Five Weeks Of Alternate Day Fasting

Or More Correctly Intermittent nearly fasting:

Well, I've been doing the 'diet' for five weeks now and I've lost a total of 18lb. It is still the easiest thing I've ever done regards diets, calorie counting and generally eating better.

I've found that the best way of managing the down days is to do the 400-500 calories over two meals ... lunch and dinner and totally missing breakfast (I don't get up early but I do go to bed late). Hmmm, yes, and for the picky pedants out there, I know missing breakfast is impossible because the first meal of any day, whatever the time - IS breakfast, but you know what I mean.

One of these meals mostly - up to now - has consisted of green crunchy stuff and cottage cheese, the other one tends to contain chicken style quorn, mushrooms, onion, more crunchy stuff - peppers, carrots etc - dry stir fried with half a tin of chopped tomatoes poured on after. Seeing as I only do this three days a week (Mon, Weds, Fri) I don't see the need to vary it over-much.

I use an app called My Fitness Pal on the android jobby (also available on-line), which has proved invaluable to both tot up the calories eaten and the calories used for exercise. It tells me off every down day for not eating enough, and every up day for eating too much, but over the week my calories have averaged at roughly 1200 a day ... this is because even on my up days I've been more aware of unnecessary empty calories and so avoided them (and not craved them).

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The other benefit of losing weight is that I'm actually motivated to shift myself off my ar*e and go for l-o-n-g walks - like I used to do in the olden days - as well as using my stepper with resistance bands ... although ahem, I can see that this will soon be regarded as one of those faddy things I buy, use four times a day the first week, twice a day the second week, dwindling down to once a day. Then eventually it becomes something me, grumpy and the cat trip over, swear and hiss at; so grumpy will put it away ... and it'll never see the light of day again.

Up to a month ago I'd been caught in a vicious circle of little outdoor activity and insidious weight gain. I made excuses about having to do my work (sitting) or housework, hmmm. This is because as a fat(ter) person, I could always find a reason to justify why I didn't have to go out. But the truth is:

1. I was too tired and heavy to bother.
2. In summer, I was uncomfortably hot.
3. I was really embarrassed by my size and didn't want to be seen.

But - tubby little person that I am - I was still consuming the same calories as I did when I was more active ... the result is obvious. How really obese people cope, I can't imagine. At least some of them must be caught up in the same loop as I was.

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I may not have kept up the super weight loss of the first three weeks of this lifestyle, but I didn't expect to, also I think I'm gaining a little muscle weight. More important to me and far more noticeable has been the inch loss ... still only 1" from my boobs grrrr, but 3" from both my waist and hips. Oh and I'm going to have to start wearing my smaller rings because even my fingers are regaining their sylph like contours ;-)

So far, two friends have joined me. One is doing five up days and two down days a week and has lost 2lb on her first week (to be expected as she's not as over-chunky as me), and the other is doing four up and three down, slightly varying the days to work around her husband's shifts and she has lost 8lb in her first week!!.

Like me, they've had a mini-panic at the weekend, which is when we tend to let our hair down more as family life gets in the way of dedicated dieting. This is because we've all eaten (several) something(s) considered almost a complete no-no on a points or calorie controlled diet. THIS IS ALLOWED as long as we stick to being good on our down days and we're not totally daft on our other up days.

I'm now in the process of turfing out my too BIG clothes, I intend to get rid of them all and not save ANY for my next fatathon, because I refuse to let it happen! The only shame is that, sigh, I sent all my too small - and relatively new - clothes to charity during the saga of the wardrobe ...

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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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