Weight Gain!!

We all know that I switched to a daily fast last  May - I've still been jigging that about changing hours here and there - but I managed to gain 3lbs at the beginning November ... YIKES!!!

Now there's two things I may have changed or done wrong. One is that we came home from the tin hut, had loads of work to do and I didn't shift off my derrière. The other is the one I've been afraid would happen all along and that is I've cut my calories down to a ridiculous level. It wasn't done in a stupid attempt to get thin, and I'm not deluded when I look in the mirror - well, not too much - I know/think I'm not fat. But just to maintain my weight - with no exercise - meant I had to virtually stop eating.

Well that just ar*ed up the metabolism more - and don't let's forget I'm at a very tricky age, I'm seriously knocking on the menopause door to be let in/out.

Anyhoo, through November I'd gradually ended up eating less and less to the point where I was only having two decent meals a week and fasting 23 hours for 5 days a week and living on Muesli or ham/prawn/chicken salad ... except for the one or two days we ate out.

So, in an attempt to get my metabolism firing on all cylinders, I went back to 4:3 for a fortnight, where I actually had to eat more than I had been doing. I was - almost - prepared to gain a little more weight but seriously 4lbs more!! Yes, I gained 2lbs each week. I only had breakfast twice in that time and didn't enjoy it as I was no longer used to eating before 1.30pm.

Now what was I supposed to do? Well, I went back to my daily fasts as that's what I now preferred  but I stopped being quite so strict. Instead of 5x23 hour fasts I did 3x23, 2x18 and 2x16 hour fasts every week, and more importantly decided the work could wait and we went for a couple of long walks.

Unbelievably I lost the 7lbs gained in just a few days. I know most of it was probably water I'd got sloshing through my system, but it shows how my body needed to move more just to maintain its optimum weight ... I say optimum, I could still do with losing a few more pounds, but at my age, short of living on fresh air, it's not going to happen.

Having brought up my problems in our ADF maintenance group, another lady of a similar age said that she'd had exactly the same problem. Stopped walking - gained weight. This made me feel loads better ... and I think it's really important to be in contact with a group of people doing the same/similar thing, so we can discuss where we may be going wrong - mainly because we're guinea pigs and we've no one else to turn to - as well as giving each other tips, ideas and motivation WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY!!

Uho, December arrived, along with all that goes with it. Now the first year I followed a fasting lifestyle, I continued to do 4:3 throughout the month, only dropping to 5:2 for Christmas and New Year. Last year I had parents both ill and dropping like flies, so I ate when I could which was usually nothing throughout the day and one meal in the evening. This maintained my weight even though it was the last thing on my mind. This year I decided to let myself go. Hmmmmm, will someone please tell me why?

Over Christmas/New Year I regained those 7lbs so recently lost, and another of their little chubby chums came along for the ride. When the festivities had died down - OK, more accurately, after I'd eaten all the Christmas cake, home made truffles, trifle and other sweet stuff I don't really like but forced down anyway ... I discovered that it's sugar my body hates. All my joints ached, I was bunged up with man-flu every morning, I broke out in teenage spots - a nice change from wrinkles - and I was shuffling around like an old woman again ... rather than whizzing around in the best of health like the recycled teenager I'd become.

So, since then I went back to my proper daily fasts - although I didn't actually give them up over the holidays, but I ate far too much crap - I felt loads better but hadn't actually lost any weight, I strongly suspect my metabolism is sniggering at me from behind my left shoulder as I type. It is clearly fed up of me cutting down to the point where it has to make every calorie stretch.

Having still lost hardly any weight after a month - sigh - I've given in and gone back to 4:3, which is guaranteed to work ... as long as I remember to eat properly on the 4 up days. After doing a daily fast where I never eat before 1.30pm - usually later - then finish eating by 8.00pm, this is hard to get my head around ... again.

Anyhoo, one week of 4:3 and - drum roll - I gained 1lb. But as was pointed out yesterday by my lovely, sweet, soon to be ex-grumpy old man when I was swearing at the demon scales ... 'I hadn't shifted off my ar*e all week'. There will be walking done next week, at least as far as the solicitors to see about my divorce ha ha ha ha ha.

I will continue to make note of what I'm doing and where things go wrong so that I can say with authority ... "I wouldn't try that if I were you" ...

Update March:

I eventually lost all my extra pounds - with an odd weird gain towards the end (9lbs in 3 days), which disappeared as quickly as it arrived. I put this down to my muscles being sore when I started using the 'torture machine'. I have gone back to my preferred intermittent fasting and am once again maintaining my less portly figure ...

.....

1. Me and Alternate Day Fasting
2. Me and Alternate Day Fasting ... Three Weeks On
3. Five Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
4. Eight Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
5. Ten Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
6. Alternate Day Fasting Three Months On
7. Alternate Day Fasting in Winter
8. Alternate Day Fasting Over Christmas
9. Me and Zumba
10. Saying Goodbye To My Curves 
11. Eight Months Of Alternate Day Fasting And Me
12. Growing Up 
13. A Year Of Alternate Day Fasting 
14. 60 Pounds Of Blubber - Vanished
15. The Perils of Alternate Day Fasting 
16. Mr Grumpy Is Losing It
17. Mr Grumpy Has Lost It
18. Fasting For Maintenance
19. Tweaking Maintenance
20. Weight Gain 
21. Still Maintaining
22. Four Years Of Intermittent Fasting

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