Ahhhh, life IS good.
Normally, I write my journal after I have gotten up, weighed in, had breakfast and sent Wife off to work and I have some time alone. Well, not today.
I am ”pre-writing” this journal partly, as it's 2:19 am, and I can't sleep. I've had several days like this lately, and I believe it's because of my cold and my sore throat. I keep coughing and waking myself up, and it drives me nuts. Other than that, I generally feel better, and this morning is no exception.
I'm hungry. Well, kind of. Not in the ”I need food NOW” way, but more like my body is telling me the it's time to refuel. It's still about two hours until Wife gets out of bed (if she does, she was pretty sick with that damn cold last night), and I can easily wait for her.
I haven't weighed myself yet. I'm gonna wait until normal weigh-in time, which is around 4:30 am. Maybe I can go pee one more time before that.
Yesterday was really interesting. For those of you who did NOT read my journal yesterday let me quickly recap:
I decided to try a day of fasting, and in my book it was a HUGE success. I had no trouble doing it whatsoever, and it felt great. It's counter-logic to everything we usually learn. Don't starve yourself, eat your meals and all that. That is true. However, I kept reading about the success and joy people have doing this, so I decided to try it out.
I had 600 calories as an allowance, and I decided to simply skip EVERYTHING and just have a nice dinner. Well, dinner was super light on calories, and I ended up only consuming around 225 calories the entire day. This of course explains my hunger this morning. Again, it's not a bad hunger. It's like my body is politely tapping my should, going ”Dude, it's time to eat!”. No more than that.
(this is inserted after my weigh-in) So how did I in fact do on the scale? Let's take a look at the weight and the fat percentage and compare to yesterday.
Yesterday I was 91.7 kgs. I had a fat percentage of 19.8%. It's not the lowest weight I've had this time around, that one was a week's time ago at 90.3 kgs. Fat percentage was 22.5% on that day.
Today, I weight 90.6 kilos, and have a fat percentage of 19.6%. This is interesting.
Usually, when I drop a full kilo in weight, my fat percentage goes up significantly. This, to me, signals that the massive drop isn't all fat, but mostly water. Otherwise the percentage wouldn't chance to go UP. This time, however, it is stabile. In my logic, when I drop weight and the percentage stays the same, it's a 50/50 drop from fat and water. If it was a complete fat loss, then the percentage would go down about 0.9% if I drop a kg and I weigh 90 kilos. And if I was at a 2800 calorie deficit yesterday (give or take) then about 600 grams of fat loss is very realistic. Today, I will still be at a deficit (every day but Indulgence Day), so the weight loss journey should continue as always. I can't wait to see the results!
It was nice finally having breakfast, but still, after so many hours, I was in no rush. I took my time eating, chatting away with Wife. The food tasted better than usual, even if it was my same old setup with rye bread, ham and eggs. After eating, and about 30 minutes passed, I actually feel more full than I normally do. That's a nice thing.
So, today I have alotted myself a little extra calories. Not that I really need them, and who knows - maybe I won't use them. Wife and I have decided to go share a pizza(!) for lunch. With all my meals planned for the day, it'll bring me to 1485 calories. That leaves 815 calories for emergency snacks! LOL. I doubt that I will need that many. I'm gonna do good, and test out my system. Actually, does that mean that I SHOULD use the full calorie count to actually push myself to my max allowance? I don't know. I still don't believe in eating just to reach the top of your RDI. I don't think that can ever be a good idea.I did quite a bit of research on this whole thing yesterday. It was a true eye opener – especially for me, as I have Alzheimer's close by in my family. This means that I could be in the risk group for that, and that is a very scary thought. Supposedly, fasting a couple of days every week can essentially help you move a little further away from that risk. No cure, sadly, but less chance of it kicking in.
In my research yesterday, I came across an amazing tv-show that Wife and I saw last night. It's a BBC show called Horizon: Eat, Fast, Live Longer. It was simply amazing. It's on youtube, but it's blocked if you're in the wrong region (I suppose it's available for you Brits!), so I had to go other ways to find it. I took the liberty to upload it to my dropbox, and share it to you guys that way. If you want to watch it, please download it to your computer one of the next days, as I can't keep that link alive for too long.
You can find it here (may I suggest that you right-click the link and download the file, for a much more comfortable viewing experience? Since you Mac people don't have the right-click option, do what it is you need to do to download from a link. I have no clue. lol.)
After seeing this show, and experimenting a little on my own body, I have no doubt that this is something I'd like to try out. On the show they talk about a dead simple approach:
Eat normal, but fast two days every week. A fasting day equals 400-500 calories for women, 500-600 calories for me. That's it. End of story.
Of course, me being me, that's not safe. I know myself well enough, that if I do this I will end up over eating 5 days a week. That's the reason I'm overweight in the first place. I can't just plummet into that trap.
So I developed a system. I have created what I think I'm gonna call the ”Roller Coaster Indulgence Diet”. Catchy, huh? :)
Basically, I am setting up a calorie system that gives us the same calorie allowance as we would have if we simply followed a calorie restricted diet using FatSecret. Only thing is that I have incorporated my good old Indulgence Day, and switched the calorie intakes around a little further. So there will be two fasting days, an Indulgence Day and some regular days.
I don't want to get too much into the math of it all just yet. I'd like to be my own guinea pig on this first, and see what it does to me and if it's sustainable.
As you know, I have a weight loss mission. I still have 11 kgs to drop by the (almost) end of February. I need to have things moving NOW to do this. I think this could easily be the way to do it.
So, as of now I am doing this new system of mine. I did some extra math, because I was a little concerned with my timing on it all. Starting out in the middle of the week, essentially having missed a fasting day, will that affect my overall calorie intake for the weekend, if I simply stick to my new plan? Answer: No. Actually, changing from Indulgence Day Diet to Roller Coaster Indulgence Diet on a Thursday matches the calories EXACTLY. Lucky me. :)
My goal with the new system is to keep us going on the same low calorie diet as generally directed using FatSecret. We all know that the main ingredient in the whole weight loss game is to lower your calorie intake. Lower it by 1000 calories per day, and you will lose a kg (2 lbs) in one week. Give or take, anyways. The trouble with doing this is that for many people it's hard work. It's too restrictive. Too many rules.
My way, there will be room for MORE food on an every day basis, as long as I do the two fasting days. And they are pretty easy. How often have we not skipped meals simply because we were rushing out the door, or because we were doing something too fun to miss? I think the trick to this is to simply keep yourself occupied, and simply come to terms with that ”today is fasting day”.
On the home front it's gonna be literally no change. They will not really feel ANY difference, and if anything, they will eat more food. I will but my fasting days on Monday and Wednesday (or Monday and Thursday, I'm not really sure yet), and my calorie restricting will mainly be done at work. When I come home I will simply eat dinner. We will do a healthy dinner as always on those days. Looking back through my food diary, by far the most of my dinners are just around 600 calories, so it should be a no-brainer!
Yesterday, I experienced virtually no hunger. I have not missed one meal (well, maybe one) since I started my weight loss journey in 2010. It's been two full years of no missing meals. So I was very leary and hesitant, and not sure if I could manage the day yesterday. Well, it turned out to not be an issue at all. I think it was mostly the fear of the unknown. How will it feel to be hungry? How will I react? How will I handle sitting in with Wife for lunch, and with my coworkers for the big Thursday cake break, with all the goodies? Turns out it was a LOT easier than to just have a little.
Having come to terms with the fact that I wasn't gonna have ANY, made it easy. I was way too interested in seeing what a fasting day would do to me, and it won that battle hands down. I hope I can keep that motivation going in the future – I think my big selling point long term will be ”Get your butt out of those dangerous health groups like obesity and alzheimers, and also live longer” and short term it will be ”If you fast today, you can eat much better tomorrow”. I think they are both great selling points.
If you are the least interested in this approach, I urge you to watch the video. It's really an eye opener. It's really something else – and for once it's a health documentary that is easy to understand and relate to. At least, it was for me. I'm doing this.
Today, I'm thankful for:
- Fasting successfully yesterday.
- Wife helping me out by supporting me in my decision to do this. I doubt that she's gonna follow, though. At least, not yet. I'm okay with that – it IS a bit extreme for some, I think.
- Waking up hungry, but not THAT hungry. I'm ready to have breakfast when Wife wakes up and we're ready for it. No urgency. I could go for hours longer if I had to.
- Friday! Though no band practice, it IS the weekend and I feel that I need one. It's been a rough week, sick at work every day. :/ All work and no play makes kingkeld something something.
Creating a new diet plan! I have so much fun doing this. I hope it's working as I think it will, and I hope I can share it with those of you who are interested and that it'll work for you too.
So there it is – Happy Friday! Life is good!
EDIT: Also, Wife stated at breakfast that she just might join me. If nothing else (and I quote) "Because then I'll be better prepped for the zombie apocalypse!". How can I not be nuts about her? :)