Monday 12 January 2015

Upping the ante with feasting and fasting

I have decided to up the ante on feasting and fasting. Weight loss was happening – but oh so slowly. I want it to happen a bit more quickly. So I am fasting for three days a week instead of two for 2015. Also this means that the longest period without a fast day is now two days instead of four, which I think will help ease out the peaks and troughs.

To clarify – the fasting days are not a complete absence of food. We eat around 400 – 500 calories. At first I found I felt pretty unwell on the fast days, but I have found ways to alleviate that. I put on 2.3kg over Christmas, but have already lost that again – so my WiiFit balance board is happy with me! It was funny the first time I weighed after Christmas. Something went wrong with the callibrating and it gave me a weight of 0.57kg! First the balance board heartily congratulated me on reaching my weight-loss goal, and then it told me I was seriously underweight and told me how to gain weight. I don’t think I will ever see that particular message again!


This photograph is of me after losing 17.5 kg (39lb) on Weight Watchers – around 1998 I think. I was eating so little to stay this weight that I ended up in hospital and was told by the doctors to start eating properly again. It took me six months to recover from whatever the illness was and by that time most of the weight had piled back on. Sigh.

Then I succeeded in losing 10kg about three years ago and have never put that back on, but have been stuck there.

Hopefully with three days a week of fasting, it will be a steady decline to slimness! This will be good for my heart and athleticism as I enter the slow decline into old age. I am 60 this year. As I know that two days a week will certainly prevent weight gain, hopefully when I reach my goal—which I haven’t really defined as yet—one or two days of fasting a week will serve as maintenance. I regard it as a change in lifestyle. Dieting only seems to work in the short term and is not sustainable as a lifestyle. I have tried a lot of different diets and they never succeed in the long term. I find the fasting and feasting easier than any diet I have ever tried because it is so simple and I can enjoy eating whatever I like on feast days. As these outnumber the fast days it is bearable, even though the fast days can be hard.

A fast day brunch: apple, melon, pear and banana, dowsed with
orange juice and sprinkled with cinnamon. Warmed slightly in
the microwave before enjoying.



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