FASTING PERIODICALLY SEEMS TO BE GOOD FOR YOU.

Diabetics probably shouldn't. however.

Several months ago, I read this article about the benefits of fasting. These are:

1. it provides your pancreas and liver a chance to "rest,"
2. it forces the body to consume the body's fat reserves since carbohydrates aren't available,
   
3. psychologically, it encourages reflection on what it means to go hungry and on one's good fortune to be able to eat at will, and
4. for many people, it brings a feeling of tranquility.
   

The pancreas and liver, two of our seven vital organs, produce essential chemicals that allow the body to convert food into fuel the body can use.

The pancreas secretes digestive enzymes (including the all-important insulin) that metabolize food. The liver, you may know, is our body's primary chemical factory. One of its primary roles is to assist the metabolism of food. What is metabolism? It's the set of chemical reactions that maintain life. Digestion is one of them.

This week, I came across an article about a scientific study that confirms that Mormons benefit from fasting. Mormons belong to the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). The scientists who conducted the study presented their results at a recent American Heart Association conference.The Mormon church encourages believers to abstain from food on the first Sunday of each month. The study found that Mormons have less heart disease (about 40 percent are less likely to be diagnosed with clogged arteries than those who did not regularly fast).

Muslims enjoy this benefit too. During the month of Ramadan, except under certain circumstances, Muslims may eat or drink nothing, including water, while the sun shines. They feast before dawn and then again after dusk.

Regardless of religious beliefs, it appears that regularly taking breaks from food helps improve the odds to develop clogged arteries.

NPR (National Public Radio) ran a recent article entitled "Retune the Body with a Partial Fast." I've quoted and then summarized it below.

For thousands of years, beginning with philosophers like Hippocrates, Socrates and Plato, fasting was recommended for health reasons. The Bible writes that Moses and Jesus fasted for 40 days for spiritual renewal.

To understand how the body reacts to a lack of food, you could start by looking at what happens to newborns. Newborns can't sleep through the night because they need to eat every few hours. They don't produce enough glycogen, the body's form of stored sugar, to make energy.

Glycogen is necessary for thinking; it's necessary for muscle action; it's necessary just for the cells to live in general

Most endocrinologists think that fasting doesn't hurt the body and may, in fact, help it by resetting its digestive mechanisms.

Endocrinologists are specialists that diagnose diseases that affect our glands. Glands are the organs that make hormones. Hormones control reproduction, metabolism, growth, and development. They also control the way we instinctively respond to stimuli and help regulate the amount of energy and nutrition our bodies need.

These mechanisms make the digestion possible. The primary internal organs that are involved are the pancreas and the liver.

Fasting suppresses insulin secretion and, ultimately, reduces our craving for sugar. During a fast, the body burns up stored sugars, or glycogen. Since less insulin is required to digest food, it rests the pancreas.

There are two additional benefits to fasting:

1. Digestion creates free radicals as a byproduct. Free radicals are one of the primary causes of cancer, oncologists believe. Free radicals attack proteins, our DNA, the nucleus and membranes of our cells.
2. Reducing our calorie intake, especially as we age, seems to reduce the incidence of disease. Lab studies of rats and mice, at least, confirm that.

Oncologists are specialists who study, diagnose, and treat cancerous tumors. Cancer is a catch-all term for the diseases in which cells multiply abnormally. These cells run amok, if you will. They do not follow the life cycle of normal cells.

Incidentally, do you know why cancer is called that? The Greeks named it. Cancer has afflicted mankind since time immemorial. The Greeks observed that it was impossible to remove cancer once someone developed it. It was as tenacious as a crab. It wouldn't let go. Cancer is the crab.

All told, it seems there are more side benefits associated with fasting. I encourage you to read the article.

CREATING STRONG BUT MEMORABLE PASSWORDS

Passwords are proliferating in our daily lives. How can we create strong but memorable passwords? This post suggests a method.

Most sites suggest several basic guidelines for creating passwords. Most or all of them are covered below.

1. Passwords must never be a single word or concatenation of words:

• Anthony
• larryLou
• Christinejan
• funnycat

To "concatenate," by the way, means to link together in a series.

2. Passwords must never be a familiar number or word to you (especially your Social Security Number):

• Feb19
• 06291990
• 24July1992
• 32367007

3. Some sites require passwords to meet certain requirements:

1. It must begin with a letter.
2. It must have at least one uppercase letter.
3. It must contain at least one numeral.
4. It can't be your name, birthday, social security number, street address.
5. It can't be the word, "password."
6. It must contain at least one special character, e.g., $ or # or ^ or &, et al.
7. It must contain between six to eight characters.

• Jim@s2legs
• LI$ais17
• Ekn60126

4. Many people deal with their passwords in two ways:

• They use one password for all sites, like Ekn60126.

• They use one password for most sites, except for a few special ones. Their usual password is Ekn60126 and their special password, which is reserved for their bank accounts, for instance, is Alm7opp.

HERE'S A BETTER WAY

There is a better way. The two preceding methods have one major flaw. If somebody learned your usual (or special) password, s/he will be able to access your account. (I'm ignoring the username at this point since I'll cover that in another post.)

Is there a better way to handle this proliferation?

Yes, there is. Before we go on, let me clarify that the term, "character," refers to either a letter or numeral. In other words, letters and numerals (and even special symbols like $ or &) are characters.

The following method allows you to create a dynamic password that changes with every site and, yet, remains easy to remember. In addition, you can modify the principles outlined below to create your own algorithm. An "algorithm" is a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem. These are the steps.

First, create a sentence memorable to yourself. This is a sentence that you know you can remember. Let’s say your name is William and you live at 322 San Carlos Rd. Your memorable sentence could be:

• William lives at 322 San Carlos Rd.

Second, take the first character of each word in the sentence:

• Wla3scr

This becomes your root word.

Third, create your algorithm. You can create any rule(s).

You decide that the rule would be to use the first character of the website to sandwich your root word. Furthermore, you decide to always make the first character of the website uppercase.

• Site: www.yahoo.com................. YWla3scry......... 9 characters

Your root word, Wla3scr, is sandwiched between an uppercase Y and a lowercase y. The “y” came from “yahoo.”

Is nine characters too long? Then drop the last character of your root word before using the first two characters. Change your rule to accommodate the length limitation.

• Site: www.gmail.com.................. GWla3scg........... 8 characters

Still too long? Use a shorter sentence to create your root word:

• Larry is 18.

This creates two possible root words; one with one numeral (Li1) and the other with two numerals (Li18). Longer passwords are more difficult to break.

• Site: www.yahoo.com................. YLi18y................. 6 characters

This dynamic method of creating passwords has five benefits.

1. You have a different password for every site.
   
2. Each password is based on the site's address.
3. Recalling the password is easily done by applying the algorithm.
4. Changing the password is as easy as changing your root sentence and / or your algorithm.
5. Even if two or three passwords are compromised, it's still difficult to crack the algorithm.
   

As stated earlier, you should use these principles as starting points for creating your own algorithms.You could, for example, change the rule to always capitalize the second character of the website and insert that between the first and second characters of your root word.

• Larry is 18.

You decide to create a root word that starts with a lowercase L and ends with two numerals: li18.

• Site: www.yahoo.com................. Yli1A8................. 6 characters
• Site: www.gmail.com................. Gli1M8................. 6 characters

Note how your password changes for every website. Even if two of your passwords were learned, it would still take time and effort to break the algorithm.

You could also, for instance, use two memorable sentences to create two passwords: one for regular sites and the other for special sites.

An infinite number of possibilities exists so use your imagination and create strong and easily-remembered passwords. Good luck!

Finally, here are two sites that contain more password creation and password cracking (!) guidelines.

• Ohio State
• Elcomsoft