I fasted all day yesterday and as a result lost almost five pounds. In less than three weeks, I’ve dropped about 20 pounds, so I’m making good progress. The goal is to lose a total of 80 pounds in four months, and it feels good to be a quarter of the way there, but I realize there’s still a long way to go.

Being lighter isn’t the only result I’m hoping for from this process. I’m hoping to feel better in general: less back and joint pain, less chronic fatigue, less brain fog, etc. I realize that, physically, I’m probably never going to feel like I did when I was in my twenties (or even thirties), but if I can make some improvements here and there, I think I can live with that.

I haven’t posted anything exhaustive about intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet because I just haven’t gotten around to writing that content yet. I would love to be able to sit and write for hours every day so that this site can be fully fleshed out, but my full-time job doesn’t allow me the time, so it’ll be a slow and gradual process toward building out the rest of the site. For now, it’s just sort of my daily journal, and I’ll have to settle for that until I have more time on my hands (or, more accurately, I get better at managing my time away from work).

So, without being able to get into many of the details, I’ll mention one of the fascinating benefits of intermittent fasting other than weight loss: it’s good for the brain. Fasting can improve cognitive function by increasing levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). I don’t know the precise physiological mechanism for this increase, but increased levels of BDNF lead to enhanced cognitive performance (particularly with regard to learning and memory) and can help reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. Eventually, I’ll take a deep dive into the effect, but for now I’ll just post a link to a research article discussing it: https://tinyurl.com/7ndknr9c.

Speaking of cognition, it’s a pretty dreary day (overcast and gloomy) here in Austin, and my brain doesn’t work very well on days like these, so this post is going to be a bit short. Hopefully, I’ll be more energized and full of thoughts tomorrow.