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.

This blog is real...

So I could lie and pretend all was well in the weight loss department.

The truth - Nope...

This is HARD. When I started my next phase, I forgot that this weekend (just gone) was a holiday that went on for 4 days. Holiday = holiday food. The result is more like this:

I am enjoying being honest. I have a diet buddy who I share my successes and failures with. I have found it cathartic to be honest with her when I am going wrong... e.g. yesterday when I ate 2 ice creams and today when I ate a cream cake. I have had so much guilt and shame over eating things I shouldn't in the past, that I have found being open about it when I am eating so-called bad foods (they are not bad, they are foods that are treats and should not constitute the largest part of your diet if you want to get all your nutrients) to be novel and take away some of those shameful feelings that I am bad, wrong, failing...

I went out today and bought a lot of fruit and vegetables. I am going to make some fresh juice tomorrow and on Thursday I hope to make a nice soup and have more juice... flush my system with some vitamins and minerals and get back on the wagon.

If anyone ever reads this blog, especially if the person reading is a person who has struggled with their weight, I want them to see reality... that this is hard, that it's not an automatic thing - e.g. you start 'dieting' and lose weight and this continues till you hit your target weight... some people do manage that and some people don't. If I wrote how amazing I was doing and there were no slip-ups or hard patches, I don't think I would really be dealing with my 'food issues'.

Anyway, I am still of the mindset that if I could get back to exercising it would definitely help offset where I am slipping up with my food. I have decided I am also going to focus on this. Anything is better than nothing right?

The Wagon

Due to family events, I find myself at the 'get back on the wagon' stage yet again. I am not feeling this at all. It's so hard! My mind has slipped a bit and I have lost the control feeling and replaced it with a laissez faire type emotional state, which is not helpful at all. Finding ways to self-motivate seems hard. Even knowing that I am now able to get into some clothes that are 2 sizes smaller than what I was wearing at Christmas does not seem to be helping very much. It's frustrating. I am hoping that if I can get a clear run... 1 week... of CCing, I will be back in the habit. So I am starting that today.

Weigh-In & Working Out

A quick update... back to Sunday weigh-in:

Loss this week = 2.25 lbs

I am really happy with this as last week I only lost 0.5 and normally I am losing around 1.25 to 1.5. Sooo... in the past two weeks I lost 2.75, which seems right. Yay.. so far I lost 15 pounds in 10 weeks.  I am now 3/4 of a pound away from my first mini-goal!

From: http://www.theweightlosstips.co.uk/scales-whats-your-reasoning/

I was sitting downstairs last night contemplating the thought that I had fallen off the wagon and couldn't really be bothered with the whole 'diet' thing anymore. However, weighing myself today has reinvigorated me to keep going. It's been an extremely tough week due to eating out 4 times and then today eating rich food as it is Mother's Day here.

I have decided my workout schedule this week will look like this:

M: Walk dog
T: Turbosculpt
W: Walk dog
Th: Yoga
F:  Walk dog
S: Walk dog

Now even these dog walks are going to be anywhere from 20 minutes to like 50 minutes (if I feel inclined and it's not raining). Turbosculpt, I will see how long I manage. I have decided to continue with it because I know I need to do weights and strengthen myself. Yoga again is a good core and strengthening exercise. I shall come back to the TurboJam when I am feeling better.

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.

In it for the long haul... & Yoga

Today I woke up and realised:

a. this is a long and slow process
b. I am in it for the long haul

As the weeks tick by, it's easy to forget where you started off when trying to make long-term changes to your diet and/or exercise regimen (or even instil an exercise regime in the first place!). On Monday it will have been 9 weeks since I started this journey and to be honest it's hard to gauge results. What I mean by this is that, yes I have lost X amount of quantifiable pounds, yet it's hard to remember how I looked and how things fitted me 9 weeks ago.  As a result, translating weight loss into changes in my body is hard. I have kept measurements and I hope these help me to see where I am losing. The good news is that yesterday I was able to wear a pair of pants that I had not been able to wear for a long time due to weight gain.

So today marked the last day for doing the challenges. I have managed to do all of them except the fruit one. I finished the last 2 by playing fetch with my dog and doing 50 minutes of the new yoga DVD. The yoga is a little mixed; some of it seems reasonably easy and other bits are super hard. The standing poses are quite challenging due to the mixture of balance, strength and flexibility. I am hoping to do this yoga practice weekly for a while before increasing to perhaps 2 times a week because I really want to keep up my cardio and strength training too. I am pretty tired from all this working out.

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.

Weight Loss Update & Weekly Challenges

Weight loss update - so I weigh now each week on a Sunday and I aim to weigh no more than once a week. My weight loss continues to be slow and steady. I am on target to meet my first major goal, which is to reach 130, sometime around October. Whether I do or not depends on whether I can keep my body in this current state of loss. I am calorie cycling (naturally I guess) between 1,200 to 1,400 on counting days and on my day off, I am probably reaching anywhere from 1,700 to 2,000 (in the maintenance range).

Thoughts -

• I am pleased that I am losing and that I am able to have a 6 day counting/1 day off schedule. This works well for me. I have managed before to not do a 'day off', but I think this time around I would struggle with that, as I do tend to go out with family or friends once a week, and it is so much more difficult and complicated to eat at those times and stay in count. It actually takes away the enjoyment for me, so I would rather have the day off and a rest from counting.
• I am conscious that this week just gone has been a poor week in terms of exercise for me. I did exercise and I met my challenge goal of 3 sessions of at least 15 minutes or more, but looking at my log I can see that if I do more intense exercise, the net calories would be greater or else to achieve the same type of net calories, I need to eat less, which I don't really want to do. This week just gone was TTOTM, so I think I am just going to have to accept that one week every so often will be a less intense exercise week (which is not a bad thing!), as I really can't be doing crazy exercise like TurboJam when I am having my lady issues.

Weekly Challenges

This week are as follows:

1. Weigh-in no more than twice this week (to check fluid issues due to TTOTM)
2. Exercise at least 3 x 20 minutes
3. Blog at least 4 entries
4. Write 5 goals for the next 5 months (should write 1 goal for each month - things you want to change, or to do etc)
5. Eat a portion of fruit or veg at EVERY meal on 5 out of 7 days 

Re: #5 - I am going to try increasing veg and fruits but without messing around calories... so veggie sticks will be my friend and swapping some snacks back to fruit

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.

Dreaming...

One of the things which a change in diet and lifestyle can do to you is it can make you a bit of a dreamer. Well this certainly seems to be the case for me! Since I have started to successfully lose weight and drop some inches, I have started to become interested in the idea of clothes again. Good for me style-wise, bad for my wallet!

To be honest, when I am bigger, I am just not interested in clothes at all. I have somewhere between an hour-glass and pear-shaped figure (big bust, small waist, big hips). When I am heavier, these features are more pronounced/exaggerated, so my hips are very large compared to my waist. It's not an easy figure to dress because of the hips and the bust. Dresses are a no-no. Trousers/pants are hard because, if the hips fit me, the waist is always way too big for me. Even tops are complicated because they need to be small on the shoulders, but big on the hips - n.b. most tops are not like this.

When I finally get to a certain point in weight loss and firming my body up, I start to be more in proportion. This means I can wear a wider range of clothes styles and find things that will fit me much easier on the High Street. My biggest pleasure of late is dreamily looking at catalogues and interestedly thinking about which items of clothing I could possibly start to fit within the next 6 months. 

It's interesting because the feelings inside me are so much different when I am actively working on losing weight, firming up and getting fitter. If I were not doing this, I would normally look at the catalogues that come through the door half heartedly, skipping through the pages and noting all the things I couldn't attempt wearing. After which, I would go through looking at the things I could wear, which would typically be not that much, and then spend ages wondering if it was worth buying anything because chances are it wouldn't fit in one area and would be too big in another (the curse of the out-of-proportion body).

So shopping as the bigger me becomes about covering the body and finding something to wear rather than being about what I would like to try wearing. Whereas, shopping as the smaller me becomes about trying different styles, different colours and textures and wearing what I want to, rather than just what will fit me and not look hideous.

Better start saving those pennies up!

My Day Off & TTOTM *That Time of The Month*

Yesterday was my day off... that is the 1 day in every 7 where I can be a little free-er in my eating. I can eat what I want.

The premise behind this is that:

• I will learn to control myself around food
• I will learn how much I can eat without gaining
• I will learn to not be reactive (and reactively eat)
• I will not plateau on my diet because I am not always eating the same amount of calories and same type of foods
• I will not feel deprived

So far, so good, until yesterday...

And I don't know if it's because I am now nearly at week 6 of calorie counting (week 6 will begin on 20th February) or whether it's because it's TTOTM and I am PMSing, but I felt out of control for the first time. I actually felt a combination of: a. eating too much (even though looking back it was not that bad) and b. knowing I was eating more than I should but still eating it!

The latter concerns me more than the former, not because I am not worried about eating too much, but because I feel that point B is something that needs to be dealt with, as it's probably what causes me to gain weight more than just the intake of too much food. Not being able to stop or control myself when I know I should is really not a helpful state to find myself in, as if I could stop myself eating when I am full or don't need the extra calories, I wouldn't be eating too much in the first place.

I can see this whole process being a long-haul right now. Nearly 6 weeks in and I am thinking I am making progress, but then I get stalled by this. I am not really sure if I was feeling deprived and PMSing or whether I was having some form of 'diet rebellion' or what. Maybe I will never know!

I have no idea who this baby is, but baby looks like I felt... fed up!

Image taken from: http://freejokesfunny.com/417/babies/16355/baby-sigh.html

Despite feeling like I had a slip-up, I still think the free day is very important. The reason I think it is very important mainly stems from the fact that when I go into maintenance in the future, I need some foundation and building blocks to build that state from. It's unrealistic to expect someone who has been dieting for 6, 7, 8 months or more to suddenly just go back to eating what they want and not gain any weight back. If you have not allowed yourself some freedom and some treats, how can you learn how to eat in a more 'normal', less restrictive and possibly socially more acceptable way? For me, this is a learning curve and instead of being frustrated, disappointed and guilty (which are natural feelings I want to have) about yesterday, I instead am trying to focus on this as a lesson in life.

The good news is that today I have been straight back on target. I amazed myself with my ability to pick myself up and get straight back down to business! I had a healthy, fibre-filled breakfast, went for a walk in the sunshine and then came back and prepared a 'healthy' Sunday roast dinner, which included my low-fat roast potatoes (recipe below).

Weigh-Forward's Calorie Counting Roast Potatoes

Ingredients:
Sunflower or Vegetable Oil
Potatoes (King Edwards, Rooster, Desiree are good for this)

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 200 C or 400 F
2. Peel as many potatoes as you need (for those calorie counting, I use between 100 to 150 grams each or 3.5 to 5 ounces each)
3. Cut the potatoes into chunks, as desired
4. Place the potatoes in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil
5. Simmer for no more than 5 minutes
6. Drain the potatoes into a colander and then shake them a little to roughen up the edges
7. Get a large roasting pan, take 1 tbsp of oil and pour it into the pan
8. Take a pastry or silicone brush and brush the oil over the base of the pan so that it is totally coated
9. Toss the par-boiled potatoes into the pan and spread them out so they are an even, single layer
10. Place the pan into the oven and cook for 15 minutes
11. Remove the pan, turn the potatoes over to brown each side and return to the oven for a further 15 minutes
12. Repeat step 11 once more before leaving in the oven for a final 15 minutes
13. Total cooking time should be approx. 1 hour
14. Serve with roasted meat, fish or vegetarian fare and plenty of freshly cooked vegetables

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