On the 7th of November 2020 I began experimenting with the way I eat.
I had been thinking about making changes around food for some time prior in order to explore ways in addressing the many clear deficiencies I could see in the food of modernity.
As something so close, so sacred, to the life and experience of all, food is always a controversial, emotionally resonant topic and there are at least twice as many opinions about what and how to eat than there are people on this planet. But on the rare occasions I have mentioned offhand what I was doing to people, those that didn’t think I was completely crazy seemed to find it fascinating, so it is at the urging of a few of them (Hello) that I write this, along with it serving as something of a personal review.
The chief guiding principle for me in this eating endeavour was reintroducing volatility, as the contemporary environment is too stable, too regular, too overabundant – the source of many ills – having lost all notion of seasonality, scarcity, and ‘stochasticity’. To this end I aspired to continually try to mix things up a bit, not just in what I was eating, but when, and how much. So too was there a certain multi-scale (perhaps fractal) quality I tried to incorporate by considering what I was doing across various scales of days, weeks, months, and the year.
It is in this way that how I approached everything is both complex to explain and yet simple, because it was a confluence of basic rules, overarching patterns, intuition, everyday life, and many other factors shaping what I did as I went along. I understood from the outset this would just be a first iteration and that I needed to let things be flexible and sometimes adjust on the fly, both to address the unaccounted and that I would likely refine things as I went along learning from experience. But on the whole I have mostly succeeded in just what my initial ends were from the outset, although even with volatility as the guiding star I was perhaps still too regular in doing certain things.
Before getting into the guts of my regime I should also mention this experience provided me an opportunity to be a further example to someone near to me who I had already been helping eat better and lose weight – who proceeded to up the ante by joining me and doing just as I did; in the process losing another 10kg (~22lbs) this year on top of an initial 20kg (~45lbs) that had already been lost from the year and a half or so previous. My weight by contrast continued to be quite stable, maybe oscillating +/- 2kg at times.
In general the guidelines were:
Whole real food
- Meat, dairy, eggs, nuts, and vegetables.
- Avoiding anything processed/over packaged.
- Growing or locally sourcing as much food as possible, eat seasonally (certainly room to improve here).
- Almost never ate out except a couple times when travelling, and even then…
No sugar
- The only exceptions being four days of Easter, my birthday, and the week of Christmas to New Year.
- Also ended up hardly ever having fruit.
No breakfast
- Generally lunch at around 11.30am and dinner around 6.30pm but could vary.
- Tried to sometimes have the main meal for lunch instead of dinner.
- Sometimes one meal a day (slightly larger).
Fasting
- One day (~40hrs) a week
- Two days (~60+hrs) every month
- Three+ days once a year
- Water only (which is the only thing I drink anyway), although I more recently started experimenting with having a little salt, maybe a teaspoon or so, during the longer ones.
- The fasts were almost always on Saturday if one day and Saturday-Sunday if two days, it took nearly till September to occur to me that this was too consistent and to start mixing it up a bit more, next most often day was a Thursday.
Minimal carbs
- This was primarily to aid with my companion’s weight loss, although I personally prefer a more ketogenic diet anyway. So no bread, potatoes, oats, rice, pasta, etc.
- Carbs were allowed on days sugar was allowed and for the month of August which half overlapped with one of the vegetarian periods.
- Tried to be sparing and not overdo legumes and gourds.
No meat one day a week. No meat for one month twice a year
- Crudely aping Lent the month before Easter and then again doing another month later in the year.
- Had a single fish dish at the midpoint through the pre-Easter month.
- Experimented with no cheese, milk, or butter days during this period – tricky and sad, especially without carbs.
No seed/vegetable oils
- Primarily just Olive oil, Butter, Animal Fats,
- Occasionally Coconut, Avocado, Macadamia.
Fish two days a week every three of four weeks, and one day a week on the fourth
- Usually Salmon, or also Gurnard, Snapper.
- Not a big fish or seafood fan.
- Days often fell in the middle of the week.
My vague records of the year improved a little as it went along, but seeing as May, one of the tidier examples, looks like this:
I have done up my calendar below a bit neater than my chicken-scratch would otherwise allow. It’s not completely comprehensive – there are gaps – especially early on, for example several midday meals (often some form of eggs) and when I was travelling (mostly in the months of April and July) during which the carb, fish, and vegetarian rules were also relaxed a bit. Off the top of my head when travelling I was eating steak, onions, eggs, sausages, spinach, silverbeet, carrots, broccoli, bacon, mince, cheese, green beans, tomatoes, peas, lettuce, roast lamb, pasta, potatoes, margherita pizza, rice, etc. – which other than the carbs were some of the common staples the rest of the time anyway.
One major staple in the year was avocado with most meals. Only occasionally did I snack on anything at all in between meals (usually almonds, cheese, or walnuts).
Nevertheless:
It’s amusing to me observing certain patterns of dishes falling in and out of fashion. I tried new things (particularly with fish and vegetarian meals) even though the record doesn’t always make this clear, but when I found certain ones I liked they would get regularly repeated. Variety of meals is something that I might continue endeavouring to increase, but there’s some truth to the idea that in general people have a repertoire of maybe a dozen or so dishes that get cycled through.
A few… takeaways:
Fasting is something you adapt to. Depending on your state and your diet beforehand it can be rough at the start of doing a fast if you just dive right in, but you will get used to it over time. Keeping the food you put in your body clean (most notably in terms of sugar) will always make it easier. People probably fast sometimes for short periods more than they realise anyway. Ultimately, so much of fasting is mental due to having the desire for the pleasure of eating despite there being no actual underlying sensation of hunger. Even then, hunger is often a symptom of routine more than anything and goes away in about ten minutes when you do experience it, especially if focusing on something else. You mostly lose water weight when fasting and dehydration might be an issue despite feeling like you drink an adequate amount. It wasn’t unusual for me to feel somewhat dehydrated or having dry lips despite struggling to drink any more water than I already did. One factor is probably lack of salt, which as I mentioned I’ve started to more recently supplement with a little bit in experiment. I also find I always sleep less and/or lighter while fasting, with a seeming higher level of alertness.
Exercise can be both easier and harder when in a fast, since strength and stamina can feel lower but perhaps because of your being lighter things such as bodyweight exercises can also seem easier.
(Exercise of course is the other key piece to fit all of this, but I won’t go into any detail on that topic here. Suffice to say it’s something I do usually in the morning, at least 3 days a week, often followed by a 30 minute sauna. Personally, r/bodyweightfitness’s recommended routine is one starting point that I’ve since built on and off from, as well as kettlebell training and walking at least 30 minutes almost every day, usually in the afternoon.)
One of the best things is that festivals really feel like festivals. Going from fasting to feasting. The infrequency of indulging in ‘treat’ food (or anything uncommon for that matter), the anticipation of each day closer, planning and preparation, all serve to make an occasion special.
I must confess Easter was a lesson in overdoing it. In the course of the Friday to Sunday in the usual eating window I had several bacon, cheese, onion, and tomato croissants, Roast pork belly, vegetables, and potatoes with gravy and applesauce, apple pie with whipped cream, a stacked steak, bacon, cheese, onion, tomato, carrot, lettuce, gherkin, and guacamole sourdough sandwich, a couple potato-top mince pies, a chocolate cheesecake with cream, half a dozen hand-sized chocolate chip biscuits, cheese and bacon hot chips with bbq sauce, sweet and sour pork with egg fried rice, caramel eclairs, trays of four different kinds of chocolate slice, various chocolate truffles, and half a jar of chocolate peanut butter, with a couple leftovers on the Monday. Almost all homemade. I’ve never been so stuffed in my life, but taking indulgence to such extreme certainly tempered me with the wisdom and desire to never do that again. And I haven’t.
Honestly other than the apple pie, and one of the slices; sugary food is not all as great as it’s cracked up to be, and you’ll feel worse for it afterwards (your body always has its revenge) – just isn’t worth it.
It’s surprising how good a substitute cauliflower is for most carbohydrates except the bready ones. There’s an almond flour, cheese, and egg recipe for keto naan bread I found that doubles as a pretty good pizza base.
Some ideas for next year I’m kicking around to maybe try are dropping all foods from the Americas for a period of time, having a dairy free period around milk dry-off season, do a month of meat only, have occasionally more homemade bread say for a day or two here and there, and maybe at some point in the future aim for a small fully self-sustaining period. Near endless opportunities to play around and try improving things.
In the end perhaps what’s most telling is the few times I stepped away from eating as I have described, like when travelling or the Easter blow out, I not long found myself looking forward to getting back to it.