My Almost-Vegan Diet

High carb, high fiber, high protein, but low fat (except Omega 3); GBOMBS (Joel Fuhrman); plant-based with a small amount of turkey each day for the lysine (thus the “almost”); dairy-free except for the use of Pillars Greek yogurt as almond-milk substitute for cereals (ditto “almost”); no processed foods with the exception of Dave’s bread, cereals (Alpen, Muesli, Grape Nuts), and Pillars, which has live culture, but low fat and no added sugar (unlike most commercial yogurts where they add so much sugar that it’s practically candy). Macros: 50% carb, 30% fat, 20% protein — fat has been trending down and protein trending up, intentionally. Incorporate all high-nutrition foods and avoid or minimize low-nutrition or downright unhealthy foods. Therefore, say yes to all vegetables and fruit and various fermented foods, and say a big fat no to almost all processed foods. Avoid or minimize saturated fat, salt, and sugar — the 3 demon S’s. Reduce meat consumption to an absolute minimum, especially processed meats (carcinogenic) and red meats in general. No alcohol except red wine for cooking. 19:5 intermittent fasting every day. Learn how to make plant-based dishes that are nevertheless delicious — garlic, onions, tomato paste, lemon juice, and curry powder are your allies.

You’ll live to be 100 but in good health.

I use Cronometer each day, and it will tell me if I’m weak or outright deficient in anything at a very granular level. For instance, it has shown that my diet was weak in lysine, calcium and iodine, and so I’ve take measures to address these shortcomings.

Don’t but negligent. Be good to yourself. Eat healthy food.

Nutrition Challenge

Lunatics in Charge

Putting Sanders in charge of anything in the government is like putting a lunatic in charge of the insane asylum.

People were afraid of what a Trump government would bring 4 years ago, but what a Biden government will bring is much scarier imo. There is such a strong anti-American rant going on in the left wing that I fear this will impact the federal government — and not in a good way.

Platitudes

Nutrition Challenge

Make your meals as intensely nutritious as possible — as in way over-the-top nutritious — but still be savory. I practice the GBOMBS diet, and Cronometer is indispensable to achieve super duper nutrition. It’s your body…you are in charge of it, no one else.

Super-duper nutrition involves two very different elements — finding the foods that have powerful nutrients and including them; identifying the foods that undermine your health and avoiding them. You have to do both.

Weight Loss

Weight Loss

Weight loss from 198 to 155 in one year. Nutritarian diet (Joel Fuhrman) with intermittent fasting.

I’ve recently found that baked potatoes are also a useful tool, as they are filling and very low in fat. Having days with a very low number of grams in fat really accelerates weight loss. It may not be true that “fat makes you fat,” but it is clearly true that low fat will make you skinny because low-fat days tend also to make for low-calorie days.

What Don’t You Know?

Forgiving Student Loans

Biden wants to “forgive” student loans. But is that a good precedent — to establish that when you borrow money, you ultimately won’t have to pay it back? And what would this forgiveness cost the federal government, which is already swimming in its own debt? But that’s what Democratic government does — provide reckless giveaway government to curry favor with the electorate despite the consequences. Strong leadership here from Biden? I think not.

Biden

War What Ifs

What if, simultaneously, NK invades SK and China invades Taiwan. What would the US do, led by a Biden administration soft on — and I would say naive about — China?

A NK invasion of SK would require the use of tactical nuclear weapons by the US to deter it (no way the US would send a large army into SK nor would there be enough time to mobilize and do that). But I don’t see the Biden administration willing to use tactical nuclear weapons. Same situation (need for the use of tactical nuclear weapons) with an invasion of Taiwan, which might actually be triggered by a successful first invasion by NK of SK because it would then embolden China — China would conclude that the US was actually a paper tiger and so not to be feared in their takeover of Taiwan. So the first invasion would lead to the second.

The lesson taught by history at Munich that led to the outbreak of a world war is simply that if one side is perceived to not be willing to protect it sphere of influence, that condition invites aggression by the other side.

Consider this: two such successful invasions would mean that the American sphere of influence in Asia would collapse. Japan, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and all of southeastern Asia would all become dominated by China because none of these nations would any longer trust the American defense. China would become the uncontested power throughout all of Asia. Therefore, what is obvious is that China would have a tremendous amount to be gained from a successful takeover of Taiwan — a much greater gain than just that takeover, i.e., a sphere of influence extending throughout all of Asia. Therefore, one should not dismiss a Taiwan invasion as unlikely — it is much more likely than not, imo.

These two situations — the status of both SK and Taiwan — have been simmering, tittering on the edge, and unresolved now for decades.

America Coming Apart?

America Coming Apart?

I wonder if the US is about to go into a death spiral of a decline, like we have never seen before. The kicker will be the wave of small businesses that are about to declare bankruptcy. But the deeper malaise is that there is no longer any real consensus about America anymore, but instead a tremendous amount of animosity and division. Could it all just fall apart? I’m beginning to think so. Don’t think this new government in Washington has the leadership to prevent this — if anything, the divisions will just get even more emphatic.

And the economy? It’s really a colossal Ponzi scheme — with the Federal Reserve propping everything up with “money” created out of thin air. Like the wizard in the Wizard of Oz. But what happens when we all look behind the curtain and see the scam? What happens when our credulity gets punctured?

You can almost see this simmering fear of near term chaos in the markets — lots of people are putting huge amounts of money into such alternative investments as gold/silver and bitcoin. They sense the wheels are about to come off and want to protect themselves with these — they think — safe-haven assets.

People in the stock market are waiting for the federal government to put out another multi-trillion dollar stimulus bill, and when that is first announced, the stock market will go on a tear. I think that’s when they hand you an opportunity to get out before the music stops. Because when the music does stop, there won’t be any chairs — there won’t be any safe places to hide — perhaps ever again in one’s lifetime. And economic collapse will surely lead to civil collapse, like the Great Depression, only much worse.

Fraudulent Voting?