Stuff I've learned

To answer some questions I raised in my previous posts:

1. Yes, actually, everyone is pretty much in agreement that short fasts are good for you. Sorry, "conventional wisdom"! I guess I'm just a bit behind the times. When I started digging into intermittent fasting (this is a good starting place), I found out that not only is it hugely popular, but the benefits are all right there on Wikipedia for anyone to see. And if that's not conventional wisdom, I don't know what is.

2. Yes, apparently you ARE supposed to maintain an eight-hour eating window every day, forever. Fasts that last a bit longer are good, too, but "8/16" is considered a very mild, easy, maintainable way of fasting. And do you know what? It is really easy. I set out to try it for just one day, but once I started, I didn't want to stop, and I've been doing it for almost a week straight now. It makes me feel fantastic, not to mention free from the tyranny of trying to think of a fourth meal to cook in the evenings. And it is much more satisfying to have three (or even two) larger meals than a bunch of snacks. (In case you're worried, I would never push fasting of any kind on the kids. They just fend for themselves in the evenings.)

So now you're updated on the latest New Life Plan. (The exercise stuff, sprinting in particular, has kind of fallen by the wayside for now, although I am still doing a lot of yoga.) The only downside is that if I'm going to eat three meals a day instead of four, I need to reduce the number of cheat meals I get each week to stay 90% primal (because all that stuff is still part of the NLP). Bummer.