My Experience with Beginning Intermittent Fasting

Usually, whenever I make some kind of change it's either I change a lot of things at once or I don't do it at all. What I've been doing lately wasn't exactly meant to be this way, but it's worked out nicely. Since I quit smoking, I figured I'd start working out. Since I started working out, I figured I'd give this intermittent fasting thing a shot. Since I started doing IF, I figured I'd make what I do eat within my day's eating window count and be relatively healthy because I won't have an opportunity to eat at all outside of that window. (All IF is is basically putting everything you eat into an 8 hour eating window every day and not consuming any calories outside of that time frame.)

Ever since I've been doing all this, I feel tremendous. My mind is far more alert and focused than I thought could happen without drugs (i.e. adderall and the like), and it's free. My body feels better overall, like I can control it instead of the other way about, and more energetic and efficient (if that makes sense). And both my mind and body easily "start up", so to speak, rather than more or less idling lazily without being able to get going whenever I'd like. I don't think any one of these changes would have worked to make me feel like I do at present on their own, but it took doing them all together for this to happen.

And because it's lifestyle change, it's really not as hard as it sounds precisely for that reason. This goes for any such change. It's almost comparable to imagining yourself as a different person; there wouldn't be a conflict with how you feel, what wants and needs you have, the certain views you hold, etc., right now. You would just be that other person, feel however they feel, want what they want, hold their views and so on, and that's that. Making a lifestyle change is basically doing exactly that, except you get to keep the same body and memories. So don't let it scare you if you've ever thought about doing anything like that. It's not as hard as it seems. Life's so much better when you try new things.

For a detailed overview of what IF is, how it works, and the science behind it, read The Beginner's Guide to Intermittent Fasting on NerdFitness.com

But if you need some guidance getting started, A.B. Dada, the owner of 7BuckTees, came up with his own two week self study for whoever wants to try out IF. It acts as a guide to what your body and mind should be going through for the first two weeks of sticking to IF; as such it is very encouraging.

Intermittent Fasting: Day 1
Intermittent Fasting: Day 2
Intermittent Fasting: Day 3
Intermittent Fasting: Day 4
Intermittent Fasting: Day 5
Intermittent Fasting: Day 6
Intermittent Fasting: Day 7
Intermittent Fasting: Day 8
Intermittent Fasting: Day 9
Intermittent Fasting: Day 10
Intermittent Fasting: Day 11
Intermittent Fasting: Day 12
Intermittent Fasting: Day 13
Intermittent Fasting: Day 14

Musings on the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision

In reality, the decision preserves a right for one company which is being denied to every other one—namely the right of property (of which "religious" rights are but a form) and the right to do with one's property whatever one wishes to. Companies (i.e. the people who own them) have a natural right to give or not give anything they'd like to their employees, just as you and I have the same right—and I'm sure you will agree that someone coming into the picture and forcing us to do things with the things we own only because they say so and happen to have a gun is insane. The underlying principle to the left's outrage about the decision is that they need to demonize all excuses precisely so that companies—and people in general—will obey them and not exercise their natural freedoms, because it would foil their political aims. In this particular situation, the left wants you to hate that companies get religious exemptions from a legislation they want to force on all companies everywhere, so they ridicule it when it's used. And that's good, because the left never had a right to force anything on anyone to begin with. That's why they dress it up and try to explain to you only the narrow picture, because only through that microscopic lens does anything they do resemble sense.

Furthermore, every other company is being forced to provide coverage they may or may not want to provide, a service that may or may not be in demand, that may or may not be in adequate supply to meet the unknown (and, because of this, unknowable) demand, or that may not even be economically feasible for the company with the now mandatory costs of providing the coverage. Not to mention the law forces the prices of contraceptives up, and since the companies are the ones that are forced to pay the costs, it ultimately results in either lower wages for employees, lower hours, or fewer employees altogether (or a mix of these things). That surely contradicts the left's rhetoric elsewhere. And these points only scratch the surface of the economic consequences.

And this is the way ownership and freedom of property works: If the employees (or would be employees) don't like that a company doesn't provide some benefit, they don't have to work there and can (and will very likely) find another job which will provide such coverage. Competition will eventually force companies not providing such coverage to provide it or else go out of business. People and people who own companies have rights, but that doesn't mean there won't be consequences for acting in a certain way. The free market takes care of itself. There is no need for the state's involvement. I just wish more people would realize that before taking absurd ideas like the ones being spread around about this decision to heart.