Author: Henry Barnard

I am a voracious reader and also enjoy writing. I often have a very different point of view than the popular one. I do see value in debate, and thought it might add to the public debate on controversial issues if I were to express my contrarian opinions. I also started keeping my poems recently (I've written little pieces my whole adult life but never kept any); and I've been a photographer now for over 25 years. So I will be adding an occasional poem and hopefully interesting photograph to the blog along the way, just to spice things up.

Bread Again

I’ve been frustrated with commercially available bread, as I’ve wanted to move away from eating wheat and breads loaded with sugar). Not so much because of the glutan, but because wheat has been so modified in the last 100 years that it is the classic hybrid food (or said another way, is it food at all?). But if you look at commercially available breads, even those that call themselves “Rye Bread” or “Oat Bread” or whatever, the first and therefore biggest ingredient is always wheat. So who are they kidding? So I decided to try to make my own bread and nix the wheat. Ordered a bunch of different flours from Amazon, including walnut flour. But then, wouldn’t you know it, I discovered a commercially available bread that in fact does NOT include wheat and has zero sugar — even has some flaxseed and iodine (guess I’ll be making muffins with all that Amazon flour). This one:

Wheatless Bread

5-Day Mimicking Fast

I just googled the amount of protein an active man’s body actually uses each day, and it came in at 56 grams. So if I’m doing less than 20 grams of protein per day on this 5-day mimicking diet, then each day the body has to scavenge for at least 36 grams. Times 5, that’s 180 grams of protein that the body will have to break down from internal resources. At least, that logical.

If it were a water fast for 5 days, that would be 280 grams. So that would be the difference between the two — 100 grams of protein.

So while this mimicking diet hasn’t done much for weight loss for me, it may still do a not insignificant amount for autophagy, in my opinion.

The key is keeping that amount of protein per day extremely low…the lower the better. Next time I do this, I’m going to try for less than 15 grams per day. Not easy as even celery has some protein.

Learning

Can You Take It?

One of the most valuable things a boxer can have is a tough chin. If you can take the biggest punch your opponent has to offer and just shake it off, that’s gold. It means you can walk in and have at it with immunity.

When that happens to a fighter during the war in the ring, when he takes what he knows is the other fighter’s best shot and survives it with ease, that’s when a fighter can really become aggressive and go after his opponent relentlessly — because there is little to fear.

So, paradoxically, a very defensive ability turns into pure offense.

Beliefs

5-Day Mimicking Diet

I’m on day 3 of the 5-day mimicking diet. 800 calories per day, except the first day I went without food entirely.

Focus on the mimicking diet is minimizing protein so to maximize the amount of autophagy. Less than 20 grams of protein per day, except that first day was 0. From Longo’s book The Longevity Diet.

Really want the body to have to scavenge for protein wherever it can find it — all those wayward (and cancerous?) cells.

Longo says a healthy person should do this 3 times per year. Someone with diabetes much more often.

I knew I could do this because I did one similar 800 calorie day before and it wasn’t difficult. I thought I could boost the benefit by not eating that first day, which I knew I could do because I’ve done 48-hour fasts before.

Those more strenuous fasts one has to work one’s way up to them imo. Not sure I want to do a 5-day water fast because I do notice with a 48-hour fast that my energy level goes down significantly. One must feel very depleted after 5 days with no nutrition — really don’t want to experience that level of fatigue.

Insulin Spikes

Never Loved?

I don’t think I ever actually loved anyone. Never. I desired the woman I married — a strong desire — but did I love her? The marriage ended in divorce, so one must conclude I did not — would one divorce someone one loved? I think not.

I care about family members, and am distraught whenever something bad happens to any of them, but is caring and loving the same thing? I think not.

There have been many friends — a few close friends, many casual friends — but friendship, while a kind of love, isn’t really love, I don’t think. Not really.

So one looks at couples who have been together for years, even decades, and concludes, now that is real love! But have they merely endured each other, for fear or dread of being left alone and isolated?

One is reminded of the 60s Joni Mitchell song Both Sides Now. Does one really know love at all? I don’t. And, sadly, never have.

I think parent’s love for their children must be unadulterated love — pure — at least in the beginning. But I never had children, so I didn’t experience that either.

So I will die having never loved — a small tragedy in an insignificant life. So be it.

So if YOU have ever loved, count yourself among the lucky ones — not everyone has.

Beliefs

Insulin Spikes

It has only been just recently that I’ve come to realize the importance of keeping blood glucose levels steady compared to having large insulin spikes and the inevitable crashes, as when blood glucose levels drop severely, that’s when one feels very fatigued. Having steadier glucose levels that don’t vary that much means you avoid that fatigued state. That’s the benefit. No doubt, this has a very big impact on one’s mood. I would venture to guess that depression and low glucose levels go hand in hand.

Cutting Carbs, Cutting Protein