Intermittent Fasting: Day 5 including weigh in

DAY 5:  INTERMITTENT FASTING

19 JANUARY 2017

OVERALL:
Today was a little different in that I felt hungry from about 8am and on.  Yesterday I didn't get hungry until about an hour from my breakfast.  Although  a little frustrating, I still felt good overall.  Energy and mood are staying high and happy!   

Although I overate at lunchtime by accident (not from eating too fast, just not paying attention to satiety levels), I felt great once the overeating symptoms passed about an hour after.  Overall, this was a very productive day. 

I even had excess energy to go for a spontaneous walk after dinner!

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FOOD & ACTIVITY DIARY:

6:15am:     Wakeup

8:00am - 12pm:  Homebrewed green tea:  Ginger, cinnamon, goji berries

Felt very hungry all morning long, starting at about 8am! 

 

12:00pm - 1:00pm:   

• Green Smoothie (1 Date, 1 Green Banana, 1 Kiwi, Collard greens, Almond Milk)
• Salad of Mixed Greens, herbed goat cheese, basil olive oil, balsamic vinegar
• Tastes abnormally yummy!
• South African Bobotie (Ground beef/lamb, mango chutney, peach jam, onions, tomato sauce, spices, milk, eggs, etc.)  About 1cup worth

           Feel like I have overate and a little stuffed

 

2:45pm:  6 Larger Neco Wafer Valentine's Hearts

 

 

 

I AM BURNING UP HOT.  I don't know if its me, or my building's thermostat.  No one else is complaining of the heat, so it must be me.

 

The feeling of being too full didn't last much longer than an hour.  In fact, I felt much better and higher energy after the uneasiness settled.

 

 

5:30pm: 

• Pad See Eew Thai Dish:     Rice Noodles, Beef, Soy Sauce, Oyster Sauce, Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli).  
• I ate over 2 huge full plates, and did not feel like I overate at all!

6:10pm - 7:05pm:

• Went for a neighborhood walk, which includes hills. 

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RESULTS:

.8lb Loss! 



Intermittent Fasting: Day 4 Includes weighin

Here we are, at Day 4!  I almost feel guilty counting the first 2 days, but we will go with it for the sake of keeping track of my trials and tribulations ;)

Here is my food/beverage intake for the day:

8am - 12pm:  Homebrewed green tea:  cinnamon stick, goji berries, green tea

12:10pm:  South African Bobotie (sweet and spicy).  1/2 cup blueberries.   Couple sips of my blueberry/banana smoothie (lavender buds, cinnamon, cardamom, almond milk, etc.)

2:30pm:  Finished my blueberry/banana smoothie - about 1 cup

5:45pm:  Salad (mixed greens, herbed goat cheese, jalapeno stuffed olives, balsamic vinegar, basil olive oil);  chicken and broccoli Alfredo stuffed shells. 

                     ~1cup Fruity Kombucha

7:30pm:  Organic grass fed yogurt with granola, maple syrup and 4 Hershey kisses


Overall:  I continued to be mindful during meals to not overeat, slow down, chew properly and put eating utensil down between bites.  I did not feel like I overate at anytime. 

WeightLoss:  .2lb  **

**  I weigh in the next morning, update the previous day's blogpost, then post to the blog. 

Intermittent Fasting: Day 1 through 3

I decided to try Intermittent Fasting after reading so many amazing testimonials like:

• Less hunger, sugar cravings, etc.
• Enhanced cognitive functions:  focus, motivation, etc.  
• Higher energy
• Less meals to prepare and eat
• And I've even heard people being more connected with love and emotions of others

I am focusing more on the amount of time I am eating, not as much on the quality of the food.  I can only do one at a time starting out, so I chose to change the amount of time I am eating.  Then I will shift to choose better foods, which I believe will come naturally with the shorter eating window. 

Day 1 (1/15/2017):  Idea was to only eat between 12pm and 6pm.  I ended up eating 12pm to about 10pm.  I broke my fast with Chinese buffet, overate, and felt awful.  I continued to eat badly through the day, to include cookie bars, candy, etc.  It did not stop until about 10pm.  Also had major headache all day.

     - Gained .5lb from this day


Day 2 (1/16/2017):  Again, started the day with the intention of only eating between 12 - 6pm.  I ended up breaking my fast with Roy Rogers, to include a small ice cream sundae.  I ate very fast, and too much.  I barely remember eating the meal to be honest.  I continued the day with eating cookie bars and candy pieces, all the way through 9pm.  Major headache continued.

     - Gained another .5lb this day

Day 3 (1/17/2017):  I decided to focus more on being mindful.  And since today is the first day at work since the weekend, I thought it may be harder.  Boy was I wrong, I found it easier.  I instantly felt more motivated to do my work, and even less stressed to be there!  This is a major positive compared to last week's work days.   Still had a headache, although I am now realizing it is due to my back and neck pain, not the way of eating.  Which makes sense because it seemed too early, even for me.  Headache was gone by the end of the day, unless I moved my neck a certain way and than it would hurt instantly for a few seconds.  Definitely my neck/back alignment!

8am - 12pm  Drank my homemade green tea concoction:  Green tea, ginger, cinnamon stick, goji berries. 


12pm - Broke fast with Bobotie (South African dish with ground meat, chutney, jam, spices, etc.) and Collard greens (cooked in coconut milk and curry powder).  I also had a few slurps of my blueberry/banana smoothie (dates, almond milk, lavender buds, cardamom, cinnamon).  I focused on eating slowly, putting down spoon between bites.  End result was feeling awesome afterwards.  I did not overeat and in fact, felt rather satisfied the remainder of the day. 

5:30pm - I focused on being more mindful again as I ate my second meal which consisted of 2 grilled chicken thighs, sautéed spinach, salad (Caesar dressing, cheese, olives) and BBQ sauce (the really sugary unhealthy type).    Still felt great after eating.

7:45pm - Organic yogurt with organic granola and organic maple syrup. 

***  This day proved to be very positive with a 1.4lb weight loss!!!  ***

Check out the other positives of doing IF to see if it would work for you! 

So overall, this IF method seems to be looking good.  Only time will tell of course, but its a good start. 

Reflecting on my Journey prior to 2017

Entering into 2017 has brought me to a place of sorrow, regret and overall personal pain, as I think about the years of dieting and attempting to lose weight. I can't help but feel like a failure, as I continue to grow heavier and heavier. 

 

Back in August 2013, I started the low carb journey (You Tube, Facebook Group and this Blog) thinking "This is IT!, I figured it out!". I lost 45 pounds with what seems like "ease", just to more easily gain back 55 pounds. 

 

I would go back into LCHF multiple times, before truly realizing the negative symptoms I was experiencing each and every time I was doing LCHF:

 

 

• Irritation
• Mood Swings
• Overall unhappiness
• Headaches
• Lethargy
• Very Low energy (maybe 1 day a week high energy)
• and many more

 

A little research revealed that all of those symptoms were in fact what a lot of people that go too low carb experience.  The answer, eat higher carb.  Not high carb per se, but higher.  So I started a way of eating where I didn't eat carbs, but I did pay attention and attempted to maintain below 150g. 

 

Lo and behold - I lost weight at the exact same rate as eating a ketogenic diet.  Interesting, considering the keto community claims they lose weight faster.   And even better than that - I felt AWESOME!   Seriously, I went from one day a week of high energy (6 days low energy), to 6 days high energy (1 day low energy).  Additionally, all those sugar cravings, in-between meal hunger, etc. that the ketogenic diet claims to help with, was also gone with the less than 150g/day "diet". 

 

This was a phenomenal discovery for me.  I literally felt better eating higher carbs, experienced the same rate of weight loss, had no negative symptoms, and felt extremely high energy. 

 

I also experienced the following:

• Increased "want/need" for exercise.  Had no problem going for an hour+ walk every day
• Spontaneous exercise - Just suddenly turn on an exercise video and go, go, go
• Woke up every morning WITHOUT a problem.  Suddenly the 8 hours of sleep I had always had every night, was actually more than enough!
• Menstruations were lighter
• PMS symptoms were 50% reduced
• and many more I can't remember right now

 

Sounds great, right?  Well it is, or was.  The thing is, I have the exact same problem I had with LCHF.  I just can't stay away from the sugar.  

 

The truth is, sugar is my happy place. 

 

 

 

Sugar is my best friend, celebrating with me during those happy moments, and making me feel better during those sad, depressing, stressed out moments. 

 

The next major realization I have made - The type of "Diet" doesn't matter!  Here I was removing all carbs (and sugar) from my "diet", thinking that I would be so much healthier, which wasn't true. 

 

Side Note:  If you think removing sugar is the only way to reverse diabetes, you too are falling pray to the misinformation in the diet world.  There are just as many high carbers eating healthy and reversing diabetes as there are low carbers.  Seriously, google it!

 

 

As I was saying, over the past 3+ years I have thought it was a lower carb diet that would cure me, help me lose weight, make me healthy, help me live forever.  Nope. 

 

Instead, I have found these key items are all I need:

 

• Self Respect.  If I respect myself, I won't engage in disrespecting activities against myself. 

• Acceptance.  Accept me for me.  I have my faults.  And guess what? When I lose 100 pounds, I will still have my faults, they just won't weigh 100 pounds.  We are all sinners in the eye of our creator, and I will never be perfect, no matter how I look. 

• Mindful Eating practices (Mindfulness):  Slow down, eat when hungry, stop when full, chew adequately. 

• Exercise:  Who wants to eat unhealthy when you just conquered a 2 hour walk?  Seriously, exercise just makes me feel so much better mentally and physically.  And I'm not talking a 1 hour bootcamp.  I'm talking a light walk, a 15 minute kettlebell workout, etc.  Nothing too crazy.  Just enough to get the heart rate up, and a smile on my face.

• Healthy food choices:  Choosing lots of veggies, whole foods.  If I want desserts, the healthiest are homemade with whole natural sugar sources (dates, fruit, etc.).  I have yet to overeat on a healthy homemade dessert.  They are just too filling. 

• Say No to [processed] Sugar, Most of the time. 

For Example:  There are instances when my son would share his organic cane sugar jelly beans with me, and I could eat 20 of them, and never think about sugar again.  When I was in ketosis, if I ate those 20 jelly beans, I would finish off a tub of Ben and Jerry's and just start again on Monday.  I just could not handle even the slightest sweet flavor in my mouth. 


So there it is, my own personal key to health.  Seems easy right?  Well, once I get started and past the sugar withdrawals, it is always easy.  The hard part for me is when I reach a highly stressed out situation.  Since I was a very little girl (grade school), I turned to sugar to make me feel better.  I am trying to break a highly addictive habitual behavior that I have had for over 28 years. 

Wow!   I just realized I have turned to my sugar friend for 28 years.  That is a long time.  No wonder this is so hard! 


With that being said, I do not know how much longer I will continue the Facebook Group or even this Blog, as both of them are in disagreement with my current life values. 

I am very thankful for the people I have met through this journey, and although some may not agree with my post, rest assured knowing that I still appreciate everyone that helped me get to this point.  And even if you disagree with me and my personal beliefs today, doesn't mean we cannot support eachother.

I would like to continue writing and sharing my journey, as I believe it is healthy for me, as well as possible helpful to others. 

Until next time, Peace

- Jenny