(no subject)
An interesting side effect of this whole fiasco is that I now see the other professors in the department as family. I'm not sure if it's because they've fallen into the subconscious category of 'rescuers' or because my new boss treats students as friends rather than underlings.
On Friday, a prof called who I really admire and like. You know how awkward I am on the phone.
"I'm looking for Dr. M---".
"Um, he has left for the day."
::LONG, AWKWARD PAUSE::
"Okay, I'll send out an email."
He's a nice guy and will give me the benefit of the doubt, but I feel like I failed to supply some sort of information. I still don't know what -.-;;
Also, we have successfully snagged the poor technician from the my old boss's rival lab. The guy is now down to ZERO people in his lab... there were some fireworks. Dr. M felt guilty about it. But the other guy pays his employees next to nothing and treats them like complete dirt. What does he expect?
----------------------------
In other news, I've stumbled across "The Bulletproof Executive." He's a biohacker who claims to eat 4500 calories a day and still be ripped and presumeably lab-tested healthy (I've yet to hear him discuss bloodwork but because he so closely and obsessively monitors everything else it would surprise me if he didn't do this).
He has this recipe for 'bulletproof coffee' that's basically huge amounts of butter blended in coffee. I've tried a version for breakfast on 'fast' days, because fats are not supposed to induce the IGF-1 response, and skipping breakfast entirely is mentally draining and hasn't been successful.
My version substitutes coconut oil for butter:
1/2-1 T coconut oil
~ tsp salt
blended up with maybe 0.5-1 T full-caf coffee + 0.5-1T caf-free coffee
Brewed in ~14 oz water (eyeballing the mug size of my fairy mug that tinkling sound you hear is my analytical tone shattering into a million pieces)
Now, I'm not sure whether this is going to let you have the same benefits from fasting. Surely fats must produce some response. It also bothers me that you're getting little nutrition for your cal count with this, and that you're probably screwing with your gut microbes by washing them in fats after your 8-hour natural fast called 'sleep.'
On the other hand, I'm consistently 1000x more productive on this breakfast. Not hungry, not bloated, not fatigued, not hungry. I feel like I could take on the world, and this continues until at LEAST 11 AM (assuming I drink this about 5:30 AM). And that's the major difference between caffeine and this: caffeine gives me a crash. There's no crash. None. It's awesome.
So why don't I do this every day? That's a really good question. Often, I'll have something in the 'fridge that's delicious, like a sweet potato or yogurt, and can't resist. Plus, I'm HUNGRY in the morning. And by 'hungry' I mean 'I feel like utter and absolute crap and think food will help" it never does, but my body hasn't figured this out yet.
This morning I tried butter now that my lactose intolerance has cured itself. The good stuff, too: Land-O-Lakes (Cook's Illustrated says so--second-best after a prohibitively expensive type I plan on trying eventually). It's not nearly as tasty. I'll try organic butter at some point, because there really are differences when it comes to organic v non-organic milk products. I also caved and had some cocoa powder with coconut oil. At the moment, I feel a bit psychotic. Too shaky and a little dizzy. I think I'll stick with the coconut oil from now on (it's about the same price/lb as a medium-range butter, but totally worth it). Or perhaps I'll try it with organic butter and no chocolate exposure--I'm beginning to suspect it's causing Bad Reactions D:
This 'bulletproof' method intrigues me, and since it DOES seem to work for this guy and he basically devotes his life to it, I thought it might be legit.
As with so many things, that might not be entirely true...
-The first red flags were his podcast discussions saying things that were obvious bunk, like how laying in the grass alters your body's charge and EM stimulation of the brain alters your brain waves.
-The second was his discussion of 'moldy' foods--saying that molds produce neurotoxic compounds (not all do, and a little will be neutralized by your body), and that exposure to mold=mold growth.
-I'm not sure what to make of his claim that 12 hours after eating something 'inflammatory' he gets a spare tire. I mean, it's possible, if you're truly inducing inflammation, that macrophages are migrating to abdominal adipose tissue (or the ones in the adipose tissue already are being activated) and inducing inflammation there, leading to localized edema. It's improbable, but not impossible.
-The third is the 4- hour-sleep thing. That, plus the 4500 cal/day, plus the manic words he uses to describe how he feels sounded to me too much like 1) hyperthyroid or 2) drugs. (It's like people saying they felt like crap until taking bioidentical thyroid hormone, so clearly their doctor failed to diagnose their thyroid condition and the lab test was wrong---no crap you feel better; you're artificially filling yourself with active thyroid hormone, like someone in a naturally hyperthyroid state).
So, to Google.
Interestingly, there's no Wikipedia page. SUPER-SUSPICIOUS. What big-name guru doesn't have a Wiki page? At this point, I suspect that if people made one it would dig up all kinds of dirt on this guy, so he actively keeps it down.
So... to Google. Image search. Yeah, he definitely looks ripped.
Then, on a meme generator, his face: "Claims diet made him lose 100 lb. Takes synthetic speed." OH REALLY.
Well, he DOES take this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil and there's your sleep solution. I wonder what else he takes....
Anyway, I'd better get to work...
On Friday, a prof called who I really admire and like. You know how awkward I am on the phone.
"I'm looking for Dr. M---".
"Um, he has left for the day."
::LONG, AWKWARD PAUSE::
"Okay, I'll send out an email."
He's a nice guy and will give me the benefit of the doubt, but I feel like I failed to supply some sort of information. I still don't know what -.-;;
Also, we have successfully snagged the poor technician from the my old boss's rival lab. The guy is now down to ZERO people in his lab... there were some fireworks. Dr. M felt guilty about it. But the other guy pays his employees next to nothing and treats them like complete dirt. What does he expect?
----------------------------
In other news, I've stumbled across "The Bulletproof Executive." He's a biohacker who claims to eat 4500 calories a day and still be ripped and presumeably lab-tested healthy (I've yet to hear him discuss bloodwork but because he so closely and obsessively monitors everything else it would surprise me if he didn't do this).
He has this recipe for 'bulletproof coffee' that's basically huge amounts of butter blended in coffee. I've tried a version for breakfast on 'fast' days, because fats are not supposed to induce the IGF-1 response, and skipping breakfast entirely is mentally draining and hasn't been successful.
My version substitutes coconut oil for butter:
1/2-1 T coconut oil
~ tsp salt
blended up with maybe 0.5-1 T full-caf coffee + 0.5-1T caf-free coffee
Brewed in ~14 oz water (eyeballing the mug size of my fairy mug that tinkling sound you hear is my analytical tone shattering into a million pieces)
Now, I'm not sure whether this is going to let you have the same benefits from fasting. Surely fats must produce some response. It also bothers me that you're getting little nutrition for your cal count with this, and that you're probably screwing with your gut microbes by washing them in fats after your 8-hour natural fast called 'sleep.'
On the other hand, I'm consistently 1000x more productive on this breakfast. Not hungry, not bloated, not fatigued, not hungry. I feel like I could take on the world, and this continues until at LEAST 11 AM (assuming I drink this about 5:30 AM). And that's the major difference between caffeine and this: caffeine gives me a crash. There's no crash. None. It's awesome.
So why don't I do this every day? That's a really good question. Often, I'll have something in the 'fridge that's delicious, like a sweet potato or yogurt, and can't resist. Plus, I'm HUNGRY in the morning. And by 'hungry' I mean 'I feel like utter and absolute crap and think food will help" it never does, but my body hasn't figured this out yet.
This morning I tried butter now that my lactose intolerance has cured itself. The good stuff, too: Land-O-Lakes (Cook's Illustrated says so--second-best after a prohibitively expensive type I plan on trying eventually). It's not nearly as tasty. I'll try organic butter at some point, because there really are differences when it comes to organic v non-organic milk products. I also caved and had some cocoa powder with coconut oil. At the moment, I feel a bit psychotic. Too shaky and a little dizzy. I think I'll stick with the coconut oil from now on (it's about the same price/lb as a medium-range butter, but totally worth it). Or perhaps I'll try it with organic butter and no chocolate exposure--I'm beginning to suspect it's causing Bad Reactions D:
This 'bulletproof' method intrigues me, and since it DOES seem to work for this guy and he basically devotes his life to it, I thought it might be legit.
As with so many things, that might not be entirely true...
-The first red flags were his podcast discussions saying things that were obvious bunk, like how laying in the grass alters your body's charge and EM stimulation of the brain alters your brain waves.
-The second was his discussion of 'moldy' foods--saying that molds produce neurotoxic compounds (not all do, and a little will be neutralized by your body), and that exposure to mold=mold growth.
-I'm not sure what to make of his claim that 12 hours after eating something 'inflammatory' he gets a spare tire. I mean, it's possible, if you're truly inducing inflammation, that macrophages are migrating to abdominal adipose tissue (or the ones in the adipose tissue already are being activated) and inducing inflammation there, leading to localized edema. It's improbable, but not impossible.
-The third is the 4- hour-sleep thing. That, plus the 4500 cal/day, plus the manic words he uses to describe how he feels sounded to me too much like 1) hyperthyroid or 2) drugs. (It's like people saying they felt like crap until taking bioidentical thyroid hormone, so clearly their doctor failed to diagnose their thyroid condition and the lab test was wrong---no crap you feel better; you're artificially filling yourself with active thyroid hormone, like someone in a naturally hyperthyroid state).
So, to Google.
Interestingly, there's no Wikipedia page. SUPER-SUSPICIOUS. What big-name guru doesn't have a Wiki page? At this point, I suspect that if people made one it would dig up all kinds of dirt on this guy, so he actively keeps it down.
So... to Google. Image search. Yeah, he definitely looks ripped.
Then, on a meme generator, his face: "Claims diet made him lose 100 lb. Takes synthetic speed." OH REALLY.
Well, he DOES take this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil and there's your sleep solution. I wonder what else he takes....
Anyway, I'd better get to work...