Water Fasting + Keto + 2MAD

[Fastingtofantastic]

Intro
Hi, I’m excited to be here. I tend to yo yo between upper normal and lower overweight category with my BMI, and I’m fairly done with it! I was a chubby mid teen who found the low carb diet and ended up with a fairly nasty ongoing eating disorder I hid for many years. I still occasionally struggle with the ramifications, but am much better generally these days at the body positivity thing and now the issue again is just being too chubby from eating too much bad stuff.

Why
Argh so many reasons… I’m sick of going up and down with my weight and not having a consistent size of clothes I wear. Despite having a fairly good level of self confidence, I definitely find it is affected by my weight and the inevitable perception of others. Your outsides are a reflection of your insides. I would like more energy, to look hot in a bikini, to have more confidence at work and to be a role model for others.

Short/Long Term Goals:
I would like to get myself down to around 60kgs (I’m 5’6’’) and stay there.

Struggles/Obstacles:
I love socialising and especially enjoy a glass of wine or two with my boyfriend, family and friends. I’m definitely an emotional eater, especially around that TOM, so I’m going to have to pre - plan for that a bit.

Game Plan
Intermittent fasting (‘2MAD’) + keto + short extended fasts.
I’ve done short fasts before with varying degrees of success. I find it difficult to continue the fast through the working day when my job requires a huge amount of energy and concentration. I can’t afford to be feeling tired or lightheaded… so I think I’m going to have to plan the extended fasts over weekends that only overlap with workdays on a Friday or a Monday or during the holidays. For my body, a ketogenic diet with HIIT exercise with or without intermittent fasting seems to work best to keep me cognitively alert and at a stable weight. I have a huge sugar addiction (like nearly everyone else these days) and find it difficult to stop when I start, so sugar just has to go completely.

How will I feel once I achieve my goal?
Pretty damn great! I’ll feel light, confident, healthy, radiant!

Daily Affirmation
I am stronger than my excuses.

[Fastingtofantastic]

Day 2 Update
I am stronger than my excuses

Feeling pretty good this afternoon. I’m a bit of a coffee addict, so black coffee has been my lifeline, but I haven’t eaten and haven’t had too much in the way of cravings… yesterday afternoon I had a bit of a headache, but drank some water with a pinch of salt and felt slightly better.

I’m currently stuck in quarantine, halfway through, so the motivation to exercise is not really there. Home workouts don’t fire me up much, and it’s only a tiny space I’ve got. It’s ground hog day here. I’ve got study to do, so that is keeping my brain active enough. I don’t have a balcony, but a big window, and it looks like a glorious sunny day outside, I’d love to be able to go for a big walk. I can’t wait to get back to my dog and boyfriend (I’ve been away for awhile) and do all the active, outdoorsy things again.

I guess I’m halfway through this fast already. It’s been stupidly easy so far, and I don’t feel like I’m lacking energy at all, quite the opposite. I’m going a bit mad stuck in this room, but that was always going to happen. I’m looking forward to generally getting back on the Keto + IF bandwagon.

Reflecting on it, It’s been awhile since I stuck to this kind of a lifestyle strictly for a long period of time (I’m 28 now). Last time I did it for only about 5 months and I lost about 8-10kgs (to ~ 60kgs then) and my fitness was the best its ever been. That was about 2 years ago now. The external factors then that contributed to re - gaining the weight included a nasty break up, starting two new demanding jobs, financial stresses, some family drama and just not having much time or energy outside of work to exercise the way I had been prior to that. It’s interesting to reflect, and in hindsight I certainly don’t blame myself for putting the weight back on. My body likes to plateau around the 70kg mark, and I find it hard to break through that without quite a bit of effort.

I probably haven’t had enough motivation to lose weight over the last year. I’ve been really happy in a relationship and am pretty settled in my work and with my finances. It’s always something there that I want to sort out, but I guess it hasn’t been top priority, and thus, the waistline has remained the same. I’ve indulged way too much recently and the sugar addiction has definitely got the better of me, especially over the last six months with the general isolation and COVID angst we’re all feeling.

I know how good this lifestyle makes me feel, and that old saying “nothing tastes as good as being thin (and fit and healthy) feels” rings very true. I am going to keep reminding myself of that over the next few weeks whilst I break back into this lifestyle.

[Fastingtofantastic]

Change of plan

Well damn. Not a fasting - to - weight - loss success story, yet.

*NB - Stop here if you’re reading this, the rest is just self - reflection ramble. Saves handwriting in a journal, I can never keep those neat.

Apparently my excuses were (perhaps validly right now) a bit stronger than me yesterday evening. I was chatting to my boyfriend on the phone and my dinner arrived and it looked good, healthy enough (classic meat and three veg), so my thoughts went… “why not eat this?” and the argument for the “why not” (i.e. I had committed to three days fasting, I wanted to do it to reset my eating habits and get back on the healthy bandwagon), was just not strong enough.

My big overriding excuse for just about everything at the moment is that my diversion of focus to studying for these huge exams . The exam date is about a month away now, and my adrenaline levels are through the roof. Perhaps it’s not the best time to start a fast, but my eating habits, especially in this quarantine, have been horrendous, and I felt I needed to do something drastic. Last night, before eating, I was feeling a bit tired, energy was lacking, and I couldn’t focus on what I was studying (not ideal). Of course usually I would know this was just temporary and I could ride it out, but I’m quite time pressured right now and need to use every moment I have to study. That thought overrode the desire to continue the fast.

Unfortunately today, I’ve really binged my way through the day. On a positive note, my study has been crazy productive. Yeah, I’ll take that silver lining.

When I think about it, I guess I’m actually delaying gratification in a different way. I would love now to be able to primarily focus on getting my weight in check, but my prime focus is these exams, so I’m thinking I might take a less ‘drastic’ approach and compromise until I can get back into that routine by just doing OMAD for the remainder of this week in quarantine.

Oh, and no, I’m not kicking myself, and I certainly don’t feel like a failure. No one needs that second headache, it’s just futile.

Tomorrow is a new day and I plan on black coffee - ing it until dinner time, and studying up a storm.

[Fastingtofantastic]

Not too bad

So I shot for the stars and landed at a bit of a compromise… I’m easing back into it. I haven’t touched sugar for the last two days, and essentially have been 2MAD’ing it, with a few handfuls of nuts mid arvo and after dinner to curb the appetite and the sugar cravings. Unfortunately I seem to have inflicted these on myself with my bad habits over the last little while.

I think I’m doing pretty well considering I can’t utilise my other, normal stress - busting habits at the moment (getting outside, going for a walk, a swim, the beach, playing with my dog etc.) I’m feeling OK. The stress is ongoing with this study, and the more I do, the more I realise I don’t know, and it’s just a never ending spiral.

I am not going to make any plans anymore. My little inner rebel gets to excited by them and sabotages them every time, so instead…

It would be nice if I did a 24 hour fast on Thursday and probably then again on Saturday, just to make myself feel a bit lighter and less chunky coming out of this quarantine. Gosh, I’m excited to get out of this room.