IF a journey to health and well-being

 Wednesday 31st May 2023 So yesterday was a disaster.  Or was it? Ok so I ate way too much at lunch but seriously 'Did I have a great time'?  Yes I really did have a great time.  In the day I ate all the things but I only had one glass of wine.  In the evening I was still full but was trying to future proof myself as I had the idea I would fast today as a down day.  So I ate a load of peanuts.  No real problem there.  But the thing I really did badly was having about 3 glasses of wine.  Not good and I paid for it by not sleeping well and having a mouth like the bottom of a bird cage.  However I feel fine this morning.  I weighed and I was 86.9 so nothing really tragic there. I have a plan for today.  I have done my Pilates this morning.  I am doing my blog now.  I am going out on my bike shortly with the dog to see if I can train her better with the bike.   As far as eating is concerned I would like this to ...

 Date  Tuesday 30th May 2023 AM  What will test me today? Lizette and Bev coming for lunch.  Not going on about IF and keeping my eating reasonable How would I usually respond? Eat everything and seconds and drink too much How could I respond that would make me feel pleasantly surprised with myself when I look back on it tonight? Eat small portions of food.  One or no glasses of wine HUNGER IS DEFINITELY A STATE OF MIND Yesterday I was going to try and go for 42 hours fasted.  I did really well and was not really hungry.  I wanted desperately to eat but I didn't.  When Mike was cooking and eating his dinner I took the dog out for a walk and then when I came back and went and watched TV.  However everything had food on it and it fried my head.  I had no hunger feelings but I did have the head feeling of craving like a heroin addict craves heroin.  This wasn't a case of 'I want to eat'  this was 'If I don't eat something then I a...

 Date  Monday 29th May 2023 AM  What will test me today?   Getting through to my window.  I want to do a 36 hour fast but I am not sure how I am going to get there. How would I usually respond?   Close my window after 18 hours and give in. How could I respond that would make me feel pleasantly surprised with myself when I look back on it tonight?   Get to 24 hours and then decide to push on.  Not too sure atm. RETURN AFTER 3 DAYS AND 2 NIGHTS BIKE PACKING So we got home yesterday after having done 150 kms on the tandem, staying on camp sites, sleeping in the tent.  It was really fun and it was tough.  The cycling fasted was fine and although I was starving by 3pm on the second day I think this was probably because I just kept thinking about food. The evenings were a bit of a disaster because at Brantome the only thing available was pizza and it was a really crap, a bought in base of shoe leather, although the topping was n...

 Date 24th May 2023 AM  What will test me today? Managing the amount I eat so that I don't get uncomfortably full.  Also I really do not want to drink or if I do then only having one or two at the most.  Two is probably too many. How would I usually respond? Justify it to myself that I deserve it and I don't want to be deprived.  Once I've had a drink or two then all my resolve disappears. How could I respond that would make me feel pleasantly surprised with myself when I look back on it tonight? Think I deserve this weight loss and by managing or reflecting on the feelings of 'deserving' or 'depriving' I will understand myself better. TODAYS CHECK IN So this morning I weighed myself and unbelievably I have lost another .6 of a kilo.  Weight this morning was 86.9 kgs which is awesome.  I can't believe it as yesterday I felt I hugely overate.  In fact once I started eating I felt I didn't stop.  I had the burger and then the grapes and then di...

 Date 23rd May 2023 AM  What will test me today. Going to 20 hours How would I usually respond? Give in at 18 How could I respond that would make me feel pleasantly surprised with myself when I look back on it tonight? Keep busy and be kinder to myself. PM What tested me today Only eating one beefburger What happened?   I only ate one. How did I respond? I learned to sit with my feelings for 30 minutes or so to see if I really want to eat any more. This new bit of my blog does seem to make a difference.  It is making me think and plan.  The most important thing at the moment is that I fast for 18+ hours which I seem to be doing fine.  20 is a struggle though but I intend to keep trying.  The secret is keeping busy in the afternoon hours when I start to feel hungry.  I know now that is not real hunger.  It is emotional and head hunger. I weighed myself this morning and I can't believe it!  I was 87.5.  a whole pound or .5 of a K...

 Date AM  What will test me today? How would I usually respond? How could I respond that would make me feel pleasantly surprised with myself when I look back on it tonight? PM What tested me today. What happened?   How did I respond?

So yesterday was a research day and time to tune things up or down. BTW just to get it out there, I weighed this morning and I was down to 88kgs dead on.  That is a relief because after my birthday bash when I still fasted for 18 hours I was up to 88.8 kgs which took all week to lose.   So after my research yesterday I decided to go back to a more keto regime but to include good clean fasting for at least 18 hours.  I managed this well yesterday and apart from an orange and some grapes after dinner I was pretty much Keto. The second change is I have cut out coffee from today to see if this is what is causing me to feel so really unwell.  The fuzzy, buzzing head, blurred vision, shaking and general massive tiredness.  Last night I was very, very tired and I had a very lazy day with no exercise apart from 40 minutes of pilates.  I slept pretty well though apart from some shitty dreams. My food yesterday was good.  I fasted 18 hours and then had a co...

So this morning I jumped on the scales for a sneaky peak and guess what?????????  I'm 88.5kgs so no weight lost this week. I cannot get this at all.  I know I have diet brain but surely going out for a ride on the tandem for a couple of hours and only eating 1200 calories and mainly eating protein and totally fasting clean,  should make for some change?  It would be so easy today to say 'What the hell' and to give up. It's not supposed to be a diet and there are no restrictions.  This cannot be true...can it? Today I will fast clean again and maybe cut out coffee as I read yesterday that it can spike insulin.  I really felt dreadful yesterday until we went out on the bike. All I had was coffee and water and I did take 2 soluble paracetamol before we went.  I felt good whilst we were out on the bike and not hungry, no headache. When we got home I ate a good portion on charcuterie which was left over from my birthday and I had some St Augur cheese. ...

So today is 20th May and I am struggling with my thoughts. I belong to lots of FB groups and also listen to as many Podcasts by Gin Stephens in a day as I can to keep  me motivated.  The message every time is 'Trust the Process' and I am trying.  I know it works as in the first month I did lose 11lbs.  My average was a pound a week, but since then I have put on a 1.3kgs after my birthday and I have lost about .5kgs of that since.   I am pretty good at the fasting bit. I can fast for 18 hours relatively easily but after that it gets hard.  It's not just mental but physical effects too. I get a kind of buzz in my head. I feel really tired and very irritable. I desperately feel the need to eat. Not because I am hungry but because I need the comfort that eating brings me.  I can eat something then and those feelings do diminish but they don't go away.  They only go away when I have a drink of alcohol. Now is the reason they go because of the alco...

 So I have been thinking a lot about feeling hungry and trying to decide 'What is hunger?'  Is it that growly,  groaning feeling in your abdomen or just under your ribs?  Is it the feeling of slight nausea?  Yesterday, because of having dinner and drinks so late on my birthday my eating window for 18 hours was not due to start until 5pm.  Now for me that is late to fast and not only that, because I had eaten some pretty unhealthy food on my birthday I was not in the best place for a long fast.   It got to about 2pm and I was bloody starving.  I was hangry.  But I had 3 hours to go until my window opened.  I decided I needed to occupy myself so I took the dog for a long walk down through the woods. During that walk there were a couple of moments, and they were just moments, when I felt hungry.  My stomach felt empty and a bit sore and had I had food available I would have eaten it. However I didn't have anything and so I just wa...

 This is the first post so it's going to be a long one. First a bit about me. As with many people who come to IF I am a serial life long dieter. The extreme came when in January 2012 I went to the Czech Republic for bariatric surgery with a now bankrupt company called Cosmetic Bliss. I had a gastric sleeve when I was at about my highest weight of 96 ish kilos.  I may have been a bit more than this but those are the figures that spring to mind. The weight just fell off me after the op and before long ie in about 6 months I was down to 75 kilos.  I looked amazing.                                                                               The picture on the left is the day that Tequila arrived and the pic on the right is me at the very first Cheltenham Park Run at Pittville P...