Fasting for Health and Weight Loss

[Richard8655]

I have links to the middle east, and I know people who add cardamom to their morning Arabic coffee (which, for context, is like a Turkish or Greek coffee).

It's made in one of these:

Dallah (coffee pot) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How to Make Arabic Coffee, or Boiled Coffee with Cardamom

A simple step-by-step tutorial on making traditional Arabic cardamom coffee, boiled on the stove-top.

bintrhodaskitchen.blogspot.com

I've tried making it myself but it really needs a gas hob for heat control and to get the crema (as you need to bring the coffee almost to the boil, reduce, almost to the boil, reduce etc). I have a ceramic/electric hob, gave up, and went back to espresso 😁

The Turkish supermarket near me sells ground coffee (it's more like powder - think of the consistency of flour) mixed with cardamom, but apparently it's better just to crush a fresh one and add it to the dallah.

That Dallah Arabic coffee pot system sounds very interesting. Hadn't heard of it before. There are some valuable methods and interesting influences in making coffee from the Middle East and Turkey, where coffee is revered.

Turkish coffee is available here too and popular with the foreign community more than American. It is a very finely ground coffee with intense aromatic flavor.

 

[KaliYoni]

Hadn't heard of it before

Yemeni coffee has become popular in my area...perhaps in addition to "legacy" drinkers, hipsters have moved on from pour over and cold brew coffee as obsessions.

For anybody interested, this news story I found has a good overview of the trend:

This spiced coffee style is taking over the Bay Area

With late hours, lounge seating and flaky pastries, these new cafes are enticing local...

www.sfchronicle.com

 

[Richard8655]

Yemeni coffee has become popular in my area...perhaps in addition to "legacy" drinkers, hipsters have moved on from pour over and cold brew coffee as obsessions.

For anybody interested, this news story I found has a good overview of the trend:

This spiced coffee style is taking over the Bay Area

With late hours, lounge seating and flaky pastries, these new cafes are enticing local...

www.sfchronicle.com

Also sounds interesting! I see from the article Yemeni coffee often includes a variety of spices as well. I think I've also heard before that certain high-end Yemeni coffee can be quite expensive. The Bay Area is pretty hip and I'm sure they know their coffee!

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Alaskan wild blueberry infused coffee sounds geeat! I try to include blueberries in my diet whenever possible (especially in season), and that sounds like an excellent combination. Will look for it locally here (if I can find it).

I've heard about vanilla extract and cinnamon, as well as nutmeg, allspice, and cloves as interesting flavor enhancements for coffee. All have great health benefits as a plus.

For some reason I no longer like the taste of nutmeg in my foods, but do like the rest of the spices and flavors you have mentioned above. There is another clove that I have used in the past, "star clove." I find this type of clove a little milder or not as potent as some of the other cloves. Cloves in general have great and potent flavors. One can even drop a few in boiling water to make a cup of tea. The same for orange tree green leaves. In this case you can boil water and drop into the pot 3 orange leaves for a cup of tea. when I was a child, my mother would make teas from different green plants such as lemon trees, lemon grass, orange trees (leaves), and so on. All the plants and trees in or land was organic and free of pesticides, herbicides, and so on. Lemon grass has a very nice flavor that I enjoy, and so ginger

 

[rb2112]

Is anyone here on a fasting diet? I’ll like to hear about it.

Did 3 diets in the past 15 years, all at times when "whoops, I somehow weigh 15 lbs more". Each time about 8 weeks is enough to shed it. 1st:"the simple diet", 2nd:"fasting 2x per week", 3rd"minor calorie restriction". All worked equally well. If I had to do again (never plan to), I would consider the fasting again since it worked well as long as you can synchronize it with work, exercise, school etc. Reason to avoid would be the morning after, I do not feel I have enough energy to go hard on my normal daily tasks. Either way, if you are in a family it messes with the family meal schedule.

 

[Huntn]

Did 3 diets in the past 15 years, all at times when "whoops, I somehow weigh 15 lbs more". Each time about 8 weeks is enough to shed it. 1st:"the simple diet", 2nd:"fasting 2x per week", 3rd"minor calorie restriction". All worked equally well. If I had to do again (never plan to), I would consider the fasting again since it worked well as long as you can synchronize it with work, exercise, school etc. Reason to avoid would be the morning after, I do not feel I have enough energy to go hard on my normal daily tasks. Either way, if you are in a family it messes with the family meal schedule.

I’m retired, my wife is flexible, technically a 7 day Intermittant fast, but some of those are stop eating at 7pm, start eating at 1pm. I’m doing serious 24hr+ fasts, 2-3 days a week, sometimes 2 of those days in a row. I may try a 3 day fast sometime. I intend to be on this routine for the rest of my life. Now That I also made a commitment to put on some muscle, my weight has kind of leveled out at about 180 lb, but my fat % has continued to drop.

 

[rb2112]

Now That I also made a commitment to put on some muscle...

For OP, this is KEY. Maintaining muscle. So another drawback to the fasting diet, (by that you mean drop a bit of weight in a short time), is that your protein intake suffers, you really need to be on it to maintain your muscle mass. That is why of the 3 options I did, the last was best since the core of the meals was protein (goal 150g/day) and I lost no muscle mass along with fat.