Four Years Of Intermittent Fasting

Where has the time gone?

Anyhoo, I thought I'd better do an update - and publish all the other posts I've got waiting in my drafts whilst I'm at it - on how I'm doing.

Well, I'm doing just fine. I've kept my weight off for three years now and no signs of regaining it permanently. Weight lost - it does go up and down a few pounds over a week - is still 60-63lbs. But considering I was gaining 3-4lbs every year, this translates to me being at least 70lbs lighter than I would have been without an easy but significant lifestyle change.

This doesn't however, mean I can eat as much as I think I want on my munchy days. Years of yo-yo dieting - and my delicate age - have conspired against me by slowing my metabolism to a crawl. But I do eat until I'm quite full ... it's just nowhere near as much as the average 50+ year old western woman eats.

Sometimes I have one substantial meal a day - in the evening - for five days a week and the other two I'll eat - and drink - a little more. When I feel I'm gaining weight - this usually adds up to around 4lbs over a month - I'll swap back to 4:3 ... which for me is still only consuming around 500 calories three days a week.

I mostly have similar meals on my fasting days, and have recently stopped counting calories, I can - after all this time - guesstimate it quite well. My favourite meal is Muesli that I mix myself, using Lidl's finest rolled oats, nuts and dried fruit. With full fat milk or double cream and a big blob of yoghurt. Other fasting days I'll have a big salad with eggs/cheese/chicken, and in winter, you can't beat soup.

The only downside I can see to my way of eating is that I still shop for a couple who eat three meals a day. This means that lots of food gets bunged in the freezer, including roast veg. I buy loads, realise I've already got salad in for the next few days, so I roast the veg - in lard and/or olive oil/butter - then freeze it. Actually I first came across that idea - and tried it - last Christmas. Bought all my veg and cooked it fresh a couple weeks before the main event, so on the day it just needed heating up and there was no need to go food shopping in the run up to Crimbo.

I've invested in a Fitbit ... it isn't nice, it wants me to walk more, sleep more, exercise more and eat more most days - this is why I stopped counting calories - and it expects me to climb more stairs ... not easy when you're in a tin hut near the sea.

But I mainly use it because I'm curious about my heart rate. When I was a little chubster my heart rate was a normal 65-ish, once I lost weight I noticed it had dropped to around 53 bpm. I used my smartarse phone to check it and thought it was underestimating it, but the blood pressure monitor - oh, by the way, that's fine too, with an average of 110/70 - was getting a similar reading.

Now it can drop as low as 42 bpm when I'm asleep , but only on the nights following a low calorie/fasting day. I'm also a lot colder then. I surmise from this that my body is quite cleverly trying its level best to slow everything down to keep me alive. The next day my heart rate goes right back up to 53-ish bpm as soon as I've eaten.

Another thing I've noticed - being a lady of a certain age - is that I rarely have hot flushes until I eat, and this is the main reason I prefer one meal a day, even if I do gain a little weight

Holidays - or rather when friends come to stay - are another time I regain LOTS of weight because we tend to eat out and I let myself go. It's not unusual for me to gain 7lbs in one week and takes me roughly three weeks to lose it again. This is no hardship because as much as I enjoy letting my hair down for a week, it's a huge relief to get back to fasting straight after.

Even though I really don't like sport, I'll be eternally grateful to the 2012 Olympics, because without it I'd probably never have watched the Horizon documentary on BBC2 ... 'Eat, Fast, And Live Longer'. I was simply flicking through the channels on the telly, trying to avoid something that makes watching paint dry seem interesting  ... and the rest - as they say - is history.

And the Olympics are almost upon us again ... I wonder what life-changing telly-viewing I'll happen upon this time...

.....

 

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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Slow Cooked Pork For Easter

Note to self ... next time one of us decides to slow cook an enormous joint of pork overnight, do it before the whisky takes effect ... none of this was helped by the fact that I'd - wantonly - abandoned my specs and went about my domestic goddessing in a myopic blur.

I chopped an onion and lobbed it in, scattered herbs willy nilly - no idea which ones, they were greenish - glugged in a can of Guinness. Lovely, went and sat down to resume drinking whisky.

Hmmmm, methinks, there's something missing. Went back in the kitchen, chopped up some celery and chucked it in with a couple noggins of ginger - dunno why, but it was there ... went back to my whisky.

Hmmmm, still something missing. Aha, garlic, a whole bulb will do, I can't see to peel it. Oh, while I'm here I'll chuck some scrumped apple slices in that I froze last year. Bugger, they're solid I'll have to whack em to get em loose ... Ooh, a nice big chunk of frozen apple slices ... I think ... could be roast cabbage or chestnuts, I dunno, still can't find my specs.

Back to my whisky. Hmmmm, I'm sure there's still something missing ... oh chuffin Nora ... I only forgot the pork...

Thankfully I managed to remember it before I went to bed so at least I didn't have to get up in the night.

Which reminds me - now I'm finally in bed - the government has just stolen a precious hour off me - my phone went straight from 00.59 to 02.00, a disgusting state of affairs - with that damn British summer time they insist we have ... I won't get it back now until October...

Domestic Goddessing

Tuesday

Yippee! Finally found my Christmas spirit ... she's currently domestic goddessing in the kitchen.

Veg has been roasted, the Stilton and celery soup is bubbling away. The Christmas cake with almond paste is baking nicely. The leftover almondy stuff is about to be coated in chocolate ... and there's every chance the gingerbread house is going to be made next.

It'd be nice if this weird personality of mine turned up at the right time just once, she's either too early and is fed up by the main event, or like this year turns up late...

Wednesday

Uho ... got the domestic goddessing bug AGAIN. This time I finished off making the meat and potato pie I started yesterday. Cooked the leeks and Stilton sauce. Froze gallons of Stilton and celery soup from yesterday. Is there time to make sourdough crumpets? ... no, I'd better get on with some work.

I think I need to knock this domestic goddessing on the head. The freezer is totally full, I've made a smoked haddock, prawn, leek, cheese and potato pie for today. I'm finishing off the almond choccies next.

Since being a faster I've been able to - mostly - keep this side of me under control but this last week it's taken over. Any longer and I'm going to re-chunk when I give in and eat more meals.

The only saving grace is most of my culinary experiments taste like shite. Getting my grumpy old man to admit it is half the fun though because he doesn't like to hurt my feelings ... the way I do it is to say ... "Mmmmm, this is interesting, we'll have it again soon shall we??" ... and watch him squirm ... bless Oh, and I mowed his hair today too ... now back to work ... I'm good...