3 Day Fast: My Experience

Right now I am about 2 hours and 20 minutes away from completing 72 hours of fasting. I plan on stopping tomorrow morning. By then I would have fasted more than 83 or so hours.

I haven’t eaten a thing. I did take one green supplement pill at the end of 24 hours and I have had some green tea in the morning. But other than that just a lot of water and no food.

I first started experimenting with fasting back in April 2015. That was more or less following the Warrior Diet and doing 20 hours of mostly fasting with 4 hours of feeding. And since then I have experimented with 24 hours of fasting with zero food.

After that I got inspired to do a longer fast. What inspired me? I read some something about how the body can regenerate stem cells after 2-5 days of fasting. And since I have had some injuries I thought this would be a good thing to do since it would promote cellular repair and healing.

The first 24 hours wasn’t too hard as I have done that before. I just felt hungry. I did feel more alert and maybe antsy. By the next day I started to feel a bit low energy and light headed.

On the third day (now) I felt nauseous when I first woke up. I still feel low energy and light headed. Morning seemed a little tougher.

I have been doing a lot of meditating which is good to. It’s been raining in San Fran a lot, so staying in, working on my website and taking it easy.

Update 2020: I did a 4 day fast here in Japan.

Rising Views + Falling Traffic – Is Youtube a Good Source of Website Traffic?

Update…

I think I figured out the problem. I just read that https sites (Youtube) can’t send referral data to http sites (my site).

https://vickeryhill.com/blog/google-analytics-referral-data-loss/

Update…

I used to get referral traffic from Youtube, but I hardly do anymore according to Google Analytics. Here’s a look at how it’s falling:

September 24-October 23 (Google Analytics)
This is my traffic from Youtube over the last 5 years with the amount of views on Youtube.
 2016: 4 referrals (36,000 Youtube views)
 2015: 5 referrals (25,000 views)
 2014: 44 referrals (15,000 views)
 2013: 196 referrals (19,000 views)
 2012: 327 referrals (11,000 views)
Traffic went from 327-4 referrals and I had 3X the views on Youtube that I used to get when I got 80X the traffic.
I joined Youtube in 2011. I have currently over a 1,000,000 views and 4,000 sub. I have more videos than before, but I don’t get it… I have less traffic.
I don’t think I changed much.
Is the traffic calculated somewhere else? I use cards, linked annotations plus links in the descriptions.
Or has something else changed? Is there a new trend? Have people stopped clicking through to websites?
Ironically I also made more money a month when I had 11-19,000 views compared to now.
Old article…

Recently I was searching for the answer to this question. And I didn’t really find much that answered my questions, so that’s why I am putting this out there.

This is based on my experience using Youtube for the last 6 years. The first channel that I started has just a few videos on it. One video has over 150,000 views.

The second channel has a total of over 1,000,000 views with about 190 videos. It has more than 4,000 subscribers.

So how much referral traffic do I get from Youtube? You would think with numbers like those you would get some traffic. Well Google Analytics is confusing and it frequently changes.

Last month I only had 9 visitors to my site from Youtube according to GA and 22,400 views on Youtube. Doesn’t sound like much eh? Well on a positive note, those users ended up spending 14 minutes and visiting 8+ pages which is pretty high.

I wonder if the Youtube traffic is calculated somewhere else too.

A year ago on the same date I had 28 visitors from Youtube and 14,000 views on Youtube. 2 years ago I had 152 visitors on the same month and 16,300 views on Youtube. 3 years ago I had 359 visitors from Youtube and 12,300 views on Youtube.

This is confusing for me. I am getting more views on my channels, but less traffic to my website. Why? I don’t think I really changed much.

So based on the numbers I am currently getting it sure doesn’t seem to be. I am wondering if the links in the video are calculated elsewhere?

I found this post on MOZ about Youtube traffic and that very few actually come to your website and it is more of a good place for brand awareness than it is traffic.

Day in the life of Blu Man Fu (that’s me) the street performer

Here’s a video a made of some of the highlights of my day out in the streets performing. It can be a lot of fun. We paint our face blue, dress up, freak some people out, do some shows and beatbox a bit.

I made this video over the last summer in Chinatown, San Francisco.

45 Days More or Less on the Warrior Diet

I have more or less kept to this diet. Basically I under eat during the day and overeat at night. It was kind of difficult the first few days, but my body adapted pretty easily.

Did I notice any changes? The only changes that I have noticed are that I don’t crash after my former mid day large snack. I have more of a steady stream of energy through the day.

I also noticed I lost about 5 pounds which is of a little concern since I am already skinny. I stopped doing jiujitsu in that time too. When I saw my teacher after missing 2 months he said that it looked like I lost muscle.

I still seem to have a little bit of fat around my waist. So if I lost muscle then that is no good and then I should change something.

Basically my diet has been like this:

  • Breakfast: A grapefruit
  • Lunch: A banana and some nuts
  • Mid day snack: Yogurt and a banana
  • Dinner (around 7pm): I pretty much eat whatever and quite a bit.
  • Late snack (9-11pm)

It’s nice not spending a bunch of time preparing food either. I have been eating less wheat as well. I have a toothache, so I was going to try to limit for around a month or so foods high in phytic acid: stuff like nuts, beans and bread.

Update…

Since then I have been doing a fast on every Sunday. I start at 10pm on Sat. and don’t eat till 7pm on Sunday.

30 Days on the Warrior Diet

Yesterday I started a new diet – the Warrior Diet. I felt like I was eating too many carbs like wheat and oats and having a mid day crash after my large snack (yogurt, granola, a peanut butter sandwich and fruit). Also despite all the exercise (yoga, jiujitsu, judo, push-ups, pull-ups, running steep hills) I was doing I still had a little bit of fat around my midsection.

So yesterday I just snacked through out the day on fruit, vegetables, nuts and yogurt. Then around 7:30 I started eating. I ate quite a bit and then a few hours later I ate quite a bit again. The Warrior Diet has 20 hours of under eating/fasting and 4 hours of over eating.

I felt a little light headed at times throughout the day, but I never crashed mid day like before. I like the idea, so I am going to try this out for 30 days and if I like it I will continue.

I discovered this diet after watching some videos on Rhonda Rousey. I was asking myself why I was so interested in this person? Maybe part of the reason why was she lead me to this. She said she eats a diet that is a mix of the Paleo and the Warrior Diet.

Hershell Walker also has a diet kind of similar in that he eats one meal a day and just snacks through out the day.

10 months of jiu jitsu

It’s been around a total of ten months that I have been practicing jiu jitsu. I have been going about 4-5 times a week. Things have been going pretty good with it. I have done around 7 months in a row since I hurt my knee in my last update.

Since the last time I blogged about it I feel like I have learned a fair amount. I find that I have to do stuff over and over again to learn. It takes a while for it to sink in. Since the last time I have learned a few new chokes and joint locks. And then probably what I learned more of was just the movement and the little positioning details.

You notice that you learn when the new white belts come into class without experience. It’s hard to see what you learned. But since they have little experience it’s often easy to submit them. And that feels good for a change since I am the one usually tapping out. So at the moment I have two stripes on my white belt.

My teacher said something funny along the lines that if the old Ian walked in the door you would be able to kick his ass. I think he said that after I was discouraged about this big strong guy with less experience made me tap out.

For awhile I was thinking that I must get a blue belt at least. I wrote in on my wall to visualize then decided that wasn’t best. I still want to get better and get a new belt of course, but more importantly I want to have fun learning jiujitsu. That’s my focus. To enjoy the process. Have fun.

I remember my teacher saying something cool to another student – who is at a similar level to me. He said to him “see it as more of a game and less of a fight.” Another student in my class – a purple belt said he liked jiu jitsu because it has depth. My teacher said something like that too. It’s not a fixed or dead martial art it’s evolving and growing. There is always something to learn.

Your Psychology on Time

According to Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd writers of the book The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life we all carry around a certain perspective on time that affects our psychology. It can help explain why we think the way we do, do what we do and how we act they way we do.

You can take their ZTPI test online to determine your own perspective on time. Some people are more living in the moment types, others make to do lists, some reminisce more about the past and so on. We all are a combination of different time perspectives. Take the test to find out yours.

This is what they envision as the best time perspective for those living in the west.

  • High in past-positive time perspective
  • Medium high in future time perspective
  • Medium high in present-hedonistic time perspective
  • Low in past-negative time perspective
  • Low in present-fatalistic time perspective

Find out what your psychology on time is with this test and/or read this book.

Chances are you won’t, but here’s how to change

The chances are 9 to 1 that you won’t change. The book Change or Die covers three main examples on how people and companies changed including health, business and prison punishment.

Here’s the formula on how to change.

  1. Relate. Find a teacher. Someone who will inspire you.
  2. Repeat. Learn and practice the new skill.
  3. Reframe. The new teacher helps you to think differently about your situation.

Even when their life is on the line most people will not change. Doctors orders and a threat of death will only temporarily cause people to change, but then they are soon back to their old habits of overeating and no exercise.

Most criminals and addicts also will not change, but this book tells us about one successful program in San Francisco that effectively prepares ex-criminals for the real world.

From Change or Die by Alan Deutschman

Get a foam roller

I was first introduced to the foam roller in Jiujitsu class. They’re awesome. I suppose there are other ways to use them, but I have been using them primarily as a massage tool. Since I have been doing rehab on my knee I have been using the foam roller to massage my legs and IT band.

According to my therapist IT bands are pretty tough to stretch. So the foam roller is an awesome tool to loosen up those tight IT bands.

You can use them for your legs, shoulders, back and so on. I recommend getting one to help sooth your aches and pains.