Fast & Feast Eating Plan Update

The new eating plan I told you about a couple weeks or so ago......  Fast & Feast Eating Plan.

It isn't a diet really...it's an eating plan. There  are very few rules. You Fast alternate days and are allowed 500 calories. On your Feast Days you eat whatever you want- trying to stay within a 2000 calorie  limit.  On my first week on it- I truly FASTED on the fast days. I'm one of those people who would rather not eat anything than have a little bit of something. If I ever eat anything I'm starving for the rest of the day, so I knew that eating a salad or sammich  just wouldn't work for me on fasting days. So I stuck with just a cup of coffee at the three meal times, and water in between.

I lost 1 lb the first week. That was fine. I knew I wouldn't lose a great amount because I had trouble getting my 2 liters of water down on my fasting days. Water does NOT taste nice after drinking a cup of coffee. And if I don't get two liters of water down a day, the scale doesn't budge.

Anyway.....so the second week I switched things up a bit..... I fasted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I Feasted on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and had a One Meal Half Fast on Sunday with the meal staying between 700-800 calories. Saturday is the only day I truly allowed myself to Feast and have a treat of a few Fig Newtons with my evening coffee. The other two feast days I cooked and ate my usual healthy food options. My "treat" those days were having a cup of coffee with a spoonful of sugar in it as dessert. Everything tasted so much better on my feast days after fasting the day before. It's like my taste buds were reborn!!

And the second week I lost 1.4 pounds. Which is also fine. I didn't put this weight on overnight, so it won't come off overnight either. And if I continue to lose at this rate I will still lose over 50 lbs in a year. And I'm happy with that.

I'm hoping to wedge a bit more exercise into my routine as I have joined the ranks of the PokemonGo fanatics. The only catch is I have to go walking when the sun is low in the sky because of the glare on my phone screen. That's fine with me, too. I'd much rather walk later in the day so I can unwind and relax from the stress of the day at the office. We will see if it impacts my weight loss at all in the next week.

Judgement Day!!!

Well, Judgement Day came a week early.
I've been keeping a chart of my weight loss every week for the past 19 weeks. Some weeks I did well, some- I tanked. Well, Since I'm starting the new diet- see latest post yesterday-I decided to go ahead and measure a week early. I had set it up for  measuring every 20 weeks. Yes, I have short term and long term and even LONGER Term goals.

So this is week 19 of the 60 weeks I gave myself to lose this weight.

This is my weight and measure chart....as you can see it has LOTS of ups and downs on it. My Report Card. I most certainly am NOT an honor roll student by any stretch of the imagination.

But I want you to look at the measurement part. That's  4 months work. I measured myself for the first time on the last day of February 2016. The weekend after my 56th Birthday. 

I started out at my heaviest of 286 lbs.(Not in Feb- this has been a several year journey.) Well, that was the highest weight I saw on the scale. I know for a fact I had lost about 20 lbs  and a couple of pant sizes at that point already so my heaviest weight was just over 300 lbs. Scary stuff.

So in the last four months I have lost:

1 inch in neck 

Arms remain the same( booooo!!!!!) :(

6 inches in waist!!!! 

3 inches in hips 

1.5 inches in thighs 

.5 inch in calves

So everything I've been doing is working- even if I dont see the changes in my body myself.
I still see a fat girl in the mirror.....but the day WILL come when I see myself as I want to.

I'll continue to weigh every Saturday Morning and record the results.
And I will be measuring on the first Saturday of every month now.
Let's see if we can get this on a Fast(er) Track!!!

Feast Or Famine.

My God looking back over this blog I have tried a boatload of diets and strategies.

Well, one that worked for me years ago is one I'm going to try again.
The Feast & Famine.
So I've been doing a bit of research the past few days on the human body- and have seen a lot of studies think that  the Feast or Famine way of eating is how the body best works from an evolutionary
standpoint.

Well, It worked for me once before when I didn't actually know why it might- so here we go again.

I deliberately decided to start on July 1st(today) and I wanted to start on a Famine day. Now  that means I need to stay under 500 calories on a famine day- but I personally do better with an all or nothing mentality when it comes to food.
So I am having as many as three cups of coffee a day. And all the water I need. So far I have had two cups of coffee and two bottles of water. I'm being careful to stay hydrated and my kidneys and bladder function efficiently, regardless of what day it is.

I've found that I can do without food all day with no problems- I might get an occasional twinge of hunger if I smell something really nice, but I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is having just a taste of something really nice that's full of calories in one shape or form and then not being able to have a full serving. Or having a platter of bland tasteless food that I wouldn't let my pet eat.

I've been without food all day...well, actually since 8PM last night and I really thought by lunch I would be all kinds of crabby and head-achy. But I wasn't. I had my coffee and took my meds with my water and went on about work.....even when office-mate #1Tom waved Chocolate under my nose offering me a bon-bon before he knew I was fasting today. Nor was I the least bit bothered by office-mate #2 Wendy when she pulled out her pasta salad for her lunch.

I thought oh my gosh- by suppertime I will be ravenous, especially when  I'm making Broiled Pork steaks and roasties for hubby's supper....but again....nope.

Now I admit, I did have a bit of a tummy growl when one of the girls on Corrie was standing there with a package of Fig Rolls with her brew....but I got over it.
and here it is almost bedtime and guess what? I lived thru the day with not a morsel going in my mouth. That's 1500 cals saved.
Tomorrow, I will get up have a slice of toast and an egg. Then when hubby gets up around noon we will run into town and do errands and have a bite out somewhere. I'll eat normally- whatever I want but not overdoing it of course, then home and a very light supper. Maybe a sammich or a couple pieces of fruit.

Then Sunday will be a famine day again. That's going to be the really tough day for me. The day I usually do a nice Sunday dinner with meat and potatoes and gravy and rolls. But it will be okay.

I weighed this morning and I will see how much I lose at the end of the month.

Stay Tuned.