How I lost weight by closing the window

I recently lost a bunch of weight by doing something called intermittent fasting. It's not a diet. You don't restrict your calories, but you do restrict the amount of time you will eat. But by doing intermittent fasting I have lost an average of 4 pounds per month pretty consistently.

8 Hour Window

There are many ways to do intermittent fasting. But probably the easiest way to begin is by only eating within an 8-hour window. Here is an example of what I mean:

• No eating or drinking anything (except water) until 12 o'clock noon. 
• Eat whatever you like. And eat as often as you like. 
• But once it's 8 o'clock p.m. you will stop eating for the rest of the day.

What this eating schedule does is create a 16-hour fasting period (from 8 p.m. to Noon the next day). During this fasting period your body will use up much of the glycogen in your muscles and liver. Once the glycogen stores are used up, your body will start mobilizing stored fat to use as energy. The longer your fasting period lasts the more fat will be burned.

4 Hour Window

If your push your breakfast to 2 p.m. and eat whatever you like up until 6 p.m. you will be creating a 20 hour fast. Remember that the goal here is not to cut calories, only to restrict the time that you eat. So, in this case, you will have four hours to eat the same amount of calories that you normally would.

1 Hour Window

I personally started doing intermittent fasting using the one-hour window method. Many times I would go to the buffet at 12 noon and eat all I wanted for an hour. Or I would make a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs pancakes and anything else I wanted, as long as I ate it all within an hour or so. This eating schedule works great for me up until about 9 p.m. when I would get really hungry. I would solve this by going to bed earlier. You can try eating an apple (since it's only about 70 calories, and it will help you get through the fast).

Mix it up as you need to

Realize that the start time and the end time for the above eating schedules are arbitrary. You can start and end at whatever time you'd like. But in general, you want to take advantage of the time that you are sleeping and make sure the majority of your fast is happening at that time. Just make it fit your schedule.

Also, I would use a combination of one 4 and 8 hour windows depending on the day of the week. I would mix it up depending on what was going on that day (so if I was going out to dinner with friends that evening, I would eat with them). I would just expand to an 8-hour window for that day or shift my eating window time so that it fell in line with the dinner.

So this is just an overall view on intermittent fasting that I have done for the past few months. I will add some tips and tricks and other fasting methods in future articles.

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Can you lower your cholesterol with red yeast rice?

What does it do?

There are hundreds of studies that show proof that red yeast rice lowers overall cholesterol.₁ Red yeast rice helps to increase good cholesterol while lowering bad cholesterol. Red yeast rice works in your body the same way statin drugs do. Except since red yeast rice is coming from a natural source there tend to be fewer side effects.

How safe is it?

Red yeast rice has been used in Asia for over two thousand years. It is used in coloring for many food dishes such as Peking Duck. There doesn't seem to be any side effects when using red yeast rice when preparing traditional foods.

However, once you start using red yeast rice in higher quantities that can lower cholesterol you beware of a very dangerous side effect. Red yeast rice will block an enzyme that your body uses to create cholesterol and CoQ10. Without adequate amounts of CoQ-10, you will develop congestive heart failure, cause high blood pressure, and have muscle loss and weakness.

What can be done to mitigate the negative side effects?

If you supplement with CoQ-10 and ubiquinol at the same time as you take red yeast rice you will reduce the risk of CoQ-10 deficiency.

In the United States, red yeast rice being sold as supplements may have the active ingredient, Lovastatin, removed. Since 2007 the FDA has been asking supplement companies who withdraw their red yeast rice products that have been found to contain Lovastatin. Without this ingredient, red yeast rice does not lower cholesterol effectively.

Other notes:

In addition to taking CoQ-10, it has been suggested that taking Omega-3 pills at the same time as Red Yeast Rice will increase absorption (so you may be twice as effective in lowering your cholesterol).

Other things that can help you lower cholesterol include:

Niacin
Olive oil
Oats
Apples
Brussel sprouts
Omega 3
Nuts and seeds
Beans


₁. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=red+yeast+rice

My 5 Virtual Peers

They say you are the average of the 5 closest friends that you keep around you. If this is the case I thought that if I want to lose some weight and some of my friends are not in shape just like me how do I change my peer group without alienating my best friends?

So I started watching lots of YouTube videos on how to lose weight. And lots of YouTube videos on how to gain muscle strength. Some of the favorite videos that I've seen are by the same handful of YouTubers. So I subscribed to my favorite ones. Then I noticed it was about 5. Luckily for me, these 5 YouTubers have lots of content and tend to create lots of content very often. So it's almost like I'm talking with my friends because I see them every day and they always have something new to say. And since they're talking about Fitness and losing weight I've been getting used to the idea of losing weight and gaining strength in the way that my 5 virtual Friends on YouTube talk about.

Which I probably started but having my Bulletproof Coffee with Dave Asprey. And I lost a few pounds just from that and gained mental clarity in the morning. Then Greg at Kinobody taught me all about intermittent fasting. The Hodge Twins, Jeff Cavaliere and Elliot Hulse would be there working out with me while I'm on my Bowflex and I'm trying to do whatever it is that they were doing on the screen, while I made some gains.

So far I have gotten a lot stronger than when I started and lost 17 pounds but I am definitely aiming to for much more. Check out these guys and their channels and let me know what you think:

1. Dave Asprey

2. Greg O'Gallagher

3. Hodge Twins

4. Elliott Hulse

5. Jeff Cavaliere

So my overall idea and this article are that by keeping yourself surrounded with people who are interested in weight loss and fitness you will be kind of brainwashing yourself into improving your health just because of the peer pressure of your new virtual peers.

My notes: Smart drugs with Tim Ferriss

Here is a list of supplements that Tim Ferriss is mentioning in this video:

1. Creatine+ Ubiquinol
2. Lion's mane + Chaga mushroom coffee (brand: Four Sigma)
3. Yerba Mate (brand: Cruz de Malta)
4. Synthetic exogenous ketones (mitochondrial support)
* KetoCaNa
* Ketoforce
* 1,3-Butanediol
* Potassium BHB Salts

My Notes: 13 Nootropics to Unlock Your Brain by Dave Asprey

Here are my notes on this video, I hope this helps a bit:

1. Modafinil 50-200 mg / Armodafinil 100-200 mg (promotes wakefulness)

2. Piracetam 800 mg (improves verbal learning)

3. Phenylpiracetam 100-400 mg (improves memory and counters depression)

4. Aniracetam (Increases memory I/O) this is the only fat-soluble racetam.

5. Nicotine 1 mg (increases mitochondria) not to be used every day, to avoid addiction.

6. Adderall (improves attention, focus, motivation to work, and short term memory) addictive.

7. L-Theanine (promotes relaxation, alertness, and arousal) works synergically with caffeine.

8. Bacopa monnieri 750 mg (helps your body adapt to stress, improves memory, enhances attention and mood)

9. Microdosing LSD 5% of a normal dose

10. ActivePQQ 20mg + CoQ10 300 mg (promotes mitochondria, may reverse age-related cognitive decline) 

11. Oxaloacetate (reduces high glutamate and inflammation levels in the brain)

12. Forskolin (supports learning and memory formation) can be taken with artichoke extract.

13. Acetylcholine precursors

*Please check with your doctor and local laws before purchasing any smartdrugs or suppliments. Women who are pregnant or nursing should avoid these smartdrugs and suppliments.

Nutritional Ketosis vs Diabetic Ketoacidosis

There seems to still be confusion about Ketosis and I think the problem is the name. The automatic assumption, for some people, is that nutritional ketosis and ketoacidosis is the same thing. Where ketoacidosis can kill you, nutritional ketosis mobilizes fat cells so your liver can produce ketones. Your body then uses ketones as an energy source.

"Ketosis is a normal metabolic process, something your body does to keep working. When it doesn't have enough carbohydrates from food for your cells to burn for energy, it burns fat instead. As part of this process, it makes ketones." - WebMD 

"Ketoacidosis is what happens when ketosis goes too far. Ketones build up in your blood, and it becomes acidic. Ketoacidosis can cause a coma or death. People with diabetes can get ketoacidosis, or diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), when they don't take enough insulin. They can also get DKA when they're sick or injured, or they don't get enough fluids and become dehydrated." - WebMD 

"Some people without diabetes can get ketoacidosis, too. It's caused by alcoholism, starvation, or an overactive thyroid. A healthy low-carb diet shouldn't cause a problem."  - WebMD

So who should probably avoid Ketogenic diets?:
Pregnant Women
Diabetics
People with Kidney issues

What is your experience with ketogenic diets? 

Also, let us know what great websites or videos that you know of that has more information about ketosis and ketoacidosis.