5:2

Pretty ambiguous title, huh? What I'm referring to is the 5:2 diet - but I hate calling it that, it's more of a method; an anti-diet, if you will. The 5 and 2 correspond to days of the week. 5 days you eat normally, and 2 days a week of your choosing, you fast by eating 500 calories or less.

I know how you're looking at me right now. I got that look from both my co-worker and my boyfriend. Look, I get you 100%. It sounds miserable. I thought I would be miserable. And I've already done diets like this before. I tried the alternate-day diet, which is fasting every other day. I tried it for about a month but gained weight on it, possibly due to the fact that I was forced to eat an entire day's worth of food in an 8 hour period and then not eat the whole next day. It was tough with my schedule. I also did hCG, which is 500 calories every day for 42 days.

This, however, is a lot simpler. There are two rules:
1. Eat whatever you like 5 days a week (try to keep it healthy and reasonable, but nothing is off-limits)
2. Eat 500 calories (600 for men) or less 2 days a week. Technically, nothing is off-limits here either, but you want to ration your calories carefully, as you will be hungry, so you should eat foods that will help best with that.
3. Keep your 2 fasting days separate. It's not really a rule, you CAN do them consecutively if you want to, but it would be a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Basically, this diet achieves a "calorie restricted/reduction" diet without actually restricting calorie intake 5 days a week, which can be easier for some folks who have a hard time with the broad scope of "daily calorie restriction" (like me). I like to follow rules, I need structure, so just saying "hey, eat less every day" doesn't really work for me.

There are apparently a bunch of researched benefits of fasting (and busted myths, like "starvation mode") and you can read about them here. But I wanted to focus on the lifestyle benefits of fasting; the things that most people don't realize.

1. Cost savings. You're not eating 2x a week!!
2. Sleep in!! You're not making coffee or eating breakfast. Take more time for yourself
3. Ketosis, or something similar. I've read that it might take a day or two to kick your body into ketosis, but if your 500 calories includes very little carbs, you're essentially doing Keto for a day and possibly burning fat instead of glucose.
4. Flexibility. Have dinner with your parents on Monday? Change your fast to Tuesday. Free surprise lunch from your boss? Eat it today and change your fast to another day.
5. "You can have it tomorrow". This is basically the clincher. Unlike a typical calorie restricted diet, you are not restricted every day. Those cookies in your cupboard are easier to ignore if you tell yourself that you can eat them tomorrow. It makes a ton of difference.

I wanted to give you my personal experience with 5:2 so far. History: I've always struggled with keeping my calorie intake reasonable because it's really hard for me to say no to extra sweets (like in the break room) I kind of go overboard. I don't exercise besides walking and sometimes hiking, and it takes real effort for hunger not to control me constantly.

So here's the gist: it's not as hard as you imagine it to be. It sounds completely undo-able, but I choose days that are the busiest for me to keep my mind off of my stomach. 90% of it is probably psychological; but hell, if it works then great. The hunger can spike from time to time, but it does go away within a few minutes. If not, then I make some tea. (Morracan Mint - the warmth and the mint help with hunger pangs). I have nothing for breakfast, a hard boiled egg for lunch, and save my calories for dinner when it's the hardest to avoid my kitchen. I've been told that it gets easier with time, as well. The craziest part is that I go to bed not hungry and I don't wake up the next morning with ravenous hunger. And the next day, when I can choose to eat like a pig, I just don't. I'm not any more hungry on my off days.

It's kind of amazing. And I can't wait to see my progress on the scale with my nutritionist!

Unintentional Computer Upgrade

I used to rock an Intel core i3-8750K with a Gigabyte Aorus Z370 Gaming 5 motherboard. I had full intentions of upgrading my PC recently but when repairing the heated seats in my car was going to cost me $600, (which is roughly what the upgrade would have cost including a new case), I decided that a warm toosh for winter was more important.

Then my computer had other ideas. Without going into too much grisly detail, my NVME m.2 (SSD) decided it didn't like Windows anymore, was spitting out BSODs, and finally tossed a boot error that I couldn't even fix with a format/fresh install of Windows. Buying another NVME drive did not help, as all it did was throw me into a Recovery screen or boot with a black screen of nothing. The errors were so bizarre that after two frustrating days of trying to fix it, I figured something must be wrong with my motherboard and I needed to pony up to upgrade my computer now instead of later. Just to make sure I was dotting my i's and crossing my t's, Patrick and I took the whole system apart and looked at the motherboard with a flashlight for any burns, scrapes or leaks. Nothing; it looked pristine. So, I ordered a new motherboard and CPU.

I was not at all excited for this. The unexpected nature of this upgrade dulled my enthusiasm due to having paid $620 for heated seats and then another $400 for my upgrade when I wasn't ready for it. And to make matters even more annoying, while I was waiting for my upgrade to arrive, I decided to "test bench" my system, which basically means I put it together outside of my case, with an old laptop HDD to see if it was the NVME slots that were causing the problem.

And it booted up. I was floored. And to add icing to this bitter cake, I unplugged the HDD, put the new NVME back in, and it booted up just fine, again.

Wut.

So now I had a system that was once again running smoothly for no discernible reason, and I just spent $400 I didn't have on a new one. But the problem is that I don't know what to do with this one, now. It seems to be unreliable. I wouldn't even want to give it to anyone for free as a primary machine because of those weird issues.

I also miss my RGB. I switched over to a Ryzen 5 3600 with an Asus X570 wifi motherboard (I had a choice between Gigabyte and Asus in my budget and seeing as how Gigabyte soured me with these weird issues, I went for Asus) and not only do the X570 motherboards not have flashy RGB like my old board did (I mean, look at the glow on that thing!) Asus's "aura sync" software is buggy beyond usable and what RGB it does have either doesn't work or can't be controlled. Yeah, it's a first world problem but dammit.

On the plus side, after receiving my new supplies, I was able to set up both NVME drives in a Raid 0 just because I could (so two, 250gb drives now become one blazing fast 500gb drive), and I decided to run some tests on my new CPU, which I bought specifically for rendering/conversion over gaming. So rendering an episode of Good Eats: Reloaded (my original test here - which also explains what m.2 and NVME is) was 7 minutes faster. And converting a batch of RAW files (620 - for a time lapse) took only 30-45 minutes. On my old machine, a batch of 1200 files took 6 hours to complete, and I couldn't even use my computer at the time because it was using every available resource. So yes, besides the lack of RGB my new system is pretty bomb and I am really happy with it. I just wish I didn't have to go into debt to make it happen!

When it Rains, it Pours

It's been a long time since I got visited by the 3 amigos (when shit happens in threes), but it has never been all in one day, before! The last time was in 2012 that I remember - I posted about child #3 here, and Children #1 and #2 here.

Child #1 is my computer acting up. For a few days it had BSOD'd a couple of times due to software/driver issues, which I think started after the latest Windows update, most likely. I pretty much ignored it until yesterday when...

Child #2: Odin, my gerbil. I'd had him for almost 3 years. Yesterday morning, he looked dull and sick, and I figured it was his time. (Gerbils live 2-4 years on average). He'd been getting slower with age. Not nearly as energetic and annoying as he used to be. I told Patrick that he was probably dying. I told him not to mess with him or his cage that day and I would check on him when I got home from work. When I got home yesterday evening, he was pressed up against the glass. His eyes were closed and he was barely breathing. I didn't want to move him or anything for fear of making it worse. He was still hanging in there, though, that little trouper.

That's when Child #1 reared it's ugly head: I got a BSOD that was fatal. After backing up some of my files, my SSD finally went kaput. There was nothing more I could do but try to wipe the drive and start over with a fresh copy of windows.

In the meantime, Patrick and I watched as Odin took his final breath. He was gone. Knowing that I would be inheriting Patrick's cat in the coming months, I wasn't planning on replacing my gerbil with another, so Patrick got rid of his home and toys as we set up to go bury him at my parent's house, where the Pet Cemetery of my past animals resides. I set up my computer to install Windows, and we left for the burial.

When we got back, I decided to check my mail. Oh child #3, I thought you'd never come. While my surgery bill for my cholecystectomy was only $580, turns out the anesthesia bill is much more. $900. Damn. I'm looking at this bill while seeing PC death on my computer screen because the boot sectors of the drive have apparently been corrupted. And although I try a few fixes through Command Prompt, nothing was working. So I resign myself to spending $70 on another SSD in order to get my computer up and running again.

I called the anesthesia people today, and they accept Multicare's financial aid, so there is a silver lining to all of this, at least. My bill should be reduced greatly, and I'll find out within a week or two. The other bit of good news is that I purposely have my boot drive as pretty much just that - a boot drive. Nothing of value resides on it, so it's no big deal to lose it (although come on - it was only a year old!!) so, there's that. And regarding Odin... I knew for the last couple of months that it was coming. Isn't it strange how you know your animals so well that you can just tell when things change or don't seem right? Odin lived a long, healthy life and died of old age. That's the best any momma could hope for. So of course I'm sad that I lost him, but I'm also glad that he lived as long as he did.

I'm also so incredibly glad that I have Patrick's support and that he happened to be there that evening with me. I might have broken down without him. He's so amazing and I don't know what I'd do without him.