Intermittent Fasting and Cold Showers Edition
Regular readers will be amused that I am still trying to find some gimmick to make myself healthier.
My wife’s been taking cold showers for a couple of years now, but I thought that was a bit extreme for me and not something I had the willpower for.
I’ve been trying it for a last few days, and so far so good! Actually quite invigorating, and the afterglow for a few hours is pleasant. We’ll see how things go in the winter though 😉
I’ve also found that eating a late big lunch and a light dinner feels pretty good to me. I’ll have nothing until 3-4pm, then a big lunch and then a small dinner with mostly vegetables/salad.
Next up: mobility and strength.
Being retired is hard work!
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This week’s books
I had a coaching session with The Escape Artist this week and he gave me some homework, so I got started on reading some of these books:
The 4-Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss, is a reread for me but I’m getting new things out of it this time round. Clockwork, by Mike Michalowicz, is about growing a company and evolving it so that the founder doesn’t need to do everything. The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries, is next after that.
This week’s links
- Found a new money blog. Agree with this. The middle ground is pretty big though. I get the feeling my wife and I are on the lower end of it now, not sure where the upper band is: “F*ck You” Money
- Very interesting: We’re Much Weaker than We Think
- Tynan is also thinking about connectivity and focus it seems: What I’ve Been Thinking and Doing
- I’ve got two of these, need to work on the other four: Six types of wealth
- This doesn’t seem all that unfamiliar: I spent the weekend with multi-millionaires – here is what I learned
- This Twitter thread is NSFW, but one of the funniest things I have read in a while. Best if you can play the song as you are reading the comments.
- Hadn’t seen the Mad Fientist for a while: Why I’m Appreciating FI More Than Ever Now
- Really interesting Reddit discussion about potential NISA changes. Yes, please!
- I am partial to this meme: The midwit trap
- This is one reason the Japanese public today doesn’t trust the stock market: ‘Gama- Gaeru’: The Most Celebrated Ceramic Toad in Stock Market History
- The early retire at 45 dude is up almost 20m in the four years since he retired. Not bad for a portfolio full of bonds and REITs: 【45ヶ月目】リタイア資産はいくらになったか（月初）
- This seems quite encouraging for investors: How America innovates
- I normally enjoy Derek Thompson’s work, but this didn’t do much for me: All the Personal-Finance Books Are Wrong
- I still need to do… most of this stuff: Don’t fear the Reaper
What do you think? Anything interesting in there?
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Love this. I’ve been doing both for a while; intermittent fasting for many years, and cold exposure for a couple, after getting into Wim Hof Method a couple of years back. It’s pleasant enough in the warmer months, but last winter was the first time I kept up the cold showers all through the winter, and it was bracing, to say the least! But yeah, the dopamine “afterglow” is totally worth it. And both seem to be helping to keep me pretty healthy.
This year I also started experimenting with sauna as a way to prepare myself for the miserable Tokyo summer heat. It seemed to have helped some (and is also supposed to be good for cardiac health), but it’s hard to say, as it also seemed like this summer was objectively a bit cooler than usual.
Wishing you best results for you physical fitness in addition your financial fitness! (I’m a little better on the former than the latter at this point; feeling very good for early 50s, I think, but not yet able to “retire”!)
I started IF in Feb. and since then I lost 13Kg, pretty much effortlessly.
I hired a coach to help me out, a friend incidentally, and I believe that was key for me; he is keeping me on track and saving me from the analysis paralysis that I would have been subject to if I had to rely only on my own researches.
The first benefit that come almost immediately was a 100% relief from stomach burns.
The biggest change I had to implement (a couple of months into the program) was severely cutting on alcohol consumption… a couple of months later, on desserts.
I still eat as many carbs as I want, even though my focus, now, is to make sure I get as many proteins as possible with every meal.
Since the begin of summer I have also implemented cold showers; not long enough to get any hormonal benefit I believe.. but I like to think that, if anything, it builds character 😅 …. to be seen if I can keep it up during the colder months to come.
I’ve been doing a really rubbish version of cold showers. I get in as soon as I switch shower on (it starts cold) and wait till it warms up – probably 5-10 seconds at most but in winter it still feels brutal. A weak version, but at least I have managed it every day this year, so far!
That is actually pretty impressive ^-^
I do the opposite: have a shower normally then turn off the hot water at the end. Right now I am doing it for thirty breaths, and working on making those breaths last a bit longer…