Holy cow! Holy cow!
My brain is speeding right now, fuel injected, turbo boosted. I'm firing on all cylinders. So many thoughts are zooming through my mind, that I had to stop for a while just to capture a few. I've spent all morning and part of the afternoon looking through, culling, and editing my photos from the past few days with my rented lens, the Nikon 200-500 mm.
Something about that process inspires me. Of course, after a while, it also tires me. This old brain can only handle so much activity before it needs a nap. I'm editing photos and writing short, sometimes not so short, stories to go along with them. And my brain is going much faster than I type or talk into my dictation software.
For a while there, I felt years younger. I still remember a time when any sort of creative work could keep me going late into the night, could make me forget that I hadn't had a meal in a while, could stop time. And I loved that feeling; miss it dreadfully.
It doesn't happen very often now, but I certainly appreciate it when it does.
Earlier, I felt compelled to stop editing photos so that I might write a story that will not get posted for several days, maybe a week or longer. For the most part, I'll be posting photographs and their associated stories in the order the photos were taken. But this story was burning in my mind so much that I had to get it out there onto my computer screen. It's nothing exciting, possibly not even interesting to most folks, but, since I was right there learning something that I did not know about, I felt I needed to write it down while I was thinking about it.
My emotional state is in a bit of flux because of this rented lens. It gives me capabilities I've never had, except for when I rented it before. And it is become so cumbersome that I may not rent it again; just too heavy for me. But it has made me think about things I had not thought about before, at least not seriously. And it made me long for that future day when I'll have a more capable camera set up, a day that might be quite a long time away.
My mind has been much more active over the past few days. I believe there are two reasons for that. And one of them is the effect my rented lens is having on my photography work. The other reason has more to do about lifestyle. I have noticed that when my belly is full, I am very uncreative. I have also noticed that when I am hungry, I am very uncreative. That makes for quite a conundrum. Hang on a second while I look up "conundrum" and make sure it's what I mean.
Nope. Close, but no cigar. Maybe I mean "paradox." Hang on. I will look that up.
Closer. But no.
What's a fancy word for a situation that would appear to have no solution, although there may be one?
Well, whatever word I'm looking for, I believe I have stumbled upon the solution. Apparently, the human body, this 73-year-old human body specifically, can adjust to a new way of thinking about food. I always thought that three meals a day were a necessity, with an occasional snack in between. After some research, I now believe that my body has just gotten used to what I was doing to it, and when I tried to change, it balked at the notion of not having food inside my stomach all the time.
I have been doing intermittent fasting, off and on, for over a year now. But I never got serious enough with it to derive the full benefit. I don't mean to suggest that I'm there now. I have a long way to go yet. But, it's getting much easier to wait until sometime after noon to have my first meal. I have been shrinking my food window slowly over the past week or so. Initially, after a few interim steps, I tried an eight-hour food window, with 16 hours of fasting. Then I tried a six-hour food window. Over the past couple of days, I have eaten my food in a two-hour window, yesterday coming very close to OMAD (One Meal a Day).
OMAD is not something for every day. I will not be trying that. But, my intention is to stick to a small food window when possible (4 to 6 hours), with an occasional day of OMAD.
I am less than an hour away from time to prepare a meal. And I'm feeling a bit hungry now. So far today, all I've had is a couple of cups of Earl Grey tea, with no sweetener. Earl Grey tea has properties which enhance the autophagy process, which helps the body get rid of dead cells and rejuvenate itself.
I feel my energy level winding down a little now, as would be expected. But it was great to feel that way for all those hours earlier today. I hope that I have the willpower, the good sense, and a level of self-knowledge that will help me continue on this creative journey. I would love to be able to re-create today's feelings many more times in the future.