Lets Try It

​A few weeks ago I started intermittent fasting. I have been doing the 16:8 method.  And surprisingly, it is working for me!   I have actually lost 7.6 pounds in the last few weeks!  I am tickled!

In the midst of me trying the intermittent fasting thing, I received notice that a book that I had on hold was available!  Hot diggity dog!   I had heard about this book months ago and had been waiting for it.  It was Fast like a Girl by Mindy Pelz.  It was all about fasting for women.  Basically learning to fast so that your fasts are in line with the different hormones that ebb and flow throughout the cycle.  There are a lot of good things in this book.  But the main thing that I am focused on right now is the benefits from a 36 hour fast.  36 hours seems to be the magic for fat burning!   

I have always been resistant to any fast longer than the 16:8.  But ive decided to try a longer fast.   I am not committing to a 36 hour.  I want to see how my body is doing.    This isn’t about torture.   So I am aiming for OMAD, which is one meal a day.   This, at the very minimum, my goal is to not eat today and instead eat at dinner while will be a day since my last meal.   If things are going well, I plan on extending it to an 36 hour fast by simply not eating dinner tonight and then breaking my fast tomorrow.   This is just for today.  I’ll go back to 16:8 after this experiment.   If it works, I will through some OMAD and 36 hours into my routine..once a week…once every two weeks.   Time will tell how often.  Right now I just have to see how I get through today!!!

Wish me luck!!!

So Many Calories Left

​I have been working to try to figure out this weight loss thing.  My weight is not budging.  It’s infuriating.  I’m not eating horrible,not perfectly, but not horrible!  I know I had to do something, make some change.  So I have adjusted once again.

So what is the big adjustment?  I’m going back to intermittent fasting.  I did it years back. It comes naturally to me as I am not a big fan of eating in the morning.  So I decided to do a fasting regime…again.  (You can read more about my prior thoughts here.)

I am once again doing the 16:8 method of fasting.  I will be fasting for 16 hours and eating within an 8 hour window.  In easier terms, I need to be done eating by 8 PM and I don’t start eating again until after 12pm the next day.  So basically dinner to lunch.  Skipping breakfast.  It will actually most likely be a bit longer most days.  For example tonight my dinner is over and done and it’s 7:13 so technically my fast has started.  I know that my lunch is  not scheduled until 12:15 tomorrow.  So if my lunch happens right on time, it will end up being a 27 hour fast.  But let’s be honest.  Some days my lunch gets pushed later.  Today it was at 12:30.  But one day last week it was at 1:45.  No worries though!

Im doing what is called a dirty fast.  My fast is not 100% clean.  I am still making my drink in the morning…which is water with a trace mineral vitamin and mineral pack in it.  The calories are so small it’s negligible but it does ruin my chances of a ‘clean’ fast.   For me it’s a trade off…water is important and I feel as if those vitamin and mineral packs are instrumental to my health also.   So a trade off!

The benefit of intermittent fasting?   I am not eating those calories for breakfast so I have them to eat later in the day!  It makes it so much easier to stay within my set calorie range!   Yay!!!!!

Just A Week

​There is so much going on in my head!   I have things swirling up there and want to share it all, but not sure if I have the words because I’m still trying to figure it out myself.  But hey, let’s try!

The word of the week for this week is another phrase.  In fact, it’s the same phrase as last week.   That phrase is ‘just a week’.    Last week I made the vow that I can keep my calories in check for ‘just one week’.   It’s only a week.  I wasn’t asking to never indulge again, I was just saying hold it together for just one week.   And my specific plan was to keep the calories at right around 1400 or lower.   I managed it.  But I didn’t  lose a pound!   By the end of the week I was so utterly weary and depressed.  Why am I even trying to do this when my weight isn’t dropping.  It feels as if it is all in vain!   A whole lot of blood sweat and tears for a whole lot of nothing.    

I will throw in the disclaimer that I KNOW that any healthy change I make will have a positive impact on my body and health….but dang-it, I want to lose weight too!

I was weary.  Weary of trying to find food to eat that would fit in my plan.  Weary of counting my food.  Weary of thinking about every bite.  Weary of it all.   I never contemplated quitting, but I was weary and didn’t know how to move forward amidst the weariness. 

On Saturday I woke up still not sure what my plan was going to be.  Luckily I came up with a plan, while in the shower.   I was taking a ‘vacation day’ from this healthy living thing.  I was going to eat  what I want and not worry about it.  Just for that day.   Some people would cal this a cheat day, but I don’t like the word cheat because it has such negative connotations.  So I’m using the word vacation day, in honor of my father who used to take vacation days from his medications.  Yes, every Friday my father didn’t take any pills.  He said it was his vacation day!   So I decided to be my father’s daughter and take a vacation day from healthy living.   I started the day with chocolate chip pancakes.   Two of them, and I promptly burned one!  So I ate one chocolate chip pancake (and I was surprisingly quite satisfied with only one!).  For lunch I grabbed a turkey wrap.  For dinner we had subs and chips.  And I had a chocolate chip cookie.  My calories were around 1800.  Not horrible!  I was right back at it  with healthier options on Sunday…the vacation day reset my feelings about this journey.   While I was thinking about this plan, I realized that I used to do this years back when I was losing the weight the first time!  So it worked then, hopefully it works now too!  So I will be having more vacation days!

So I did start this week strong!   I vowed to do ‘just one week’ again, but with a twist.   I’m still working to keep calories low, but I am also vowing to only eat complex carbs a for one meal!   Carbs in the form of bread, pasta, potatoes have historically been an issue for me and I have always seemed to lose better when I limit it to one a day.  So it’s just one week…let’s see what happens if I limit for one week!

So now for the things that are jumbled in my head.  First and foremost, I have been feeling a bit like my life is all weight loss.  Like my weight and my efforts to lose weight is what defines me.  I mean, I’ve been online posting about it for so long it’s embarrassing!  (Since 2006, you can read my first post here.)   I am more than weight loss though, yet I feel as if that is all I am.   Everything in my life and thoughts go back to that, and I am not sure I like it.  But how do I change that?

The other thing is that I would love to come up with a side hustle to add a bit of income to our lives.  But what.  Admittedly I have thrown out a few lines, but nothing has worked for me.   Is it me?  Do I just lack something?   Perseverance?   I obviously have perseverance with weight loss…I mean since 2006…but do I fail at other things because I give up when it gets hard?   Or do I just lack some intrinsic brain power to make things happen.   

I know that very often I will quickly will jump on a bandwagon and go full force ahead, and then stop dead at some point.  I stop because it gets hard? I hit a brick wall, I get bored.  Any number of reasons.  But I stop.  And this, I get no where!  

I feel just stuck in life. Happy in my marriage but miserable with my work life.  Looking for a way out…but whelp, the bills still need paid and the animals still need to eat!!

Testing it out

 April has come to a close and with that a new month.   To me, a new month is a time for new beginnings.  This month was no different.  

April was not a stellar month for me in some areas.   But in other areas it was fantastic!    I had some goals for the month of April (ok, they are the same most months).

** Track all my food

** Exercise daily

** Lose Weight

** Continue to bank my miles for my 2024 mile challenge

** Purge 5 items

** Read at least one non fiction /educational/self help (Edifying) book

** Drink 64 ounces of water a day

As I said, it was a mixed bag. here it is, the good, the bad and the ugly!

** Track all my food-  I did this!   I was spot on with my tracking.  I did it each and every day without fail!  I didn't always (rarely) track before I ate but it was all tracked!

** Exercise daily- This was a colossal failure!  I was gung ho at the beginning of the month. I was going to get back to my daily exercise and set the world on fire!   However, when it came down to it I failed.  I started the month strong and exercised two times in the first few days of the month....and then didn't exercise again the rest of the month. Yeah, huge failure!

** Lose Weight-  I had grand plans that I was going to lose and I was going to lose big!   This is one of those mixed bags.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrid!  I lost.....1.2 pounds for the month.  So a measly amount of weight loss.   And don't get me wrong, I am tickled with ANY loss.  Heck, I am even tickled with a maintain.  But I know in my heart that I could have done better.

** Continue to bank my miles for my 2024 mile challenge  Here is another colossal failure.  I was holding my own with my miles from January through March.  I wasn't banking a ton of extra miles, but I was holding my own.  And then April hit!  In fairness, I was fighting off some sickness the one week.  But that is just an excuse.  Because that was only one week!   There were three other weeks in the month!   But, the down and dirty of it all is that I ended up the month behind by 25 miles!   Not Cool!

** Purge 5 items.  Nailed it!   Yes, I nailed this one.  I am doing pretty good with the purging.  I need to really get into it and purge some more, but I purged.  I sold some items on facebook market place and the rest I carted to Goodwill!

** Read at least one non fiction /educational/self help (Edifying) book.   It should come as no surprise that I nailed this one.  Reading has never been a problem for me.....even if it is more 'edifying' content. 

** Drink 64 ounces of water a day-  This was another huge failure.    I may have reached the magical 64 ounces, which I want to be my MINIMUM each day once or twice!   I am telling you.  Huge failure!

May is a new month though.  It's a time for new beginnings.  It is time to be fabulous and not just meet my goals but smash them to smithereens!     My goals are remaining the same with the exception of an additional goal.  That additional goal is that I want to reach 5 thousand  steps each day.  I admittedly get most of my steps for the 2024 challenge on the exercise bike.  My steps are just the additional boost to get me over the hump so i don't focus on getting the steps as much as I should.  So this month I am aiming to get at least 5,000 steps a day.

I am trying a new journalling system of my own creation to keep track of everything.  I have never been happy with the journals that I can find.  They never have what I think a weight loss journal needs!  So I made my own. I"m going to play around with it and change/adjust and refine it and maybe I will have one printed for me for next year versus creating my pages each month on my own.  We shall see.   

I have a page where I will be keeping track of my habits, a page to track my food consumption.  And on that page I also have columns where I can indicate I ate fast or slow.  I have a place to indicate if I took my acid reflux pill and I have a column to keep track of the acid reflux.  (I am honestly not sure that the pill is working.)   I have a page for my measurements.  I also have a place for my word of the week.  And of course I have a page for my goals.  I have also included a page for me to keep track of my reading...not just what I am reading by an area for a small review for each book.  
 

I am trying to streamline my intel into one place.  I will still be using myfitnesspal for tracking and my garmin and the garmin app to track my steps.  But I need to have all of this information in one place that I can see all at the same time.  I do better with good old fashioned pen and paper.  SO I'm giving it a test run!   We shall see how it works!