Entries by Chet Zelasko

Merry Christmas

As we celebrate Christmas in a couple of days, remember that this is a time of peace and joy although it’s sometimes hard to remember with the hustle and bustle of this season. Whatever your faith, whatever you believe, put the devices away, turn off the TV, and take some time to think about what […]

Your Holiday Eating Plan

Over the years, the topic of “How should I eat during the holidays?” comes up over and over. We all want to try to avoid gaining the five to ten pounds during the weeks from Thanksgiving through New Year’s. Depending on your activity levels during the past year and a half with COVID restrictions, you […]

The Bottom Line on Fasting

In the past four Memos, I’ve focused on explaining fasting. The questions I left you with on Saturday were: “Is it worth it to fast? Is it effective? Is there science to support it?” The answer to all three is yes. I think it can be summed up in one quote from the reference. “In […]

Fasting: Two Approaches

It’s time to get into some real fasting. While there’s nothing wrong with the abstinence approach, abstinence is not really fasting. I’m going to cover two different approaches. The first is known by the moniker 5:2. That means you eat reasonably five days out of the week and you fast two days per week. The […]

Fasting: Abstinence Models

How did you do on your 18:6 abstinence from food if you tried it? The ratio of abstinence to eating can vary. I asked you to try an 18:6 approach. Personally, I did fine—that’s just about my normal eating pattern anyway. I’m going to give you one version of an abstinence model today. I’ll give […]

Fasting vs. Abstinence

Before I talk about the differences between fasting and abstinence, I want to make it clear that I’m in favor of both approaches when used wisely. I don’t think either is the way you should eat for the rest of your life, but if you have specific objectives to control your weight or to reduce […]

The Fasting Dilemma

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Because we’ve entered the “weight-gain portal” time of the year, let’s talk about the fasting craze that some people are doing and the rest are thinking about trying. As I see it, the problem is the lack of clarity in terminology and subsequently the execution of a […]

Happy Thanksgiving

Paula, Riley, Jamie, and I would like to wish every one of you a Happy Thanksgiving. Normally, we would send these good wishes next week, but after a battle with brain cancer, Jamie’s sister passed away on Thursday leaving behind two young children. With the activities associated with passings, it seemed fitting to take care […]

Cancelled!

Thank you all for the prayers, good thoughts, and well wishes. I’m going to hang on to them for a while. My surgery was cancelled for this morning; Paula and I didn’t find out until we arrived at the hospital at 7:30 to check in. I was not alone. My surgeon had three surgeries cancelled […]

Prehab Is Over

One of the tests I took in preparation for surgery was to measure my levels of Staphylococcus aureus. In this case, they tested the nasal area, a common area for this serious pathogen. The test came back at zero. I was pleased because for the past three years I’ve been taking a Bacillus probiotic called […]