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.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Intermittent Fasting forever
Today is my wedding anniversary...8 years married. And today is another anniversary...900 days of intermittent fasting!
Wow, I can hardly believe it has been that long, yet somehow I always knew this would be a lifelong journey for me. When I first started fasting for weight loss, I would talk a bit about the intermittent fasting program with people I knew and I got a regular question: "But, what will you do once you lose the weight, go back to eating normally?"
I knew from my past failures with dieting that of course it never works to change your routine temporarily. I knew this because I had always gained back any weight lost while dieting. So when I found intermittent fasting, I decided right away that I had to do this forever.
And that really is the key. Doing something forever, whatever it is.
I say it all the time, diets don't work. That is only because diet = temporary. If you took on any diet out there as a forever thing, they would all work! But really, who can eat only lettuce forever, or count calories forever, or not eat carbs forever? Not many people I know.
Lifestyle change is just a fancy phrase that means forever. And the only way you will want to do something forever is if it doesn't feel like work, like effort, like a diet.
Intermittent fasting is my forever thing. What is yours?
Wow, I can hardly believe it has been that long, yet somehow I always knew this would be a lifelong journey for me. When I first started fasting for weight loss, I would talk a bit about the intermittent fasting program with people I knew and I got a regular question: "But, what will you do once you lose the weight, go back to eating normally?"
I knew from my past failures with dieting that of course it never works to change your routine temporarily. I knew this because I had always gained back any weight lost while dieting. So when I found intermittent fasting, I decided right away that I had to do this forever.
And that really is the key. Doing something forever, whatever it is.
I say it all the time, diets don't work. That is only because diet = temporary. If you took on any diet out there as a forever thing, they would all work! But really, who can eat only lettuce forever, or count calories forever, or not eat carbs forever? Not many people I know.
Lifestyle change is just a fancy phrase that means forever. And the only way you will want to do something forever is if it doesn't feel like work, like effort, like a diet.
Intermittent fasting is my forever thing. What is yours?
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
How do I lose weight?
Everyone thinks they know the answer to this question.
Less carbs, No sugar, Count Calories, Crash Diet, Surgery, Diet Pill, Join a Gym...on and on and on...They are all right...you can lose weight doing these things...but chances are you will find it again...
I don't want to lose weight...I want to release it...forever.
The real question we should be asking is how do I release weight? This is much more complicated and only creates more questions.
Why are we fat in the first place?
If you think it is because you have no time, or you are tired, or you are lazy or you have no willpower or you just eat too much or you don't exercise enough, these are not the real problems...they are only the symptoms. The real problem is much deeper than that.
Do any of you know someone who has just always been skinny. They have never struggled, and yet they seem to always enjoy food and be just as busy as we are and yes they are tired too...the difference is that they are not trying to fill a void (or maybe their void doesn't fill up with food as nicely as ours does, they may use other things to fill their voids).
What is your void?
Happiness...we all want it, it is the one thing that everyone will say they want, the problem is that we don't really know what it is or how to get it. Maybe it is as simple as that, you don't really know how to be happy. Maybe it is more complicated than that. It is a fight that is going on inside.
The fight is deep, it is harder than a change of diet or an addition of exercise...it is psychological. The void is the culprit and sometimes that void is so well hidden that it may never be found. Go deeper than just the actions that have caused weight gain...look to why weight gain is making you feel better.
I know, you are saying: "What!? But I don't feel better, I feel awful, I hate being fat, I want to be thin, being thin will make me feel better!" Maybe not.
Being fat is a response that your subconscious has created to protect you from something. Maybe you are padding yourself against the world. Maybe you want protection against being hurt or being loved. Maybe you want to be invisible. Being fat makes you invisible in a way, people look away or see the fat and not the true you. Maybe you are punishing yourself for not being who you think you should be or who others think you should be.
Being fat is the symptom, not the problem.
What is the problem?
Look deep. Pain is usually the culprit. There is deep pain somewhere. Release the pain if you want to release the weight. A diet is not the answer. A new exercise routine is not the answer. Surgery is not the answer. These things are not treating the problem, they are only treating the symptom.
Talk about it, with a friend, with a counsellor, in an online forum, in your church...reach out to those who can understand and help you see the truth. The problem is sometimes well hidden. You may not be able to see it yourself. You are too close, to comfortable living with it. Someone else can help you to see things in a new light.
Be open to accepting this problem and facing it. It may be hard, you may have trauma to deal with. You may not want to think about it or talk about it. But in order to truly release, the pain and your weight, you have to accept the problem.
How can I change?
One small step at a time. Only things that are done out of pleasure really continue to get done. Even a job we don't like comes with reward, a pay check, benefits etc. We get pleasure out of it and that is why we keep doing it. If there was no reward and no pleasure we would stop. That is why a crash diet won't work because you will stop doing it eventually.
Change little by little and all the while look inside, go deeper. See fat as a symptom. Find the problem and face it, rid yourself of the void to get to the cause of why we are fat in the first place and finally RELEASE.
Less carbs, No sugar, Count Calories, Crash Diet, Surgery, Diet Pill, Join a Gym...on and on and on...They are all right...you can lose weight doing these things...but chances are you will find it again...
I don't want to lose weight...I want to release it...forever.
The real question we should be asking is how do I release weight? This is much more complicated and only creates more questions.
Why are we fat in the first place?
If you think it is because you have no time, or you are tired, or you are lazy or you have no willpower or you just eat too much or you don't exercise enough, these are not the real problems...they are only the symptoms. The real problem is much deeper than that.
Do any of you know someone who has just always been skinny. They have never struggled, and yet they seem to always enjoy food and be just as busy as we are and yes they are tired too...the difference is that they are not trying to fill a void (or maybe their void doesn't fill up with food as nicely as ours does, they may use other things to fill their voids).
What is your void?
Happiness...we all want it, it is the one thing that everyone will say they want, the problem is that we don't really know what it is or how to get it. Maybe it is as simple as that, you don't really know how to be happy. Maybe it is more complicated than that. It is a fight that is going on inside.
The fight is deep, it is harder than a change of diet or an addition of exercise...it is psychological. The void is the culprit and sometimes that void is so well hidden that it may never be found. Go deeper than just the actions that have caused weight gain...look to why weight gain is making you feel better.
I know, you are saying: "What!? But I don't feel better, I feel awful, I hate being fat, I want to be thin, being thin will make me feel better!" Maybe not.
Being fat is a response that your subconscious has created to protect you from something. Maybe you are padding yourself against the world. Maybe you want protection against being hurt or being loved. Maybe you want to be invisible. Being fat makes you invisible in a way, people look away or see the fat and not the true you. Maybe you are punishing yourself for not being who you think you should be or who others think you should be.
Being fat is the symptom, not the problem.
What is the problem?
Look deep. Pain is usually the culprit. There is deep pain somewhere. Release the pain if you want to release the weight. A diet is not the answer. A new exercise routine is not the answer. Surgery is not the answer. These things are not treating the problem, they are only treating the symptom.
Talk about it, with a friend, with a counsellor, in an online forum, in your church...reach out to those who can understand and help you see the truth. The problem is sometimes well hidden. You may not be able to see it yourself. You are too close, to comfortable living with it. Someone else can help you to see things in a new light.
Be open to accepting this problem and facing it. It may be hard, you may have trauma to deal with. You may not want to think about it or talk about it. But in order to truly release, the pain and your weight, you have to accept the problem.
How can I change?
One small step at a time. Only things that are done out of pleasure really continue to get done. Even a job we don't like comes with reward, a pay check, benefits etc. We get pleasure out of it and that is why we keep doing it. If there was no reward and no pleasure we would stop. That is why a crash diet won't work because you will stop doing it eventually.
Change little by little and all the while look inside, go deeper. See fat as a symptom. Find the problem and face it, rid yourself of the void to get to the cause of why we are fat in the first place and finally RELEASE.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Long fast complete
Today is the end of my long, long fast to try to counteract some of the damage I did while on vacation last weekend...I ate two meals a day for a few days and definitely ate too much!
So I started this fast on Tuesday Evening at about 9pm and will end it tonight at about 5pm. That makes about 68 hours. Phew! I felt great though, no hunger, not weak...and now I feel much better. I was pretty bloated after all that indulging over the weekend!
Planning to have some yummy mexican food and a glass of wine outside on our new patio set tonight.
Intermittent fasting is so great for getting things back in line...even when you stumble.
So I started this fast on Tuesday Evening at about 9pm and will end it tonight at about 5pm. That makes about 68 hours. Phew! I felt great though, no hunger, not weak...and now I feel much better. I was pretty bloated after all that indulging over the weekend!
Planning to have some yummy mexican food and a glass of wine outside on our new patio set tonight.
Intermittent fasting is so great for getting things back in line...even when you stumble.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Intermittent Fasting is good for the brain
ANOTHER fantastic article on the benefits of fasting! Check out this link, and excerpt below:
--
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The scientific evidence is compelling, Mark Mattson says. Reducing your caloric intake and fasting regularly can prolong life, lead to a healthier life, and particularly help preserve brain function.
“Our genes, our genetics, are geared to us having food intermittently,” Mattson, an internationally recognized authority oncalorie restriction, told an audience of about 120 people Tuesday during a medical-education conference at St. John’s Hospital on “healthy brain aging.”
Mattson, 55, a biologist, is laboratory chief of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore. He said he knows it’s heresy for some people to consider anything other than the American standard of three meals a day.
But three meals a day isn’t what the research indicates is best for promoting a long, healthy life or for delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, he said.
“I’m comfortable with saying that it’s healthy, it’s fine, to skip meals,” he said after his presentation. “The animal studies are very clear.”
--
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Long Term Intermittent Fasting
Had a comment asking me if I have stuck with this since I started in January of 2010.
YES!
I fast every single day for 19 hours. Of course there have been times when I went off plan, but only for a few days on vacation or a day or two during Christmas. Nothing substantial.
I also do a long fast every Sunday, meaning that I do not eat at all on Sundays. I take a break on that during the summer months, but Spring, Winter and Fall, I fast all day, every Sunday.
Also, sometimes before and/or after a vacation where I may eat outside my window or indulge a bit more than usual, I may include a three day fast before and after to try to counteract the excess food.
Despite all of this, I still struggle with over eating during my eating window. Fasting helps this issue not effect my weight in any significant way, but I do want to fix this problem in my life eventually. I am so grateful for intermittent fasting because it has helped me control the effects that my over eating has on my body and my health.
For me, because I have been practicing intermittent fasting for a long time, it just feels natural. It has become my way of eating, my lifestyle, my routine. I rarely think about it, and find that I only feel hungry when it would normally be time to break my fast. It really is something that the body can easily adapt to. I truly believe that humans were made to eat this way...early humans had to hunt for food, not just make a trip to the store. It would have been common to go without food for long periods of time followed by short time of plenty, after a kill.
I feel like what is abnormal is eating constantly. The body doesn't know how to handle all the food and it is a lot of work to be in a constant state of digestion.
Funny story, there was this young girl on the train with me the other day. She was telling her friend about her dinner the night before. She said: "Like, I was SO hungry, I was like, give me food NOW or I am going to DIE! I am STARVING! I mean, I hadn't eaten one thing at all since lunch!"
People do think it is abnormal to not eat constantly...eating between meals is common and expected. People think that skipping a snack means that they are STARVING...honestly I find this a bit arrogant. They have no idea what true starving is and have never even tested their bodies tolerance to lack of food.
Fasting calms my body and my mind. I could never go back. I will practice intermittent fasting for the rest of my life.
YES!
I fast every single day for 19 hours. Of course there have been times when I went off plan, but only for a few days on vacation or a day or two during Christmas. Nothing substantial.
I also do a long fast every Sunday, meaning that I do not eat at all on Sundays. I take a break on that during the summer months, but Spring, Winter and Fall, I fast all day, every Sunday.
Also, sometimes before and/or after a vacation where I may eat outside my window or indulge a bit more than usual, I may include a three day fast before and after to try to counteract the excess food.
Despite all of this, I still struggle with over eating during my eating window. Fasting helps this issue not effect my weight in any significant way, but I do want to fix this problem in my life eventually. I am so grateful for intermittent fasting because it has helped me control the effects that my over eating has on my body and my health.
For me, because I have been practicing intermittent fasting for a long time, it just feels natural. It has become my way of eating, my lifestyle, my routine. I rarely think about it, and find that I only feel hungry when it would normally be time to break my fast. It really is something that the body can easily adapt to. I truly believe that humans were made to eat this way...early humans had to hunt for food, not just make a trip to the store. It would have been common to go without food for long periods of time followed by short time of plenty, after a kill.
I feel like what is abnormal is eating constantly. The body doesn't know how to handle all the food and it is a lot of work to be in a constant state of digestion.
Funny story, there was this young girl on the train with me the other day. She was telling her friend about her dinner the night before. She said: "Like, I was SO hungry, I was like, give me food NOW or I am going to DIE! I am STARVING! I mean, I hadn't eaten one thing at all since lunch!"
People do think it is abnormal to not eat constantly...eating between meals is common and expected. People think that skipping a snack means that they are STARVING...honestly I find this a bit arrogant. They have no idea what true starving is and have never even tested their bodies tolerance to lack of food.
Fasting calms my body and my mind. I could never go back. I will practice intermittent fasting for the rest of my life.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Over Eating
I still over eat...I try so hard but it is just something that I can never fully shake.
During the week I do pretty well, I eat mainly fruit, veggies and protein. Hardly any carbs and very little sugar. Occasionally I have a treat as well, a muffin or a cookie..but I really want to cut that out during the week.
But, then on the weekend I just eat what I want, still within my 5 hour window but most of the time I eat too much.
This habit is hard to break, fasting has helped but not solved the problem. Over eating is like an addiction to food. And being addicted to food is the worst!
If a heroine addict was taken to rehab and they told the doctors:
You need to stop taking all this heroin, it is bad for you, we want you to have just a little bit of heroin every day...but don't have too much!
How successful do you think that addict would be at kicking their habit?
We have to eat. We have to eat to live. If I lived in the middle of no where and didn't have a TV, could only live off the land, maybe I would do better. But there are all these commercials for food and billboards for food and pubs, and restaurants and corner stores and gas stations...food is absolutely EVERYWHERE.
How successful do you think that addict would have been if he was also sent out into the world where there was heroin for sale on every corner, with big advertisements on how wonderful heroin is? He would probably overdose in the blink of an eye.
So, I am trying...most days I am successful, but I am certainly not perfect and I don't know that I ever will be, but I am trying.
At the very least, I have released a bunch of weight that will never return thanks to intermittent fasting. And I have added a ton of healthy food to my menu which is wonderful for my health. I hope that someday, somehow, I can kick this addiction to overeating and release the last of this unwanted weight...
One day at a time.
During the week I do pretty well, I eat mainly fruit, veggies and protein. Hardly any carbs and very little sugar. Occasionally I have a treat as well, a muffin or a cookie..but I really want to cut that out during the week.
But, then on the weekend I just eat what I want, still within my 5 hour window but most of the time I eat too much.
This habit is hard to break, fasting has helped but not solved the problem. Over eating is like an addiction to food. And being addicted to food is the worst!
If a heroine addict was taken to rehab and they told the doctors:
You need to stop taking all this heroin, it is bad for you, we want you to have just a little bit of heroin every day...but don't have too much!
How successful do you think that addict would be at kicking their habit?
We have to eat. We have to eat to live. If I lived in the middle of no where and didn't have a TV, could only live off the land, maybe I would do better. But there are all these commercials for food and billboards for food and pubs, and restaurants and corner stores and gas stations...food is absolutely EVERYWHERE.
How successful do you think that addict would have been if he was also sent out into the world where there was heroin for sale on every corner, with big advertisements on how wonderful heroin is? He would probably overdose in the blink of an eye.
So, I am trying...most days I am successful, but I am certainly not perfect and I don't know that I ever will be, but I am trying.
At the very least, I have released a bunch of weight that will never return thanks to intermittent fasting. And I have added a ton of healthy food to my menu which is wonderful for my health. I hope that someday, somehow, I can kick this addiction to overeating and release the last of this unwanted weight...
One day at a time.
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