Week Eighteen: The Marathon- Delay, Don't Deny

I'm now at the crux of the marathon that is the IF lifestyle. The initial speedy start is over, the pace has been established, and now I'm starting to feel those fasting muscles burn as I settle into a new pace.

Muscles don't like to run marathons- they'll initially fight and burn and ache, but once they get the idea this isn't some short-term sprint, they settle down and prepare for long-term stamina.

Image by Ernesto Eslava from Pixabay 

Stomachs don't like to fast. They rumble, they want food- or so we are taught. It doesn't help that food was made to smell awesome, and the nose lets the stomach know that there's something yummy nearby. 

The stomach, however, is not in charge of the feet- the brain is. And the brain will do one of two things- reason with the stomach and find something better to do, or go with the flow and cave to the stomachs' wants.

This is where I've been all week. Even typing about food just made my stomach rumble, and it's not even 8:30 in the morning- and I don't eat until at least 3:00 pm.

Mondays are usually harder because I'm coming from a weekend of wider eating windows- but before 8:30 in the morning? Sheesh!

The week started with my daughter making herself breakfast. I could smell almost all of the ingredients she used to make breakfast, except for one. It was something meaty, but I couldn't pinpoint it. The smell of the mystery meat was driving me crazy!

I held off as much as I could, waited until most of the smell went away, then came down to ask what on earth did she make herself for breakfast. She'd made herself an omelet with bacon, sausage, and a little cheesesteak steak leftover from the strombolis we made the previous night. Oh man, that cheesesteak omelet smelled so good!

I wanted one of those omelets. Bad.

Holding off the cravings wasn't easy. I admit that I almost did cave in and make one. But I drank a boatload of water and promised myself that I'd make one once I came home from work, which is usually when I open my eating window. My stomach wasn't happy, but my brain was in charge, and I went upstairs to keep busy until it was time to go to work.

There was no way I was going to stay downstairs near temptation!

It was like that most of the week, though not as bad as that day. Water was my friend, and though I was constantly using the bathrooms during my work route, I stayed away from anything food until I got home. Then I ate what I was craving and all was well with the world.

Narrowing the weekend eating windows is something to consider, even though I won't be eating with the family for at least one meal. I still want breakfast for lunch, but maybe convince the family to have an earlier dinner- around 5:00 pm. They can have a snack later on in the evenings if they want (I can resist eating that stuff easily enough), and my fasting time will be longer with less food.

I definitely ate too much over the weekend. I know I did, but my stomach wasn't bloated or even overly full, just satisfied. I'm still debating whether that's a good thing or not. 

This week it's back to my Cobb salads. I didn't have all of the ingredients last week and I felt the difference! I had more energy and felt thinner the next day after eating them, and I want to keep it that way. I also realize I have to cut down on my chip consumption. Shocking, I know, but I found myself eating them even when I wasn't craving them. That's grazing- something I definitely don't want to do!

One big hurdle to leap is getting my family to understand that it's okay if I leave the ice cream in the freezer until I really want it, it's okay to leave food in their packages until I want them, and it's okay to not eat everything in one sitting (like I used to). 

My kids just don't get that the stuff in the freezer won't go bad. They keep pressuring me to finish off leftovers instead of freezing them. A bag of chips can be eaten in a week instead of a day or two. 

I'm still learning not to panic when they finish something I like because I didn't eat it 'in time'. I'm not a garbage disposal, and we can always make or buy more if I really want it again.

Breathe deep, Beth...breathe deep. 

Those IF muscles ache right now. But I know they'll settle into this new pace until I'm ready for the next leg of the race. In the meantime, I'm staying as far from the kitchen as I can before I go to work and enjoy what I crave when I get home.

And when I do crave something as badly as that omelet, my stomach knows that if it just waits a bit longer, it will get what it wants!

Week Seventeen: Meat is My Favorite Vegetable

I'm not gonna lie- I can't just have a plain salad. I have to have at least one protein thing in it for me to be happy. It could be a boiled egg, chicken, ham, or tuna, or maybe some cheese and bacon bits- but there has to be something in there that's meat-related, otherwise, I'm hungry within minutes of finishing the salad. Salads like chicken, tuna, or shrimp are my personal faves because they are almost all meat.

Image by Pearl Vaj from Pixabay 

See? Just add a single baby spinach leaf and you have a salad. Total Yum.

This week featured two salads- chicken cobb, and tuna. I love tuna on rye bread, but this week I switched out most of the bread for green peppers. Very crunchy and yummy, and though I get a bit burpish afterward, I don't get that bloated feeling after having bread.

I shortened my weekend windows by an hour and kept portions a bit more reasonable. Doing all of these things really helped me feel much more energetic, and even when I did have bread, it didn't nearly have the bloating effect it normally does. 

I feel great!

I also didn't snack as much as before. Yes- I snacked less on chips! Never thought that was possible. I really think the next weigh-in will show better results- as long as I behave myself. And I mean 'behave' as in eating until satisfied- not to restrict what I'm eating.

My workweek eating windows still feature a meal and a snack, and weekends are still two meals. I had at least three chicken cobb salads this past week, and I plan on having more as soon as we get more rotisserie chicken. I tend to stick with a dish until I tire of it, but if I hold off having it every day, I should extend that 'sticktoittiveness' for a longer period. 

There. I said it. I want to eat salad. Humph.

I also want to add a few veggie laden snacky things to the menu as well, like carrot coins and hummus. I love the hummus, but it always gets shoved into the back of the fridge and gets forgotten! I've also made meaty snacks in the low-carb past that included thin, baked slices of Italian sausage (also good with hummus), but I might hold off on that and seek out more veggies to polish off the hummus before we need Indiana Jones to spelunk the depths of my fridge.

Exercise still eludes me because my knee is still wonky, though less so since I rested it over the weekend. Hopefully, I won't strain it on steps during work, and maybe I can test out my limberness later this week with one of those Body Groove videos. We shall see.

I'm not gonna lie again. That picture of bacon is making my stomach growl, and it's not even 10:30 yet. I don't eat until after 3:00 pm. Sigh.

*hums* I dream of bacon with the light brown crisp...

This is usually when I drink a lot of water- but I'm holding off because water and laptops don't mix!

Oh man- I need to find something else to do. Ah well, while I go distract myself with non-meaty things, I hope my journey helps you see what life is like the IF way and that there's a lot of good along with the struggles. A lot of good. Good food. Good, meaty food. Meaty goodness.

Okay, I'm so finished with this post. I better get busy decluttering files for my new laptop before I start spelunking the fridge!

Week Sixteen: Weigh-in Struggle Bus- with Pics!

Image by shauking from Pixabay 

It's been an interesting week.

I've been riding the struggle bus. The smell of food makes me want to toss out my progress and cave to temptation. My family makes breakfast early in the mornings, and I eat in the afternoon. It smells so good. Sometimes I feel like I'll break- but I won't. I grit my teeth, refuse to go downstairs, and find something better to do. 

It doesn't help that I'm lame.

No, I'm not putting myself down- I really am lame. Lame-ish. The tendon on the outside of my knee started acting up, and I've been off my walking game for almost two weeks now. 

Boredom breeds bad habits. 

When my eating window opened, I found myself filling it with more food than I intended, not to mention most of it was comfort foods. Creamy, thick soups and casseroles with cheese, chips, chocolate, and bread. Homemade, but still not the best for my body- and I know it.

And it showed on the scale.

It wasn't as bad as I'd feared- the measurements showed a decent loss in some places and very little gain in others. Some measurements remained the same, and though the scale wasn't kind, it wasn't harsh either. I'd lost two pounds total this month.

Here are the numbers:

Original numbers:          4 weeks ago:              Now:                Difference:

Weight 363 lbs.                  338                        336                  2 pounds

Biceps- 23"                      21-1/2"                     21"                   -1/2"

Chest- 61-1/2"                    59"                     59-1/2"                +1/2"

Waist- 58"                       56-1/2"                  55-1/4"                 -3/4"

Hips- 69-1/2"                   63-3/4"                     64"                   +1/4"

Thigh- 32"                          31"                      29-1/2"                -1/2"

Neck- 18"                         17-3/4"                   same                  none

I also promised pictures the next time I lost a total of ten pounds. Two things I'd noticed were: the shirt fits me perfectly now, and the shorts are starting to feel a little loose!

Before and after pics for comparison:

 

 

 

The struggle is real, folks! 

I took a hard look at my habits this month. I've been playing games with myself. 

I'd sit down to a small feast once a day and figure that's one meal- I could get away with it.

I didn't need to re-bag my chips, because I had self-control.

I had to finish off the leftovers in the fridge.

Leftovers were faster and less troublesome than actually preparing a meal.

Being gimpy gives me free rein over food intake. 

Bored and gimpy means planting myself on the couch for hours.

All fantastically deceptive lies. 

My body has been letting me know this in so many ways. I was swelling up a little more in my feet. My joints hurt more. I had less energy. I'd stopped listening to my body. I was trying to shove all I could into a 1-2 hour eating window.

Not anymore!

I'm already making changes. I've been craving chicken cobb salad (yes, you heard me- I craved salad), but was too darned lazy to get off my butt and make it. The salad is huge, but not calorie-laden- it's got all kinds of proteins, fiber, and meaty, cheesy goodness for under 500 calories. 

No, I'm not counting calories- I know the count because I made this salad often from previous eating plans that did count calories. This was the only salad that satisfied me!

My chicken cobb salad is comprised of romaine lettuce, baby spinach, grape tomatoes, one boiled egg, a palm-full of bacon bits (the real kind), a sprinkling of cheddar and parmesan cheeses, two 1/4" thick pieces of breast meat rotisserie chicken, julienned, and a small squirt of Italian dressing, shaken together, not stirred.

I ate the heck out of that salad yesterday. It was awesome.

Later, I had some tuna salad in green pepper slices, with a small handful of my favorite chips, and some homemade iced tea. Still two meals a day, but smaller ones loaded with the veggies I'm supposed to be having regularly.

I expect things will get a bit harder because most of the foods I should be having don't always come prepped and ready to eat. Oh, I can pre-prep things to make the going easier, but I'm lazy and these are habits I have to create- which we all know is so easy. 

Not.

There's not much I can do about the knee-tendon. Rest and not overdoing it are kay, and it's going to take weeks for it to heal- so my Body Groove videos are out of the running for a while. 

Boredom can be beaten simply by going upstairs (away from the TV and kitchen)  folding the never-ending laundry in the bedroom, working in my sewing/writing room, and doing some decluttering that doesn't require knee-lifting. 

I can also pre-prep foods when my eating window opens just so I have the freedom of popping a cut carrot in my mouth from time to time.

And since my family gave me a new laptop to play with (the one I'm currently on is about eight-years-old- a technological dinosaur), I'll have plenty to entertain myself as I switch over my programs and passwords, and do some digital decluttering. This might take a while. I save everything.

I thought I broke the old habits, but they came rushing back the moment I was stuck on the couch. I know- the couch-sticking is my own doing, but habits really are hard to break! 

I'm so glad you're with me sharing my journey. You help me stay accountable just by reading this blog. You encourage me with your responses and shares on social media. You. Are. Awesome!

I'm off to do a little menu planning and jot down some ideas for food prepping. Have a wonderful week!

Week Fifteen: Mixing Things Up!

This week was a crazy one concerning my eating windows.

Some days I got home late and only had an hour or so to eat. Other days were so slow I came home earlier than intended and started my window early just because it was a habit I developed; when you get home, you can eat.

And then the New Year happened. The window was seven hours on Friday, five hours on Saturday, and about seven and a half hours on Sunday. 

Image by Emilia_Baczynska from Pixabay 

Sunday was my birthday and my husband surprised me with a few friends over and a four-course birthday meal (he does a five-course meal for me every year with about ten friends, but I figured it wasn't happening this year due to Covid.) 

Time and guests were restricted- I had three people come to celebrate; the big dinner, which usually takes three hours to eat, was served one right after the other with no pause in between courses. It was too much too fast not just for me but for everyone, and though everything was fantastic, no one could even eat dessert because they were so full!

I thoroughly enjoyed the CBA wraps as an appetizer (an invention we created made with pan-seared chicken, bacon, and asiago cheese, wrapped in eggroll wrappers and deep-fried golden brown), the soup was shrimp bisque (homemade- it takes two days to make), two kinds of risotto- shrimp and chicken- were the main course, and freshly baked pound cake made with a homemade berry drizzle and homemade lemon curd was the dessert- the one no one could eat because we were stuffed.

Sometimes I forget when I eat rice, I don't need to eat as much because it swells in the stomach, so I was fuller than I wanted to be by the time dinner was over. My eating window ended later than intended, and I went to bed still feeling full. It was a great day, but I could have paced myself better.

I can worry about pacing with the leftovers. Heh.

Leftovers- that reminds me! I talked with the hubster about freezing leftovers in single-serving containers so we aren't defrosting a rhino of a meal not everyone wants to eat. Last night he took the bisque and put what was going to be frozen in single-serving containers. The beginning of a new era in this house! 

We're going to start doing this with all the leftovers we know we won't finish in 2-3 days. This will not only save really good food, but no one has to wait ten years for an entire pot or casserole dish to defrost. I like the aspect of a variety to choose from when dinner plans get nixed at the last minute.

This week I intend to get back on a more regular schedule, and maybe try a few new things in the next few weeks. Trying to eat that one 500 calorie meal at least once to see how I feel the next day, for instance. Maybe even try one of those Body Groove videos that I subscribed to late last year and never used. 

I was also thinking of doing a few blog videos during my journey. My husband and kids gave me a new laptop for my birthday, and since it has a ton more memory than my current one, I might be able to start vlogging!

I want to mix it up a little! What are your thoughts?

May your New Year be a blessed one!