So I was quite curious to get the results of my 6-month blood test, and here they are:

Quite satisfactory, in my opinion. No substantial changes, so the diet is working. HDL is a bit higher than before; ideally it should be above 60. Let’s see if I can get it there.

The main problem with making bread by hand is how long it takes. Even though the most of the time the dough is just seating there and rising all by itself, it is still very hard to fit into one’s schedule.

Because of this, I am even more impressed by this recipe, for 100% whole wheat bread, which doesn’t even require kneading, and uses only one short rising. (By way of comparison, most recipes in the excellent book The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking use three risings!)

This recipe is originally taken from a rather old book Beard on Bread by James Beard (long out of print, but available at your local library), and described in great details at http://www.sourdoughhome.com/bakingintro1.html. Here is just a quick summary:

Ingredients:
3¾ cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp salt
4 tsp of active dry yeast
2 cups warm water
2 tbsp molasses

The recipe, as given, is designed for one 9″x5″ loaf pan. I usually split it to two 8″x4″ pans, or multiply by 2-2.5 to get three 8×4 pans. I sometimes sprinkle the pans with sesame seeds for a little bit extra flavor.

Algorithm: Combine flour, salt and yeast in a bowl. Separately, mix water and molasses. Pour to the flour bowl, mix well. Put to pan(s), cover, let rise for 1½ hours. Preheat oven to 450°F, bake 40-50 minutes “until ready” (brown crust, hollow sound, 205°F internal temperature). Take out of the oven and of the pans, and let cool before slicing.

Result: Not a great bread (no surprises here, the recipe is just too simple), but quite good, and, to my surprise, well liked by other people. I’ve already baked quite a few loaves, and will continue to bake them until I master more involved recipes.

Grade: 4+ (out of 5).

It has to do with my spring allergy, called hay fever (or pollinosis). Basically, it’s an allergy to the tree pollen, which for last 25 year was making my life quite miserable for a few Spring months (typically, in Boston, from March till June). I was finally prescribed three medications: claritin, a nasal spray, and some eye drops, and together they made my life more tolerable, though still challenging (I would try to avoid going outside, or at least stay away from parks and woods).

Well, after the quarter century of suffering, I was in for a surprise this year: the allergy was gone. Vanished. Disappeared. I didn’t take any single dose of medicine this year (neither allergy-related, not otherwise). For a very few days, I felt somewhat uncomfortable (but still better than the previous years with all these drugs); all the other time I was just fine! I was spending a lot of time outdoors, including visiting the local arboretum, and didn’t have any problems.

I am really shocked by this development: on one hand, ecstatic that my probably most serious health problem has just evaporated; on the other hand, really angry with all the doctors, who treated me all these years, instead of just telling me to eat properly. Of course, they were no evil, just ignorant.

Still, consider this. The most effective treatment for hay fever is allergy shots. The course takes a few years to complete, and typically makes the symptoms milder, but doesn’t completely cure the disease. In the contrast, in my case, it took just a few months of proper nutrition to get rid of it completely, for all practical purposes.

In real life, I am not eager at all to talk about my health problems. The only reason I am doing it here is to send a message to other people: you, my readers. Hay fever affects one in every five Americans. Over one billion dollars are spent each year in this country to treat this disorder. Hey, Americans! Just eat better.

3/4 чашки орехов (Сьюзан рекомендует грецкие орехи и миндаль)
1 столовая ложка молотых льняных семян
1/3 чашки фиников, без косточек (примерно 4 большие Medjool dates)
1/3 чашки сушёных вишен

Мне пришлось потратить определённое время, чтобы найти в магазине сушёные вишни без сахара, но в конце концов это удалось. Я использовал грецкие орехи и LSA (смесь молотых льняных семян, семян подсолнуха и миндаля).

Алгоритм: в кухонном комбайне измельчить орехи, потом добавить молотые семена, финики и вишни и продолжать обрабатыать, пока не получится достаточно однородная густая масса. Если она недостаточно густая /липкая, добавить ещё вишен или фиников. Если ориентироваться на детей, то лучше больше фиников, если на взрослых — вишен. Когда достигнута нужная липкость, накатать небольших шариков. Всё!

Результат: совершенно неземная сладость.

Оценка: 5 (но категорически противопоказано тем, кто пытается похудеть!)

I am very, very satisfied that I did it, even though my wife seemed to be downright scared sometimes. It has probably been the most profound experience of my life. I think I understand now why people fast for religious reasons, though I am not going to bother to put it in words.

My decision to continue working through the fast was a misguided one. Both because I was not very efficient, and because fasting seems to be a perfect time to meditate, and to think about other, more important things. Big things, like life, the universe and everything, and small things, like weather, and grass, and air. Next time I will take

The very fact of being able to live without food, and not suffering from it, was a revelation for me. One day a few years ago, I bought the famous Bragg book, “The miracle of fasting”, where he advocates fasting for one day weekly, and decide to follow this approach. The very first day was rather bad; I came home in the evening feeling horribly, broke the fast prematurely, ate a lot, and fell down feeling even worse. Then I came to a conclusion that fasting is for supermen, and my genetic makeup requires me to eat regularly.

Well, this turned out to be simply wrong. Food is just an addiction for the vast majority of modern people. Once you break the addiction, you are free to deal with food on your own terms: fell to choose when to eat and when not to eat when you want, not when your body tells you to. In a sense, fasting is an ultimate spiritual experience: the triumph of the spirit over the body. My own fasting has definitely made me more aware of the power of both my spirit and my body.

On a more mundane level, one interesting result of the fast is that my taste has changed: I guess it became much sharper. I just can’t eat salted, spiced or sugared food anymore. Real, natural food seems good enough these days. I can’t even tolerate much garlic, which is a pity, because it is said to be good for the health, and I used to like it a lot.

Another result was a total loss if interest in tea. I’ve been addicted before, and though I stopped to drink it completely at some point, I reverted back later. Now I just have no interest in any kind of tea, and am quite satisfied with water.

So, the experiment was a success, and I am looking forward for more experiments!

Just for the record keeping, here is graph of my weight for the last month. I was fasting from May 24 till June 1. At the lowest point, my weight was at 130 lb; currently it seems to have stabilized around 135.

The day I broke the fast was the worst throughout the experiment. Very low energy, felt quite lethargic. It is getting better, though. I was loosing weight up until yesterday, but today it went up a little (from 130 to 132 lb). It can probably be explained by the contents of my stomach (I had no bowel movements yet). Oh, and my fingernails started growing again!

I need more time both to return back to the normal eating pattern, and to think over the experiment. There is no doubt in my mind it was a great thing to do, though. I’ll write more later.

Yesterday’s energy surge has hardly left any traces. I cycled the kids to the school today on my tandem bike, and got back exhausted. However, my body fat suddenly went down a notch (from 14mm to 12mm pinched skin). It’s a rather important notch, since (according to their chart) it moves me from the “normal” to the “ideal” category. We’ll see if it holds.

Today is the last day of my fast, and it makes me a little sad. It’s obvious that I could have achieved more by fasting more, but I think what I’ve done is quite good for the first time.

Just to complete the record: almost all cracks on fingers disappeared, the pain in the liver (?) area continues intermittently, and I got another bowels movement today.

I feel no hunger at all these days, so tomorrow’s return to food will be a completely conscious decision. Breaking fast is an important and delicate process, since it is so easy to do harm by overfeeding oneself.

I decided to break the fast with juices, just as I entered it. Tomorrow I will be drinking fresh tomato juice, half diluted with water. I am going to start with very small portions (a quarter of a cup every hour) and see how it goes. If it goes well, sometime during the day after tomorrow I’ll switch to undiluted juices, and in two days will probably sample some more solid food.

Today started like the other days. Throughout the day I had intermittent dull pain in the stomach, both the right top part (where, indeed, the liver and the gallbladder are located) and the left top part (what is located there?).

In the middle of the day, something rather unexpected happened: I felt a sudden burst of energy. I was feeling like my normal self: I could go down the hall fast, and really concentrate on what other people are saying. Then it went down somewhat, but I still biked home quite faster than before, and got less tired. Very curious to see what happens tomorrow.

And finally, I had some bowel movements tonight, after not eating fro 8 days! Something interesting is going on inside my body…

It’s interesting how uneventful my fasting is. I cycled to work again, and in took a big part of my energy again. Sat at work, was slow but (I hope) adequate. In general, I think that it’s a big mistake to work while fasting. The work suffers, and it distracts your mind and body from properly concentrating on the body cleansing. Next time I do a long fast I’ll definitely take a vacation.

After work I cycled back, again at a a pathetically slow pace, and then later on ran a little bit with my wife. I notices that I completely lost the ability to force my body to do something it doesn’t want to, but other people can help. I can’t run alone these days.

All my symptoms are broadly the same as the last few days. The skin on the fingers is slightly better, I think. The cracks on the heel are worse. I decided not to treat them (or anything else, for that matter) until after the fast. Interestingly, I just noticed that my nails stopped growing! Very convenient.

No signals from the colon, so I guess the enema might have helped.

I went to work after the long weekend. Cycling to work was nice, but quite slow. Work was acceptable. Cycling back was very, very slow. Still nice, though. I had a few mild ache-like feelings in the stomach, particularly in the top right part. What’s there? Liver? Gallbladder?

I also had a prolonged discomfort in the colon, though no bowel movements, so after some thought I gave myself an enema in the evening.

Overall, these days are not much different. I feel quite good in the morning, but get weaker and weaker during the day, especially when I can’t nap during the day. I just measured my heart rate, got about 60 beats per minute. Much lower than I usually have.