Schedule switch up

I am going to switch up my times a little bit. I have noticed that Fridays regularly end up being a bit of a cheat day. I eat lunch on Fridays like the rest of the week, but then when I get home, there is regularly socializing that goes on in some form. Friends come over or we go out etc. I often end up having some wine and/or some snacks outside my window. I usually just chalk it up as no big deal and continue with my routine then next day.

But I think now I will switch it up so that I eat lunch Mon-Thurs with an eating window of 12-5pm. Then on Friday, fast all day and wait until dinner with an eating window of 6-11. Then I can enjoy the wine and fun with no guilt. I will also have a late eating window on Saturdays. That will give me a 24 hour fast once per week (between Thursday at 5 and Friday at 6pm) and my regular 38-48 hour fast on Sundays.

Hopefully this will help with any "cheating" and help me get through Thursdays, which I was finding difficult as I used to do an all day fast on Thursdays as well.

This is yet another reason why I love intermittent fasting, the flexibility. I can switch from lunch to dinner and back again as I see fit. It really makes it easy to fit this into my lifestyle and make it work.

Still hovering around the 170 mark...hopefully this new schedule will push things in the right direction...

It does take getting used to

For the last two weeks I haven't done an all day fast. I usually incorporate two 38-48 hour fasts per week but because of travelling and work lately, I have skipped them.

I am just going to end one today that will be a 44 hour fast and I have to admit that this was one of the hardest ones. I usually have no problem completing a long fast. I will think about food two or three times during the day which is easily put aside and the hunger pains are minimal. But, because I haven't done it for a while, I noticed a difference this time. I thought about food almost the whole time and had hunger pains several times during the day yesterday.

Obviously it does take getting used to. You have to condition yourself for this lifestyle. I find the 19 hour fasts that I do daily are now a non-issue but at first they were a bit challenging. Your body gets used to it eventually but there is a bit of a "withdrawal" period that you have to go through and that is what I was probably experiencing yesterday.

I know this works and I know that the hunger pains go away once you get used to it, so if any of you are having issues, it is all about routine. Just get in a routine for most of the week, a good 5 or 6 days at least and your body will adjust.

Now that I got through yesterday, I feel great this morning. The day after the long fast is always the best for me, and this morning the scale said down 2.5 Lbs so also great motivation!

Same old Same old

Still stuck...I am back in the 170s for the past two weigh ins...I was out of town for work and eating lots of junk, even though it was in my eating window, there were plenty of indulgent dinners to be had...

So there has been no movement on the scale lately.

Even still, I feel pretty good about how I look lately so I am not overly bothered. I just worry that I will never reach my goal this year at this rate. I bought a pair of pants that I loved that were a bit too tight in anticipation of shrinking into them...well they may be sitting in my closet for longer than I thought!

But I won't give up! I know this works and so I will just stick to it and keep up with my schedule and hope that I can find a way to eat less during my eating window without depriving myself...I am sure that is the issue, just too much when I do eat. Obviously I am not cured of what got me here in the first place, OVEREATING!!! UGGGGG!

Going to be going to Vegas when the weather turns and so I have to buy a bathing suit before I go. I haven't bought a bathing suit in several years, and I am actually looking forward to it which is completely SHOCKING! I will probably change my mind once I am in the fitting room though but for now it is something I am excited to try, to see just how far I have come.

Going to start tanning soon too in anticipation of my trip. We are going to Vegas and then to visit a friend in Austin Texas so I will need a bit of pre-sun as I am whiter than white! I know tanning makes you look thinner too so looking forward to that as well.

Come on scale!! DOWN, DOWN!!!

Long Fasts

Thanks for all your comments on my last post. It helps to get your opinions. I agree that if I deprive myself too much more I may feel like I am on a diet and then, what is the point? It may come off but will only come back if I can't maintain the change. So I am going to wait it out and see what happens in the next while.

Today I am on one of my long fasts. I last ate at around 10pm on Saturday night and won't break my fast until Monday afternoon at 12. That will make 38 hours. I love my long fasts. I feel really great and the morning before I break my fast is always full of energetic, happy feelings and absolutely NO hunger.

I love the feeling of breaking my fast after waiting so long as well. Food is so much more enjoyable and every smell is magnified. I am hoping sticking to my regular routine will show some results this week. I have hovered for a while now:

Starting on Monday January 17th:

169.0

168.6

170.6

167.6

167.6

167.2

168.6

167.5

166.7

167.9

168.6

166.8

167.6

168.2

170.0

170.2

169.5

168.4

169.5

HOVERING around 168. But I usually hover like this for quite a while and then boom, down a few more and hover there instead. So, fingers crossed that this will be the week that I start hovering around a different, lower number!

HOVERING!!

I have really noticed that I just hover...hover around a certain weight. I supose it could be normal, that the body is just re-aligning and getting ready for the next drop. That seems to be what has happened in the past. But I suspect that if I want to keep on moving down I need to find a way to EAT LESS!

I have found a way to eat less enough to lose all the weight I have lost to date, and I have found something that I can do long term as a lifestyle, INTERMITTENT FASTING. It works for me, it made the almost 50Lbs I lost seem to come off with little effort. Now I have another 30Lbs or so I want to get rid of. I have to find a way to adjust my lifestyle even more to accommodate this goal.

I have tried all the diets out there and they all fail for me long term, I find them too hard to maintain for a long period of time, too hard to assimilate into my life. Calorie counting, for example. I have tried calorie counting on and off and even tried it in combination with Intermittent Fasting. I find it to be way too time consuming and tedious. Realistically, I am not going to be able to count calories for the rest of my life. I need more of an "eyeball it" approach.

I have been successful at including two long 30-48 hour fasts per week on top of my daily 19 hour fasts which seemed to help me get from the 180s to the 160s...But now I need to take it to the next level to get to goal.

How in the world am I going to do this without feeling deprived? The thing I love about intermittent fasting is that when I eat, I can EAT. I love large portions and variety in my meals. I love desserts. Yesterday I ate onion rings with my stir fry and had a chocolate bar for dessert. I don't really think it is realistic for me to give that up forever. And I know from experience that if you really want to lose weight and KEEP IT OFF, the changes you make, have to be a FOREVER thing.

I have to assess my habits and see what I am willing to change, or I may hover forever!

Fasting & a Cold

This week I have had a bit of a cold. Ever since I started fasting I have noticed that my colds are few and far between and I recover so much quicker than before. Before fasting, I would get a cold and it would knock me out for almost a week. I would be in bed and miserable. I would sleep for days, so exhausted.

Last year, after I started fasting I noticed that I would be able to function through my cold, something that I saw other people doing but never could seem to do myself. I also noticed that I would recover much faster, after just a couple of days. I have now been practicing intermittent fasting for over a year and so I can see that this is now a trend rather than a fluke. I have successfully got through three colds without a day off work or a day wasted in bed.

I really believe that fasting is the reason for this. I think that my immune system is stronger because my body has the time to focus its energies on healing rather than having to spend all it's energy on digesting mass quantities of food.

This is a significant change for me and among many other positive changes I have noticed because of fasting!

Naturopathic Help

So far the advice I have got and the treatments I received from the Naturopath have been helping. I have never had such good digestion in over 5 years. Ever since I got my gaul bladder out it has been a constipation nightmare. Now with probiotics and a digestive enzyme along with some colonics treatments, I have been happily non-bloated for a few weeks now.

Very big difference and well worth the effort!

I have been keeping up with my Gabriel Method meditations and visualizations and doing my Venus Index workouts along with the ever present 19 hour fasts every day. I am still in the 170's, and haven't been able to get back in the 160s just yet, but I am just going to be patient and stick it out because this happens every 10 Lbs. I just have to keep it up and eventually I will be stuck in the 160s for a while...and so on.

Today is my all day fast. I finished eating yesterday at around 9pm and will break my fast on Monday at 12 noon, which will be a 39 hour fast when I finally have my "break-fast."

I am really looking forward to meeting my goal this year but I have to say that I am also very happy with how I look right now as well. I feel great too, and that is all that matters.

No Wheat, No Dairy, No Thanks

Well, I tried. I did it for a week and it really sucked. It really felt like I was on a diet, and we all know how I feel about diets. I really don’t do well when I deprive myself of the foods I love. That is why I have done so well with intermittent fasting. I can eat what I love and still lose weight. I am sure that a wheat free, dairy free diet is very good for you but it just doesn’t work for me.

I don’t really feel bad when I eat wheat and dairy, at least I didn’t when I put it back in on the weekend, so I really don’t see the benefit of it for me. I will certainly try to cut back on my wheat intake though where I can, buying rice pasta and 100% rye bread as I like these options and they don’t taste any different to me so why not?

I had a good weekend and enjoyed the food I ate, wheat, dairy and all.

After the Big Fast

This morning I weighed in at 168.7, almost 4Lbs down in two days! That is very good progress...almost back to where I was in mid November when I hit the 50Lb mark but went back up again.

Although it is after a big long fast that I weighed in this morning...I fasted for 44 hours. So some of that will certainly come back on. I am having a hard time with the no wheat, no dairy thing...haven't cheated yet but I am having cravings for sure. I really want to go out and have a hamburger with mayo and cheese and onion rings!!!

I really realize doing this that I don't do well when I deprive myself of something. That is why diets never worked for me and why Intermittent Fasting DOES. I am going to keep trying but I really don't know if this is for me. The scale results are helping me stick to it though, as I haven't seen those drops in a while and so I am thinking no wheat is helping me with that.

It isn't like I plan on cutting wheat and dairy out of my diet all together, no matter what they say at the Naturopath, the most I will do is cut back...

We will see how I do during the weekend.

Seem to be going down

Well, since I have been back to work and back to my schedule I seem to be going down again. I was up to 174 during Christmas and this morning I was 170. Seems as though my regular schedule has put me right back on track.

I think the no wheat no dairy thing has been helping too, even though it has only been a couple of days. I do feel a bit less bloated during the day which is nice, so hopefully this change will help kick start my loss. I really want to meet my goal in 2011! 135-140 Lbs and a size 8. I can do it!!!

My workouts have been on hold because of the holiday season, and this first week back at work has left me kind of exhausted...so I haven't been working out, but on Monday, I plan to go right back to that schedule too and keep working towards my Venus body!!

Today is my first day back for the all day fasts. I finished eating yesterday at 4pm and plan to break my fast tomorrow at 12 noon for lunch with a yummy shepherds pie that my hubby is making, that should make a 44hour fast when I eat my "break-fast" tomorrow at noon.

Been doing really well with the water today which is great, I usually drink one cup of tea and then around two bottles of water in my glass container that I have during the day. Today I am on a third bottle of water so I am ahead of the game today.

Saturday I have my first appointment at the Naturopath to get some treatment for my digestive issues, so hopefully I will feel really good come Monday morning for my workout.