Eat Less to lose weight?

I was talking with some girls in the office this morning about how I really want to set a timeframe goal for myself to be at my goal weight by my birthday, May 19th. I was saying that my weight loss has slowed down a bit and I need to kick it up a notch in order to achieve this goal.

They asked, "what are you planning to do to kick it up a knotch?" I said, "Increase my exercise and eat less." At the mention of "eat less" their heads started shaking and they blurted out "NO!" You already don't eat enough, don't cut back on your food!

HUH? People really don't get it. You have to eat less to lose weight. That is a fact. I had to explain to them that even though they may see me eat only one meal a day, that I do eat well over my daily recommended calories in that one meal. That counting calories or trying to decrease the amount I eat in that window is my best option for losing weight.

They both thought that I should eat more and eat often and just exercise like mad. That sounds much harder to me. Why would I want to sweat my ass off to try to get my ass off? Why, when I can just try to eat less instead, much easier. I can exercise to try to help me along, to try to tone some muscle, to try to get healthy but doing extreme amounts of exercise doesn't seem practical.

How can we change the public's perception that eating more is what will get you thin? It doesn't even make sense when you say it but everyone believes it!

Money and FAT

I love Brad Pilon! Check out this post on Money and FAT. SO TRUE!

Going down

After my long fast on Sunday, I am back in the 160s! This morning's weigh in was 168.5. Feeling good! I have been using the site www.loseit.com that one of my readers recommended. I LOVE IT! So easy to use. Just log your calories and exercise and it will tell you when you can expect to reach your goal. I try to put my calories for the day in before I eat them so I can make adjustments to my plan if I start going in the red zone...

I prefer not to count calories but this makes it much easier and I think I need a little help at this stage. It gets slower as you get further along so any bit helps.

Got back to my exercise yesterday too, now that I have finally kicked this cold. Did my bar method DVD and lifted some heavy weights.

I wanted to do another long fast on Thursday but we are having a work lunch that day so I have to skip it this week... Should be fine though if I can keep my calories under control this week using loseit.com. SO glad I didn't end up staying in the 170s because of my weekend. Good to know that my body will bounce back if I do!

Our society will not let us diet!

Our society will not let us diet, so stop spending all the money on the latest diet fad!!! Think about it. How many holidays are there?

Valentines Day

Easter

Mother's Day

Father's Day

Independence Day/Canada Day

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Christmas

New Years

...and MANY MORE!

Each and every one of these holidays are centred around food! Chocolate, gravy, alcohol, candy, cookies, and BIG CELEBRATORY MEALS!

That isn't even including:

Birthdays (how many birthday parties do you go to in a year? Hello! Every one of them has CAKE!)

Anniversaries

That lunch/brunch/dinner that you have with a friend you haven't seen in a while

Dinner parties

...and SO MUCH MORE!

What are you going to do at a dinner party, say, "Can I just get a salad with the dressing on the side and that's it?" NO, that would be rude!

How can anyone be successfully on a diet and live in our world? They can't. They don't. At least not long term. They go to that dinner party and they eat what is put in front of them. They go to the Christmas party and have some wine and enjoy themselves, they eat a slice of birthday cake with their family. Then they go home and beat themselves up because they "cheated".

STOP beating yourself up!!! Live your life. EAT.

Intermittent fasting has opened our world up for me again. Now my friends and family don't roll their eyes whenever they have to have a meal with me because "I can't have this, that and the other thing." I eat what everyone else eats.

Every celebratory meal you have is usually planned. With intermittent fasting, all you have to do is fast up until that meal. It is so flexible. I have a schedule that I follow in my routine life, day to day etc. of eating one meal at lunch. When I have a function, I move my window to accommodate the meal.

Saturday night dinner party? Wait til dinner. Sunday brunch? Eat brunch and then fast the rest of the day. Dinner with the girls? You get the picture.

STOP torturing yourself and CELEBRATE!

Diet vs. Exercise

Yet ANOTHER great article on why exercise is NOT the key to weight loss. Again, exercise is great for health and a little help in burning off a few calories but it will not be the key to you losing excess weight.

Check out the article here.

Indulgence

Had an indulgent weekend as hubby and I and some friends went across the border for the weekend to do some shopping. We stayed at a wonderful hotel near some outlet malls and enjoyed ourselves. The food was to die for! SO good. I kept on my schedule but definitely ate over the amount of calories I should have had.

Yesterday we had a wonderful dinner at Red Lobster, which we don't have in our part of Canada so it was a real treat. I love their food! Especially the biscuits! Too many calories but lots of enjoyment. Today I tried to make up for it with an all day fast, because the scale put me back in the 170s this morning with a weigh in at 171.3. BOOOO!!

Hopefully tomorrow, after my long fast, I will be back on track and back in the 160s. I will be careful to keep my calories low and watch what I bring for lunch tomorrow so I don't go over again. I will try to put another long fast in on Thursday to try to fix the damage I did this weekend! I will keep you posted!

Great Article

Found a great article on Intermittent Fasting online that I wanted to share with you all. Below is an excerpt. You can read the entire article here.

Like caloric restriction, intermittent fasting reduces oxidative stress, makes the animals more resistant to acute stress in general, reduces blood pressure, reduces blood sugar, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces the incidence of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and improves cognitive ability. But IF does even more. Animals that are intermittently fasted greatly increase the amount of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) relative to CR animals. CR animals don’t produce much more BDNF than do ad libitum fed animals.

What’s BDNF? (The Wikipedia definition is actually pretty good)

BDNF, as its name implies, is a substance that increases the growth of new nerve cells in the brain, but it does much more than that. BDNF is neuroprotective against stress and toxic insults to the brain and is somehow–no one yet knows how, exactly–involved in the insulin sensitivity/glucose regulating mechanism. Infusing BDNF into animals increases their insulin sensitivity and makes them lose weight. Humans with greater levels of BDNF have lower levels of depression. BDNF given to depressed humans reduces their depression. And Increased levels of BDNF improves cognitive ability. In short, you want as much BDNF as you can get., and with IF you can get a lot.

Still in the 160s!

Wow! This morning I am STILL in the 160s! Two days in a row, 168.4! So far so good! I am doing my long fast tomorrow so that should help to keep me below the 170 mark. I finally felt like I could update my before and after picture. I was waiting until I was in the 160s before I changed it. Wow! I can hardly believe the transformation! Amazing when you see it like this.

I look like a completely different person! It feels great. I am happy with how I look right now and confident that I can reach my goal of losing another 30 pounds or so.

Tonight we are having our favourite greek food at The Greek Islands restaurant. I am looking forward to celebrating tonight with my wonderful hubby. Tomorrow it is back to pottery class where we are working on teapots.

Fasting has also helped me feel better this week. I was feeling a bit sick and in the past when I get sick, I am out for the count. Usually in bed for 3-5 days and REALLY sick. I never understood how people could just push through a cold and work and continue on with their daily activities because I was always so dead to the world. But, since I have begun fasting, I have not been sick like that even once. I have had a few sore throats that have lasted a couple of days and then gone away. I have been able to continue on with my daily activities and not ended up in bed.

I really believe that intermittent fasting has played a role in that. I am no scientist but it seems logical to me that if you are not using up your body's resources on constant digestion then it has more energy to fight off illness. I think that is also why I no longer get any pimples. I seem to heal quicker and easier. Anyway, from my experience, intermittent fasting has done more for me than help me lose weight. I has improved my life in many ways.

I am in SHOCK!

This morning I stepped on the scale and gasped like I had seen a ghost! I couldn't believe my eyes! The scale read 168.4!! That is down from my plateau since May of 174-171!!! I really, really hope it lasts and I stay in the 160s and below from now on! We will see. I was 169 for a brief moment a couple of weeks ago and I went right back into that little 172 pocket again but fingers crossed!

I have been trying to track what I eat before I eat it so that I can somewhat control how much goes in. I plan and prepare to try to keep my eating in check and it seems to be working.

I haven't been feeling well this week so haven't been doing my workouts. But I enjoy them, so I know once I feel better it will be back to the weights and back to my bar method DVD. Have you ever tried the bar method? Kind of a cross between ballet and yoga. You have to hold these ballet like poses for a long time while flexing your muscles. IT BURNS but feels great too. I have noticed my shape changing because of it, and sweat literally drips off me when I do it, which is rare for me because I don't sweat that much. I also lift heavy weights and I am starting to see some muscles growing there too.

I want to look like her!

I feel so grateful that I have found something that works for me and is easy to fit into my life. The people around me are really supportive now and even my co-workers are starting to get it. They still ask questions and say things like, “Aren’t you hungry all the time?” But now that I have been doing this since January, they all kind of realize that if it was really hard, I wouldn’t have been able to keep it up this long.

Dieting just doesn’t work like that. I don’t know anyone who has tried a diet and was able to maintain it for almost a year. Even 6 months would be impressive. This is my lifestyle now and I have complete confidence that I will see my goal and stay there for the rest of my life. It is slow going now but I WILL arrive there.

Biker Chick

I wanted to post some fun pics from halloween where my hubby and I dressed up in biker outfits. The night was really fun and it felt good to dress up in a costume where I didn't feel self conscious about my weight. ROCK ON!