Fasting/ tips/ weight loss

Yikes that doesn’t sound very fun! Are you planning to do it long term? I used a very different method where I ldid normal life but just ate less and moved more. Good luck!

I support anyone here who finds a healthy way of managing their weight and fitness, not just the ways I choose to work on those things for myself. I wouldn't choose some of your methods because they don't suit me. I do like some others for myself (such as choosing probiotic foods regularly).

With that as background, a couple of comments:

I feel quite strongly that it's useful to get as many nutrients as possible from foods, rather than from supplements.

There are various reasons, but here's one simplistic explanation: I'm pretty old now (68). Over the course of my life, science has "discovered" many essential and beneficial nutrients, including phytochemicals. That includes recognizing some traditional practices that are health-beneficial when studied scientifically.

Once these things are "discovered", they're included in supplements and even as ingredients in commonly-available foods. They've generally been in regular, traditional foods all along. I'm very doubtful that we've learned everything that can be known, in this realm. (How to foster a diverse beneficial microbiome is part of that frontier, as you imply in your post.)

To me, that makes getting nutrients from foods a bet-hedge for health, rather than relying heavily on supplements (even as an insurance policy).

I'd say that sometimes particular traditional foods/medications do get hype in the blogosphere before making it to the mainstream. Some people will choose to be early adopters on that basis, which is a personal choice. From my perspective, I've seen such things be hyped then pay off, but others be hyped and be found ineffective, or worse, absolutely injurious. At this point, I'm a bit cautious about early popularization of things with limited evidence. But that's just me.

When it comes to working out, I do feel that the best results are going to come from gradual, well-planned challenges to current fitness level (certainly cardiovascular and strength challenges, but probably also flexibility, balance, mobility, and other dimensions). In that light, I'm a skeptic about HIIT as a steady and primary practice. It's trendy and much-hyped now, but I think it's oversold. One of its reported benefits is time-efficiency, which may be the case. But I think it has downsides, and doesn't necessarily foster well-rounded capabilities.

I'm substantially more knowledgeable about cardiovascular fitness than about strength (from coaching education in my sport, primarily), but don't claim high-level or elite expertise, to say the least.

I feel quite strongly that the biggest cardiovascular benefits come from a mix of intensities, with relatively more moderate intensity as the "main dish", and truly high intensity work as a condiment or side dish in that metaphor. Certainly, that's how elite athletes in my cardiovascularly challenging sport train, generally using periodized training plans that aim toward peaking at the time of the highest-value competitions. Even among serious amateurs, that general approach prevails, but with more of a focus on readiness over (for example) a whole competitive season, or something like that. It's always a mix of intensities.

My impression is that at an abstract level, some of those same ideas apply to strength training, i.e., people serious about progress use progressive plans with regular recovery/deload periods built in. But I'm not remotely qualified to say anything more detailed about that.

Generally, if a person wants to progress in fitness, it seems to me to make sense to use the same kind of general approach that serious advanced athletes use. Elite athletes have the best possible, most up-to-date professional advice that money can buy. I think the same principles apply, even though our recreational-athlete or general fitness goals will involve a much lower total training load (duration, frequency, etc.).

Just my opinions as a random idiot on the internet, though.

P.S. Profile of this random idiot, in case it gives perspective: Became routinely athletically active only after cancer treatment, in my late 40s. Stayed overweight/obese for another dozen years despite training hard 6 days most weeks, even competing athletically (not always unsuccessfully in age-group terms); and while eating lot of healthy foods (too much of them, obviously). At age 59-60, used calorie counting to lose from class 1 obese to a healthy weight. Now 68, still at a healthy weight (lower 130s right now at 5'5"), good health markers (blood tests, blood pressure, etc.), still active.