The Diet That Let's You Eat Cake!! It Works! And is Healthy, too....

Hi,

I've got a couple of things on my mind. I had fallen off the wagon and put on 20 pounds so I am now battling to take that weight off. It was kind of scary to see those numbers going up steadily. I knew I needed to do something about this but was feeling kind of stunted, like there was nothing I could do that would work... or that I was willing or able to attempt. I was feeling helpless and stuck. I guess I had gotten spiritually whiny. I had decided to be a victim for a while so I could keep eating the way I was eating. I had given up.

My feet and ankles are still swollen. I keep track of them by writing in my daily journal. I'm kind of sketchy with my journal now, but I do still take my blood sugar and my blood pressure and weigh myself every morning -- well almost every morning -- I do sometimes have what I call "missing days." I realized I don't really like to call them that, so I try to remember to call it "missing data" -- but I don't always remember, that either. I usually log the things I ate the day before and make notes of anything about my physical condition that strikes me. So I was watching my weight going up and up in kind of a stupor.

But... as usual... I don't do much blogging during those times but when I make a turn around, then I want to blog, so that is what I am doing.

I've also been sick with this bronchial congestion and deep coughing for going on two weeks now. It just seems to keep hanging on. I refuse to go get an antibiotic for this because I just finally got my knee back to passable shape from the one I took way last September and I don't want to go through that again. (For anyone who does not know, some of the antibiotics they have now a days, such as Leviquin, will actually affect the tendons of some people. I am one of them so I got a torn ligament in my knee. Very painful indeed.) I know this cold, or whatever it is, will end at some point. I'm not coughing as much this morning but I can still feel the congestion at the bottom of my throat.

I fasted last Saturday night and Sunday morning for 24 hours. I started another fast yesterday, Monday, at 4 p.m. and will have permission to eat again in about half an hour. As I've observed my physical response to fasting while I've got this cold, that old saying, "Starve a cold, feed a fever" popped into my head. What I noticed is that through fasting, the cold has seemed to lighten up a tiny bit. I also notice that some of my other allergic-type responses have lightened up, too. So while I had an allergy test, for which my doctor charged my insurance over 3,000 dollars, the only food they came up with that I'm officially allergic to is tomatoes. Bummer. I like tomatoes. I was tested for cacao bean (raw chocolate), corn, cow's milk, soybean, whole eggs, whole grain oat, and whole wheat and they said I was not allergic to these things. My reaction to the tomatoes was mild but... I'm no longer eating fresh tomato and will probably not eat tomato sauce very often.

I seem to be mildly allergic to the pollen of some grasses, weeds, and trees, with careless weed, perennial rye grass, and timothy grass, plus, pecan pollen, white ash, and white hickory being somewhat stronger than the others. The one that I am most allergic to is Eucalyptus pollen. I asked the allergist about medicine with eucalyptus in it and he said I react only to the pollen, so that is good news on the cough drop front. I was glad to find that I am not allergic to most animal hair but I do react to an infestation of the American cockroach. Yuck.

But fasting seems to make me feel a little better even though I have a cold. So... who knew that old saying about "starving a cold" might have some basis in reality? I think it may be because some colds are not infections but allergic reactions and not eating at all will certainly eliminate any food that a person might be reacting to, at least.

So now that I have wandered down that path, back to the weight battle. After reading about and purchasing a program ($47) called "The Paleo Burn" I started to read it and could feel the old commitment being reactivated. As I was considering making the decision to follow the program for 90 days and try it out, the words "intermittent fasting" popped out at me and I remembered that video by Michael Mosley called, "Eat, Fast and live Longer with Michael Mosley" so I found it on the internet ( http://video.kpbs.org/video/2363162206 ) and watched it once again. I was again blown away with the information and got motivated again to do the one thing that I know absolutely helps me to lose weight. Fasting twice a week (not on consecutive days) and eating normally the rest of the week. I don't know why I stopped!

They mentioned that he has a book out now and I found it at Amazon and bought the kindle version for $8.70 -- it is called: The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting

While I was there I also noticed another kindle book called: The 5:2 Diet Book: Feast for 5 Days a Week and Fast for 2 to Lose Weight, Boost Your Brain and Transform Your Health which I got for $2.99. In looking through that I found the author has a facebook group with I applied to.

I also got out my "Eat Stop Eat" information and started reading about all the good things that intermittent fasting does for you like, lowering your insulin levels, lowering cholesterol levels, and lowering blood pressure, while, at the same time, NOT slowing down your metabolism. It is about as close to having your cake and eating it too that you can get in the diet world.

When you actually do a water fast for two days every week, the rest of the time, you can eat "normally." You don't even have to count calories. I can still pay attention to eating kind of low carb but don't have to be extremely strict with it and I can lose a pound a week, and sometimes up to 3 pounds in a week. It would not work if you gorged on food the rest of the time, I think, but it turns out that most people only increase their eating on the feast days by about 10 percent -- and they still lose weight. What more could you ask for?

It was working for me up until I somehow stopped fasting all together. I think that is why I put the weight on so fast, my eating habits on the "feed" days had gotten really lax because it had become so easy to lose weight. (Yep, I really said that!) So when I stopped the fasting part, I started to gain weight rapidly. If I had not allowed myself to begin including carby stuff on my feed days then my old eating habits would have maintained my weight loss. So. I now know that I still need to eat wisely on my feeding days so if I stop fasting for some stupid reason again, I won't back slide so far. I'm hoping there will not be another "next time" but, I also know how I am. What I'm recalling is the sumo wrestlers who only eat once or twice a day but they consume gargantuan amounts of food when they eat and, well, we all know we don't want to look like a sumo wrestler!

There are many different ways to do intermittent fasting. The 5:2 Diet Book recommends eating a tiny meal on the "fast" day, so they don't even actually "fast," as the word implies, with no food at all. So following that plan you pick two nonconsecutive days during the week to eat one small meal and the rest of the time you eat normally. Some people do a 4:3 and some do a 6:1. I recall that I started out with a 6:1 and when I realized I actually liked the fast day, I notched it up to 5:2. Some people do a 4:3 one week and a 5:2 the next. What ever you feel capable of doing, or set your mind to do, it will have an effect -- and a good one, at that.

I have chosen the actual water fast rather than the small meal fast, because I want the benefits that not eating for 24 hours does to the human body that I read about in "Eat Stop Eat" by Brad Pilon. Here is the URL (copy and paste) to the page where he sells his book for $37 -- with a $9.99 three-day trial period. ( http://www.eatstopeat.com/?vtid=eatblogeat&utm_expid=7760520-13&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fbradpilon.com%2Fbooks%2F )

One more thing... Michael Mosley talked about intermittent fasting helping to prevent some kinds of cancer and there are suggestions that it helps to prevent Alzheimer's disease, too. These benefits alone are worth the experiment!

I know how I used to fear fasting before I ever tried it. I figured, that I, of all people, being a food adict and morbidly obese, would not be able to do it. But I tried it and I was able to do it. It made me feel better and more alert, too. It was the only thing I tried that was actually helping  me to lose weight, so I am doing it again.

I am so glad to be back on track again. It feels really good to be doing something positive for myself, again.

Be back soon,

Marcia