All posts by Gina Kleinmartin

Food, pulses, weight loss, weight loss, whole grain

Intermittent fasting: Gina’s take.

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My takeaways from the book about fasting: Life in the Fasting Lane by Jason Fung, Eve Mayer and Megan Ramos.

Recently I was in an internet squabble with a woman who declared that pulses (do NOT come at my pulses!) were bad for you and you should never eat them. Then she told me to look up Dr. Jason Fung and I would learn everything. So I did. And because we live in the future, I was able to grab three of his books from the library.

Fung and his coauthors are selling a system they promise will work with your hormones and do not involve a calorie deficit. They will allow you to eat all the food you want. They claim that modern doctors have no clue how to deal with weight loss, and that anyone who tells you calories in calories out is misinformed.

Ok, that’s an interesting take.

They then proceed to teach an intermittent fasting method. In their method you fast for anywhere from a few hours to a week or more. Perhaps the biggest thing that hit me is the emphasis on eating normally* on the days you ‘feast’ (‘feast days’ are just days you eat a normal amount, not a day you splurge, like Thanksgiving). Oh, and you need to cut out all snacks- they want you eating 2 healthy* meals a day, not too large, and that’s it. So what do you get if you go from 2-3 meals a day with 1-2 snacks a day to 2 meals a day with no snacks AND skipping 2+ meals a week?

Say it with me- a calorie deficit!

How they managed to convince the thousands of people who like their program that this is not a simple calorie deficit is beyond me. There’s a lot of talk about hormones and basal metabolic rates and how fasting isn’t going to make your body think you are starving because literally ‘starvation isn’t voluntary, fasting is’ I don’t get. I don’t get how one of the authors ‘cured her PCOS’ by fasting- PCOS is currently incurable. You can reduce the symptoms with diet and medicine, but no one can possibly cure it. I have it. This woman who made this claim is a ‘clinical researcher’, so she ought to know.

Another thing that ‘clinical researchers’ ought to have caught is the authors interpretation of the studies which say that insulin causes weight gain. The studies they referenced watched diabetics gain eight after receiving insulin. The researchers continued to explain that as a result of the insulin, the people studied were more able to absorb nutrients from food, and the weight gain was prevented by reducing calories in a high protein, high fiber, moderate fat and carb diet.

I was also concerned with the ‘don’t talk to your doctor’ suggestion in the book. Saying that your doctor will think fasting is a fad (when it’s been around for 1000s of years) and advise you not to do it is a red flag to me.

Another red flag to me is the attitude towards food through out the book. People are not eating, they are ‘stuffing their faces’. Birthday cake should be avoided at all costs. Eating lasagna is a ‘bad day’. Remove yourself from dinner with the family so you aren’t tempted to eat. These just sound like they are promoting a poor relationship with food. And, of course, saying to avoid my beloved pulses, in addition to not eating potatoes, rice, mangoes, oranges, or bananas, just demonizes foods that are not in the least bad for you.  

Overall I found the book to be not helpful. It seems to be a warmed over Keto/Atkins style diet with little advice on how to have a healthy relationship with food.

Organization, Uncategorized

The Black Basket

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Black Basket of Stuff

I am a belt and suspenders type person. I don’t like being caught out without something we vitally need that makes life so much less comfortable for missing it. I only hope that this isn’t as outdated as the Office in a Bag.

So we’ve created a basket of things we leave where guests can see it in the bathroom, and take with us nearly everywhere it could be used. So, working the election, camping, the Fair, art festivals that aren’t 100% walking around with no car, etc.

It’s really handy and worth taking. So here it is.



The basket itself is a black basket because it was the beginning of November and it was on sale for 50¢. It’s not Halloweeny except for being black, and that’s fine with us. Any easily portable container would work.

Inside is a smaller container that’s a plastic ware that is missing its top. In that smaller container are bandages, a lens cleaner pad from the eye doctor, a small tube of cortisone (great for allergic reactions) a small tube of anti bacterial cream, for cuts, a tube of Benadryl (can you tell we have allergies?), and a mini eyeglass repair kit.

Larger things are a lint brush (I said this is left out for guests!  ), sun block, a reseal able back of wet naps (they kinds you get when you order ribs at a restaurant), Cutter Deet Free insect repellant, nail file and buffer, hand sanitizer (yes, this predates 2020- porto potties can be ick), Tylenol, Ammens Powder in a reused spice jar, tissues, dental floss, Nail polish remover wipes, a small bag with tampons and pads in it, and a small portable tube of bubbles.

Depending on where we are going, a deck of cards and/or a roll of toilet paper can get thrown in there.

My purse normally has a multitool, lifesavers, gum, a handkerchief, and a dice game called Cosmic Wimpout. If those weren’t carried separately, I may throw them in the basket.

Do we take this everywhere? No. Do we always bring it all? No. The lint brush is often left on the floor by the door when we leave. Do we carry this around all day? No. This is mainly for leaving in the car or at our site. And we don’t take it to the Beach because we have a separate bag for items that go there attached to our mini cooler.

But it’s a useful thing to have, in the bathroom for guests for find themselves in need, or watching Shakespeare in the Park and offering bug spray to the people next to us…

History

Boston Tea Party: 250 years ago

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Boston Tea Party: 250 years ago 12/16/1773

So, today’s the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. I had no clue why it was today, and other than the little bit I learned in fourth grade, I never really learned much about it at all.

I mean, we all know about ‘no taxation without representation’ and how that led to a boycott and eventually a property destroying protest of what would be today millions of dollars of tea.

So that boycott obviously meant no British tea was being brewed by colonists. I hadn’t realized that the colonists were still getting tea from the Dutch, nor did I know exactly what the boycott of British tea meant…

The British East India Company was a huge business internationally. And during the US boycott, they continued to import tea and stored it in warehouses in the Britain. Tea is a perishable product, and it was at risk of going bad and causing a huge loss to the Company. They were relieved when Parliament finally relented in 1768 and repealed all of the acts the colonists had been protesting.
Except for the Tea Act.  The three pence per pound tax stayed on tea. So colonists stayed not buying it. By 1773, the East India Company had 17 million pounds of tea worth over 2 million pounds in London. As a perishable product, its value was dropping every day.

So, the Company was facing rising dept. They could not get a loan, so they suspended dividends to stockholders. Realizing if the Easy India Company failed, it would take the banks with them, Parliament finally stepped in. Yes, this was one of the very first companies deemed ‘too big to fail’. Parliament gave them money, and the Company sent seven ships to the Colonies laden with stale tea and other supplies.

This tea was still taxed.

Anger erupted through the colonies, partially because tea smugglers fed the flames of gossip. The colonists waited as the first four ships were to land in Boston. When a ship made port, according to law, all the cargo had to be offloaded 20 days after inspection, or it was confiscated and auctioned. That was December 17. The first ship arrived, and was able to unload all their cargo except the tea. Twenty five volunteers stayed and made sure of that. The next two ships were treated the same, while the fourth ship lost its cargo at sea.

On December 16th,  the largest town meeting in the area’s history demanded that the governor send the ship back to London with the tea untouched. As noted above, if the ship wasn’t unloaded the contents would be confiscated and auctioned. The govenor’s sons who stood to profit off the auction, urged him not to agree to send the ship back.

A gang of 100 men and adolescents (the youngest is said to have been 13) took over all three ships. 340 chests of tea were pulled on board, opened and dumped. Protestors made sure not only that all the tea sank, raking it or holding it under the water to make sure it was gone. The men also policed themselves, emptying pockets and boots to make sure no useable tea was left or smuggled off the ships. By that evening, it was over. The ships returned safely to England, minus what would be about $1,000,000 worth in today’s money of tea.