Click here, here, here, and here to get caught up on my new Intermittent Fasting journey.

It’s been an interesting three weeks and a bit to say the least, experimenting with the fasting-feasting window. In the beginning, I really, really, really wanted to be able to fast for at least eighteen hours.

Because I really, really, really wanted to believe the health benefit claims around this eating lifestyle. And I thought that the longer I could fast, the sooner I’d experience those benefits, and/or the more acutely I’d experience them.

Also, I heard an “expert” say that eighteen hours was the minimum to shoot for if you really wanted all those great anti-aging benefits.

I’m slowly backing away with a placating smile…

I know that three weeks isn’t long enough to tell if a certain change is going to make my hair stop thinning, or stop graying. It’s not long enough to know that it’s reversing, or at least preventing progress of, osteoarthritis.

However, it is long enough to tell whether it’s having any effect on my estrogen and progesterone levels, which is the reason I decided to try it in the first place.

My conclusion? I.F. isn’t doing a blasted thing to my hormones, one way or the other. I’m having about the same number of hot flashes per day, and the other symptoms of hormonal imbalance haven’t decreased.

Then again, I didn’t do the eighteen hour fasting for very long. I couldn’t.

First of all, I’m underweight. For that reason, around the fifteen hour fasting mark, my body really starts begging me for food. Yes, even after three weeks, when my body should have, by all other accounts, adapted to the schedule.

Second of all, and one of the reasons for me being underweight, I’m sensitive to a lot of foods. Because of that, for decades I’ve been spreading out my eating – instinctively  rather than knowing about the sensitivities – throughout the day. Therefore, my stomach isn’t used to taking in the huge quantities of food at a time required when I only have six or fewer hours to fill it.

My initial plan was to force it to get used to being stuffed. But, you know what? At fifty-one years of age, I’m done being uncomfortable for the sake of someone else’s principles.

So I didn’t stick with the eighteen-hour fasting window for more than a week. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t “worked” for me, as far as hormone balance.

On the other hand, I’ve since read things that made me wonder if this “expert” knows all he thinks he does. In another post, I’ll be talking about the misgivings I’ve developed about I.F…and why I’m sticking with it, anyway. Suffice to say, I’ve become more or less convinced that an eighteen-hour-plus fasting window simply is unhealthy for my body.

I almost gave up.

Only a few days ago from when I’m writing these words, I came this close to deciding not to do I.F. any longer. I was tired of stuffing myself, tired of feeling bloated half the time, and starving the other half.

In short, I couldn’t figure out how to do I.F. and not feel miserable. At the time, not even with a 16:8 schedule.

And then, I did some math.

I sat down and figured out that somehow, I’d miscalculated the calories I was eating. Turns out, the reason I’d been feeling so stuffed, even with a sixteen- or seventeen-hour fasting window, was that I’d been eating more calories than I needed.

Oh.

Duh.

I’ve also discovered that cucumbers (which I grow every summer and eat only if they come out of my garden) with the peel on, even blended in smoothies, even when they’re young and not bitter, double my bloating (at least, that’s how it feels). So now, though it means losing most of the nutrition in the watery, crispy fruits, I’ve begun peeling my cukes before eating them.

Where I’ve landed with my Intermittent Fasting schedule.

I’m sticking with the most popular fasting-to-feasting ratio, 16:8. I begin eating at 6:45 in the morning. I eat a little over half of it over the course of thirty minutes, take a half hour break, then finish my breakfast.

And my tummy is very happy, and I have more energy after eating than when I was trying to stuff myself by eating an entire meal all at once.

At 1:15, I begin my second meal, following the same procedure as in the morning. Giving my stomach thirty minutes in between each “course” has made the eating window much more pleasant.

I’m finished by around 2:45 in the afternoon. Understand that, for reasons I’m not going to divulge here (long story), we go to bed at 8:30 at night. So I’m not walking around feeling hungry for as long as you think.

I do start thinking about food around 6:30 or 7, but I can make it to bedtime.

Why do I do this to myself? Why not start eating a little later so I can finish eating later in the afternoon?

I discovered early on that when my entire upper digestive tract is empty (i.e., I finish eating five hours or more before going to bed), I sleep like a log.

Something I haven’t done much of since I got pregnant over fifteen years ago.

Get it? Good.

There you have it. Up next: is Intermittent Fasting all it’s cracked up to be?

I used to believe, and teach on blogs and in books, that everybody had a unique purpose and in order to figure it out a person had to go through so many steps, analyzing their gifts, talents, skills, and circumstances.

I believed and taught it because that’s what I’d read in so many self-help books, on so many self-help blogs.

Including Christian ones.

As a matter of fact, one Christian marketing guru has gone so far as to imply that if you can’t make money with a certain type of life endeavor, then it’s not your purpose! How far we have fallen.

I remember over fifteen years ago reading Rick Warren’s destined-to-be-a-classic, The Purpose-Driven Life. He said the purpose of a Christian is to glorify and worship God. I scoffed. Purpose wasn’t that easy. And besides, what did all that mean, anyway? It was vague and incomprehensible to my stubborn ears that were closed to what the Spirit was saying.

What the secular books taught about purpose made a lot more sense.

And, put a lot of pressure on me (figuring out my own purpose), as well as made me even more judgmental than I already was.

What about the African bush?

You hear so many Westerners make comments like, “My purpose is to write and publish uplifting stories.” “My purpose is to be a doctor.” “My purpose is to have a YouTube channel that helps people with XYZ.” “My purpose is to raise a few children to be good, caring people.” “My purpose is to be a computer programmer.” “My purpose is to be a singer/actor/dancer.”

But, think about it: how long has computer programming or YouTubing even been a thing? What happens after your children leave the nest? What about people who want to help others be healthy, but can’t afford university tuition?

What about people who live in the African bush or the Amazon rainforest, whose lives we would label “primitive” because “all” they ever do is hunt, gather, and/or raise food? Oh, and enjoy each other’s fellowship during times of leisure, with no thought of giving conscious service?

Without smartphones or CDs or television or the Internet or novels, I might add.

Let’s take it a bit deeper. People who lived in the Industrial Age and spent most of their lives in factories – surely God would not have given them such a purpose of drudgery! Surely they were called to loftier things, but their unbelief or ignorance or ill circumstances kept them from finding their true purpose.

And what about all those people who lived when publishing books was something few people did (or, not even a thing!), when farming or working a trade was the lot of the majority of people, when there was no such thing as movies and musical recordings – indeed, when any kind of fine arts career was considered not quite respectable?

What about all the millions of people over the millennia who barely eeked out a living, facing struggle after struggle, then died before the age of fifty? When looked at in the light of the modern perspective of purpose, we have no choice but to consider that they never knew, let alone fulfilled, their purpose in life.

Except, that’s totally wrong.

It was a single line in a novel, from a minor character who showed up only briefly, that began to change my ideas around purpose.

“Our purpose is to experience life,” she said. I wish I could remember what she said after that, or the title of the book and its author. What I do remember is that the character, a middle-aged woman who was the mother of the male protagonist, was a believer, and that her general meaning was that when we experience life, we do the best we can with it based on our faith and trust in God.

The simple statement sent my mind spinning. At first, of course, I argued in my head with it. But then, I began to think about all the quiet misgivings that had been bugging me, those “what-abouts” I just mentioned regarding people who don’t live a modern life, or who lived long before what we know as “modern life.”

And then came the book I’m reading now, entitled Proverbs 3: 5&6: The Distilled Essence Of The Christian Life. It was written by a man in, I believe, his 80s, named Bob Beasley. About twenty percent in, he states, “My purpose is to glorify God by living for Him.”

Rick Warren’s statement, and the novel character’s statement, packaged into a clear, comprehensible revelation.

Sure, God calls certain people to do certain things at certain times in their lives. Sure, the Spirit tugs at people’s hearts to use certain of their gifts in certain ways.

But not all believers feel a sense of calling. And many have been left in despair, feeling that they must be living purposeless lives because they’ve either never felt a special calling, or they live conventional lives, working at jobs that don’t seem, in the grand scheme of things, all that important.

I take my share of responsibility in spreading that false belief around.

Walking in God’s purpose doesn’t involve a certain calling, special gifts, or a particular set of life circumstances. What a relief! That takes the pressure off…and makes me not so judgmental about people who seem to be happy living conventional lives.

Good ol’ Rick was right after all. Our purpose is to glorify God. How? By doing our best to live for Him. How? By putting all of our trust in Him.

And it has nothing to do with making money.

Duh. As I say that to myself, I wonder: what other wrong beliefs am I holding onto, because when I first heard them they sounded good, stroked my ego, and/or increased my comfort?

Well, I suppose my Lord will be revealing the next one to me in the not-so-distance future. And then I’ll blog about it, just to help you remove me from that Author Pedestal you may have placed me on. 😉

Is there a cure for reactive hypoglycemia? The way some health professionals talk, if you struggle with the problem, it’ll be a monkey on your back for life.

It was on mine, for a long time. I “had” to eat every two to three hours to prevent my blood sugar levels from crashing. It’s the way I’ve eaten for about the past thirty-five years.

The official treatment.

I wasn’t diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia until I was around forty years old. The chiropractor looking at my blood work handed me a sheet of paper that told me I had to eat a high-protein (animal, not plant!) meal within a half hour of awakening, cut most fruits and starches out of my life (especially the evil banana), and eat almonds in between meals – and snacks! – so that I wouldn’t get hungry.

If I let myself get hungry, “it’s too late,” the chiropractor said.

She never did tell me what it would be too late for, but it sounded ominous, so I followed the instructions to the letter.

For less than a week. Then I quit, returning to my low meat, moderate carb diet (I wasn’t a vegetarian at the time, as I am now) and eating a healthy meal or snack every two to three hours. Why?

The treatment wasn’t working. In fact, I’d never had my blood sugar crash so often, its levels get so low, as when I was following the reactive hypoglycemia protocol. I became shaky and irritable several times a day, and at least once became nauseous.

Get this: I told the chiropractor I was done with that program, done with the Paleo diet (which she believed in), and she refused to treat me any further. Which was fine, because she’d helped me figure out my issues at the time, and chiropractic adjustments wouldn’t help them.

But…talk about unprofessional!

The latest fad treatment to heal reactive hypoglycemia.

I hesitate to use the word “fad” here, because people have legitimately healed themselves of the blood sugar problem using the protocol I’m about to mention. However, the prescribed diet goes against the way most people’s ancestors have been eating for millennia. And, though it seems to be essential for people who suffer from epilepsy and certain autoimmune diseases, for most of the world, it’s an extreme way of eating that they’re not genetically designed for.

If you start an online search for healing or curing reactive hypoglycemia, it won’t take you long to find web articles and videos (especially videos, especially in the comment sections), where people are crediting Intermittent Fasting with a Keto (extremely low-carb, and almost always meat-based) diet for healing their reactive hypoglycemia. (If you’ve read my recent posts, you know it’s not the fasting that I have a problem with.)

So, that must be the only way to do it, right? The best way? Kill animals for food and ignore fruits and starches to the extent that you have to take supplements in order not to develop nutritional deficiencies?

After all, that’s what the gurus say. And so many happy ex-hypos.

Let me go back to before I.F. and Keto became big, back a decade ago when I tried Paleo for a whopping month, then hopped off that bandwagon more quickly than I’d hopped onto it.

Along came Chris Kresser.

I don’t agree with everything Chris Kresser teaches. But around the time I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia, I’d begun listening to his podcast. Into a Paleo-ish diet, he, unlike his peers, promoted a higher carb diet than most Paleo pundits. A hundred to 150 grams per day, was his recommendation.

When I began adding more carbs into my diet, the initial reason was that my bloodwork had also shown that my thyroid hormone levels were down, and Chris explained that not getting enough carbs could cause that. A quick calculation showed me that I’d been unintentionally eating a low-carb (maybe around seventy grams daily) diet for most of my adult life.

Life went on, I shortly thereafter stopped following anyone calling themselves “Paleo,” and a couple of years later I increased my carb intake even more, in the form of fruit.

Specifically, bananas.

Yes, that evil fruit that has so much sugar, it’s bound to make you fat and give you diabetes.

That notwithstanding, I began to notice that I could go longer and longer between meals and snacks without symptoms of hypoglycemia.

Fast forward to July 2021.

The afternoon of July 7, 2021, I said to my husband, “It’s been four hours since I finished eating, and I’m still not hungry.”

I was actually lamenting the fact. Within my seven-hour eating window, it was time to have my second meal so I could finish by the end of that window, and I wasn’t hungry. I like to be hungry when I sit down to eat.

But, then, it hit me: it had been four hours since I ate, and I still wasn’t hungry!

People with reactive hypoglycemia get hungry within three hours of finishing their last meal, generally no matter how big that last meal was.

I was wrong in this post. Reactive hypoglycemia had nothing to do with my hunger and low blood sugar struggles when I began Intermittent Fasting. It was, instead, a combo of fasting hypoglycemia (not potentially medically dangerous, as is reactive) and my underweight body screaming at me not to deprive it of its early morning calories.

So, what did it? Did intermittent fasting heal me of my blood sugar problem after only two weeks? I’ll get into the dubious supposed benefits of IF in a not-too-far-in-the-future post. But my take on it is, it had nothing to do with I.F. I believe that if, before I began I.F., I’d been having four and five hour stretches between meals, I would have found that my blood sugar levels would have remained stable.

I can’t verify this for certain because even with my previous eating schedule, I was eating no less frequently than every three hours in order to get all my calories for the day in time to finish four hours before bedtime (otherwise, I’d experience digestive problems after going to bed, including acid reflux and painful gas and bloating). However, I’d had a few times in the past few years that my eating schedule was knocked off kilter, forcing me to wait longer than three hours before eating, and my blood sugar levels didn’t crash.

My conclusion.

Therefore, it wasn’t the intermittent fasting. It was, contrary to popular belief, eating more carbs. And not even low-sugar carbs. I’d love to be able to eat rice and potatoes without limit, but I’m sensitive to resistant starch (speaking of diet fads!), so I can only eat a half cup of one or the other at a time.

Sorry, Dr. McDougall, I don’t do starches. Sorry, all you Keto-teaching chiropractors and naturopaths who eschew all the wonderful qualities of fruit.

Sorry to break the news to you all.

And, may I say since I’m a follower of Yeshua: praise the Lord!

I blew it.

Actually, I’ve been blowing it for a couple of months now.

Remember this post, where I said I wasn’t going to stop “practicing the presence of God”?

Yeah. That lasted a long time.

See? Sarcasm! You can tell I haven’t been walking in His presence when sarcasm comes out.

It wasn’t too long after publishing that blog post that I slipped back into my old habits of thinking. Those being, mainly, continually having imaginary conversations with various people – not God – about my opinions about things that have happened, and what I hope might happen in the future.

I quit living in the moment, where God and His grace are present. As a result, my thoughts began focusing on the negative again, my anxiety levels rose, and I was no longer in tune to the still, small Voice, the gentle internal nudges which the Holy Spirit uses to show me which way to go, which way to think.

And it blew up in my face.

The day before yesterday, I encountered an article online related to the experimental genetic therapy shot that everyone is being encouraged to take to protect them from COVid19.

I’m not calling it a vaccine because it’s not. Do your research. It’s nothing like a traditional vaccine. It’s already been discovered to be highly dangerous, at least in the short term. In the long term? Who knows?

I’d better stop before I get off on a different track.

Anyway, the article revealed a new kind of danger related to the shot. If the information was accurate, my life would be ruined. J could go to Walmart one day to go grocery shopping, and, despite his best efforts not to be touched or breathed upon, come home infected, and we could all end up with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or dead on the floor of heart attacks.

At the very least, I was never going to be able to see my family face-to-face again.

Darkness fell over me, and I got angry. And afraid.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt the intensity of fear that I felt that day. I think I finally experienced the fear everybody else has been feeling over the virus. But it wasn’t the virus ruining my life, it was the shot. And everyone who had received it.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I wanted to die. Life could not be worth living if I could never go out in public again. And I wouldn’t, if I was going to risk my well-being, and possibly my life, every time I did.

I spewed negativity all over our house, upset my husband, and got totally ticked at our son who, having inherited his father’s level head and logical way of thinking, told me not to believe everything I read on the Internet.

Throwing my words of wisdom, which I’d shared with him several years ago when he was watching a lot of misinforming sensationalist videos, back into my face.

The next day…

My main problem was not knowing. How true was this information? The source seemed trustworthy, the website appeared reputable. Yet there were others claiming that the phenomenon that I feared wasn’t even possible, that it was all an invention via anti-vaxxers on social media.

Long story short, I found out who had invented the technology that the shot is based around, and sent him an e-mail. Could this happen?, was my question. If anyone knew the truth, it would be Robert Malone, M.D.

His response? “Highly unlikely to be clinically significant.” Meaning, could be happening to a few people, here and there, but worrying about it would be akin to worrying that lightning would strike you on a sunny, cloudless day; or that an earthquake would suck you into the depths of the earth without warning…while you stood somewhere where fault lines are practically nonexistent.

I began to breathe easier. My life was not in shambles. I hadn’t brought a child into the world only to have him significantly risk dying early every time he encountered someone outside our little bubble.

But, did I really need to hear it from the doctor?

Robert Malone was kind to reply to my e-mail, and with great speed. But by the time I’d begun contemplating asking the question, I’d already realized what had happened.

I’d quit living in the moment. Hadn’t been practicing the presence of God, and so my mind was free to fly into the future.

A fearful future, not a good one.

This gut-wrenching event revealed that not only had I stopped practicing His presence – and the pain that comes from doing so – but also that I’d failed to trust Him.

I’d re-clothed myself with my Self, which I’d attempted to shed this past winter. And so, full of pride, I couldn’t see anything but a life of desolation and misery because I couldn’t do anything about the problem.

Of course I couldn’t. It was completely out of my hands.

Like ninety percent of everything.

Duh.

How it should have gone down.

If I’d been walking in the Spirit…well, I probably wouldn’t have even done the research that I did, and thus never would have seen that frightening article.

But say, for some reason, the Lord led me to that article. Upon reading it, I would have not experienced any emotions around it. Calmly, my heart full of trust, I would have sat back and thought, “Lord?”

And I would have waited for an inner sign, either a deep sense of peace letting me know that I had nothing to worry about, or a gentle stirring of an idea of what action to take next.

I would not have freaked out. I would not have let the enemy taken a foothold in my mind. I would not have disturbed the peace in my home.

I would not have wished that I’d never been born.

I have so far to go on this journey with Yeshua. *Heavy sigh.* But I’m making a better attempt at living in the moment, keeping my mind stayed on Him. Because I don’t like life when I’m trusting in my Self.

PS – Should you decide to leave a comment, please refrain from saying anything controversial. I will not approve any such comments, as they miss the entire point of the above article.