Weight Lost So Far

So far, I have lost 2.25 pounds in total. Not bad! I am pleased with that. Intermittent Fasting for weight loss does work - for me. Of course, some people might not be overly happy with a weight loss of 2.25 in two weeks, but for me, this is on a par with what I would lose if I were traditionally calorie counting and logging. The thing I have to point out is that when I add up my calorie logs for my 2 days of fasting, plus my 5 days of eating and divide it by 7 to get a daily average, it works out at around the same as if I were calorie counting/logging the 'traditional' way.

In my measurements, the most notable descreases are an inch off my waist and one off my hips too. I can't wait for my knees and thighs to go down! They are my real problem areas. To be honest, my hips are a problem area because they are notably larger than my waist, so anything off them is always welcome. I just used this waist-to-hip calculator, and it turns out I am:

Result:	Estimated Health Risk:	Estimated Body Shape:
0.80 or below	Low	Pear

I guess it is nice to have at least one result that is favourable, despite still being officially classed as 'overweight'. 

Coming back to Intermittent Fasting - what I am trying to point out (to anyone actually reading this) is that IF is not a quick fix for weightloss. It is not a magic 'melt away the fat' formula. It is not as if you just do the IF days and then can do whatever you like the rest of the time. I find that it is more flexible for me, which is what I wanted from a plan. I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the idea that the IF component comes with excellent health benefits.

Talking about flexibility, one of the reasons I struggled last year with calorie counting and logging was the inflexibility of it. I have a goal of around 1200-1400 calories per day. I tend to be able to eat 1200 to 1300 while being fairly sedentary and 1400 when I am doing more physical activity, and lose. Those numbers do not allow for having a cake when you are out, for going to a friend's house and having whatever they have cooked for dinner or are offering you for afternoon tea, or for visiting a restaurant and having what you want, rather than what you are 'forced' to have (to fit in with the 'diet'). With IF, it is possible to do those things on your regular non-IF days. In my case I have worked out that I still need to keep an eye on what I am eating overall. I have to aim for my average calories across the 7 day period of Monday to Sunday to be between the 1200-1400.

For that reason, I am still logging, because I know that I need to; I need to be held accountable for what I am eating. I come back, on that note, to my posts last year where I wondered if I would have to log for the rest of my life. Maybe I will. It seems that every time I lose weight successfully, I put it back on once I stop logging. I know partly this is because my thyroid problems are still not resolved/optimal, but there is still the fact that I am consuming more than I am burning and I put weight on. Since I got a Nexus 7 tablet, I have found it a lot easier to track my calories because I have the My Fitness Pal android app. I really recommend using a calorie counting app if you struggle to maintain your desired weight or if you are trying to lose weight. After a little while you get use to using it and logging becomes a habit. I don't find it straining like I did when I had to log onto the laptop every day.

Another aspect relating to logging and Intermittent Fasting is that I have noticed you can be a little more relaxed when logging calories when doing IF. That's not to say you cheat, but when I have been losing weight purely through calorie counting and logging, I have had to weigh all my food. Doing that definitely gets old FAST, but it is also the most effective way of doing that weight loss method. I hated having to do that all the time, plus when you go out, it's almost impossible to do it properly. Now on IF protocol, I will weigh things I know are easy to get wrong - cereal, occasionally fruit, and sometimes potatoes/rice/pasta. Generally, however, I am guessing and approximating, and I seem to be doing okay because I am losing what I would expect to lose if I were calorie counting and weighing it all out. Not having to weigh every single item is a massive bonus, that I really appreciate.

Weigh-In & The Role of Meat in Fasting - Intermittent Fast 3

Drum roll please... The results of my first week of Intermittent Fasting are in...

I have lost 0.75 of a pound!

This is the first loss in a while, so I am pleased. While it doesn't seem a lot, if I lost that every week for 52 weeks, I would lose 39 pounds. So I am not 'sniffing' at it. If I lose between 1/2 to 1 pound per week, it would be ideal really as it gives my skin a chance to catch up!

I don't really want to end up like this:

Picture credit: http://www.news.com.au/news/loose-skin-what-you-can-do/story-fnejnnxf-1226479027462

On to the second part of this blog post:

For several years I was a pescetarian - eating only fish and ovo-lacto vegetarian. A while ago I deiced to trial eating some red meat as I was starting to crave it, and I believe in listening to my body. Previously there was no way I could have eaten any meat as the mere thought of it totally turned my stomach, but suddenly I actually wanted to eat it and did not feel grossed out by the texture/taste and thought. I have been trialling eating it for a while now, and generally have probably had meat maybe once or twice a month for the past 3 or 4 months. I am hoping this may have helped my iron and vitamin B12 levels.

Now I am questioning the role of meat in fasting. I am on my third Intermittent Fasting cycle. I found the first two quite challenging because of the dreaded tummy rumblings and hunger pangs (they were actually quite painful!). Now on the first two fasts I had not eaten meat anywhere near them; however, unintentionally I ate some meat yesterday, and I noticed that last night I was not hungry at all while fasting - not one tummy rumble. In addition, today has been less bad than those first two. When I woke up this morning, I was not hungry. I am unsure if this is pure coincidence and nothing to do with meat consumption - as in, I have done two fasts, my stomach is shrinking, and I therefore am getting used to fasting and eating less.

After breaking my 16 hour fast with a cup of tea at 10 a.m., around 11.15 I ate a poached egg on a toasted English muffin. I am not sure if this is also helping me because it's protein rich and eggs are quite sustaining, but I don't even feel much hunger this afternoon. I do not feel all-consumed and like I am counting the minutes down to my 2nd meal at 5 p.m, which I definitely did feel last week!

I am going to see how I do on Friday and report back.

Day Late

I weighed myself this morning (instead of yesterday morning) as I didn't have time yesterday because I was going out. I lost 1/2 a pound. All that effort to lose half a pound!! I am a bit swollen, so I wonder if I may have lost more, but it's not showing up on the scale. Hmmmm...

Anyway, I realised that I am incredibly tired. I woke up, and because I went out yesterday to the 'big smoke', I am now physically paying for it in the form of increased exhaustion and muscle pain. Despite having lived with debilitating chronic illness for years, I am still amazed by my own body's reaction to something normal like going out for the day or even a couple of hours at the shops. The problem with this reaction is that it means I am only good at CCing and exercising when I pretty much don't go out of the house. I am going to do my uptmost to keep up with it this week, but I am going to lay off the intense exercise and focus on walking my dog and perhaps doing some light stretching or weight work.

On Track...

I have been doing the calorie counting lark for 8 weeks now. I worked out that I have lost 12.25 pounds in this time period, making my loss an average of: 1.5 pounds a week. I am really happy with that; it's comfortable and sort of average. I reckon this will become 0.5 to 1 pound a week once I get nearer my ultimate goal area of 130-140. I realised that I currently have 3.5 more pounds to lose before I meet my first mini-goal of 165. I am hoping to meet this by the end of March (so in 3 to 4 weeks). This will be the lightest weight I have been since maybe 2006 or 2007. Exciting!

Image from: http://www.rightot.blogspot.com/

Anyway, this week, I honestly didn't think I had lost anything as I can't really 'see' where I have lost. On other weeks (aside from TTOTM) I have been able to clearly see where it's coming off and have a little confidence about stepping on the scale. So now I guess my body has decided to lose from less obvious areas. Like a lot of people, I have a specific pattern of loss that I always seem to follow no matter how big I am or what 'diet' I am following. I seem to lose somewhat like this: waist & knees, then jaw/face,  then bust/clavicles, then tummy/pelvis, then hips & thighs, then arms & calves... So at the moment, the waist has stopped losing. I am hoping that now my hips/thighs decide to catch up a bit!! It's kinda weird that I lose on my face before my hips! Most people say their face/jaw is the last thing to lose.


In other news, now we are in March I am turning my thoughts to my goal...

Artwork - My plan is that I will start sketching out a painting this week. Will update on that as and when.

Researching hat making - I am going to look for patterns.

The Shocking Statistic

As an avid reader of Dances With Fat (http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/), I became aware of the statistic:

95% of overweight or obese people who successfully lose weight will have gained it back within 5 years. This means that only 5% of people who lose weight actually maintain that weight loss in the long-term.

I think this is pretty SHOCKING. Not only do people gain it back, but they frequently gain more weight than they lost.

For me, it rings true - I have lost and gained significant amounts of weight in the last 11 years, although I am pleased to say I have never gained back more than my highest weight - in fact I haven't even gotten back to my highest weight in those 11 years. Of course I don't know what the reality would be for me had I never gotten sick (as my weight issues started after I got sick) or if I had never had metabolic issues. Maybe I would never have had a weight problem? Who knows? Anyway, the reality is, I have yo-yo-ed.

So, I came across the the Dances with Fat blog and started looking into the whole HAEs  (Health at Every Size) movement about 3 or 4 months before I decided to go back to calorie counting and logging. Some might think it a strange decision - it probably is! - based upon the fact I knew about this statistic and possibly might have viewed my current efforts as pretty futile in the fight against my flab.

However, I do feel I am going into this process with my eyes wide open. Now I know the statistic, I am aware that I probably will have to consciously note my food intake in the long-term in order to maintain any loss. For a while this depressed me as I felt that it was a pretty sh!t state of affairs (let's be frank here) and acutally unfair (I suppose I felt resentful against all those people who don't have to do this). No matter what anyone else thinks, I am not physically comfortable at a bigger weight - not so much because of what other people might think, but because I find it uncomfortable in terms of actually moving around due to where the majority of my fat settles. It's a hinderance!

So although I blabber on about calories and logging and all that jazz, I am trying to focus on eating healthy, wholesome foods (which has always been my goal) and on getting fitter and stronger through targetted exercise and dog walking. In doing so, I am giving my body the best and most needed nutrients I can, and helping it to work optimally for me.

To a reasonable extent I understand the theory behind the HAEs message. I am walking proof that while I might not be well, even at my biggest I didn't have type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure or insulin resistance/syndrome X or high cholesterol. So I was obese, but did not have any of the things we (as a society) are told an obese person will have. I do think that there is a massive amount of scare mongering out there. The ridiculous thing is, I know at least 2 people who have issues with high blood pressure or high cholesterol who are what the medical profession would consider a 'healthy' weight!


During the time period where I have been obese and heavily overweight, I have had the scare mongering tactics thrown at me - these doctors were convinced I would have insulin resistance, high cholesterol, high blood pressure... the works! Why? Because I was bigger! Yet, there could be (and clearly are) people of normal weight who have those issues, but they are potentially not flagged up because they don't look like they might have them. So it's bad for both parties - the so-called healthy weight individuals and the overweight/obese individuals; if you are big, you are assumed to be some kind of ticking timebomb and if you are not big, you are assumed to be fine, even if you are not!


The Dances with Fat blog and the HAEs message have definitely helped me to have a different perspective on my weight, my approach to it and my eating. However, most importantly, they have helped me to cut through the cr*p that we are fed by the drug companies, the medical profession, the diet industry and thin-nist people. So many of my own beliefs around eating, health, diet, size, fatness, self-worth and obesity stemmed from these channels and were completely unfounded (not grounded in any science or logic). 


P.S. If you read the Dances with Fat blog, check out the comments to each post  - they are enlightening!

The 'Starting Not To Care' Stage

I realised today that I am entering the 'starting not to care' stage of dieting and calorie counting. It generally hits about 6 to 8 weeks in and as I am officially 6 weeks in this week, I guess this is rather timely!

Anyway this phase sees you going from total obsessive to slightly more relaxed, but... BUT... it is dangerous territory in my opinion. This is the make or break point.

Firstly - you arrive at this point because you start to get used to the new routine and eating structure. Your mind is no longing rebelling at every opportunity and instead seems to reach a kind of resigned approach: you're in this for the long haul.

Secondly - you keep eating the same things, so in the end you begin to know what you can and can't have. By the 6-8 week mark you have had quite a bit of practice at weighing and measuring, and calculating and logging. It's time to let go and release the reins a bit.

Thirdly - if you stay in the anxious, hyper aware, obsessive stage forever, you will become completely exhausted and/or risk developing some kind of eating problem...

So, the starting not to care stage sees me:

• Not measuring quite so much (for example, I am not weighing my bread after I slice it)
• Not logging after each meal (for example, I may allow two meals to go by before I start to log online, so I am beginning to work out how much I can have before I actually log it to find out if I am right or not)

The point of this is that: a. it happens naturally and b. you need to start to learn to judge for yourself and, more importantly, trust your own judgement. When you have quite a bit of weight to lose, you can find yourself at a point where you don't trust your own judgement (after all, possibly part of the reason you find yourself needing to lose weight is because you have a tendency to eat too much or whatever). Then when you are measuring and calculating and logging everything like a frantic nutter, you develop the actual 'need' to do those activities to reassure yourself that you are actually doing it right. Due to these reasons, I think it is good to slacken off a little... see how it goes. You can give yourself a little challenge of maybe a couple of weeks of more relaxed calorie counting before you judge whether you have learnt enough to be able to work this way and still lose weight...

That's the theory anyway!

I am now going to try and put this all into practice. As I said at the beginning, I am naturally finding myself at this stage. It feels instinctive, so I am going with it and will see what happens. I do think I need to give myself the mental space to go through this stage and see if it works and whether I can then continue on as I am doing. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board and probably more measuring and weighing. Of course I feel a little "hmmm" about the prospect that it might not work and I may stay static or gain. I don't think I will gain to be honest... more likely stay static, but if I can keep my exercise up and am hopefully eating the right amounts, then I don't see why I should not lose as I have already been doing.

The Lowdown...

I am trying to lose b/w 30-40 pounds. I want this to be the last time I go through this weight loss - I have had several goes before and successfully lost but through a combination of not knowing how to maintain and health problems that mess with my metabolism, I keep gaining some of it back.

I have health issues - affects my metabolism & my ability to exercise.

My approach at the moment is to aim for 1,400 calories a day. I am tending to vary between 1,200 to 1,400. I also have one 'free day' a week where I allow myself to eat what I want.

I am slowly integrating myself back into exercise.

Here's my stats:

5'5, age 31, female

SW (this time - 9 Jan): 180.75

CW: 172.5

GW: b/w 130 to 140