Serial Experiments Underground

Unexpectedly, this week was pretty tough, and that's after starting so well. As I stated in my last post, my schedule is feeding on Thursday and Sunday, which means a 3-day fast, followed by a 2-day fast. This week's 3-day fast was a breeze, I felt like I could've gone longer, but something about the following 2-day fast was tougher than I've felt since the first week. I ended up breaking my fast early evening yesterday with some canned sardines in hot sauce.

To make matters worse, i only weighed in down at 235.9, only down 2lbs from last week! I'm expecting a plateau, but I wasn't expecting one this early, I haven't even undone the damage of the past 2 years yet. At least the plateau could've waited until I was 190 again.

But we continue forward.

I'm not sure what happened yesterday, I started to feel.. bad, and not in a way electrolytes could fix. Perhaps it was some kind of nutritional deficiency that caught up to me? I'm not quite sure.

The other theory I had, is maybe it has something to do with combining keto, and fasting together. Sundays are breakfast diner days, and I order a side of corned beef hash instead of home fries, to reduce the number of carbs. But hash still contains potatoes, just less than home fries. Thursdays on the other hand, my keto regimen tends to be a lot more strictly followed. If even that little bit of carbs are doing.. something.. then that would explain why the longer fast ends up going a lot smoother, and then it catches up to me by the next 2-day fast.

So starting next week, I will eat something with carbs on Thursday, not too high, but not too low.. maybe a single piece of fruit or bread or something.

#blog #weightloss #keto #fasting

Hello, for me, today marks the end of week 3 on my weight loss journey. For you, this is my first blog post talking about it. I've been on a (granted extreme) weight loss journey since the very end of March.

I'm trying to lose weight by doing what's called a “rolling fast,” which means I have a routine fasting schedule, punctuated by feeding days. My schedule is a 3 day fast from Monday to Wednesday, with feeding on Thursday, followed by another fast between Friday and Saturday, ending with a second feeding day on Sunday. Typically a “rolling fast” means rolling fasts with a large “OMAD” (one meal a day) between fasts, but my schedule treats the whole feeding day as safe to eat. On feeding day I eat a low carb diet, to try and stay in ketosis, and to make returning to fasting easier. So far it's gone well.

This morning I weighed myself at 237.4, I've been at sub-240 for most of this week, actually, down 10lbs from two weeks ago. I only started weighing myself two weeks ago, so I don't know what weight I started at, but I'm going to guess 250-255 since I was already able to fit into some old pants that were getting tight on me before I started.

I hope that covers it for introductions, I don't want to spend too much time talking about everything in a single post. Instead I'll provide information with a slow drip weekly, that way writing these posts becomes manageable. Today I want to talk about what I've learned and experienced this week.

This week I've learned the importance of keeping your electrolytes up, especially good old fashioned sodium. Last night in particular, I was struck with a wave of lightheadedness and low blood pressure, remedied with a glass of salt water.

I've actually tried to keep up with electrolytes, supplementing with lite-salt (50% potassium chloride) and a drop of lemon juice in water. But this week taught me that I need to balance harder towards sodium to prevent issues. Drinking salty water is the worst part of fasting, but seemingly one of the most important to keep it going consistently. I'm going to start introducing a glass of pure salt water on each fasting day now, and hopefully have a more stable road ahead of me.

In other news, this week I've notably lost some circumference around my waist, because now I'm fitting into even more old clothing than last week. Including a pair of pants that I struggled to button up a week ago, but now fit comfortably.

Anyway, I guess that's it, see you next week, and hopefully another 5-10 lbs later.

#weightloss #fasting #keto

I started this blog with the intention of having a platform, for me, that likely not many others would see, to express my thoughts. A kind of journal, I guess. But what instead happened was a slow rot of perfectionism deterring me from saying anything.

With the current era of the internet that we're in, the last thing I want to do is be the guy who spreads misinformation, or accidentally goes viral in the worst way possible and starts some kind of drama war. I'm just me, I'm just here, I just want to talk about stuff, but I don't want to be some kind of authority or “influencer,” I just want to.. you know, shout into the void, and maybe one or two people overhear? That's what a blog is for, right?

I got into a brain loop where I wanted to do these big “essays” and have some kind of journalistic integrity, citing every source. But, the honest truth is that I'm not a journalist. I enjoy learning things, I have all kinds of notes and things I've written that will likely never see the light of day. Sometimes I'd have an idea, and a narrative, only to realize during research that the reality is much more complicated.

I'm not that guy, maybe once in a blue moon. I just want to talk about stuff, express an opinion, shower thoughts, verbalize the chatter in my head, anything. I'll cite a source if it's relevant for conversation, but I won't go out of my way to cite a source to reinforce something I'm saying, not unless I tag a post as “essay.” That feels awful to say, but I don't think the internet was ever about truth or debate, it was about honesty. As we used to say: “you can't trust everything you hear on the internet,” words we used to live by. If I'm wrong or saying something untrue, the least I can tell you is that I did it honestly. I'm not an authority on anything, the only thing I offer here is my curiosity and passion.

I hope this can be a turning point. I made this blog for a reason, to fill a void. I want to fill that void. I have all kinds of things I'd like to talk about and express.

#blog #misinformation

There's a new way to lie that doesn't yet have a name. To lie this way, you intentionally refuse to inform yourself about a subject, so you can spread misinformation more easily. Similar to a lie by omission, the liar doesn't technically lie, it's an expression of one's perception of the truth. But it remains a lie because it's a manipulation technique meant to mislead and confuse the person being lied to.

The lie doesn't come from lying about facts specifically. When pressed, the liar will say: “Well I don't know for sure, nobody knows!” and repeat their “intuition.” The manipulation comes from a misplaced trust in the liar's intuition. It's a lie because the liar is not appropriately representing how they might actually feel about a subject, especially uncertainty. This is weaponized ignorance and an abuse of trust another might have in the listener's instinct.

I will call this a lie by intuition.

For example, you probably have a crazy uncle who gives his ridiculous political takes at the dinner table. That's one thing, but on the internet, “based” takes tend to go viral, and once this happens a network of cheerleaders and enablers who seek to give it validity will emerge. Not only that, but pundits can intentionally weaponize giving first impressions on any sort of event, or government statement and report it as news, without any deeper research or context. On social media, there's very little accountability for spreading misinformation, so anything goes.

I'm currently reading about Russian disinformation and how it works. It will be my next essay, after I finish writing about how AI has influenced society, which is about halfway done. While I'm not versed enough to go into detail about Russian disinformation yet, a common theme seems to be this particular kind of lie.

Entertainment is a large part of Russian disinformation, and on social media, if you trust a particular influencer, you might be more willing to trust their intuition on a subject. This is something people should pay attention to online, not just as a matter of Russian disinformation, but political influencers in general.

Don't let “vibes” cloud your perspective on reality.

Edit:

Reflecting on it a little more, maybe lie by ignorance is a better term. The comparison to a lie by omission is very accurate, but the omission of information works in the other direction. The liar refuses to inform oneself so they can give an honest (but inaccurate and slanted) opinion about a subject, even if they could research and have a more accurate opinion. We live in the information age after all. This is a common lie that I'm seeing among pundits, especially on social media, where personality is king.

#blog #misinformation