Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

I am so grateful for intermittent fasting. I have truly found the diet or actually the lifestyle that works for me. Fast 5 has helped me to keep myself losing weight even though I sometimes falter and eat too much or eat outside my window by an hour or so. Yesterday I ate about two hours outside of my eating window indulging in a craving for Doritos and later ice cream.

If I was on a diet, I would have felt guilty and probably continued to binge, deciding to just give up and forget it. I probably would have thought that I ruined my diet. With intermittent fasting, I don't worry, I just begin again tomorrow and know that one mistake or even 10 mistakes will not get me off track because I am not dieting...I am living an intermittent fasting lifestyle!

Today I began again with my lunch of salad with chicken, egg, spinach, broccoli cole slaw, avocado, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, feta and asian sesame dressing. I also had some huge, sweet blueberries and strawberries, some sharp white cheddar, pistachio nuts, and a slice of wheat free bread.

Of course I will also have my chocolate later today for a treat.

Tonight I have yoga and the sun is shining...what could be better?

Intermittent Fasting

Fasting is easier than you think. There are a lot of people I talk to who hear what I do and immediately say that they "could never do that."

When I was a kid, my mom said that I wouldn't eat chocolate pudding. She said that I wouldn't eat it because it "looked gross." I wouldn't try it because I judged it and thought I wouldn't like it even though I had never tried it and so couldn't possibly know if I liked it or not.

Of course once I actually tried chocolate pudding I LOVED it! It was nothing like I thought it would be.

I suggest you just try and see...you never know!

FREEDOM

There are a lot of women in my office. Because of this, there is a lot of diet talk in our lunchroom. The women here are always trying this diet and that diet and cleanse after cleanse. The same result always happens. While they are doing the diet or cleanse, they pout at the lunch table, pushing their food around on their plates looking with wide eyes at the normal food on the table.

They whine and complain and cheat and feel guilty. The finish their diet after losing 5 Lbs and gaining back 10.

They are depriving themselves. This is true of all diets. There are rules that you must follow, you can eat this, but don't even think about touching that.

When are we all going to wake up and smell the billion dollar industry? Diets DON'T WORK!!!

We are all human. We all have lives that include celebrations which always include foods we LOVE. There is no way that anyone can stay on that diet that makes them pout at the lunch table and complain and long for other people's food. Failure is inevitable. And once we fail, we eat even more because of all that deprivation!

The only way to truly have freedom is to never deprive yourself.

A few years ago, after doing my own share of pouting at lunch tables, I decided never to deprive myself again...I gave up on diets...and I ballooned to 215 Lbs. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted, how ever much I wanted and just gave up.

Diets had got the better of me and I was done suffering. But my true suffering was only beginning. I was so unhappy and felt so terrible that I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt hopeless.

Then I found intermittent fasting and my whole world changed. Intermittent Fasting allows me the freedom to enjoy the foods I love while teaching my body to love the foods that are good for me.

I have never felt as good as I feel today. Physically and emotionally. I feel like such a huge weight has been lifted off of me, and I don't just mean the 50 Lbs that I released forever.

I now have FREEDOM and I will never pout at the lunch table again!

Research and Common Sense

The below post is an old post of mine in response to lots of things that I regularly hear in the diet industry. Most of them don't make any sense to me when I use my common sense radar so I did a little research and found that my common sense radar is right on the money.


One that is particularly rampant is the "starvation mode" myth. This is almost always the first thing people say to me when I tell them about my lifestyle. They say, "But don't you go into starvation mode if you skip a meal?"


Starvation mode is used as fear mongering. Keep us eating and consuming and buying those diet books. Starvation mode is not what we think it is, not even close, and eating once a day certainly will not put you into starvation mode as you are still eating the right amount of calories in a day, you are just having them in one meal instead of that crazy recommendation of 6 (who has the time or will power for six meals a day?!).




Starvation mode does not mean the absence of food. It means cutting the total caloric intake to less than 50% of what the body requires for an extended period of time. 


This would mean that you would have to reduce your calories by 50% on an ongoing basis for months or years to truly go into what everyone calls "Starvation Mode." 


That means that a diet that requires you to cut back your recommended daily calories by 500 per day or a lifestyle like intermittent fasting where you combine long fasts with eating plenty of food and never count calories at all (although if I did, I am sure I eat more than my daily recommended amount) is in no way going to put you into starvation mode. And you certainly wouldn't go into starvation mode for just skipping a meal.


Check out this article for more science behind the myth.


Enjoy a revival of my old post "The School of Common Sense" below.






I come from the school of common sense. It is how I live my life. For me, if it doesn't sound plausible it probably isn't. I haven't listened to my common sense a lot in my weight loss journey, until now. I think that is because of repetition. Martin Berkhan said it best on his blog LeanGains:

Repetition. Repeat something often enough and it becomes the truth. If everyone is saying the same thing, it must be true. No need to look into it and think for yourself.

Here are some of my common sense observations:

If you fast you will lose muscle because your body will burn muscle first before fat (a statement that one of my readers got from a personal trainer).

COMMON SENSE: If our bodies store fat for the purpose of burning that fat when it is in need of energy, why would it then go and burn muscle instead? It doesn't make sense.

THINKING FOR MYSELF: Wikipedia has something to say about this here. LeanGains blog on myths debunked, myth number six also has something to say. And here.

If you fast you will go into starvation mode and gain weight rather than lose weight.

COMMON SENSE: If I skip a meal, I am not STARVING. I have been skipping meals for almost a year now and I have lost almost 50 LBS so common sense tells me that I never switch into "starvation mode".

THINKING FOR MYSELF: Again read what wikipedia has to say about this here.

Exercise is the key to weight loss.

COMMON SENSE: You need to have a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories to release 1 pound of fat. If I work out HARD for one hour I can burn about 400-500 calories. Common sense tells me that this might work, oh wait, that means I would have to work out HARD one hour per day EVERY, SINGLE, DAY and keep my calories in line perfectly, EVERY, SINGLE, DAY.

THINKING FOR MYSELF: Now lets be realistic here. We are all busy, we all have responsibilities. Working out that hard every day just won't work, not for me at least. And being perfect with my food intake in this society is also really hard. Check out this article on the subject and one of my previous posts on Diet vs. Exercise here.

You need to eat six meals a day if you want to keep your metabolism going.

COMMON SENSE: As we all know, in history, there wasn't always a grocery store on every corner stocked with any food we could ever want in one place. As early humans we had to wait to get food until we could catch it, grow it, find it or whatever. Why would our bodies be designed to need a constant stream of food if for most of history we have been without the grocery store?

THINKING FOR MYSELF: Check out this article from the New York Times. And the US National Library of Medicine here.

Fasting is not good for you health. You need to eat regularly to be healthy.

COMMON SENSE: Since I began intermittent fasting as a lifestyle I have seen positive effects in my health. My skin which usually had acne on my face and shoulders constantly is now perfectly clear ALL THE TIME. I rarely get sick, and when I do it passes easily. Compared to before when I got colds all the time that would put me in bed for a week or more. I feel better and have more energy than ever before. I could go on and on...

THINKING FOR MYSELF: The US National Library of Medicine has countless studies that suggest that fasting is not only safe, but good for you, better for you than eating regularly. Check them out here, here, here, and here. And search for more yourself, as there are more...

Bottom line is don't believe everything you hear just because it comes from a "professional trainer". They don't have all the answers, go and find the answers yourself and learn from experience. What works for one person may not work for you, so customize your weight loss journey to fit YOUR needs.

Just change your lifestyle, duh!

This weekend I was sharing my new lifestyle with a friend and explaining my journey with intermittent fasting. It really opened my eyes while I was talking just how far I have come.

You hear it all the time in relation to losing weight, "It has to be a lifestyle change." Everyone who has succeeded with weight loss (and by success I mean losing weight and keeping it off) preaches the lifestyle change. Since I have begun my journey with intermittent fasting I feel like I finally understand what they are all talking about.

Changing your lifestyle is the key. Problem is, this is not an easy key to find. 

Changing your lifestyle is EXTREMELY difficult. They don't really mention this in their diet books that they sell. It kind of comes off as "just change your lifestyle, easy, duh!" But there is nothing easy about it. 

We are who we are. Changing usually happens as a result of a trauma or a very difficult time in our lives that forces change upon us. Usually we are better for it and that is why almost anyone you ask who has suffered hardship in their lives will tell you that they wouldn't change the bad things that have happened to them because it made them who they are today. Usually stronger, wiser, happier people who appreciate the good things in life because they know how fragile they are.

So changing your physical appearance and your internal health is not going to just happen without there being some significant event that forces change. We have to "hit rock bottom" so to speak.

When I say something significant, I don't mean that it has to be significant to everyone else looking in, although it could be, but it could also be significant only to themselves. It may seem small to outsiders looking in, but to them it was THE thing that triggered change. We have to WANT it for OURSELVES. 

A good example of this is someone I know was a smoker, for almost their whole lives, smoking excessively. They tried everything you can try to quit smoking. Patch, gum, hypnosis, electronic gadgets and on and on and on...thousands of dollars and years of effort all ending in failure. One day something caused a click in the brain that made them decide they had had enough and now was the time to quit. They put down the cigarettes and never picked them up again, with no patch, no gum, no help of any kind, just the power of the mind.

Even though it is difficult, it really is a change in lifestyle that is needed. There really is no way around this. You can try to follow this diet and that diet for a while, but unless you change the way you live, you will continue to struggle. 

The good news is, if you are lucky enough to hit your bottom and are ready for change, it isn't hard to do once it starts happening. Because a true change in lifestyle happens because we start doing things differently because we WANT to and because we LIKE to. I don't eat salad everyday because I have to and I really wish I was having a burger...I eat salad because I actually WANT to and LIKE to! 

I think intermittent fasting has helped me achieve this. I am no doctor, I am only going on my own experience but, I noticed that before intermittent fasting, my body never told me what it wanted, all I knew was I was starving and I wanted to eat everything all the time.

Fasting has allowed my body the time to asses the foods I provide and send out signals about the foods it wants and the foods it doesn't want. 

When you hear about pregnant women who crave really weird things like dirt or drywall, it is called PICA. They don't know for sure why this happens but suspect that it may be because of an iron deficiency. But these cravings are strong, the body is telling them to eat dirt, and they want to eat it just like we would want to eat chocolate or donuts or anything else that we really CRAVE. This is similar to what has happened with me, my body is CRAVING the things it really wants, like nutrients and vitamins and healthy good for me foods that make my body feel good. It tells me what it wants and makes me CRAVE these things and I eat them because I really WANT to. 

Another good analogy I read in the book The Gabriel Method  (an excellent book which also talks a lot about how to make tiny changes that make a huge impact on your lifestyle). He uses the example of a baby crying for milk. If every time a baby cries for milk you give it Pepsi, the baby will continue to scream because what it really wants is milk. Even though the baby may get very fat and look completely well nourished and well fed, it will still scream like it is starving because what it really needs is MILK!

The Gabriel Method tells us that even though a person is obese and in no way starving, they actually are starving because they are starving NUTRITIONALLY. So the body will keep screaming for food because it is not getting what it needs. And because we live in a society of fast food and convenience stores, more often than not, what we have to offer the body is food with no nutrients.

This is why before intermittent fasting, even though I was extremely overweight, I always felt starving and wanted to eat everything all the time. My body knew it was missing something, it just didn't know what it was, or how to tell me, so it just kept telling me it was starving.

So, for people who are obese, it is something that they really don't have control over. It really is unfair how society has branded overweight/obese people as lazy with no will power and blamed it all on them like they have some control over the situation. 

The body is a powerful thing, capable of healing itself, creating a life, controlling our limbs, an immeasurably complex machine. If this powerful body feels like it is starving, starving for nutrients and the only way to get what it wants is to send a message that it is starving, we are going to eat, and eat and eat whether we like it or not. 

If you are overweight or obese, it isn't your fault no matter what anyone says, no matter how much guilt you feel, you are not to blame. If you still haven't had that one significant thing happen to you to make change possible, maybe this can help, maybe intermittent fasting can help your body finally understand what it is really screaming for. 

You can change, you can switch your own switch in your mind and take the first baby step towards a new lifestyle that you live because you WANT to and LIKE to.

Been Busy!

Sorry I have been missing in action for a while... I have been really busy. I went to a wedding in Victoria for the weekend of May 14th, then it was my birthday May 19th and we went on an RV trip down to the Okanagan for the long weekend. Then I came back and had a girls weekend with some friends to celebrate my birthday and another friends birthday that is on the 30th. So, I have been pretty busy lately.

But, still doing well with fasting and still sticking to my reduced carb choices three days per week. I really notice a difference in my digestion and how I feel when I don't eat wheat. I am going to really try to limit the wheat I eat as much as possible. And carbs will be limited too, within reason of course. I don't really like giving anything up completely because it doesn't really seem maintainable for me, but limiting is certainly the first step.

Here is a photo of the food I eat Mon, Tue and Wed. I also have some chocolate for dessert and later have a snack of carrots, cucumber and hummus dip.  I love how colorful this meal is. I REALLY enjoy it when I eat it, so much variety and flavor! The bread is a wheat free bread that I LOVE. It is 100% rye flower with flax seeds. In my salad is some egg, chicken, avocado, spinach, broccoli coleslaw, cucumbers, sesame seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and dressing. Sometimes I also have some pickles and later in the day I might have a banana for a snack.

I often say that two years ago if I had tried to switch the way I eat to this meal overnight, there is no way I would have managed to stick to it. But now, I know that I will keep this up. Fasting gives my body the chance to tell me what foods it wants in the form of CRAVINGS. Cravings that are just as powerful as the ones we get for chocolate cake. I CRAVE this food now, because my body wants it, it wants the nutrients. It feels good when I give it these nutrients so it asks for more.

I am doing all of this in small steps. 

First step was deciding I had enough and making a commitment to change. 

Second step was giving up carbonated drinks and diet sweeteners.

Third step was try fasting, work my way up to the 19 hour fast.

Fourth step was adding in more veggies, always break my fast with veggies and eat them first. That is when I started eating my spinach salad.

Fifth step was adding in more longer fasts to help kick start my weight loss and keep me consistently moving downwards.

Sixth step was adding in some activity, yoga twice a week is now a must for me, and I want to add a third day. 

Seventh step was changing how I eat Mon-Wed and reducing my carbs. 

And there will be many more steps to come I am sure. There were things I tried along the way that didn't stick. Things that I just didn't enjoy, counting calories, lifting weights, cutting out wheat and dairy completely etc. The things that stuck were the things that I found I did because I enjoyed them, not because I had to do it or should do it but because I really wanted to do it. 

That really is the key, try stuff out until you find things that you LIKE to do, food wise, exercise wise and anywhere in your life that you want to make a change. And don't try to do everything all at once and make HUGE changes cold turkey. Do things one small step at a time, and eventually you will look back and be shocked at how far you have come, and it didn't even seem like it was hard to get there because you did it a little at a time.

Two years ago I was 215 Lbs, very unhappy, very unhealthy, eating almost 100% wheat, carbs and sugar, almost all my food was white. I came home every day and sat in front of the TV until bed time. 

Today I have a new life, with new friends and a schedule of fun things to do almost every evening (and very little TV). Tons of travel in my past and in my future and a healthier happier body. Fast 5 has changed my life and I am never going back!

Here are some pics from the various events I have been busy with this month.

My cousin's wedding in Victoria

My Grandma and I at the wedding,
she is 89 and got up on the dance floor for two songs!

My hubby and I on the dance floor at the reception

Hubby, me and our dog Bexley on the RV

The HUGE RV that our friends took us on this trip in

Doing some sightseeing

In one of the wineries in Osoyoos

One of our yummy lunches on our trip

The birthday girls

Girls night out

On the dance floor

Strike a pose girls!

The morning after, outside the hotel.

Great Lunch!

Today was the first day of my reduced carb eating schedule. I was really excited about lunch today and I really enjoyed my meal. I am not doing NO carbs and I am not doing NO sugar. I am just trying to reduce the amount of carbs and processed foods that I eat within the week. I don't want to deprive myself and start a "diet" I just want to find a way to make small changes that could have a big effect. 


I had my salad (Spinach, brocoli coleslaw, cucumber, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, feta cheese, egg, chicken, avacado, dressing) Some strawberries, blueberries, cashews & cheese.


Of course I need to have my chocolate so I had some fruit and nut chocolate for dessert.


I feel fantastic, and satisfied. I enjoyed every bite, my food was so colorful and beautiful to look at, I got tons of compliments on my lunch and several people said they wished they had my lunch instead of theirs. Looking forward to having this again tomorrow! I will try to remember to take some pictures of my food to show how great it all looks.

Time for a Change

Well, I have been on this plateau for so long now that I realize I am just maintaining. It is time for me to make a change in order to lose another 30 pounds and reach my goal to lose a total of 80 pounds.

Thanks to all the comments and advice from my much appreciated readers, I have decided to make my change in the form of the kinds of foods I eat. I won't be doing anything too drastic, but it will hopefully be enough of a change that I will see the scale start moving again.

I will continue with my long fasts on Sundays and once a month doing an extra long fast of 60-72hours. But I will change up my eating a bit in the following way.

MON - WED: REDUCE MY CARB AND PROCESSED FOOD INTAKE.

MENU:

SALAD: Spinach, brocoli coleslaw, cucumber, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, feta cheese, egg, chicken, avacado, dressing.

FRUIT

NUTS

CHEESE

SNACK: Carrots, Cucumber and hummus

THURS: Add in a small amount of carbs

VEGGIE STIRFRY: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Snap Peas, Zucchini, Carrots, Chicken, Beef, Noodles

FRI - SAT: Enjoy Dinners out with no restrictions but try to keep in mind my goal and not overdo anything.

I will try to post some pics of my food tomorrow. I am looking forward to this! I think it should help. Wish me luck!

Inspiration

I am so happy to be able to inspire people to try intermittent fasting. Thanks so much to all of those who have left comments on my blog with thanks and appreciation for this blog. Please keep the comments coming, it is so great to hear from others and know that I have been able to help in some small way.

I have even inspired some of my friends and their family members to try intermittent fasting. Some have tried and decided not to continue, it isn't for everyone, we all have to do what works for us. But some have tried and done really well. Congratulations to those of you who, like me, have tried intermittent fasting and found their diet soul mate!

Still working it out

The plateau is still holding. Good that I haven't gained any weight but I really am sick of seeing the same number on the scale all the time. I remain calm though because I am confident in intermittent fasting.

I do have to curb my eating more. I know that is why I am on this plateau. I had some bumps along the way, vacation in Vegas didn't help. I will keep my schedule though and keep up the one extra long fast a month like I have been doing and work my way up to the 72 hours. I will also try to watch how much I eat during my window. I have to do better at this. I find it difficult. I don't know what it is about myself that makes me feel the need to overeat. I guess that is what got me here in the first place.

So, commitment. EAT LESS!!! Smaller portions, slower eating, more water. I can do this.