Oopsie bread, end of the quarter, ketosis, and all-nighters [In no particular order]

So, the quarter has come to an end.  And my professors have graciously passed me.  I can now explain to you precisely how the Discrete Fourier Transform is (theoretically) used by a computer to do practically anything to an audio signal (and given the appropriate number of years I could also do these things by hand).  And I can also tell you about the Lebesgue integral - but I still don't really know how to use it (and the proofs for these things are not pretty - it involves invoking the words "simple" and "function" about a billion times... "simple" function does not even begin to describe it).  But most importantly, I do not have to take any more analysis!  I have wisely decided instead to take a class called Topology over the summer (Topology sounds innocuous enough, but it isn't - I can assure you).  See you in September readers!

Hehehe... Anyway, I had to pull some all-nighters to get my research and writing done for the Discrete Fourier Transform thing.  I do not like all-nighters, but caffeine is a hell of a drug.  One of my many methods of coping with the burden of the research was playing chess on the internet :) another was checking out this website:

http://eatingacademy.com/

This is a blog of sorts maintained by a guy named Peter Attia, a medical doctor and a fitness nut who decided to go super-low-carb and super-high-fat to the point of ketosis (and in the process actually had to cut back on protein too).  I can't do his story justice, so I HIGHLY recommend you visit his site, but I can do my best to summarize (his site has a button at the top that says "START HERE" - and oddly enough, you should start there).  Despite being extremely active and eating "right" and being trained as a doctor to know these things, he ended up becoming, as his wife described, "not thin."  So, he went low carb and lost a ton of weight, and took it a step further and went for full-on ketosis.  He then documented the athletic advantages and disadvantages of such a change, and many of the health implications (mostly good, don't worry, dear readers).  He is associated with Gary Taubes in some way, and the two of them believe that there is about to be  dramatic shift in the way we think about diet and nutrition and health (and maybe I agree with them...).

The blog is, in a way, what I wish my blog could be.  He has access to the actual studies that purport to show certain things, and he can clearly demonstrate what they do and do not show (whereas I must take other people's critiques and distill them for you - hoping there's no wool being pulled over my eyes - in other words I stop when I read the words "population study" and shout BOGUS!!!!).  He takes frequent and detailed blood tests, showing spectacular blood chemistry that improved from not-so-good blood chemistry (and he explains, in great but understandable detail, what "good blood chemistry" is and what "bad blood chemistry" is and why).  Since he has experience with it, he actually has the capacity to describe a change in his athletic performance - both from a feelings perspective and a quantitative perspective.

His blog has also inspired me to try for this whole ketosis thing, so I have been actively eating more fat and less protein.  I have now entirely removed milk from my diet, and I eat a lot more high-fat dairy products.  I still eat meat, but it's fairly difficult to find meat that is fatty enough for these purposes, so I am now eating less of it.  I discovered this thing that the internet calls "oopsie bread" that is basically bread without any carbs.  Here's how you make it:

3 eggs, separated
4oz cream cheese
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Whip egg whites and cream of tartar first with a hand mixer until you can turn the bowl upside down and they don't move (getting any yolk in them will make this step impossible).  Then mix the yolks and cream cheese together until the cream cheese is mostly not-chunky (there will still be a few tuny chunks unless you whip them for so long that they start to heat up... you don't want this).  Fold them together (for those not in the baking world, "fold" is a cute way of saying mix gently... housewives...).  Put appropriately sized discs of the stuff onto a baking sheet smoothed out to about a half inch (for me, its about two tablespoons smoothed out - they only puff up a little, so the size you make them is the size you get, and you can make them as thick or thin as you like, as long as you watch the cooking time).  Bake for around 30 minutes, or a few more - but be careful not to overcook or they become crumbly like meringues, which are not bread like - they will be nicely golden and still kind of spongy when done.  Let them cool and then let them air dry before you use them (they get kinda damp and stick to plates and fall apart if you don't do this, but in my opinion that's not such a terrible thing).  Make epic sandwiches with them.

My epic sandwich for oopsie bread right now is, by layer from top to bottom:
oopsie bread, sour cream, cream cheese, cabbage leaf (for crunch), lots of pepperoni, avocado, provolone cheese, liverwurst, sour cream, oopsie bread.  I didn't realize how much I had been missing sandwiches until I made myself one of these - it's awesome (plus no gross mayonnaise!)

Due to the all-nighters, I had to take a break from the gym, but I still went on occasion.  I've been doing a bit more running than usual... trying to push my limits on one-mile runs.  I managed a 6:18 mile as my best so far - I was absolutely shocked.  The first time I went for it I got a 6:21 though.  My goal was to get 50-second laps - at 8 laps per mile that would be a 6:40... based on my previous best of around 8 minutes, I knew it was a lofty goal, but I also knew that 8 minutes was not as fast as I could go.  So I started out pretty good, getting laps around 49sec or so.  Then as I started my 7th lap the music switched and I really started pushing it, and I guess the last two laps must have averaged out to about 40 seconds each.  I know that means I need to get better about pacing myself, so that has been the goal since then.  A friend of mine said it best, so I'm going to quote (paraphrase) him:  I don't think I ever could have run a sub-7 mile.  It's fun to try to push myself, and it's cool to actually be inspired by improvements to the point where I want to go run some more, but it still doesn't feel great hahaha.  Most of all, that whole runner's high thing is either a lie, or you have to run for more than 6 minutes to get it.

Well, I think it's about time to wrap things up, so maybe it's time to throw in something a little philosophical...  Reading Peter Attia's blog has shown me one thing above all else: even someone who has been trained in the field of health didn't know what it meant to eat healthy - what are the odds that you know what that means?  Maybe it's best if you avoid the wool being pulled over your eyes and try to see for yourself.

Till next time! (Hopefully before September!)