For several months I have followed the intermittent fasting practice of eating only between noon and 8 pm. This has been successful: the number of times of broke this practice must be only four or five, and then during travel.
The primary benefit for me has been the setting (and respecting) of behavior boundaries. The secondary benefit has been the easy maintenance of weight at 180 lbs, given normal variations plus or minus a pound.
Now I am going to revise that plan and create a new plan. The objective: to be, physically, a beast. This means that I am as strong and fit as, given age and genetics, I can possibly be.
It also necessarily means that I am already a beast, by mindset. I cannot achieve mastery without knowing that I am, in fact, already a beast. And I always have been.
I will take the clear boundary philosophy of intermittent fasting and now apply it to the types and quantities of food I eat. Up to now, it has been an “anything goes” practice during the noon to 8 pm timeslot. I want ice cream? I eat ice cream.
The terminal hour for eating will be respected. This means no late-night snacks and no indigestion and heartburn to wake me up at night.
The morning: I am going to start mornings with cheese. Specifically I will start with four slices of Swiss cheese from one of those pre-sliced packs.
Lunch is still free-form.
Afternoon snacks: there is a copious amount of crap at work, for the taking. I successfully stopped eating chips and crackers. Now it’s time to stop the candy bars masquerading as healthy snacks / protein bars / health bars.
I will take cheese to work and keep it in the fridge.
Theory: cheese, because of the fat and protein, will be better for nutrition and satiating hunger.
And of course, physical training continues with the objective of installing hard boundaries (“no matter what”) in that practice, in the same way I have installed hard boundaries in other areas of my life.
Hard boundaries are good. They stop the debating society in my head.
Beast. I can thank David Goggins and his YouTube videos for making this an admirable and worthwhile objective.
And it’s the best kind of objective: as soon as it is set, you achieve it. I am a beast even though I run four miles, not fourteen or forty. The physical me will catch up with the mindset me. It is inevitable, an irresistible consequence, that a hard physical man will be caused by a self-perspective of being a beast in all areas of life.