Lately I have been starting to relax a bit on my fasting rules. I eat a little outside my window or extend it slightly. I have a latte when I should just have water, I chew gum.
These things don't seem like they are all that bad but I have noticed the scale creeping back up. Little things DO matter when it comes to fasting. Fasting means Fasting. No gum, no juice no nothing!
I am going to stop this bad habit and go back to my strict ways. Nothing but water or tea with no milk or sugar. Sticking to my window with a vengeance and trying to avoid any slips.
It always seems so easy to just slip back to old habits, even after I have been doing this successfully for over two years, I still struggle. It is an ongoing battle but one worth fighting.
Stay strict my friends!
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Starving Nutritionally
I read this great book called the Gabriel Method. In it he talks a lot about starving nutritionally. I know it is hard to wrap our brains around but, when we are obese, we are actually starving to death, literally.
A great analogy that he used in his book was to use the example of a baby, what if, every time a baby cried for food we fed it Coca Cola? The baby might stop crying long enough to drink the Coke, but it wouldn't be long before the baby would start screaming again. If we continue giving the baby Coca Cola, the baby would probably get really fat, look like it was really well fed, too well fed even. Yet, the baby would only continue to scream. Why? Because the baby would be starving nutritionally. Starving to death, literally, because a baby cannot live on Coca Cola. It would develop diabetes, or heart disease or cancer and eventually die.
The baby is the same as what we have done to our bodies, we are starving nutritionally and we are literally starving to death! That is why our bodies scream for food constantly, because it isn't screaming for that donut and bag of chips, it is screaming for nutrition.
Now that I have found intermittent fasting, my body has stopped screaming. I have begun to look at hunger in a whole new light. Hunger is not my body needing food but yet my body screaming for more. More junk? No, more nutrition. I used to get the WORST hunger pains. They were physically painful. I never get those anymore. I think they were me starving nutritionally. Hunger is so mild if at all now. I feel like the less I eat, the less hungry I feel.
Fasting allowed my body to understand what it was that it needed and it started to be able to communicate those needs to me in a better way. I started to crave the foods that would be best for me nutritionally. I am not saying I don't ever eat junk...I do, but I also eat lots and lots of veggies and fruit and healthy fats. My body doesn't need to scream anymore.
A great analogy that he used in his book was to use the example of a baby, what if, every time a baby cried for food we fed it Coca Cola? The baby might stop crying long enough to drink the Coke, but it wouldn't be long before the baby would start screaming again. If we continue giving the baby Coca Cola, the baby would probably get really fat, look like it was really well fed, too well fed even. Yet, the baby would only continue to scream. Why? Because the baby would be starving nutritionally. Starving to death, literally, because a baby cannot live on Coca Cola. It would develop diabetes, or heart disease or cancer and eventually die.
The baby is the same as what we have done to our bodies, we are starving nutritionally and we are literally starving to death! That is why our bodies scream for food constantly, because it isn't screaming for that donut and bag of chips, it is screaming for nutrition.
Now that I have found intermittent fasting, my body has stopped screaming. I have begun to look at hunger in a whole new light. Hunger is not my body needing food but yet my body screaming for more. More junk? No, more nutrition. I used to get the WORST hunger pains. They were physically painful. I never get those anymore. I think they were me starving nutritionally. Hunger is so mild if at all now. I feel like the less I eat, the less hungry I feel.
Fasting allowed my body to understand what it was that it needed and it started to be able to communicate those needs to me in a better way. I started to crave the foods that would be best for me nutritionally. I am not saying I don't ever eat junk...I do, but I also eat lots and lots of veggies and fruit and healthy fats. My body doesn't need to scream anymore.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Over Eating
I have been over eating a lot during my eating window...STILL have a hard time with that one. It is like when the flood gates open, it is hard to close them up again.
So, in response to that I decided to do another long fast to get myself back on track. This morning is my third day fasting. I plan to break my fast this afternoon at lunch which will make a total of 60 hours fasting.
I always find these fasts help to clear my mind and show me how much better I feel when I am not stuffed to the brim with food. I feel cleaned out and calm, light and confident.
I am really frustrated though with my re-accuring issue of over eating that never seems to be cured. I think it is like a mental illness that I really need to work on. If it wasn't for intermittent fasting, I am sure that I would easily be over 300 pounds by now. When I started this journey, I weighed 215. I ate so much food that I really don't know how I even functioned. My body must have been severely overworked with digesting...and I am sure that it wasn't able to digest half of what I stuffed into it.
I still struggle, but at least the amount of food I eat has been drastically reduced and it is a manageable amount for my body. However, I still need to fix my issues and figure out a way to make that scale start moving again! I have been exactly the same weight now for well over a year! Which in itself is good...staying the same is a real victory. Keeping the weight I have lost off, that really is amazing, I have never done that before. But now I want to heal. I want to go the rest of the way down this path.
So, in response to that I decided to do another long fast to get myself back on track. This morning is my third day fasting. I plan to break my fast this afternoon at lunch which will make a total of 60 hours fasting.
I always find these fasts help to clear my mind and show me how much better I feel when I am not stuffed to the brim with food. I feel cleaned out and calm, light and confident.
I am really frustrated though with my re-accuring issue of over eating that never seems to be cured. I think it is like a mental illness that I really need to work on. If it wasn't for intermittent fasting, I am sure that I would easily be over 300 pounds by now. When I started this journey, I weighed 215. I ate so much food that I really don't know how I even functioned. My body must have been severely overworked with digesting...and I am sure that it wasn't able to digest half of what I stuffed into it.
I still struggle, but at least the amount of food I eat has been drastically reduced and it is a manageable amount for my body. However, I still need to fix my issues and figure out a way to make that scale start moving again! I have been exactly the same weight now for well over a year! Which in itself is good...staying the same is a real victory. Keeping the weight I have lost off, that really is amazing, I have never done that before. But now I want to heal. I want to go the rest of the way down this path.
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