Thankfully, last week's poor mood mostly hasn't lasted. The algae in the pond out back continues to regrow, such that it's basically choking out anything else in there... so that might have something to do with my still feeling kind of off. My doctor has suggested upping my detoxifier dosage to 3 per day, spread out evenly, and maybe that's what I should be doing, at least while the algae continues to thrive.
At least I'm probably on an upswing. On my doctor's advice, I'm cutting down on my hours of fasting. I'll continue to stop eating at 8pm, because that helps cut down on my snacking, but my mornings will no longer be calorie-restricted. Eating breakfast again seems to be helping my energy levels somewhat. It also lets me get my supplements into my system much earlier, which results in better brain function for more of the day.
Snacking-wise, I haven't entirely stopped... but something's changed. Instead of tending to crave sweet foods, I mostly just... don't. I did still buy myself some salty snacks recently, but they don't seem to have the same effect that they did prior to this little experiment. I'm still on the fence as to whether that's a good thing. I mean, physical health-wise, it definitely is... lower sugar intake means better health, at least for someone like me.
It's just... mentally and emotionally, food was basically my only stable pleasure in life. I like gaming, music, learning new things, putting patterns together to understand systems and people, rereading familiar stories, and helping people, but each and every one of those is a fickle pleasure. Fickle, because they aren't predictable and I can't usually know whether something's going to make me feel comforted and happy or not.
Food cravings weren't fickle. The particular food I was craving might change, but because of how well I remember flavors, and because of how the US food industry standardizes itself to offer the same flavor each time you consume a product, eating a particular food was always both predictable and pleasant. For example, Kraft's macaroni and cheese. It pretty much always tastes the same, assuming you use the same amount of butter, milk, etc. Or a burger at a fast food chain. These things are made to always taste the same, so you can develop a comfort with that taste, and then return to enjoy it over and over for years to come.
Now? Now I don't really crave particular foods any more. And I'm trying to stay away from sugary snacking, because I'm guessing the change is gut bacteria-related and if I eat too much sugar it'll revert and I'll be more unhealthy again. Healthier, physically, yes. Mentally and emotionally, I'm missing that stability of being able to open a box/bag of whatever and feel instantly more stable, comforted, and happy.
I didn't particularly predict this would happen when I started the intermittent fasting diet, but I did note signs of it as the weeks progressed. For now, I'm going to wait it out and see if weight loss and/or improved overall mood results. For all that eating sugary junk food did instantaneously comfort me, there's some compelling theories that suggest I'm better off overall without it. The data is a bit muddled, but I did sometimes notice being in a worse mood or being more volatile a few hours after eating said junk foods.
The only other downside to this change in my food habits is that now I have less motivation to cook interesting things, because my overall interest in food is down. This is kind of unfortunate, because I cook twice a week and it's hard to muster any enthusiasm to go to the grocery store when mostly what I get to do now is mentally mark off things as inedible. I go down the aisles, commenting to myself, "sugar, sugar, dairy, sugar, sugar, nasty-tasting, sugar, nutritionally deficient, dairy, sugar, goes bad too fast for me to bother buying it, sugar, meat that isn't humane, sugar, sugar, sugar..."
I'm vaguely tempted to make a video of myself doing just that, perhaps at 3am when only the stockers are around to hear me record myself doing it. It might be kind of educational for other people to see the various aisles of the grocery store quantified like that, but I'm not really sure I can make it entertaining, because the subject is so depressing to me. I used to be able to walk into a grocery store and see so many interesting options for meals. Now my selection has narrowed so immensely that it's kind of disappointing to walk through the rows of foods I mostly can't have.
Maybe I'll have my spouse start doing the grocery shopping when we shuffle the chores list...
At least I'm probably on an upswing. On my doctor's advice, I'm cutting down on my hours of fasting. I'll continue to stop eating at 8pm, because that helps cut down on my snacking, but my mornings will no longer be calorie-restricted. Eating breakfast again seems to be helping my energy levels somewhat. It also lets me get my supplements into my system much earlier, which results in better brain function for more of the day.
Snacking-wise, I haven't entirely stopped... but something's changed. Instead of tending to crave sweet foods, I mostly just... don't. I did still buy myself some salty snacks recently, but they don't seem to have the same effect that they did prior to this little experiment. I'm still on the fence as to whether that's a good thing. I mean, physical health-wise, it definitely is... lower sugar intake means better health, at least for someone like me.
It's just... mentally and emotionally, food was basically my only stable pleasure in life. I like gaming, music, learning new things, putting patterns together to understand systems and people, rereading familiar stories, and helping people, but each and every one of those is a fickle pleasure. Fickle, because they aren't predictable and I can't usually know whether something's going to make me feel comforted and happy or not.
Food cravings weren't fickle. The particular food I was craving might change, but because of how well I remember flavors, and because of how the US food industry standardizes itself to offer the same flavor each time you consume a product, eating a particular food was always both predictable and pleasant. For example, Kraft's macaroni and cheese. It pretty much always tastes the same, assuming you use the same amount of butter, milk, etc. Or a burger at a fast food chain. These things are made to always taste the same, so you can develop a comfort with that taste, and then return to enjoy it over and over for years to come.
Now? Now I don't really crave particular foods any more. And I'm trying to stay away from sugary snacking, because I'm guessing the change is gut bacteria-related and if I eat too much sugar it'll revert and I'll be more unhealthy again. Healthier, physically, yes. Mentally and emotionally, I'm missing that stability of being able to open a box/bag of whatever and feel instantly more stable, comforted, and happy.
I didn't particularly predict this would happen when I started the intermittent fasting diet, but I did note signs of it as the weeks progressed. For now, I'm going to wait it out and see if weight loss and/or improved overall mood results. For all that eating sugary junk food did instantaneously comfort me, there's some compelling theories that suggest I'm better off overall without it. The data is a bit muddled, but I did sometimes notice being in a worse mood or being more volatile a few hours after eating said junk foods.
The only other downside to this change in my food habits is that now I have less motivation to cook interesting things, because my overall interest in food is down. This is kind of unfortunate, because I cook twice a week and it's hard to muster any enthusiasm to go to the grocery store when mostly what I get to do now is mentally mark off things as inedible. I go down the aisles, commenting to myself, "sugar, sugar, dairy, sugar, sugar, nasty-tasting, sugar, nutritionally deficient, dairy, sugar, goes bad too fast for me to bother buying it, sugar, meat that isn't humane, sugar, sugar, sugar..."
I'm vaguely tempted to make a video of myself doing just that, perhaps at 3am when only the stockers are around to hear me record myself doing it. It might be kind of educational for other people to see the various aisles of the grocery store quantified like that, but I'm not really sure I can make it entertaining, because the subject is so depressing to me. I used to be able to walk into a grocery store and see so many interesting options for meals. Now my selection has narrowed so immensely that it's kind of disappointing to walk through the rows of foods I mostly can't have.
Maybe I'll have my spouse start doing the grocery shopping when we shuffle the chores list...
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