Thanks. I used to have an Aeropress but did not notice much of a difference - but it could be I did not use it really properly, I think it prescribed hot but not too hot water, now I was too lazy to take a temperature reading and using boiling water from the kettle simply. It took me a year to convince my wife to invest into an expensive grinding espresso maker, I think if I stopped using it she would be mad :)
I am on a sweetener habit since I am 16, now I am 37 and yes overweight. It looked like a convenient way to save on calories then got used to the taste. My dad used saccharine anyway due to diabetes so it just looked like the family way to drink coffee (as my mother didn't).
Decaf coffee also has a bowel movement effect, although 23% lower, which suggests pills would have 23% of the effect, assuming that decaf + caf pills = normal coffee, which is not certain, but probably usable as a prior.
However I found something that may still "save" me. For some reason, making a really short espresso and cutting it up up with warm tap water is far less bitter than making a long espresso. I guess because the coffee soaking for a shorter time? Anyway this seems to be the way to go with these automatic machines.
I consider fasting for two weeks in October, but I'm unclear about it being beneficial in general or for what kind of fasting it might be beneficial and healthy. Thus this is a kind of request for rational discussion of this topic.
I looked for relevant LW posts but couldn't find clear evidence. I think this is an underrepresented and possibly underutilized lifestyle intervention.
As a starter you might look at
Wikipedia has fasting and intermittent fasting. The latter shows
But as I'm healthy and lean the benefits of intermittent fasting are likely small for me. What other benefits could there be?
I understand that body cleansing is not a real thing, but I wonder about the effects of fasting on the gut flora. Could it be that fastig has a beneficial effect on your gut bacteria? Just because your body doesn't get rid of any poison this way as the greeks believed doesn't mean that fasting has no cleansing effects at all. It could be that you get rid of some harmful gut bacteria or other parasites (not that these are frequent these days).
Another thing is that fasting might activate and kind of train metabolism cycles which the body may loose over time otherwise. For me it might be too late (I'm 41) for that (mouse experiments show fasting tolerance is plastic with age), but maybe not. On the other hand I'm not very likely to ever need the ability to deal with lack of food (except possibly in case of severe illness of injury).
Links on LW: Low hanging fruit: analyzing your nutrition and If calorie restriction works in humans, should we have observed it already? both mention intermittent fasting but I gain little insight from these.
Also related is Lifestyle interventions to increase longevity. (Intermittent) fasting is also mentioned on Mental rebooting your brain.
My current plan is to use Buchinger style fasting with fruit juice, thin vegetable broth and protein additions (which kind of protein I'm still unclear). I will reduce exercise to balance and walking level types.
I'm also unclear how to measure and track the effect of this diet. Sure I will track weight. But should I track satisaction somehow?
What do you think?