Week Six: Tweak Til It's Easy

 Sorry, this is a little late- I'm having computer issues.

This week was much easier, though I still had some issues concerning overeating. I decided to try tweaking my starting window (currently 1-7pm) and trying to go at least another half hour before eating during the week. I'd succeeded three days out of five, and managed to go at least fifteen minutes on the other two days. 

However, when the weekend came around, I was a rock star.

Image by ArtTower from Pixabay 

I'd found a project could really delve into and managed to distract myself until 2:30 on Saturday, and then again until 2:00 on Sunday. 

So now I'll be tweaking my weekday times permanently by a half-hour and starting at 1:30 pm this upcoming week.

As for the food, I'm still having two meals and a large snack- and I feel it's time to knock that down a little bit. I'm not nearly as hungry when I get home, and the snack (which is 1/2-3/4 of a meal) makes me still feel a bit full when dinnertime comes around- especially since my window was a little smaller. 

You wouldn't think fifteen to thirty minutes would be a big deal, but it really matters!

The interest in junk food is waning, though I did splurge and get some Halloween candy- not for kids but for us alone- which consisted mostly of tootsie rolls (chocolate and flavored). Chocolate was way too expensive- I'm going to wait until the day after to get some of that. Heh.

The best part is I took one of each of those flavored and chocolate mini taffies and took tiny bites to savor the flavors. I'd taken about five bites of each one, just letting it melt in my mouth and enjoying the heck out of this rare treat. I love those little suckers!

Tweaking here and there is helping a lot; I have less 'skinny feeling' days, so I know I need to cut back- but I really don't want to cut back too much and risk a metabolic crash. Someone in my IF Facebook group helped me out a great deal by suggesting that hunger pangs are good things- it's your body's way of telling you it's eating all that extra fat for energy! So as long as I get a few pangs and don't wait until I'm famished, my metabolism should be good to go!

One thing I need to do is move around more. My job was doing that for me, but work has slowed so I have fewer deliveries and more time on my hands. Most of the projects I have at home are sedentary, and I find it hard to get up and go when involved in a sit-down project. There's always housework, but who wants to do that...right?

I weigh myself in two weeks. If I lose five to ten pounds, I'm in the sweet spot concerning weight loss. I don't feel like I'm dieting or that this is a temporary way of eating. I'm getting used to it- and it feels great!

Week Five: Bad Habit Battle

I once read a book that said it took twenty-one days to break a bad habit.

Nope. It takes a lot longer than that! Especially when you've had certain bad habits for years.

Even the book Fast, Feast, Repeat said that I might struggle after the initial twenty-eight days. But I nailed it! Things should be easy-peasy now...right?

Nope again. The Hungries have lifted their little rebellious heads and have harassed me this entire week. On three occasions I found myself eating until I was overly full, though I admit, only one time did I eat until I was almost too full. Not to the point of a food coma, but enough to know I overdid it. 

So what happened?

I relaxed my mindset. I told myself I could have a little more food because I was losing too fast (oh, the irony!), so when I let myself relax a little, the Hungries tried to take over and make me overeat. They almost won too, on several occasions. Bad habit number one.

I even started eating some snacks simply because they were there. I wasn't even hungry for them. I just had to have a couple, here and there to try, to taste, to finish before anyone else could. Bad habit number two.

But was I going to let the Hungries win? Heck no! I did what it says in chapter eleven- tweak it 'til it's easy. So I shortened my window when I could, had a very light snack instead of a small meal, and found better things to do than eat.

It's working.

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay 

I also started paying attention to what I was eating that could cause the Hungries to bother me. One was bread (bakery-style, so less reactive, but still reactive) and I treated myself to a rare thing we seldom have in the house- soda. Each time I had either or both of these, the Hungries were worse the next day. So now I'm limiting those two items concerning my menu. 

Crackers don't bother me much at all (at least not that I'd noticed yet), so instead of a sandwich, I'll have crackers instead of bread. We'll see how that goes this week.

The energy has waned a bit, only because of the different foods I've been trying and now know to keep to a minimum. I'll be introducing the only salad I will ever eat sometime next week- chicken cobb salad- homemade of course!

Keeping myself busy after I get home from work is key to sticking to my new lifestyle of eating. Intermittent Fasting (IF for short) may not work for everyone, but it's working well for me! Prepare to be beaten, bad habits!

Week Four: End of Trial Results

                                                           

                                                              Image by Vidmir Raic from Pixabay 

It's day twenty-nine folks! Time to break out the measuring tape- er, I mean string, the ruler, and the freight scale at hubby's work and see just what's been happening!

But before my report, some details about my week:

My energy is still running high! Maybe a little too high, because I'm starting to have a little trouble staying asleep. Just a little tweak in the food department (adding not taking away) will solve this issue.

I went out for the day for the first time in a long time, and when the appetizers came, I had a taste of everything I wanted, but not one of everything like I used to do! One half of this, a quarter of that was all I needed to make a very small plate of tasty morsels before dinner.

And when dinner came, I ate until I was full, and doggie bagged the rest. No feelings of regret, guilt, or even deprivation- I just didn't want to finish off my plate. The best part was I had the leftovers for two meals, not one!

An hour after dinner, we decided to go get some ice cream. I had a double-dip waffle cone (forgetting to order a smaller one and getting what I normally polish off). I ate it nice and slow- short enough to not be a milky puddle, but long enough that I was the last to finish- and I ate the whole thing and felt just a little extra full, but not uncomfortably so. 

No guilt! No shame! And I totally enjoyed everything I'd put into my mouth!

After a few days, a five-hour window was harder than I thought, but I did it. A six-hour window works best for me, so this week, it's a six-hour window. 

I function best eating high protein with certain veggies. Not all veggies and fruits are good for my body unless I need an intestinal cleanse. Eesh!

I also did a quick re-read of the book and found that when I ended my fasting trial, I had a choice of doing eating windows or doing a 5:2 weekly up and down fast. Since I was losing an average of 4-1/2 pounds a week (which is way faster than I thought I would lose), I opened my eating window a little and will add just a little more food to my menu, simply because I don't want to crash and burn my metabolic rate. Slow and steady wins the race- Isn't that what Aesop said?

Now, to the reason we're all here today. The results of my first 28-day fast!

Here were my measurements:

28 days ago:                       Now:                              Difference:

Weight 363 lbs.                    346                                17 pounds

Biceps- 23"                         same                                 none

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

Waist- 58"                          55-1/2"                            2-1/2"

Hips- 69-1/2"                      64"                                  5-1/2"

Thigh- 32"                          31-1/4"                              3/4"

Neck- 18"                           same                                 none

And now the pictures, before and after:

Well, at least my face looks thinner! 😜

The point is I lost a whopping seventeen pounds and a lot of inches!

But this isn't the finish line. this is only the beginning!

The loss is a lot faster than I thought it would be, so I'll add a little food during my window so the rate isn't as fast. One to two pounds a week is a fair rate for my size, and eventually, I'll be tweaking this again when I hit a plateau.

I can't tell you how easy this was! Yes, sometimes I was hungry, but very few times the entire time I was near the point of bingeing. One hand with fingers left over, in fact. I see now how this can be for life because I still eat what I like- just not what my body likes. I don't even crave chips as much anymore! 

Let me tell you one more thing that even surprised me, the chipoholic. Today I had a sandwich bag of potato chips with me to snack on while at work, took a few before I realized they were stale. Would that have stopped me before? Nope! I would've eaten them anyway! But this time I decided they weren't eating because they just didn't taste good, and I tossed the rest of the bag in the trash.

Who is this person in my mirror, and what did she do with my chips??

Yep. I tossed them. Because I only was delicious things to eat now. I am not a garbage can who will accept anything edible anymore. And that's huge.

From now on I will weigh and measure monthly, giving you updates weekly. I hope you enjoy your trip with me down the scale and measuring tape, and I hope to encourage you that if I can do it, so can you!

Week Three: Starting to Click

                                            

                                                    Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

Everything's starting to click!

Adjusting to a six-hour window was actually easier than the seven-hour window. I found that I was stopping before I could finish a meal once or twice, so I started giving myself smaller portions.

Only once when I gave myself a much smaller meal did go for seconds (which was the first time I had seconds since I started this lifestyle); I only got a few bites more, but I could tell I'd had a little more than enough. All I needed was about two more bites to be full, and I took about four or five.

Isn't that incredible? Me, the bottomless pit, could now tell when I needed to stop eating and be satisfied with more than half the amount I used to eat!

I also found out that homemade bread is okay for me in occasional doses, and I'm good with milk, cheeses, meats, and certain veggies and fruits. Homemade bread doesn't affect me at all, while store-bought bread makes me feel bloaty. Cereal, one of my favorite snacks, makes me feel bloaty too, so I know it's the cereal, not the milk. Sigh. I just bought myself a few boxes right after I started this new way of eating too...oh well, someone else can eat it.

I'm finding myself getting pickier about what I'm eating because I'm down to two meals. Do I want this or that? If I have this, will there be any of that left for tomorrow? Can I have a smaller amount of both? Can I just forgo the one and enjoy the other? Some things just aren't worth putting in my mouth anymore when time and tummy space is limited.

I have hoarding tendencies and I see now that kinda slipped into the way I eat too.

My husband used to drive me crazy when he left a bite or two on his plate, claiming he was full. Seriously, I just couldn't fathom how he could just leave food on his plate like that! But today I had my first meal, and a few bites before finishing, I stopped and put the rest away. I can't tell you how hard it was to put that little bit back, because I was always taught to clean your plate and to finish off the last bites so it doesn't get wasted. 

And before starting this plan I was not only finishing my plate but my husband's and kids as well. Really bad habit to break, and I'll be honest- after an hour I finished off that last little bit of my meal- but I waited an hour, which is a start.

The best part?

I have energy when awake, and I'm sleeping so much better than I was. Not only am I more mobile, but I want to get up and do things! Even my friends noticed I'm more animated and happier than I've been in a long while. 

Pain is disappearing, and I feel thinner during the fasting part of my day. Everything is less swollen or not swollen at all, and I can actually look in the mirror and see some slight differences. Even doing simple tasks like bending over to get something or walking up the steps is no longer a pain-filled chore I would avoid like rabid crocodiles. I'm not out of breath anymore either!

Showering is not the trial it used to be. Such a simple thing that's a pleasure to most folks, was an ordeal for me. Not only was it pretty claustrophobic in the shower stall, but I couldn't stand for very long and the pain that would radiate from my calves and back was excruciating! By the time I was out of the shower, I was almost crying it hurt so bad, and it took way too long to hobble over to the bed so I could sit down and make the pain stop. Sometimes I sat there and did cry- not just from the pain but the self-hate I was feeling by not being able to control my eating.

Now? I took a longer shower than usual, even doing a few smaller standing-up chores beforehand. It hurt a little, but I could walk straight from the shower to the bed without the slightest gimpiness- that alone was worth starting this lifestyle way of eating!

Next week is going to be even better when I go down to a five-hour window. I'd never thought I'd say that, but it's true. A smaller eating window is going to be easier than a bigger window. Crazy, right? Next week's window will be from 2:00pm to 7:00 pm.

And after next week, I have to weigh and measure myself all over again. That part is scary and exciting all rolled into one. 

Just a few more clicks in the gears and I'll be running like a well-oiled machine!

Week Two: Stead-fast

                                                     

                                                            Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

I made it through week two with flying colors!

I won't say it was all easy (especially when you have a chef for a husband), but I learned a lot about myself and I'm already starting to see changes- most of them good.

My feet are normal size most of the time instead of swollen footballs all the time. My shoes fit better, and I walk better too!

I have more energy and am naturally more active. Sitting still for too long is beginning to bother me, and everyone is happy that I'm not asking them to fetch me food anymore- if I want it, I get it. I'm also eating a lot less than I was before this program, and am now down to two meals a day.

Dietary issues have also been revealed. Beets, though I love them, give me issues. Never noticed that before, but after test tasting them out a few times, they will only help me if the plumbing is clogged. Let's just say the colonoscopy people would be able to use beets as a substitute for that jug of juice they want me to drink. On a positive note, I do fine with higher levels of protein, and fats don't seem to bother me either.

My joints, on the whole, have stopped hurting- unless I overdo it. And of course, since I was feeling good, I overdid it a lot! I need a lot less rest to ease joint pain than I used to, and once I get moving, the pain stops. All the more reason to get off my butt and do more...right? I haven't started outright exercising yet, but when I'm ready, I have all the tools I need to get started- without a gym.

Adapting my window to work ratio isn't as easy when the window is getting shorter and shorter each week. The first week was eight hours- easy enough, it was 11:00am to 7:00pm- but last week I missed a few things by the end of my window (like dessert because the family usually eats dinner between six and seven), so by the weekend, I shifted the time from 12:00pm to 7:00pm and 1:00 to 8:00pm respectively. 

On occasion, I did feel hungrier, especially when my window closed and my husband started baking one of his fabulous desserts after dinner. Food smells (when not in my eating window) hit me like a speeding truck and it made my stomach want food- Right Now. 

I knew it was bad one day when I was out driving for work and got a whiff of fast food- then realized it was McDonald's. If you know me (and most of you do) I wouldn't touch McD's food with a ten-foot fork, not even if I was starving. I knew I had to rein in my sniffer, so I closed the window until the feeling passed.

Next week will be different because my husband was switched from night hours to morning hours for three days, so he'll be home for dinner instead of us depending on leftovers on those days. We both cook, so one of us will be making dinner since everyone will be home. My window is now six hours, and my main concern is being too hungry when at work since I usually eat breakfast right before we leave. 

The plan is to make breakfast portable so I can take it with me to work. Breakfast is always eggs, bacon, and sausage, with a little ham and cheese tossed into the eggs. Don't look at me like that! These foods work for me much better than other breakfast foods like oatmeal or fruit. I might make a breakfast sandwich instead, but not every day. I've found that unless I bake it myself (and eventually I hope to grind my own organic flour instead of using store-bought), bread makes me tired. Not good for working!

Now if I can just resist tasting my breakfast as I make it, I'll be okay. I'm planning my window from 1:00pm to 7:00pm this week since the 7:00pm mark is my best choice whether he is doing morning or night shifts, so I'll have to make my breakfast at 11:30am and pack it until I can eat it at 1:00.

I've started reading the second half of the book, and right now it's mostly information about making better choices and tweaking what works and what doesn't- like the beets. I'm still a little unclear as to the seven days of fasting (two days no food or 500 calories worth- which is the only calorie counting she does in the book- and five days of different sized eating windows), but by the time I've finished, I'll be ready for it.

Two more weeks to go!

Week One: Easy Come, Not So Easy Go

The first week was both very easy and yet, not so easy. Old habits die hard and it was the bad habits that were more of a hindrance than the actual food itself.

Let's start from the beginning. 

The first week I was supposed to be using an 8-hour eating window. Nailed that sucker to the wall! However, after looking at the book Fast, Feat, Repeat mid-week, I'd forgotten something. I was supposed to skip a meal. Oops.

The book says two meals a day, no snacks. Now I'll be honest here; before I started this fasting program, I was basically eating four meals and a snack a day. Breakfast and lunch before work, come home to a half meal and a snack, then dinner. Most times dinner would have second helpings. Now that I see this in print, that's a lot of food, though it didn't seem so when I was eating it.

So at the beginning of the week, I was having breakfast for lunch, having a small snack during my work hours and after work, then have dinner about thirty minutes before my window closed. My eating window was 11:00am to 7:00 pm.

Then I reread the fast requirements. I was still getting really hungry by mid-shift at work, so I trimmed the snack down to one thing, ate it during my shift, then had dinner in the evening. It's still too much food (according to the book), but still much better than the amounts I was eating.

By the end of the week, the bad habits started kicking in, but just for a second or two.

I'd finish my iced tea by the end of the window, but the tiny bit of tea was left around the ice cubes. The cubes would melt, and I'd drink the infused tea water. Big no-no. Not calorie-wise of course, but I'm not supposed to have anything but water or unsweetened drinks (no sweeteners at all) because that sets off my body to think food is coming. By the end of the week, I did this twice accidentally, and now I put the glass in the sink after I eat and get a fresh glass with water to drink until bedtime.

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay 

Then we had pizza on Friday. A rare treat for us, and though I didn't overindulge, when we were done and my eating window was closed, we were putting away the rest of the pizza and I grabbed a bit of meat and cheese out of the box (my favorite part!) and popped it in my mouth. 

I stopped short, realized what I did, and immediately spat it out into the now empty pizza box. My husband realized why I did that and we both started laughing. He knew I was trying to behave myself. I rinsed out my mouth and got my water for the night.

By the end of the week, I was having two meals, no seconds, and one small snack. Still not quite the book requirements, but I still have another week to work on it before the next gauntlet- one meal and one snack by the fourth week.

Here's what the entire month looks like:

Week one- 8-hour eating window, two meals

Week two- 7-hour eating window, two meals

Week three- 6-hour eating window, two meals or one meal, one snack

Week four- 5-hour eating window, one meal, one snack

Week two will be a window from 11:00am to 6:00 pm if I'm eating leftovers, and 12:00pm to 7:00pm if I'm cooking. Breakfast will have to be made ahead of time and packaged for eating during my shift when I do the latter hours, so some adjustments have to be made. My biggest hurdles will most likely be the snack skipping and eating dinner before the window closes. I still have a lot to do after work, and last week I actually skipped dinner because I was involved and forgot I had to eat by a certain time.

At this point that's probably a good thing!

I'll be looking at the next chapters in the book starting week 3 so I'm ready for the next steps. As for how I'm feeling? I found my energy going up on most days, and though I feel hungry sometimes, it's not that overpowering 'gotta eat now' kind of hunger that leads to binge eating. Being busy helps a lot, and since I have more energy, I've been putting it to good use after I get home. 

I never realized just how much I was eating because I was bored or tired!

All in all I think I did fairly well for my first week. The best part is even if I backslide, I can get right back into it without beating myself up! This is a learning process and it allows a lot of wiggle room to get it right- and I love that!

Lifestyle Restart- Same Body, Different Fast

Image by Lubomír Kasl at Pixabay

I purposely didn't reread this blog in its entirety, simply because I didn't want to get myself into a different mindset. I read the last post I'd made in 2016, and oddly enough, every time I try a new way of losing weight, I get closer and closer to realizing dieting won't work- good eating habits will.

Getting off one's butt will too, but I digress. Soon after my last post, all hell broke loose.

My mother got very ill and died. Two weeks to the hour later, my husband's mother passed away. Within seven months, we lost thirteen people total, most of them being family members. After barely catching our breath, I was told I needed a hysterectomy. I overdid it during recovery, and a six week healing period became twelve weeks. I was flat for so long I lost core muscle and could barely walk. I'd found I'd gained weight again. a lot of weight. 

During that time I quit driving people around due to stress and started looking for other work. I found a job delivering packages that fit within my husbands' work schedule. My last doctor's visit was over two years ago, and I was weighed at a whopping 347 lbs. At the time I had given up on ever being thin. My life would be full of muscle spasms and joint pain, and the weight would still increase no matter what I did- especially after the hysterectomy threw me from a peri-menopausal state into full-blown menopause. I was depressed.

Then COVID-19 hit. I was an essential worker, and my deliveries skyrocketed. By the end of the day, I was a barely functioning individual. Walking was getting harder, and my joints ached even worse. I started watching TV a lot more- and eating a lot more. I had to shock myself out of this funk. How was I going to do it?

I did what I did when I was a borderline hoarder. I watched a show that was the extreme of what I was going through. As a hoarder, I watched Hoarders. As a fat person, I watched My 600 Pound Life.

Both shows helped me see where I was going if I didn't stop. My hoarding is now very well controlled, and after watching several shows of My 600 Pond Life, I was ready to try losing weight again. I had to find a way to eat that would become a lifestyle of eating, not just a diet. Diets never worked for me, and I didn't want a plan that would make me lose too much too fast, then crash and burn and gain even more weight in the end- literally!

I heard of a book called Fast, Feast, Repeat. It gave me hope that I really was on the right track in 2016, but back then the timing was off. I read the book up until the chapter about the first month of fasting. I'm not reading further just yet, because I tend to skip steps- and I really don't want to do that this time around!

The first thing I liked about this book was it made no promises of quick weight loss. In fact it was quite the opposite. a very slow weight loss over years of time. I also liked that the author eases you into a healthier eating lifestyle, rather than throwing you in to the deep end and expecting you to swim. Basically you are spending the first four weeks getting used to eating in a certain time frame of your choosing, then week by week whittling down that time window and eventually eating a little less in a lot less time. 

Right now the food choices are what I usually eat (in fact, she insists that you don't change what you're eating during the first month), but I suspect the next stage will involve tweaking my food choices. We shall see!

First things first- I had to weigh myself. I know I needed a really good scale that would take on a 350-plus-pound person without damage, but I really didn't want to buy one because I'd be too tempted to check myself too often. Those scales are also very expensive. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors won't take your just strolling in for a casual weigh-in either. So I had to do the next best thing, that also made me feel worse. I had to use the freight scale at my husband's work. During work hours.

Ugh.

Not only did I have to step onto that gigantic plate embedded in the floor, there might be gawkers. I didn't want anyone else to see me doing it, and worse, seeing the little red arrow spin around like a game of Twister. But I did it during a lull, and saw the number had indeed changed- but not in my favor. I'm now my heaviest weight ever.

To be honest, I didn't want to post my weight. It's embarrassing. But maybe me being open and honest about everything will help you if you're trying to lose weight too. That also includes the other measurements the author wants you to take- you know, those ones that require a big old strip if numbered leather that tailors use- the dreaded measuring tape. I measured things she said had to be measured, and a few others as well, because, apparently, I like to punish myself. So here goes. Brace yourself!

Weight 363 lbs.

Biceps- 23"

Chest- 61-1/2"

Waist- 58"

Hips- 69-1/2"

Thigh- 32"

Neck- 18"

My hourglass has way too much sand in it. Sigh.

This is the last time I will weigh or measure myself for the next 28 days. She said I might not lose weight- I might even gain (though I think this comment was meant for people a lot thinner than I am!) But remeasuring will also tell me if my body is indeed burning fat the way it should. 

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. And I'm praying it will be a thinner one!