Day 9
165.2
Bam!! So excited! One more week to go. After that, it’s game on in terms of physical training for my upcoming Spartan Sprint in September. I need a lot of strength gains to conquer the obstacles. Reading up on compound lifting and planning out my workout schedule for the next few months. I am SO excited to get some muscle definition!
I think I see a challenge coming on! The Spartan Sprint Challenge. I will join it with you and do my chair/stomach crunching exercises. You need to start that thread.
Day 10.
Gained 1/5 of a pound last night, but to be expected with TOM visiting. Hoping for a Whoosh in the next few days, then I refeed.
Total so far is 13 pounds lost!
Miramar how would I go about that on this forum?
You just make a thread in the challenges forum.
It’s for challenges/accountability. 
Buckle up, this will be a long one. I’ve been journaling daily since my start weight 2 weeks ago, and I should probably just paste it all here so I can put this energy out into the ether instead of just my own personal rambling collective.
2022.01.18
Well, crap. Look how long it’s been. And look HOW MUCH HAS HAPPENED.
I lost my beloved best cat friend Pickles to a maniac speeding driver who didn’t even bother to slow down or stop after he hit him… I have been mourning for 3 months and the pain is still fresh every time I see his pictures. Due to this loss, Dustin and I decided enough was enough, we HAD to move now, finally buy a house come hell or high water. Requirement #1: a safe neighborhood nowhere near main roads.
AND WE DID. We are finally, FINALLY homeowners, after almost 17 years of renting together.
Bullet points of catch-up:
Which brings us to today, January 18th, FINALLY day 1 of the fast I’d been planning to start on the 3rd. Granted, this was an unforeseeable major life event, but nevertheless I am so happy today to finally start this thing.
Starting weight: 194.8 (Sunday)
Today’s starting weight and Day 1 fasting: 193 (Tuesday).
Dustin is at 233.
I am so happy to be fasting again. My body has been screaming for a break. Now that we have a dishwasher, it’s simple to juice in the mornings together (he is drinking juice for breakfast and lunch, like before the wedding), throw the bits in the washer, and have it ready for the next day’s juicing. It takes us about 45 minutes to do the 5 juices we need for the day.
9 am. First pang of hunger.
11 am. Ass mouth commences. A wee groggy. Chugging water, putting off juice #1.
1 pm. Time for my first juice.
3 pm. Want another one, will hold off. Feeling a bit loopy, hard to form coherent thoughts. Frequent breaks; the cot in the back room is WAY too comfortable.
4 pm. Second juice.
4:30 pm. The drive home is RELAXING. So strange. My commute usually stresses me out. It’s a bit shorter now, but I think it’s because alcohol is COMPLETELY 100% off the table that I have no cravings. In a surprisingly good mood.
6 pm. Third juice. Doing remarkably well. Very little hunger. Dustin has pizza and I’m not even jealous.
7 pm. Bedtime and Tiktoks because our couch is uncomfortable. Asleep by 9.
2022.01.19
Day 2
190.2
Up at 5:30 for juicing, jumped right into it. Experiencing added hunger this morning, but nothing crazy. Headaches are starting to poke me. Drank 32 oz of water before 11 am. Thinking about adding my electrolytes back in.
12:30 pm. First juice. My eyes hurt, lol. Need to research again. Reading others’ journeys helps.
3:30 pm. Second juice. Going back to Refuge Recovery and continuing my Truth Inventories. I did the first one in September, then did ok with the booze for a little while, then… didn’t. I am finishing this task now. Rereading the book. Going to find a way to meditate again.
2022.01.20
Day 3
188.2
Yep. Feels like a day 3. Brain fog, exhaustion, gnawing hunger, headaches, eyeballs still hurt. Coming into it good now. Can barely slog through work. 4 juices today instead of 3.
3:15 pm. Weirdest thing just happened. I just sort of popped out of the fog bubble I was in. Cleared right up, have more energy, sunnier outlook. Huh.
2022.01.21
Day 4
Didn’t weigh in
Had another juice early in the morning, we made extra. Fucking bagel day. The partners decided to move all the saturday bagels/lunches to Fridays so ppl can work at home, so I get to be tortured.
2022.01.24
Day 7
184.2
10 pounds down in week 1!! Off to a great start. Quitting the energy drinks simultaneously is helping too, I think.
2022.01.26
Day 9
183.6
Too busy yesterday to check in. Tax season, balls to the wall. Had a little slowdown in weight loss yesterday, looks like I’m coming into the ½ pound a day period already. Would be okay-er with this if I wasn’t still so hungry.
Definitely feeling clearer and more energetic. No more mid-afternoon slump. I was able to get a LOT done yesterday, just a little headachey in the afternoon.
Need to start thinking about my goals for when this fast is ended. This is just a jump-start; where do I want to step next in order to reach my 5, 10, 20 year goals?
Obviously, the booze is a big problem. It keeps insidiously creeping its way back in, and my weight has suffered for it.
Do I want to do a specific diet? IF? Keto sucks for me, I always overdo the fat. More veg in my diet? Whole foods for the whole family and the usual junk they normally eat, mostly whole for me and a little bit of junk, and vice versa for them, I think. Overthinking this step has always led to disappointment. Need to find the Middle Way.
This is a whole life reset. New home, new routines, new lifestyle, eating habits, cutting bad habits. I NEED to see this to completion to fully reap these benefits.
If I lose a half a pound per day from here on out, by April 15th I should weigh… holy shit. 139. That’s like 10 pounds heavier than NAIA.
It’s easy to fast for days on end, but it takes a lot of discipline to have adequate refeeds. Being disciplined is #1 to maintain the fat loss.
So, commitment:
DIET:
Mediterranean –> REAL FOOD
Fish
Nuts
Beans
Poultry
Olive oil
Whole grains
Control portions!
Dairy in moderation
Avoid processed foods
Fruits for dessert (guss it up! Make it gooooood)
Eat at the table when you can. Make your plate smaller.
2022.01.28
Day 11
182.6
Friday. Not excited. Too much to do this weekend. Can’t chill.
2022.01.31
Day 14
180.2
The weekend was actually great. We did EVERYTHING; painted the living room, sold the old couch, picked up the new ones, almost completely finished that area (just need accent color - swatches arrive this week). It was amazing. Got the bookshelves into the green room, set up the new shelving system in the laundry room, made pizza from scratch plus a pork loin… I was killing it. Rose came by to see it too. Had a bit of a booze craving Saturday night, but nothing too bad. Just missing the “relaxation”/fun aspect of it.
More to come.
2022.02.01
Day 15
179.4
Reached the 170s again! Most people at work now know I’m fasting. Getting varied responses, but it’s helpful when I’m not eating every week. I’m used to explaining to SAD eaters after 8 years of fasting.
You know you’re in the zome when a black coffee is a treat! I’ve had terrible ass-mouth during this fast, so I do have a couple hard candies on occasion to freshen that pit up.
The mind games have started to set in. I tend to watch a lot of Food Network once my physical hunger has subsided for the most part, I’m in that phase now. It does double duty as a “living vicariously through other peoples’ food pleasure” as well as meal planning for once the fast is done.
72 days to go! I am so scared I will quit again, but this is the longest I’ve gone in quite awhile. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. This is a reset for booze as well as food, and I need to go long enough to build some new neural networks, or at least dust off the old ones I made in my 4 years of sobriety. I am getting nowhere if I quit early, because I KNOW I will be going back to my old ways.
2022.01.03
Day 17
178.2
Rocking and rolling now. Pretty much into the swing of things, though I still suffer from wretched ass-mouth. I bought some mints to suck on when I just can’t take it.
I almost set my house on fire yesterday. It was chilly when I got home from work, so I decided to make use of our new (to us) woodstove and heat the place up. I opened the flu (sp?) and constructed a lovely fire stack. Now, I am a camper. I have created thousands of successful fires… in the wild. Outside. I even grew up with a fireplace (fancy!).
So I built the fire like I usually do. Cardboard/kindling on the bottom, 2 logs on top to get the party started. Lit, closed doors, awaited satisfaction.
Then smoke started BILLOWING out of the thing. Filled my whole house with smoke. I tried everything to choke it out, but eventually had to use the fire extinguisher on it.
Four times.
Goddamn thing wouldn’t stop smoking. I then threw about 10 cups of water on it in desperation, mudding the whole thing up, and it finally died down.
Lesson learned. Woodstove fires are NOT campfires. I watched a YouTube video showing a completely different way to build these fires. The more you know, I guess.
2022.02.07
Day 21
176
Another super productive weekend in the books. Officially 19 pounds down and FEELING it. I haven’t fasted this long in years. I do miss the booze on weekends, but minimally. My neural net is finding its way back to the homeostasis of sustained sobriety, and I am grateful. I know the longer I go, the more “normal” it will become.
Hopefully next weekend we’ll be able to get outside and do some walks. Been frigid this winter so far, but the weather forecast looks pretty good right now. We painted the feature wall, remounted the TV and cable box, and got all the wires out of the way. Dustin installed the attic stairs. The living room is now officially DONE! It’s so peaceful and comfortable, and super eye-pleasing. The grays, blue and white just WORK. Next is the granny cabinet and finishing the flooring (base moulding, separators, etc.
I had some wicked stomach cramping for about 36 hours, after which I FINALLY purged some of the crap that has been tent camping in my GI tract. Knocked me down for a bit, but I kept myself busy and took breaks to watch people cook fascinating Asian foods on YouTube. I seriously can’t stop. Every fast I have a different food obsession; it’s almost like pregnancy. Had a keto fast, a cold salad fast, a muckbang fast, a vegan fast. This time it’s Chinese-Japanese-Thai-Korean-Vietnamese. Went on an Amazon binge for ingredients, including a 100 year oak aged soy sauce from the Japanese island of Shodoshima. I went further down the rabbit hole by googling nearby Asian supermarkets, and spent over $200 on an absolute spree of delight. Bank account is hurting now. Oops.
Done with that. Now onto hoarding recipes.
2022.02.09
Day 24
174.8
Exactly 20 pounds down today! I’m still hungry quite often, but I assume it’s because I’m pooping almost daily. It’s amazing how much stuff is in there after abstaining from food for so long. And it’s not the overwhelming, mind-consuming hunger that comes when regularly eating; it’s just an occasional pang that lets me know things are still moving along. I am learning to enjoy the feeling, because it means I am still releasing weight pretty quickly.
My Excel spreadsheet says I’m nine weeks from goal (April 15th or 140 pounds). I took my measurements this morning and giddily realized I’ve lost 3 inches from my waist, 4.5 from my hips, and a half inch from my neck! Neck fat! Seeing the face gains too, that’s one of my favorite parts. Love it when the jowls dissolve.
That’s excellent! You are crushing it.
a very well done to you. All the best 
2022.02.15
Day 28
171.4
Battling the brain and body the past 24 hours. Had heart palpitations Sunday night, was a zombie all day yesterday, and wanted to sleep WAYYYY longer this morning. Hunger is persistent. Sapped of energy and a little worried, enough for the “what-if’s” to start, which is a major danger to my staying power.
But quitting is just off the table. 100%. I’m down almost 24 pounds, and astonishingly I still have 30 more that I want to lose. This is my long game, and I’ve come so far that I know I would hate myself if I stopped now. I just don’t remember having feelings like this so deep into a fast. I’m going to Whole Foods to buy extra juice today; hopefully it’s enough to get me over this hump. 60 more days! Ugh.
Looking forward to post-tax season, when the office gets the last week in April off. Naia is going on a school trip for spring break, so Dustin and I are going to take an adults-only mini-vacation to Foxwoods. It’s nice to be excited about something.
Mostly I’m excited to EEEEEAAAAAAT.
2022.02.22
2:22 pm
Tuesday
Day 37
167.8
Actually, it’s 2/23/22 today, but I had to write that down. Did a whole FB post on it at exactly 2:22. So satisfying.
37 days in today. Pretty sure I haven’t gone this long since 2015. I still miss food, and yes, booze, but I have a pretty solid routine going now. When I get particularly noshy, I watch an hour or two of food porn; specifically lately, I have been trying to work my way through 10 Hours of Recipes from Tasty on YouTube. I’m about 6.5 hours in. A little upset they snuck some repeats in there, but lots of new ideas.
Been cooking a lot, too. Making bulk dinner items and freezing half for when I eat again. So far I’ve made enchiladas, white chicken chili, meatloaf, and lasagna on the weekends. The freezers are FULL. Even went all out with a homemade girl scout samoas cookie recipe with Werther’s caramel. Can’t wait.
Mostly though, I’m just looking forward to the healthy foods. I’ve committed myself to making two things each night, something ridiculously healthy and delicious with lots of shit my family hates, like onions and peppers and asian flavors, and some garbag-y foods for them. So they can have bits of the healthy stuff and I can have bits of the crap. A good trade, I think.
This new routine has domesticated me. I was feeling resentful for a long time about Dustin’s moods when he’s not fed; like I’m not your mommy, dude. You’re a big boy, feed yourself and don’t snap at me for not having damn dinner ready. If I died, would you starve to death? But I’m enjoying cooking so much that it’s not a chore now. I’m excited for all the flavors I’m creating, and saving some for myself for later. Dustin is VERY happy. But I’m still not going to wear an apron, a perm and a simpering smile for my Dear Husband upon his return from the Great Workplace. I still work my ass off too. Every damn day. (Fucking tax season, ugh.)
In fact, I’ve given myself MORE work in this busy season. I have an old friend who is an editor for House Digest who put out an APB for feature writers, and I jumped on it. She read some of my work and gave me a paid writing trial. I wrote a feature on TikTok renovations that will diminish the value of your home, which I thought would be cake, but ended up being doubly challenging because I had to find BAD TikToks, which was super difficult for me. I managed to eke it out though, and submitted a little over 2000 words, so I should make over $150 for the article. Super stoked about that.
2022.02.26
Day 40
167.2
I’ve reached the purgatory of my body’s weight loss. I have been stuck in the upper 160s for over a week, and my body refuses to budge. Thinking back, I remember this being a really difficult plateau to break through. It’s been a few years that I haven’t been able to get below this point. So of course I’m going to keep going!
I’ve had a rough battle with my brain the past few days. I’m getting a serious case of fasting fatigue, and I’m on that verge between commitment and justifications. It’s a little scary. I’m desperately trying to keep this switch from flipping that plunges me into breaking this fast.
Mostly I’ve been missing drinking. It’s just a right now thing I hope, but I’ve had some bad cravings the past few days.
2022.02.28
Day 42
166.2
The mind games are at DEFCON status now. Spent the whole weekend thinking about how unsatisfied I feel; it took a toll on my mood big time.
I just want something to look forward to. My ultimate goal date, April 15th, is a million light years away, and everything seems dull. I’m miserable.
At least my weight is moving a bit now.
2022.03.01
Day 43
165.4
Weight is moving again! Thank goodness. The staleness of the slowdown was getting to me. It’s only Tuesday, so I know I’m good for the week and won’t cave. Weekdays are much easier. Just have to take it one chunk at a time. I’ll have to really distract myself this weekend.
I just realized that I weighed EXACTLY this amount when I ran the Spartan Sprint in 2018. I finished with about half of the obstacles completed. I need to start training again as soon as I’m eating. I’m so out of shape, no muscles to speak of. I need to do a dang pullup. Hopefully I can ditch another 10-20 pounds before I quit, so that task is easier. I’ve still never done a pullup. HOPE HOPE HOPE.
But, focusing on the positives here, I’m a half pound away from a THIRTY pound weight loss.
2022.03.06
Day 48
161.8
Still here, still going. Down 33 pounds. I reeeeeeeally want to hit the 140s before I stop, but I’m not sure how wishful that thinking is. My kangaroo pouch hasn’t deflated at all, and though I look noticeably thinner, I’m still waiting the same damn size pants.
At least the obsessive thoughts about drinking have settled into an acceptable murmur in the back of my mind. I just got my new wok and TONS of amazing Asian ingredients from Amazon, and I tried out my new skills on the fam with some awesome stir fries, scallion pancakes, and aromatic hot Sichuan chili oil. Can’t wait to eat what I’m smelling here.
For the past 24 hours, I’ve had a strange whooshing in my head, like I just walked out of the club at max volume. Not sure what this is, any ideas?
I officially submitted my second article for House Digest, and am on the payroll. I’m a sadist, taking on a second job in the middle of tax season with a new house to renovate. Had to work 6 days this week, and I’m finally cleaning the house on my only day off today.
2022.03.07
I broke my fast.
I was SO woozy yesterday. The tinnitus and vertigo was getting worse, not better, until I started feeling high, loopy, and constantly lightheaded. As with every time I fast, I knew I had to listen to the red flags my body puts out there, so I sauteed up some veggies with rice and scrambled eggs.
This morning the symptoms have mostly faded, but OMG THE GUILT. I went SO FAR! 33 pounds in 40 days, which will likely even out to about 26 or 27 after final water/poop weight adjustments.
Damnit. I really wanted to get to 50 days, or into the 150s so I can stay there. A bit part of me wanted to jump right back into fasting, but my body is calling it quits. Today I am SO hungry. I will do OMAD this week, hopefully keep losing. Dustin wants to keep making juices so I have that to fill the void before dinnertimes. I’m just not sure why my body was just done this time. The whole breaking of the fast was very surreal, and it still feels that way. It wasn’t planned for, but here I am. I’m disappointed. But I have to find a way forward from here.
IF is the direction I seem to be headed, so IF it is. I need to start running and lifting weights so I can get ready for the Spartan in June, so that will hopefully help things. I really wanted to lose this dang paunch, but hopefully I can keep chipping away at it. I’m so intimidated by my appetite!!!
You did great:clap:t5:, things like this happens but it is a great accomplishment 48 days wow! Have a good refeed and take it easy, start back when you are ready. Take care
So that was way too much time off of writing. So much to catch up on. Today is day 1 of my 7 month on-off juicing journey, so I will fill in the blanks as I go on counting days.
Day 1
202 pounds.
Amazing to write that number out. Not surprising, but amazing. How many times I promised myself I would never, ever see the 200s again… So much fuck-it-ery.
Cat got in touch a few weeks back to let me know that my House Digest feature on Home Depot keeps breaking readership records. Over 500,000 views when she texted. WILD!
11 am. Already feeling woozy. This is going to be a very painful first week.
I believe I ended my last fast right before Naia went into the hospital. I ended it in March, then she attempted suicide in April. Since then, it’s been one major life event after another. A month of panic about Naia, then a major job switch, then Dustin gets in a major motorcycle accident - of course we went back to regular drinking. Which is how I gained 40 pounds since March.
Just now coming out the other side, I’ve been at OPG 2 months today, and can say I’m getting good at my job. I got past Christie’s 2 week vacation where I had to cover for her, and it’s time.
First goal - 40 pounds to get back to where I was in March. Then a brief interlude, a slightly shorter fast, then a loooooooooooooong final one starting in January.
I’m even going to try a professional colonic this time to help clear out the ol’tuber in the hopes of actually transcending the hunger this time. Strangely, I’m looking forward to sticking a hose up my ass.
