I started doing a new diet in which I only eat within an 8-hour period of each day; I don't eat anything the remaining 16 hours. It's commonly referred to as the 16/8 diet and is a form of intermittent fasting. I don't love that term, because to me you have to refrain from eating for at least, like, a day before you can say you're "fasting," but that's what people call it, so that's what it's called. I'm doing a specific type of 16/8 diet in that I only eat two meals a day roughly 7.5 hours apart -- so, like, I'll eat something at 12:30 pm and then I'll eat something at 8:00 pm, and I won't eat anything at any other time. It's technically closer to a 16/0.5/7/0.5 diet.
Why am I doing this? I just want to do something. I ate like shit on the cruise, and even before that I had relapsed into some bad eating habits -- too much snacking, too much salt and sugar. Working from home, I'd frequently swing by the cupboard and shove a fistful of Goldfish crackers into my mouth or house a sleeve of Ritz. And my nightly bowl of granola had morphed into bowls of granola to where I was polishing off half a bag of Michele's Cherry Chocolate in a sitting. That was not good for my waistline (too much fat and sugar) nor my wallet (close to $7.00 per bag). So, I felt the need to do something, and a few people (including my sister) swear by intermittent fasting, so I decided to give it a go.
The truth is I don't think which diet you pick really matters that much. I mean, I read some stuff that says eating only two meals a day is a good way to go because it gives your body a chance to metabolize food into energy, and it trains you to function while being a little bit hungry, and that all makes sense to me, but it could just be BS. It seems that so much of what you read about nutrition is either based on one study that gets overly hyped only to be refuted a few years later (eggs are bad, eggs are good, milk is good, milk is bad, milk is good again), or it's just a new way to sell us what we already know. Because there are really only three principles you need to know for eating healthy:
1. Eat primarily protein and vegetables
2. Stay away from added sugars and salts
3. Don't pig out
That's it; everything else is noise. It's so simple in theory, but so difficult in practice -- and that's why people need regimented diets. It's not the mix of food that matters; it's the bookkeeping. For me, 16/8 is appealing because I like eating big meals, I drink a lot of coffee in the morning so I don't get that hungry anyway, it stops my snacking, I can still eat "what I want" for the most part, and it doesn't require much thought to implement. That last one is why I've never been interested in "points" diets. I have enough stressful decisions in my life, I don't need to fret over whether or not I can eat a 15-point bag of soy snacks with lunch.
Anyway, it's going pretty well so far, but it's only been a week, and I have no idea if it's "working." I'll report back in a month or so and let you how I'm feeling and how my waistline is looking.
In other news, as you probably heard, a judge overruled the federal mask mandate on public transportation. This doesn't bode well for future court rulings by Trump appointed judges, and according to experts I trust, it's judicial overreach, but I'm fine with the mandate being gone. Bad process, okay results. I don't feel personally aggrieved being compelled to wear a mask -- I'm mostly fine with it -- but I don't think mandates are good policy, politically or public health-wise. Politically, it's just not smart for liberals to tie their identities to a rule that annoys so much of the country (including many other liberals). As for public health, it's not clear to me that masks do all that much to prevent spread in the first place. They are probably efficacious in certain controlled settings, like, say, hospitals, but in airports or metro centers where half the people are wearing translucently thin pieces of fabric around their chins, I don't think they do all that much. For what it's worth, my kids' school has been mask optional for over a month, and I haven't received notice of a single Covid case among the students since then.
Also, the pro-mask-mandate folks only have one measure of public health: disease transmission. If that's the only criterion, then of course we should all wear masks all the time. But there are other aspects of public well-being, and these are often given short shrift by the pro mask crowd. For one thing, masks make people irritable and resentful, which leads to an increase in hostility and confrontations, and masks make it harder to resolve such things because you can't always hear what people are saying and you can't read their facial expressions (you can't defuse situations with a smile). For another thing, masks are a major part of a fear-based response to Covid that now outweighs the severity of the disease itself. Yes, getting Covid is bad, but so is living our lives in fear of getting Covid (and training our kids to be scared). It's not good for our mental health. Covid anxiety is now worse than Covid.
At least this is the case for most of us, given current strains of Covid are unlikely to make vaxxed and boosted people any sicker than a common cold. There are of course folks who chose not to get vaccinated (that's on them) or who can't get vaccinated or who have comorbidities that make it dangerous to get Covid even if they are vaccinated. But a lot of these people probably aren't traveling even with a mask mandate, and if they are, they are still free to protect themselves. They can still wear a mask -- even though masks are better at protecting others, wearing a good surgical-grade mask does provide you some protection -- and they can wear a face shield. This to me seems like a more reasonable, sane way to go about things rather than making everybody else do something they hate.
The sad part is that even though I suspect this point of view is shared by a lot of liberals, it's super hard to find it represented in mainstream, left-of-center media. You are more likely to find tripe like this article -- on the main page of my WaPo feed, under News, not even Opinion -- "Whoops of selfish delight" by Robin Givhan. This is a shockingly bad article. For starters, the very premise that wanting the mask mandate to be lifted is selfish is flawed, because, by allowing others to remove their masks, you are accepting the same risk of exposure for yourself (and your family) as everybody else. Cheering for a rule in which only you could remove your mask would be very selfish, but that's not the case. So, what we have here is not selfishness; it's a different collective risk calculus and a different prioritization of public health objectives.
And the article not only doesn't mention any other public health objectives, it doesn't even acknowledge that some might exist. Instead it links to another article about the racial and class disparities of pandemic life, even though this doesn't in any way strengthen the author's argument concerning the mask mandate. It's completely inapt. I mean, does she think it's only rich whiteys who loathe the mask mandates?* If so, she should patronize a few establishments in a diverse neighbor. I do that on the regular, and I see people of all colors and income levels wearing or not wearing or kinda wearing masks. There doesn't seem to be any correlation with race or wealth at all.
*I doubt she thinks that. I think she just wants to inject an element of racial justice into this story, because there's a certain type of person -- overly represented among WaPo readers and writers -- who thinks the only credible way to address a societal issue is through a lens of power differentials. This is a big part of the book I'm currently reading Woke Racism by John McWhorter. It's a bit over the top in certain parts, but still an interesting read.
Another thing that undercuts the author's premise is the video in it. Those are some pretty weak "whoops" (of selfish delight or otherwise). It opens with a flight attendant singing in celebration about the ruling (and if anybody has standing to speak on a mask mandate, it's somebody whose living is potentially effected by it, no?), and then it shows a few clips of scattered applause and cheers among passengers. The vast majority of the people onboard are clearly just sitting there unmoved, because they either didn't hear what was announced or they don't give a shit. It's not like the entire plane rose to their feet to give a standing ovation.
Then the article ends with legal stuff, which is the best part, but still, not really here nor there. I guarantee you the vast majority of the people cheering on planes were not well versed on the jurisprudential ramifications of the announcement. They are just annoyed with their masks and responding to somebody who said they can take them off. I don't think it's any deeper or more sinister than that.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment