NoCoffee week — #biotracking

Continue my weekly posts about my health and so called biohacking routines and insights i’m getting from mindful approach to my health

Disclaimer #1: purpose of this post series is fist of all to create a weekly routine of self-reflection for myself. Secondly it also might be seen as a way of sharing insights i’m getting from following longevity and biohacking routines with my friends. I’m practicing mindful approach to my health for a while already and recently realised a need in tracking and capturing insights as well as some mean of sharing it

Disclaimer #2: I’m not an medial doctor and all my practices, insights and recommendations should be taken with a bit of scepticism and even suspicion ;)

Disclaimer #3: Each post in this serious consists of 3 parts: (i) 3 reflections on week past — my health performance and fulfilment of past commitments (ii) 3 insights (iii) 3 actions for the coming week

(i) Last week. Diet: Flexible but quite strict intermittent fasting protocol followed: 1 day — 36+ hours, the rest of the week 16–18 hours of fasting daily. Diet heavy in fiber and healthy fat with no cheat days or even cheat meals. Stable sugar measured 24/7: 3.6–4.1 mmol/L in the morning and only few spikes around 6 with a very quick normalisation (within 1–2 hours max). See pic. Complete cut on coffee and alcohol intake. Activities and mindfulness: 7 days of mediations 15–30 min. 7 days of workouts with 3 days of really intensive training. Sleep quality is above 80 measured by Oura ring 6 days out of 7 with 2 days earning a crown :)

(ii) Weekly insights:

• (a) No coffee week was a bit tough from energy perspective. Combined with quite strict intermittent fasting protocol and no sugar intake really felt like low energy. My reason to cut (or at least significantly reduce consumption) on coffee are very simple: coffee increase cortisol and overall level of alertness, act as diuretic negatively influencing digestion system long term, believed to deplete body from some important minerals and finally just don’t like addicting stuff. Clear takeaway — need to find a way for energy boost without classical addicting sources like sugar, coffee and nicotine that have very controversial impact on longevity
• (b) Got a very obvious but still quite eye opening insight that right food even in sizeable does not cause major spikes in blood sugar (even dark chocolate) where wrong food (for me all types of bread) even in tiny quantities cause immediate and very steep sugar rush
• (c ) After focusing on sleep adjusted some sleeping rules: no food 4 hour before the sleep (otherwise cause high pulse in the first part of the night), remove all sources of noise and light, obviously no alcohol. In the same time room temperature turned out to be not a major factors for me. And finally single most important factor — hours of sleep. At least 7 hours gives me quality balanced sleep, but 8–8,5 hours is even better.
• (d) After 2nd month after entering world of road biking clearly realised need in proper bike-fitting. 3–4 hour rides are impossible without good scientific and medical approach.

(iii) Next week commitments

• (a) Continue cut on coffee and alcohol. May be add 1 accessional cup (2–3 times in total for the whole week).
• (b) Last week gave me a new challenge — where to find energy without coffee, sugar etc.? Plan to experiment with diet, sleep, exercise. Advices are welcome.
• (c ) Plan to send my 2 DNA tests: Genoplan (Singapore) and Nebula (USA). Genoplan i’m doing for the second time, first time was not successful — they were not able to read it. Really looking forward to see the results.