out; he may find the broader care and acceptance he never could here.  I like to think he was friends with my cats, that he had been accepted, even though it can be hard to tell.  They really don't even get along with each other very well.

All of this reminds me of the time that local canal turtle found a way to visit us, which I wrote about in this blog.  I botched early decisions about how to care for that turtle (it lives on aquatic snails, not vegetables), and had no idea if a badly cracked shell would be a terminal condition for her if returned back in that canal, and then turned her over to an animal rescue agency.  I had thought it was "him," but they corrected that.  She is alive now in a pond in a rural area, I hope, and in her case that's a likelihood. 

Thai society can be brutally cold; a live and let live acceptance of karma can land in roughly the same place insensitive acceptance of random luck does back in the US.  When I was ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk a fellow monk's family adopted an entire litter of cute little puppies, who I visited, and I later came to find out that either all of them, or at least most of them, died of diseases present in that area, from parasite exposure and such.  Then some rescue takes a different form, and leads to a better outcome; our youngest cat was born a street cat living in a vocational college, and her mother was killed by a dog when she was about a month old.  It's a little awkward to type it out, but she is probably more loved than most people.

It feels forced but I want to end on a positive note. 

Ei Dum may yet live, and truly thrive, offered a new hope through medical intervention.  I had no choice but to get him that chance, especially after what happened to Ju Tai.  I'll live with second guessing if I did my absolute best, but it will be better than living with that other kind of feeling of awful responsibility.

There is no chance of a next chapter to this story, but that part reminds me of something else too.  When I dropped off that turtle to the rescue agency--odd there even is a turtle rescue agency, right?--the premise was that you can't visit the turtle, that it's a wild animal, that you have no connection to, and will never see it again.  My wife was out of town that weekend and when she came back we went there and visited her, so she could say goodbye.  One nice part of Thai culture is that people treat others as people, and if the rules and formal process need to be thrown in the bin once in awhile to do the right thing then so it goes.  

If my wife was here we'd go visit that cat this weekend, but without her here maybe not.

Ahsoka Star Wars series related to other Star Wars content

of course they didn't bring back the best character from those earlier series

Normally I don't write about this kind of topic, but it has been interesting catching up on some Star Wars background related to watching the new Ahsoka series.  The main background is two cartoon series, Clone Wars and Rebels, beyond a lot of other books and such.

I never did review earlier related content when watching the other shows (Mandalorian, Obi-Wan, Boba Fett), even though the broader Star Wars story lines relate to those stories and characters too.  I'm temporarily living in a different part of the world than my kids just now, so catching older Star Wars content works out.  I'm running a lot too, and meditating, but still there are some extra quiet hours.

Youtube channels cover how individual characters or story components relate to what is being told week to week now, so I don't really plan to duplicate that.  I'll just pass on some thoughts and background, so that someone who has mostly only ever seen the 9 movies--10 or 11?; maybe something like Solo doesn't count--and limited tv show series content can better place Ahsoka themes.  More than for those other series the background enters in as relevant.

To place how much one could appreciate the show with no awareness of earlier related story lines it works to consider what it would be like watching Return of the Jedi without seeing the original two movies (#4 and 5 in that series, now).  It's fine, it stands alone, but it would lose a lot of story-value impact for dropping out all the earlier story line and character development.  

Ahsoka seems a little different because they really emphasize dramatic beats that are almost entirely cross-references, so pacing and meaning would seem odd if you watched it without knowing who Ahsoka even is.  She was briefly in a couple of Mandalorian episodes but that didn't describe cover her background.  They're not exactly getting her character right, but then since in earlier cartoon shows she was 13 or 14 or so and now maybe on towards 40 she would be different.  That's part what I will cover, what works and what doesn't.

Is it good?

Let's start there; yes and no.

Yes:  if you are really into Star Wars and watched a good bit of The Clone Wars and Rebels (series), or if you've just liked all of the series on Disney+.  Never mind liking all the movies; after the first 3 the rest were hit and miss.  Ahsoka characters and story extend most directly from the Clone Wars and Rebels series, with the latter series slightly better than the Clone Wars, I thought.

No:  it's not too "woke" to be ok, pushing some agenda, but if you thought the other Disney+ series didn't tell great stories or build characters effectively, and you aren't already familiar with these ones, you should probably pass on this one too.  It's much more interesting based on the earlier story development, and these characters are fairly one-dimensional, at best.  

Ahsoka was a more compelling, personable, and dynamic character in the other two cartoon series; it just is what it is.  Rosario Dawson delivers her lines so, so slowly, I guess mimicking the serious demeanor of the older Obi-Wan character (the Alec Guiness version).  It doesn't work.

What should you watch to catch up?

Youtube fan channels tend to suggest a half dozen specific Clone Wars and Rebels episodes; catching one of those and watching what they say to would work.  That's if you subscribe to Disney+; I don't think it's worth it otherwise, but then you wouldn't have access to this Ahsoka series either without that.  Just catching the very last Rebels episode is probably enough (or maybe that was in two parts?; they often are).  

There is a Clone Wars cartoon movie; if cartoons are of interest that's probably a shorter and more integrated story, easier to catch up on than watching a few dozen short episodes.  The end of the Clone Wars series tells the story of Anakin's change to becoming Darth Vader from a different perspective, very indirectly, but to me it was almost more moving than the live action "Attack of Clones" direct story.

Skipping the Mandalorian episodes Ahsoka is in makes sense; she isn't developed at all in those.  Maul--formerly Darth Maul, later just Maul--is the most compelling character in both cartoon series, but he's not around in the Ahsoka show time-frame.  Anyone going back to watch just a little of all of it might catch only what he is in, and the two Mortis Gods related episodes, and the relative end of Rebels where Ezra visited the World Between Worlds (I think it was).

The main characters carrying over, Ahsoka and Sabine, and later Thrawn and Ezra, are different enough that catching a lot of Rebels would be overkill.  Those Youtube commentary channel content producers would say that you really need to understand who Thrawn is, and the witches (Night Sisters), but catching only the last Rebels episode covers Thrawn, and there's no need to sort out the Night Sisters, since they barely do anything in Ahsoka.  To me that was quite interesting background, so I'd recommend it for other reasons, if watching cartoons works for someone.

What gets extended, beyond those earlier shows

Most of the show content is about new directions.  There is earlier "expanded universe" Star Wars content in the forms of other cartoons, books, video games, and whatever else, and surely parts of all that relates more directly than Rebels or Clone Wars.  Since the main characters all were in Rebels (Ahsoka, Sabine, Ezra, Thrawn, and earlier on Hera) their intro is there; I mean related to where the story goes after the first couple of episodes.

Baylan is more or less a grey Jedi, it would seem, or perhaps dark Jedi (the extra categories get confusing), one turned away from the most positive "light side of the Force" range.  He is probably the main character addition, but since that actor (Ray Stevenson) died since filming not one that will probably continue on.  Morgan is a "Night Sister," a witch, and others turn up.  The range of their magical abilities varies; they can shoot energy blasts, make up some sort of force shield, enhance others' powers, and extended the furthest they can raise the dead as zombies.  It all works better than it sounds.  The plot in this show will determine what they need to be able to do, which isn't too much until the end.

Most of the first half of the season is build-up; they visited where Thrawn (the bad-guy Empire military leader) was transported with Ezra, a Jedi in training.  What is going on in that place is only hinted at in the first episode there.  Star Wars, and Marvel and other series, tend to all often commit the error of using most of the season to build up a solid, compelling story base, and then conclude that in two episodes at the end, speeding pace of progression tenfold.  Looking back half of what happens in the first third of the shows is filler, directionless content that sets up the world and characters but should've done so faster.

On to the series conclusion (with some spoilers)

They did finally wrap up initial intro and build-up in episode 7, finally re-uniting the main characters, and all that was left is for them all to return back to where they started in the 8th and last episode.  That's really the core of the plot:  Thrawn and Ezra, the main antagonist and protagonist in Rebels, were relocated to a distant place at the end of that series, resolving Thrawn's initiative to end the rebellion, and this whole series is about them coming back, with anyone getting left behind as a starting point for later.  

As to limitations or problems the story lines with Baylan and Shin just drop.  They must have cut out a lot related to the actor not being around to continue the role, since he died after filming, but it still just completely hangs at the end.  

Half of what happened in the 8 part series happened in the last two episodes, and it wasn't all that much.  All the main characters only met each other in #7.  For people who have been following these story lines for the last 17 years, or whatever it has been, with related books out since the 80s, every cross-reference and hint at a new direction could be meaningful and much appreciated, but for anyone else it would just seem slow.  

I've watched all of the movies, Clone Wars and Rebels, and every Star Wars show (so I guess I'm a fan?), but for me the shows need to actually move a story along more, they can't just reference old ideas and hint at what might follow.  It was nice seeing Hayden Christianson fill in some largely unnecessary scenes as Anakin; that worked, even though it is only a reference, not an actual part of the story plot.  If you go back and watch every two-part episode of the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoon series more happened in every one of those than this entire show series.

Does this work to re-start new Star Wars direction?

I think so.  The earlier Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Obiwan, and Andor weren't set up to do that, although Mandalorian comes the closest, by far.  It's problematic that they're telling stories mixed within different parts of the timeline, so that Andor leads directly to Rogue One, but stops there (kind of; there is plenty of gap to add a couple more series in between).  Here's that timeline order (listed in references like this one):

1. Episode I: The Phantom Menace
2. Episode II: Attack of the Clones 
3. The Clone Wars (TV show and movie)
4. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
5. Bad Batch
6. Solo: A Star Wars Story
7. Obi-Wan Kenobi 
8. Star Wars Rebels 
9. Andor 
10. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 
11. Episode IV: A New Hope 
12. Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
13. Episode VI: Return of the Jedi 
14. The Mandalorian 
15. The Book of Boba Fett 
16. Star Wars Resistance
17. Episode VII: The Force Awakens 
18. Episode VIII: The Last Jedi 
19. Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

So Ahsoka is after Rebels, and even after Return of the Jedi, after the Empire was defeated.  Probably Star Wars channels could place it better in relation to the Mandalorian and Boba Fett, or maybe there aren't enough timetable markers in the movie to make that clear.

Since the last three movies were so badly received that throws off developing the most natural themes, going later than all of it.  Starting well before the prequels is possible.  Folding in completely different scope is the most natural direction, as Clone Wars and Rebels did, adding Night Sisters, Maul, and Mortis Gods story lines, or linking to pre-history, which the entire other location in Ahsoka points towards.  It looks like there's a time-gap between 13 and 14 on that list.

They had really set up Baylan, the character based on the actor that died, as the next main center of that story line, so they'll need to work out a story shift to account for that, or re-cast the role, which Star Wars tends not to do.  Obiwan was played by two actors, but in different parts of the character's life, and the Baylan Skoll character was already old.  They could make him young again, a Gandalf returning from death sort of theme, but radically changing the rules to the universe in the sequels is part of what fans hated.  They should probably bring back Mark Hamill as a grey Jedi, later on, while he is still around; that could all link together, and back-story leaps that actually work would be better accepted.

Ahsoka would've worked better as its own series, standing alone, if it was made to actually do that, to tell a unique and distinct story.  Since it only carried forward the last stopping point and introduced new directions it was ok for that.  It limits the potential audience, since it wasn't an interesting enough stand-alone story to work as that for people who have only seen the nine main movies (or 10 or 11; however you count them).

Potential fasting health benefits; normalizing fasting practice

 

The last post about fasting experience settled in on "why?," never fully resolving that, and I'll only repeat that theme a bit here, extending it to two different directions.

The main answer in the past has been "to experiment."  Of course most people fast to lose weight, but my own body weight seems strongly inclined to return to the previous level (about 74 kg or 165 pounds), and since that's reasonable I don't try to adjust that.  Maybe I should shift back to more like 71 kg / 160, and will at some point.

After 20 days of experience of not eating that initial experimentation phase is kind of done; so what's next?  Any answer would relate to potential or expected health benefits, so lets summarize that, after placing why I'm trying to communicate this.

I would like to share these ideas to make the option to practice fasting open to more people.  I don't need to validate what I'm doing, to get others to join in so it makes it seem like it really does make sense.  For the most part I don't care what other people do, or think.  Related to helping other people I make an exception, and then if I can I do.  So I guess all this is a claim that I buy into the health benefits?  I'm a bit skeptical, but otherwise I do.

On to potential benefits.

Fasting may enable metabolic flexibility.  This would allow someone to use body fat energy more effectively, which could apply well to exercise, not just to not eating, although I guess also to being able to skip lunch.  I do seem to experience improved energy level on longer runs.  

I last tested out running four miles on day 4 of a fast, so completely into ketosis, with glycogen reserves long since expended, and that went ok.  I was experiencing minor knee soreness (so probably shouldn't have even ran that), so I didn't try out a longer test.

Fasting reduces insulin resistance:  This actually seems to work; it seems more clearly documented as an actual positive effect.  For people at risk of developing adult onset diabetes--which is a significant risk for me; both of my grandmothers and one uncle developed that--they can reduce that risk through fasting, moderating body weight, and reducing high levels of intake of carbohydrates, especially refined sugars. 

There's nothing necessarily dangerous about all refined sugar intake, per my understanding (which is not necessarily well-informed), it's that it's easy to bump that to very high levels, and then actual risk does come up.  Drinking 32 ounces of soda relates to about 100 grams of sugar consumption, at around 336 calories, or one sixth of a normal day's dietary caloric intake.  That's like eating 6 1/2 apples; which would take longer to digest for all that fiber, even if you could eat that many.  Risk also relates to that being empty of any other nutrient content, to that potentially adding to a positive caloric balance (more taken in than used), and to problems with your body handling the related blood sugar.  Conversion to body fat can occur, and some other negative side effects, and to developed insulin resistance.  

It's probably better to moderate body weight and mind dietary inputs than to use fasting to offset impacts of being overweight and eating a bad diet.  Or doing both is an option.  Maintaining significant muscle mass also helps (not like bodybuilders, I mean average or more than average), for different reasons, especially since muscle tissue stores glycogen (reserve energy), but I don't want to write out too many tangents in this.

Fasting may reduce visceral body fat.  There are tests for this sort of thing, so I could be documenting this (my actual proportion of body fat by location), but I'm not.  The idea is that fat in or between organs is used first when fasting, and that first change is not at all just a cosmetic concern.  Liver function should improve as a direct result of regular fasting, if fat deposits in the liver were an issue to begin with.  How often is that relevant though?  Who knows.  Blood compound markers would show that, but I'm not minding those, and missed my last annual health check at work due to being out of the country then.  

I can add that I've put on about 3 kgs (6 1/2 pounds) over the last two years and my waist size was a little larger a year ago, and then bumping running volume and perhaps fasting dropped it back to where it had been.  Thinking it through storing visceral fat in the form of what is in between internal organs may or may not be a bad thing, but it seems clearer that storing fat within your liver is a problem.

More mental clarity, reduced aging effects:  hard to say about these kinds of changes.  I feel ok, probably a little clearer, but that's hard to track.  Maybe I do have slightly less grey hair than a year ago, which is odd.  I can even sometimes see eyebrow hair change from white to brown again, since those being two colors stands out more--hard to place that.  I've been running more since then too, really keeping up with sleep, exercising a lot more, and my diet has improved a bit.  

And I've ramped up intake of goji berries as a daily supplement; that might've helped.  I finished a kg I bought in mid-June recently, so I seem to be consuming 350 grams or so per month, just over 10 grams a day, a good bit.  Why?  My thinking was that I try to eat a lot of fruit but don't get to that every day, and I definitely can put 10 grams or so of dried berries in hot water and then consume the infusion and fruit, every day, regardless of what I happen to be eating that day.  Supposedly one compound in those offsets aging impact, but even if it's the nutrients in them that are healthy instead that also works.

Fasting may offset cancer

This is a big one, and this tangent runs longer than I intended, since I've been reviewing this subject a good bit lately, just not necessarily in a focused form.  

I have no idea if fasting does really offset cancer risk or assist with resolution, but many, many sources claim that both do occur.  I can't sort out which potential claims work or don't work, or when and how they apply.  From catching a bit of cancer experience related Youtube content--which I'll say more about here--cancer cells do consume a lot of blood sugar, so that a main way of tracking growth of such tissue is to just monitor where the most is being consumed in the body (after you ingest some radioactive sugar; kind of a strange process).  I'm not really caught up on what my cells are using for an energy source right now (it's day 2 of a fast, as I write the first draft, long before posting this), but of course my carbohydrate intake is over, for now.  I'll probably be "in ketosis" later today, whatever that means.  

Autophagy is said to occur during fasting (and it really does, but exactly what that means is harder to pin down).  At a minimum your body consumes internal body fat (of course; how else could you stay alive, since only using muscle tissue as an energy source would make less sense), and it may recycle all sorts of damaged cells.  It's a complicated subject though, one that's hard to sort out.

Someone could easily turn up a lot of content saying that fasting really does offset cancer risk (this is an interesting example), or support treatment / resolution, but how good any of those sources are would be hard to settle.  Cancer isn't just one thing, and experiences would vary, and a topic like that naturally relates to a lot of people repeating what they want to be true, filtering their own reference source input.  A lot of light medical advice looks more solid than it might really be, and a source citing other sources isn't clearly well-grounded until you also evaluate those.  That linked video reference cites a lot of research background, but even for those kinds of sources you need to be careful; you might read only about studies supporting some claim, when conclusions from other studies also reject that connection.

Those cancer related accounts come from running across a Youtube channel about someone experiencing cancer, Paul in Perth, and then the Youtube algorithm showing me plenty more of that since that's how it works.  If you watch one channel about puppies, even if you're not subscribed to it, you'll see lots more of that in your feed there.  It can be a little depressing, watching people talk about dying, but for the most part those stories are about being hopeful and positive when things are dark for them.  To me those people tend to be more inspiring than any other accounts of any subjects.

In a comment I asked Paul in Perth if he could use fasting for cancer resolution and he said that it could have potentially helped at an earlier stage, but for his disease being so far progressed negative effects related to recovery from chemo treatments made it relatively unsuitable (per his understanding, related to his own condition and type of cancer).  

I just saw a video of a guy literally at the end, Daryl, saying that he was signing off since he would die within a day or two, and he was much more positive and upbeat than almost any movie review content.  He showed a box / urn he picked out, shook it, and said "this is light; I guess I'm not in there yet."  A 16 year old girl, who goes by So Fia, ended a long series of posts about her struggle focused entirely on the positive, about her love of life, and appreciation for what she had.  She was so much stronger, braver, and more wise than any other "healthy" influencer type I've ever seen.  The main message is usually one of hope and optimism, about appreciation for life, not fear of death.

None of this related to fasting, to be clear.  None of them even tried it out as a form of partial resolution, although there surely are videos out there about people who did feel fasting helped them, which again would be hard to evaluate, or people trying it and not noticing any positive difference.  

Should those people have tried it out?  I have no idea.  According to health claims within "fasting circles" of course they should have, but personally I can't place that.  There is no clear cause and effect for why they developed cancer, or why others experienced miracle recoveries that they did not, some related to fasting and many more not (the first guy I mentioned a video channel for is still alive; the other two are not).  

In many cases people link cancer experience to high carbohydrate diets (back to hearsay input from cancer patients, to be clear).  Discussion of treatment experimentation comes up more related to keto-oriented diets (more than fasting, I suppose, at least per limited and random sampling).  That's not intended as a claim that generality or that resolution practice is effective, I'm referencing their understanding.  In looking up those video links this content creator thinks his cancer stemmed from a vitamin D deficiency, oxidative stress (from multiple inputs), from alcohol exposure, and a high carbohydrate diet.  Who knows; maybe those were the main causes, surely along with genetics.  

I've skipped including links to people claiming fasting helped them resolve cancer experiences here; even a post focused on that topic would be taking on a lot.  I'd also be careful of trusting what seem to be very well grounded but light information sources online linking fasting with cancer prevention or resolution, of which there are many.  It can seem that if one source might be valid or could be questionable that 10 taken together must be reliable, but many people make videos citing the same studies on mice that may or may not mean a lot related to actual human experience.  They might be generating that content with a slightly different spin mostly to draw viewership, without really turning up any new insights, or in some cases even without reviewing more grounded sources.

Why would I embrace fasting as a means to potentially offset a risk that's not necessarily high for me, when it's hard to clearly determine the linkage that it even works (beyond a lot of claims floating around)?  One partial answer is that I'm discussing potential reduced risk of dying, at a cost of not eating sometimes.  I've spent roughly 20 days fasting over the past year (25, after editing this; I just finished another 5 day fast), and the main cost or impact was increased hunger and reduced clarity and energy level over that time.  All of that was much more moderate in the last fast, and hunger is much more of a non-issue this time too.  People actually claim that fasting improves mental clarity, but what I mean here is that energy level fluctuations have an impact, especially in the first 3 or 4 trials.

Another partial answer is that reduced cancer risk isn't really the main benefit people associate with fasting, beyond weight loss, and it's not necessarily a main reason I'm doing it.  Supposedly--as mentioned--it offsets effects of aging, increases mental clarity (when it's not offsetting it), reduces visceral fat levels and impact, and offsets risks from insulin resistance, lowering risk of diabetes.  Autophagy is another subject I won't really get into here, closely linked to potentially reduced cancer risk, which I've covered more in the past.

Why wouldn't people fast then?  There seems to be a lot of potential benefit, and most people could use to lose a few pounds.  Let's address that separately.  

Why not fast?  Normalizing fasting practice.

In discussing that in a health related thread someone commented "that sounds like complete torture."  There's that; hunger experience is profound over the first few trials.  It's so negative that exposure to a consistent problematic condition like that works as a mindfulness tool, a way of experiencing the present moment differently.

In light of that it would be natural for people not to fast if they aren't sold on any of these benefits, if they have no clear reason to.  I'm only going to mention it to set it aside here but it's hard to be certain any of these claims completely work.  What someone considers good evidence would shift what any individual review would turn up.  If it's only to find documented research of multiple independent findings then maybe that would be possible, but you would still need to interpret what a number of narrow studies really mean in actual practice.

If finding a couple of dozen "health expert" claims and personal experience accounts is enough then that would be an easy bar to clear.  I'm a bit skeptical by nature, so I tend to arrive at probabilities related to what I think is accurate, not necessarily even trying to sort out the final facts of the matter.

Some people might actually regard fasting as posing health risks, although anyone unfamiliar with the subject also couldn't be clear on what those are.  Vitamin deficiency, stomach problems?  The second is mentioned more, when you tell people you practice fasting (per my experience, at least).  

Oddly people who eat continuously throughout the day would actually routinely experience stomach problems, and I never do, because I eat moderate amounts of foods almost entirely as three meals.  That was true before I tried out fasting too though.  I'm unfamiliar with what it's like to regularly experience an upset stomach, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, or any problems with digesting food.  By "regularly" I mean that I might eat something that speeds up my digestion process once a year, or every other year, or that makes me even sicker every half dozen years.  That's not bad for eating a broad mix of local foods in Bangkok.  The rest I essentially never experience.  Some vegetables, legumes and beans, or high protein foods cause gas; that range of experience is familiar, especially as a former long-term vegetarian.

Fasting hasn't caused me any noticeable stomach problems, in those 25 days.  I get hungry, but not like during the first three trials.  That relates more to an empty feeling than other types of discomfort.  Really empty; it's hard to describe.  As of writing an initial draft of this, on day 2 of 5, I could go for most of an hour without being reminded that I am fasting, and the next day maybe even longer, but that's not to say that I felt no negative side effects.  I was hungry, with a low energy level, but I might not notice either for awhile if I'm busy, or even watching a video.

In bodybuilding circles rapid fat loss is very desirable, but muscle tissue loss is a serious concern, so fasting can be applied, but only in limited forms and contexts.  One of the main intros to this subject, that partly led me to explore fasting practices, was from one longevity related "biohacker" bringing it up, and one bodybuilder (Leo and Longevity and "Vigorous Steve," who isn't as far out there as his Youtuber brand name implies, but a little maybe).  

Steve used fasting to rapidly resolve fatty liver disease, even though applying a fasting mimicking diet for weeks cost him plenty of muscle mass loss.  Most of that muscle came back fast, and it seemed the very real health risk caused him to reconsider even trying to be as massive again (the 250 pound or up range, I think).  Leo explored fasting as he did many longevity related pursuits.  Steve feels absolutely certain that fasting does definitely reduce visceral body fat, from experiencing that, and perhaps Leo's direct experiential claims are harder to evaluate.

Most people in a Reddit fasting sub-forum I follow practice fasting mainly to lose weight, which makes sense.  It's a somewhat radical approach, but it should work.  Often people either struggle to make it through 24 hours there or else really swing for the fence and go straight to attempting 21 day fasts, which I see as unnecessarily difficult and risky.  With more exposure people seem to settle on alternating fasting and eating, on a 2 or 3 day cycle, which they might refer to as "rolling 72s," the hour duration.  Since the benefit of autophagy is said to "kick in" after 2 days I would think using a 3 day cycle might be better than 2.  Or 4 would work; for me the second day is hardest in terms of hunger and the third is most disruptive for experienced energy level.  

Few people would be familiar with how fasting isn't as unpleasant an experience after repeated exposure.  I can compare it to how running can definitely seem distinctly unpleasant prior to more exposure than most people would ever experience, and then it's kind of pleasant, even addictive.  I think fasting ends up being more neutral, not so difficult, and definitely not pleasant, but just normal over time.  

Maybe level of discomfort can be comparable to when you get 5 or 6 hours sleep instead of 8 (which I don't do; I need my sleep, and I put my time in with sleep deprivation working night shifts when younger and raising young kids after that).  For many people that's a normal trade-off, a way to go through life, so that eventually they wouldn't even notice feeling a bit hazy and off, after their body adjusts to it.  At this point I'd much rather not eat for a day or two than try to function on 5 hours sleep.

My take on fasting benefits

I've really not been clear on how many benefits I buy into here, or which I seem to directly experience.  That only works so well because the largest scale benefits you can't pin down, like reducing cancer or diabetes risk.  Maybe I'm mentally clearer, but that's really hard to track too.  So many things factor into that.  My experience of digestion can't improve because I've never had problems, but it hasn't worsened.  

Resetting my diet to a somewhat healthier form has definitely happened, but oddly I was eating a really healthy diet a year ago, before a first trial.  There were a few snacks to shift to a healthier form, and I could've dialed in generally healthy food intake to a level that may be a bit extreme, and did so.  I think all of that has supported taking my running habit a lot further over the past year, but again inputs and outcomes are complicated.  I know that I've ran between 15 and 20 miles a week for all this year, but I can't trace that directly back to diet improvement; maybe I could've did the same eating worse instead of better.  I feel like it helped my energy level when running, the metabolic flexibility theme, but who knows.  

It's too bad I skipped my annual health check-up last year, due to being out of the country when my company conducts those, and probably will again this year; that would be a good way to track some change, potentially, and undergoing that is a good idea in general.

Fasting has changed how I experience an urge to snack between meals, which was always somewhat limited.  I had switched from eating a bit of chocolate--or potato chips, if they were around--to some mixed nuts between meals around a year ago, and after fasting I tend to snack as a habit even less.  Fasting highlights how much of that practice relates to immediate triggers, like seeing something, or to boredom, and it can become more normal to drop out both cycles.

In conclusion...

Fasting is an option?  But then it always was.  

I've taken up and set aside a lot of atypical practices over the course of my life, and it's interesting considering why others don't do those things, or when maybe more will, or I guess in some cases to what extent I'm making any sense at all.  I was a vegetarian for 17 years, which I ended about a dozen years ago, due to not putting the right effort in to get it to balance, and experiencing immune system problems.  Since then it has become a lot more mainstream.  

I was into rock climbing in the early 90s, and thought this is so cool it will have to "take off," not noticing that it being gear intensive and difficult would probably prevent that (and has).  I explored Buddhism for many years, but then I always knew that was for my own reasons, that there was never going to be broad uptake.  This being a tea blog of course that pattern applies to that beverage choice too.

Fasting will probably never really have its day as a broad trend, at least not in the immediate future.  People only need to skip breakfast and lunch to see why it's not a standard option; you get hungry.  That gets worse on day two, even if it's much diminished on a third or fourth fasting experience.  "Biohacking" is much more approachable; taking a lot of supplements and drugs.  I get it.  I'm not on that page myself but I get it.

I reset to a healthier diet but it's still based on normal food