Day Forty-two: last fast of the year

The Christmas season is always a challenge for those of us with food control issues, so despite feeling more relaxed and confident than I can ever remember, I didn't set my expectations too high. My plan was to fast as normal the Monday before Christmas, and for most of the day on Tuesday, and then not again until yesterday. 

As it turned out, I got through Monday just fine until an overwhelming desire for a glass of wine hit me in the evening, which I caved into. Hey, it's Christmas. I made it 'til about 3pm on the Tuesday and then gave up altogether. This has shown me that doing 2 fast days back to back would not be a great idea for me. However, it was possibly the emergency trip to Sainsbury's tipped me over the edge. We had booked a fabulous Christmas Day lunch at a local pub, which was sadly flooded and couldn't open, hence the trolley dash to buy ingredients for cooking at home. As always, Dream's fabulous kitchen skills saved the day.

We had a wonderful time, and I indulged myself with whatever I fancied to eat, which actually wasn't nearly as much as I used to. But by the end of Friday I felt in need of regaining some control, so I decided to fast on Saturday. It was a great relief and I felt so much better by the end of the day.

I fasted again yesterday, my last fast of the year. It was more effort than the Saturday, probably because I'd only had one normal day in between. But I made it under 500kCal and feel I'm all set to start the new year in great shape to achieve my new goals.

Happy New Year!

Day Thirty-nine: the 26 hour fast, pre-Christmas results and pelvic progress

I fasted for 26 hours without food from around 6:30pm on Thursday to 8:30pm on Friday. I then had a delicious 300cal meal from Cook (http://www.cookfood.net/menu/shop/chicken/Chicken-Noodle-Laksa-COOK-Pot/ - highly recommended) and didn't eat again for another 12 hours. I was rather proud of myself but honestly it wasn't that tricky. 

I was reasonably busy the whole time, including my second physio treatment. After last week's hip realignment I was pleased with the improvement in the ease of walking but my back and neck had been quite stiff and achey. Yesterday she worked on mobilising my spine and waking up various muscles that haven't moved for an unknown amount of time, which I can already feel helping my posture. Unfortunately the treatment involved a fair amount of intense shoving which has left me feeling rather battered today. Apparently I have visible bruises on my back. As always, I'm being very well cared for at home by my marvelous support team, and I'm sure it will be worth the short term discomfort for the long term gain.

In the meantime, I weighed myself this morning, prior to the expected indulgence of the coming week. I'm absolutely delighted to report that I lost another 1.5kg in the past 3 weeks, taking me down to 15 stone 5 pounds, below my 10% goal and 3 pounds short of a full 2 stone loss since starting. When I set the goal at the start of September I wrote that this seemed like a massive amount to lose (24 pounds) and it still does, I can't quite believe it. I'm enormously pleased with my early Christmas present and feel I can go from strength to strength.

Having achieved 2 of the 3 goals I set at that time (http://darklingplainfast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/goals.html) I need to now look forward. My shrink goal of getting my waist below 80cm is still a way off, so here are my next mini weight loss goals:

1. Lose 2 stone (3 pounds to go)
2. Get to under 15 stone (6 pounds to go)
3. Lose 15% of my starting weight (11 pounds to go)

I'm not planning to weigh again until late January/early February so I hope to make good progress by then.

Happy Christmas everyone :)

Day Thirty-eight: food allergies and locked knees

I'm fasting on a Tuesday for a change. I had to work in the office yesterday as I had a team lunch to attend, so fasting wasn't an option. It felt very odd, particularly after a rather boozy pre-Christmas weekend, I found myself rather missing it. To make matters worse, I had a nasty reaction to the delicious food laid on at the posh Japanese restaurant. I have a known crab allergy, and despite being careful I suspect I accidentally ate some. The rest of the day was spent lying quietly in a darkened room. I've never looked forward to a fast so much before! I'm much better this morning and enjoying feeling empty and healthy! I'm also wearing one of Dream's old dresses - the excellent news for both of us being that it is now too big on her, having lost over a stone, and it fits me instead :)

I'll be fasting again on Friday this week - not my usual Thursday as I am out the night before and don't fancy it on the inevitable hangover! I then plan to fit one more in next Monday before giving over to Christmas indulgence completely. Normal service will resume the following Monday 30th December. I intend to weigh next weekend and then not again until 1st February to give myself plenty of time to recover!

In the meantime, I had my first session with a physio for my PGP on Friday. I'm delighted to report that she knew exactly what the problem was and was optimistic that she could improve things a great deal, to the extent that I should, at some point, be able to resume walking regularly. She didn't set a target timescale, as this will depend on how well I respond to treatment. My right pelvic bone (ilium) is canted forward at a slight angle, causing the pain and mobility issues. She made some adjustments to my pelvis and hip joint which have left it moving much more freely but also caused rather a lot of lower back pain - to be expected as muscles and joints re-align. 

I'm attempting to be mindful about my posture - not an easy task for a lifetime sloucher - and to prevent my knees hyperextending. Apparently I have hyper mobile ligaments which contribute a lot to the problems. This picture isn't my leg, but mine looks much the same, you can see the weird reverse curve. 

When I make the effort to unlock my knee, my leg straightens and my pelvis aligns into a more natural position. Amazing. This skeleton diagram shows the knock on effects on the pelvis and spine:

No wonder everything hurts! I'm determined to overcome this, so I'm  being mindful not just about my eating but my posture too. Next appointment with the physio on Friday. Things can only get better.

Day Thirty-six: bits and pieces

The GP was sympathetic last week, if not exactly brimming with advice. She had not dealt with PGP before but after prodding and poking a bit, during which I attempted not to terrify the other patients waiting outside with too much screaming, she agreed that I needed referral to physiotherapy. My next challenge is therefore to find a therapist with specific PGP training, who is also covered by my health insurance.

I also got a lovely email from a lady at the Pelvic Partnership with lots of helpful advice and support, including this:

Some people are enormously overweight and don't get PGP, and other people are stick thin and do. Carrying excessive weight doesn't help the joints and muscles to cope, but it's not the cause of the misalignment or rotated joints which almost always turn out to be the cause of PGP.

Exercises, crutches, support belts and painkillers can help relieve some of the symptoms but as they do not address the underlying cause of the pain; they will not "cure" PGP.

So I feel quite justified in kicking up a fuss for some treatment now!

In the mean time, I have officially retired my size 20 trousers. I put a pair on for work last week and they looked so ridiculous I had to take them off again. Luckily I have lots of size 18s saved from years ago to keep me going, and I generally wear a lot more dresses these days anyway. I think I might keep one or two of the biggest items at the back of the cupboard to remind me where I have come from.

I did a little review of my goals. I hadn't reset my 10% after adjusting for the new scales, and am delighted to see I'm only 3 pounds away from it. I've added in some other milestones to my tracking document, measuring progress in different ways such as amount lost in stones, pounds or kilos, or as a percentage, and hitting certain round numbers weights like getting below x stone. Once I hit the 10% goal my next marker will be a total loss of 2 stone - four additional pounds needed for that one. After that I can set my sights on getting below 15 stone. All these different ways of looking at it are just a few pounds apart so I can feel a real sense of achievement as I take small steps along the way.

I've settled into a fast day routine of not eating at all during the day, and then having a small meal in the evening. I don't think I'm hitting 500kCal in that one meal, probably less than 400 and I'm full up. I'm really noticing that I don't need to eat as much in between now too - two meals a day is enough most days. I'm sure if I was going more physical activity I would need more, so fingers crossed I can get some treatment that will let me make that a reality.

Day Thirty-five: off topic - pelvic girdle pain

Apparently, some studies show that intermittent fasting boosts brain power. I'm not entirely convinced today, as I'm struggling to write a particularly troublesome report for work. I'm putting my difficulty with concentrating partly down to having to deal with fairly constant pain in my hip. So this post isn't about fasting, but brings together various themes which are related to my journey, namely health, gender, pain and weight.

Just over 5 years ago I had a baby, my second child, another beloved daughter. The pregnancy and delivery were pretty much a nightmare from beginning to end, and the consequences of the experience are still with me today. I could point at various mistakes and oversights made in my health care during that time and continuing since then, but I don't think there is any positive reason to do so. The reality is that I have to deal with where I am now.

Since the end of that pregnancy I have suffered intermittent intense pain in my groin. This ranges from an unpleasant ache to agonising stabbing pain, the feeling that my pelvis is coming apart, and shooting pains down my legs. Turning or moving my leg in a particular way can leave me literally gasping for breath and unable to move. I can go months without any symptoms at all, and then something will trigger a flare up and I'm back on walking sticks. Triggers tend to be any kind of exercise more rigorous than a gentle stroll to the end of the road and back. As a result I have done next to no exercise over this time - each attempt has ended in more pain.

I have asked for, and been referred for various types of treatment over the years. Some have been covered on the NHS or my health insurance, others I have paid for myself. I have worn support belts, I have had obstetric physiotherapy, osteopathy and chiropractic. As I can avoid pain by basically being a couch potato, I'm not considered an urgent case. The last time I asked my GP for help following a particularly acute episode this summer, I was told there was no point getting treatment unless I lost weight. As it turns out, this was the kick I needed to get started on 5:2, for which I am grateful. However, now being in the middle of another flare up, I find I am no longer prepared to wait until I reach some arbitrary desired weight before attempting to seek treatment again.

I've tried Googling many times before to see if there is any advice or treatment I could research, but most of the information I found was related to how to manage the problem during pregnancy, which didn't really help me. Part of the problem was not knowing what the problem was called, or if it even had a name. While I was pregnant I was told it was called "Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction", or SPD. It was then renamed "Pelvic Pain in Pregnancy", or PPP. Again, this didn't help given that I am no longer pregnant, so none of the information was relevant. I finally found that the current term used is Pelvic Girdle Pain or PGP, and hey presto, I found all sorts of useful information, including acknowledgement and treatment of this as a long-term problem.

My new friend is the Pelvic Partnership - http://www.pelvicpartnership.org.uk/

Here is what I have learned. Pelvic girdle pain is usually caused by an asymmetry or change of normal movement or alignment in the pelvic joints – a mechanical joint problem. Frequently in PGP one of the three joints in the pelvis, often one of the SI joints at the back, becomes slightly stuck and the joints start to move asymmetrically. This then puts extra strain on the other joints which start to move differently and can become irritated and inflamed, leading to PGP.

In pregnant women this is usually triggered by abnormal pressures on the pelvis, by the loosening of the ligaments that hold the pelvis together due to the hormone relaxin, and in some cases by childbirth itself. Women are often told that their pelvic pain is due to:

• round ligament pain
• hormones
• sciatica
• trapped nerve
• normal aches and pains of pregnancy
• low back pain
• nerve irritation; 

and that it is not treatable and will get better on its own, or as soon as the baby is born. Many women have discovered later that it was pelvic girdle pain and could have been treated as soon as symptoms occurred. PGP also occurs in sportsmen, such as rugby players, and they are treated quickly and effectively with the same range of techniques as those used for pregnancy-related PGP.

This all gives me some hope, but also slightly depresses me. I have definitely been in the camp of thinking that this was just something I was going to have to live with, as a woman and a mother, and as a person who is obese. It has limited my lifestyle choices drastically over the last 5 years, ranging from not being able to exercise, to sometimes not being able to participate in normal family activities like playing with my children. Maybe I should have shouted louder, but all the professional feedback I have had is that it's too vague and too difficult and I should take care of it myself by doing Pilates and stop complaining.

I'm going to see a new GP this evening and am hopeful that armed with my new knowledge I can start down the road to recovery. If my GP is not helpful at least I know where to look for better information and support.

Day Thirty-three and a half: the day of reckoning

The rooms in my post-divorce house are quite small, but my post-divorce bed is very big (do you see my priorities here?) so it only just fits in my bedroom. It's possible to walk between the end of the bed and the wall quite easily up to one corner where an old chimney breast sticks out a bit and makes the last bit of the gap quite about two-thirds the width of the rest. At the time I bought the bed, I could just about squish through, with a bit of wriggling, as long as I was wearing something reasonably smooth. I avoided doing it if at all possible.

Yesterday morning I slipped through the gap with no problems. I still touch the sides but I think I'd have to be a stick insect not to. I wouldn't have thought of setting that as a goal or way of measuring my progress, but it's unexpected things like this that show me in a very practical way how far I've come.

Despite this, I wasn't very optimistic about weighing myself this weekend. After the unscheduled encounter with the scales two weeks ago I wasn't expecting much. I made an extra effort this week however - no alcohol at all during the week and my Day 33 fast came in at under 200 kCal even though I found myself at home with a sick kid all day.

But, my diary said weigh day today, so I stepped on the scales first thing this morning and was delighted to find another 4 pounds gone! Hurrah for me! So the total now stands at 21 pounds off (= 1 and 1/2 stone or 9.5kg). I'm now under 100kg (99.3) and absolutely delighted. I have another 5 pounds to go to hit my 10% goal that I set at the start of September. My other goal from that time was to get my waist measurement below 31.5 inches which is still a fair way off - here are my current stats:

	2 Aug 13	1 Dec 13
Waist	47	41
Under bust	42	38
Full bust	46	44
Hips	54	50.5
R thigh	30	27.5
R arm	14.5	13

With Christmas coming up I'm not going to worry about achieving much this month. I will carry on as normal and then weigh in three weeks time, before Christmas week itself. I'll be quite content staying where I am, a stone and a half lighter than I was 4 months ago.

Day Thirty-two: the guest edition - support and encouragement

My lovely boyfriend has been promising me for months that he would write a guest blog post to give some insight into what it's like for him, living with me doing 5:2 - apart from having to eat on his own twice a week! Over a pint last night, he made good his promise:

________________________________________________________

When I was in my teens I'd eat as much as I wanted of what ever I wanted and not put on weight. "Wait until you're in your 20s," I was told.

When I was in my 20s I ate all I wanted, washed it down with as much drink as I wanted and still was able to get the same size clothes as when I was 19. "Ah, but wait until you hit you 30s," I was warned.

Through my 30s I ate American sized portions was less active than in my 20s and still able to wear the t-shirts I had from the 90s. By this time in my life people stopped warning me about pending weight gain.

Through the last 20 years I have had partners that have struggled with weight problems. What I've found challenging time and time again is knowing how to support someone that's going through something I've not been through myself. In each relationship the weight loss is not something I've instigated, at least not consciously. In each case the partner I was with started on their weight loss journey due to discomfort or medical problems.

I've sat and listened to how "x" will be the system that succeeds where "y" failed. I've heard eating plans explained then six months later discredited. I've waited in the car outside diet support groups as my partner went to get weighed. I've bitten my tongue many times when hearing how each and every system hasn't worked.

Dare I say it, 5:2 is different.

Oh sure it's not all sweetness and light but it's not the constant pain that eating plans which rule out certain food groups or reduce daily intake cause. I very much like that we can still go out for a meal or enjoy a delicious Sunday lunch without any compromise or guilt.

Dear reader, just like you I love to read this blog as the ideas and revelations take us closer and closer to goal.

As I mentioned before I personally struggle with how to help someone through something that I haven't been through myself and I appreciate that many of you reading this have suffered or are suffering and I am truly grateful for the support that you give and wish you the best of strength for reaching your own goals.

________________________________________________________

After reading this, we had a discussion about levels of support. When someone is following a more traditional diet plan, it seems important to constantly encourage and celebrate sticking with the effort and achieving (hopefully) the desired weight loss. With 5:2 it's a little different. To me, at least, this now feels like something I do, embedded in my regular lifestyle, a permanent change to how I behave. I have no plans to stop or change my fasting patterns, regardless of my weight. 

So, constant praise feels inappropriate - as the lovely bf pointed out, he doesn't congratulate me every day on going to work, or getting the kids to bed at night (although frankly I think both of those deserve medals on occasion). But, we do ask each other daily - how was work? How was your day? And we do celebrate achievements along the way - projects completed, presentations given, recognition gained - even merely the survival of a particularly difficult day. 

That is type of support for my 5:2 lifestyle that I appreciate from him and the other lovely people who I lean on - just asking, how did it go? How do you feel? And saying - well done, your efforts are noticed, for just carrying on with everything we do, every day, even when it's just business as usual.

Day Thirty and a half: the hunger games

I've been a bit slack on the blogging front for the last week for various reasons, partly just madly busy and partly a little uninspired. Even though I am in between fasts today, I thought I'd take the opportunity to write while I have the chance.

Day 29 was completed without fuss last Thursday, once again going all day without food until a light dinner in the evening. Day 30 started out just fine, but I realised fairly early on that I wouldn't make it all day. Not a problem, I simply revised my approach to include soup for lunch. 

Before eating I decided to have a sneaky peak at the scales. It was 2 weeks since I last weighed, and I thought it would be a nice motivator to see my progress.  Bad move! I weighed exactly the same as 2 weeks before, down to the ounce. Suddenly, what had already seemed like a slightly more challenging day than of late, turned into a massive effort of will. 

I read somewhere recently that losing weight is not a physical challenge as much as a mental one. No kidding. I battled through with the encouragement of friends and supporters and much stubborn gritting of my teeth. (Mostly so I couldn't fit any food in my mouth...)

The Fast Diet people on Facebook ran a competition this week, asking people to write in describing how 5:2 has changed their lives. I thought about entering, but in the middle of dealing with my own mental challenge, I struggled to put together a coherent description. There are many ways my life has changed, but apart from the obvious physical effect, most of the others are mental. I actually feel that the mental changes are almost more significant. If I had to pick one, I'd say it's the change in my attitude to hunger.

Despite going slightly "fast crazy" on Monday, the outcome was that I completed another successful fast day. I coped with the hunger in all the ways I have learned - distraction, mindfulness, seeking support and drinking fluids. My ability to cope with hunger and the utter turnaround in my attitude towards it still amaze me.

Yesterday I finished up working at a conference around 5pm and walked a couple of miles to the station to get the train home. I had eaten sensibly during the day, but was already hungry. There was a time when the thought of holding out from that point to dinner after 7 o'clock would have been unthinkable. Even though I was looking forward to a lovely dinner out, I would have been diving for the nearest fast food place or cafe to pick up fries or pastries or whatever, to tide me over. Even if I wasn't hungry, I would quite often eat substantial snacks at that time of day, to guard against the possibility that I might become hungry later on, before my next meal was due. Actually not just that time of day, although it was a particularly problem for me, but pretty much any time of day between meals.

It seems insane to me now - in fact I'm pretty sure it was insane. But the relief in quitting that behaviour for good is huge. I now know that I can deal with hunger. I know it won't get worse and worse, it will just come and go. I know I won't pass out or collapse with it. The worst consequence might be an embarrassing tummy rumble during a quiet meeting at work. My snacking habit has almost completely disappeared. I no longer worry about missing out on a food experience as I am an expert at delayed gratification - there will always be another meal, another opportunity for a mouth-watering treat. I regularly leave food on my plate. It makes me feel empowered whenever I do.

I had lunch with work colleagues at a lovely restaurant today, where I know from experience that the portions of their delicious food are quite small. I was discussing possible menu choices with the lady next to me, and she remarked that her choice would probably be influenced by what might fill her up the most - in this case the difference between a pasta starter and scallops. I nodded in understanding, but inside I was gleefully cackling to myself - I didn't need to add that into the equation. I could eat exactly the tastiest dish I wanted and be absolutely sure that in the unlikely event that I wasn't full after the meal, I wouldn't care. As it was, of course, I was quite satisfied with the portions provided.

I have other challenges this week. The hip injury which hasn't bothered me much since the summer has flared up with a vengeance today and I can't walk without a great deal of pain. It's a good reminder of my original motivation for losing weight, to get the pressure off my poor joints so I can get some proper treatment for this injury. And it's good for perspective too. This is a long-term strategy for me. I may not have lost any ounces in the last 2 weeks, but I have lost a great deal since I started, and it is staying off. Every week I persist will bring me results over time, and the odds will be ever in my favour!

Day Twenty-eight: the all day fast

It's been a week since my last fast, and I did wonder if it would be harder having had a longer break. The week has been hectic too, with the 2 day trip to New York and then a weekend of sick people in the house - not me thankfully! I was therefore planning to just do whatever it took to get me through the day and back into the groove. 

As it turned out, it was once again a very easy fast day. I really didn't feel hungry all day, eventually having a small meal at around 6 o'clock that filled me up completely. I did have a few black coffees during the day, which strictly speaking contain a few calories each, but other than that I went about 21 hours without food. I started the day very sluggish and weary, probably due to delayed jetlag, but have finished it feeling revitalised. 

As I understand it, the longer the fast, the greater the health benefits, so I'm hoping to build on today's experience until I can manage a full 24 hour fast. It seems to make me feel energised and positive which is good enough reason on its own to do it. We'll see how it goes on an office day!

Day Twenty-seven: the mile high rant

Day 27 was actually Monday, another walk in the park. I wrote this on Tuesday evening and now it's Wednesday night, so a rather belated post but here it is anyway...

I’m currently travelling at a little over 500mph at an altitude of 38,000 feet. I have an unlimited supply of Pouilly Fume, Avici blasting in my Bose headphones (thank-you lovely boyfriend) and another 5 hours flying time until New York. So it seemed like a good time to have that rant about fad diets, and nutritional advice and why I think 5:2 is a good idea.

One of the lovely pandas on Facebook posted a link to a recent article with comments about why 5:2 is just another fad which will fade away. The comment that particularly struck me, from a Professor of Nutritionologyish, was that the reason 5:2 was working for some people was because they were cutting calories, so it was no different to any number of other diets and therefore doomed to fade away in the long term. Er….? I don’t really understand the point she was trying to make. It works therefore it will fail?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/fasting-at-least-twice-a-week-seen-as-alzheimer-s-hedge.html

If you want to lose weight, you need to take in less calories than you put out. All different diets do is give you strategies for achieving that goal. 

There is research that shows that the types of food you eat are absorbed in different ways by the body, so the same amount of calories from two different foods may lead to different weight change outcomes. There is research that shows that eating at different times of day can also have an effect. However, from personal experience and mountains of anecdotal evidence, I’m convinced that the factor that has absolutely the biggest impact on anyone’s weight, is consistent eating habits over a long period of time.

All diets will work to a certain extent. However you choose to limit your calorie intake, if you are taking in less than you are putting out you will lose weight. You can do that on an extreme calorie restriction diet of 500cal a day every day, you can exist on shakes or cabbage soup, you can count points or sins, you can do Atkins or Paleo or, in fact, 5:2, and lose weight. You can also do all of the above and completely fail to lose weight, or have other unhealthy side effects.

What really counts is what you do week after week, month after month, year after year. The people you see in the media who have lost huge amounts, who have gone from supersize to ultrafit, have been implementing their chosen strategies, consistently, over long periods of time. 

People who are “naturally” slim have excellent food and exercise habits. The reason I'm in this state in the first place is due to not wanting to take responsibility for the outcomes of what I eat.

Which brings me to why I think 5:2 is a good idea – it is sustainable. Over and over I see people writing that they feel they can keep doing intermittent fasting indefinitely. I personally now find fast days a breeze most of the time. In fact, I look forward to them. Going more than 4 days without a fast feels very uncomfortable. Yes, the reason I am losing weight is that I am cutting my overall calorie intake. That’s the whole point!

The part where it becomes brilliant is that I’m cutting calories in a way that I can keep doing week after week after week, on holiday, at home, at work, in almost every circumstance, and if I need to take a break (my business trip this week being an example), I can start again as soon as possible with relatively little impact. Along the way I am re-setting a lifetime of poor eating habits, completely changing my attitude to food and finally finding some peace in my relationship with food.

And the part where it becomes even more brilliant, is that I get all kinds of other fantastic health benefits along the way. I know that some health and nutritional professionals don’t think much of the fasting “fad”, but a growing number of GPs and researchers are supporting it, as they see the evidence building in their own constituencies.

Yes it is possible to do 5:2 in a very unhealthy way, eating processed food on fast days and bingeing inbetween. But it’s possible to do every other diet badly too, and much harder to keep at them week in week out. 5:2 doesn’t require you to cut out any food groups or monitor your intake obsessively. It does require you to think, carefully, about what you are eating and how you are dealing with hunger. It does fit in around your other dietary requirements – vegan? Kosher? Gluten free? Lactose intolerant? No problem.

I think that’s the end of my rant. Only time will tell if intermittent fasting becomes a generally accepted way of eating in the long term or if it fades away as the naysayers predict. I have nothing against people using and promoting other methods, if it works for them – different things work for different people and individuals need to find what works for them. I know that for me, this is the most effective method I’ve ever come across, so I’m sticking to it like glue.

Day Twenty-six: results!

I did the 26th fast on Thursday. Having spent the earlier part of the week on holiday, then driving 200 miles on Wednesday, having 7 meetings booked in at the office was always going to be fun! I made a bit of an error in eating too much at lunchtime (Nero soup and salad, 300kCal) I then found the afternoon to be a real struggle. I came as close to ditching a fast day as I ever had, but managed to push through with an extra apple and some sugar free sweets. I probably went over the 500kCal target but not by much. and I felt fine, if exhausted, by bedtime.

It's been 3 weeks since I last weighed and measured, and the plan was to weigh every 4 weeks. However Dream and I decided to bring it forward by a week this time, for various reasons, one of which for me is that today is exactly 3 months since I started. Given the disappointment of the last weigh-in I was at little apprehensive, but needed to go for it anyway.

And.

Very, very happy me!

The  readout on the scales this morning was 101.4kg. This makes a total 3 month loss of 8kg = 17lbs, or 1 stone and 3lbs. I now weigh less than 16 stone - yay me! I haven't done my measurements yet but will update those over the weekend.

Next week I will be travelling overseas for work so am only planning one fast day, but I feel confident that no damage will be done. Next mini-target is to get below 100kg which should be easy before next weigh-in in 4 weeks time.

At this point I'd like to say a public thank-you to my GP for suggesting try 5:2, at a time when a lot of medical folk are dismissing this approach as a fad. I'll probably have a bit of a rant about that another time! And thank-you to everyone who is supporting me, especially the wonderful community of hunger pandas on Facebook.

Day Twenty-five: waterslides

I didn't blog on day 24, but I did complete my normal fast. It was just so straightforward that I couldn't think of anything to say about it...

This week I'm on holiday in Cornwall again, not as sunny as when we were here in August but much less crowded. We've had the local theme park pretty much to ourselves and went to a pool with waterslides today. 

I've always noticed that I go down waterslides much faster than anyone I'm with and shoot out the end alarmingly fast. I've always assumed therefore that a heavier person goes faster. (With the exception of the rather unfortunate gentleman who got wedged stuck halfway today - there is always someone worse off somewhere...)

When we were here last time I remember taking the corners on one particular slide fast enough to make me feel quite unwell, and landing hard enough to hit the bottom of a reasonably deep splash pool at the end. On the same slide today I was noticeably slower and managed to keep my head above water at the end. I was rather pleased with myself as I'm sure that being a few pounds lighter is what has made the difference.

But then my geek brain started wondering, exactly why is it that heavier people go faster? The acceleration due to gravity is the same for everyone. A brief foray into the Google Oracle tells me that it's complicated and a number of factors are in play, but it's actually volume/size that has the most effect due to drag and friction. One neat experiment showed that the speed of differently weighted sliders is actually the same, but the heavier slider will have greater momentum causing them to keep going at the end of the slide.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=517165

Either way, my empirical observation is that I'm getting slower as I get lighter, which is fine by me and my queasy stomach. Hopefully by the time I make it to this place next summer, I will be gliding gracefully and serenely before slipping into the pool with barely a ripple.

W(h)ine

I knew this was going to happen. 

The most practical way of logging what I eat is on my phone - it's the only thing I can hope to have handy most of the time, except when I forget where I put it, which is quite regularly. I generally find it again fairly quickly.

And what with the bar code reader fun on MyFitnessPal, it made most sense to use that for the logging. This means I'm getting calorie information when I didn't really want to see it at this stage. One day of diary keeping and I'm slightly horrified already.

Yesterday was not a particularly typical day, in that I worked in the office in the morning but then spent the afternoon on a train and the evening helping out at a work event, which ended with a buffet. However I didn't feel like I had eaten much more or less than average, plus I had a couple of glasses of wine, just to be sociable. I added it all to the diary today.

It's tricky to be accurate - what exactly was in that veggie wrap I had? How big was the spring roll? Some items which look identical in MyFitnessPal have several different values. For example, looking up "poached egg" (breakfast this morning) gives options ranging from 64 to 80kCal.

Which is all beside the point. Assuming I got somewhere near a reasonable guess for most of what I ate, my food intake for the day was around 2100kCal. Not disastrous, could have lived without the crisps at lunchtime. Unfortunately I also drank about 500kCal in wine. I have a horrid feeling that the single food group that may sabotage my efforts is fermented grape product.

When I started doing this I was very careful to not drink alcohol, not only on fast days but also the day before fast days, as I couldn't cope with the dehydration. As I have acclimatised to the fasting, that has slipped a bit - I still drink much less the day before a fast day but a glass or two of wine is not uncommon. At weekends, quite a bit more than a glass or two is very common indeed.

So, two things to do.
First, go back to where I started and cut out alcohol 4 days a week - 2 fast days and the 2 days before. And maybe take a longer term view on the quantity of wine consumed at weekends. <pouty face>

Secondly, find a different way of keeping my food diary so I don't become horribly obsessive. I've just downloaded a speech-to-text app to experiment with simply speaking my food to my phone and letting it take notes, so we will see how that goes.

Day Twenty-three: Happy Monday

One of the lovely ladies who has been leaving me encouraging comments here was kind enough to point me at a Facebook group full of excellent people who are also doing 5:2. I'm really enjoying getting to know them. This morning one of their number started the day declaring that "the best day of the week has arrived, it's a whole new fresh week, whatever happened last week can be put behind us and we go again starting today". What a fantastic sentiment to get up to. I do try to enjoy the feeling of "doing something" towards achieving my goals. While I'm very glad it's only 2 days a week, this is my chance to make a difference. Every tummy rumble reminds me that I'm heading where I want to go, however small the steps are.

I completely failed to keep my food diary over the weekend. I was away at a lovely health spa with Dream, so the food was exquisitely prepared and severely portion controlled. Luckily for us we had taken the precaution of bringing plenty of scooby snacks with us - I had no intention of feeling hungry on a non-fast day! But the result was a lot of tiny amounts of lots of different kinds of food and I was way too lazy and relaxed to try to work out exactly what was on my plate. Thankfully Monday is new start, and I get a new start every Monday, so the food diary attempt begins again now!

While I still don't want to count calories daily, I just worked out that I can use MyFitnessPal on my phone to scan barcodes to upload nutritional data direct from food packaging into the food diary. I guess I already knew that in theory but hadn't quite got around to trying it out until this evening. It's easy and fun to do so I will be scanning everything I can get my hands on now to try to make the logging effort a bit easier.

Looking forward to some of this tomorrow:

Day Twenty-two: normal service is resumed

I’ve been feeling pretty rubbish the last few days, a combination of feeling sorry for myself about Sunday’s results, my insomnia making renewed inroads into my sleep patterns, and probably some uncalled for hormonal surge – always a good one to blame things on I find.

I had no problem completing a fast day on Monday, but over the last two days I have been reverting to some less than ideal eating habits, with a lot of snacking and ready-made food that ironically makes me feel even more lethargic. (On the upside, I have cycled the two (and a bit) miles to the station on both days, so I can give myself a small pat on the back for that.)

A number of the feedback comments I have had since Sunday touched on the approach to non-fast days. While desperately clinging to the promise I made to myself to not count calories in between fast days, I started doing some reading around the subject. The fast diet forums are a wealth of experience and advice, and Michael Mosley himself chips in on the subject of plateaus and speeding up weight loss.

http://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/more-on-what-to-do-if-youre-not-losing-weight-five-things-to-consider/

The basis of the 5:2 strategy is that you fast 2 days a week, and eat “normally” on the other 5. So the next question is – what is “normal”? I've never been very good at normal, in so many areas of my life, so where to even start?

My rationale has been, to this point, that if the balance of food and exercise I was achieving before starting on the 5:2 strategy, was giving me a steady size and weight, then I could carry on with that for my 5 non-fast days, and the fasting days would give me the reduction I needed to lose weight. That seems to be the implication in the BOOK, with even some hinting that you could pretty much eat anything you like the rest of the time.

Obviously, this simply isn’t true. If you assume that you eat 2000kCal on “normal days” and 500 on fast days, you are down 3000kCal per week (compared to eating 2000 every day) which equates to about 1 pound of fat lost. If however you eat 2600 on each normal day and 500 on fast days, you are evening up again, so no loss. And as we all know, 600 calories ain’t a lot of food. Or in my case, not a lot of wine. I also know from my health report records that my weight has not, actually, been stable over the last 3 years, it has been slowly but steadily increasing.

I have wrestled with the prospect of counting on non-fast days and I am still holding out against it. But it would appear that I do need to do something, to avoid sabotaging my efforts on fast days. One idea that my boyfriend suggested when I started (and I instantly dismissed, of course), popped up on the forum. The idea is to simply log what you eat for a limited amount of time, in order to identify foods which might be causing problems and could be easily avoided. Examples of shock foods exposed by this include Mosley’s muffins – yes, we instinctively know they are not great for you but finding out that they can be up to 600kCal which is a quarter of your daily requirement comes as a surprise – and breakfast cereal, specifically granola, which seems to be a healthy choice but is packed with sugar and calories.

As any good scientist knows, as soon as you start to measure something, you run the risk of altering the very parameter that you are trying to monitor. This particularly applies with food diaries and calorie counting. As soon as you know you have to write it down, you immediately start making different choices about what to eat. If you log the calories as you go, your choices are likely to be even more affected. This is why food diaries have been shown to be such effective weight loss tools.

Added to this, one unintended consequence of food diaries is that as some foods are tricky to estimate calories for, people using this method tend to avoid home-made fresh food in favour of pre-packaged pre-counted items, which isn’t always a healthy choice.

For the purpose of this exercise, I want to minimise the changes to my choices, in order to get useful data on what is “normal” for me and how I can improve. Therefore for the next week or so, I am going to write down everything I eat, but will not be looking up the calories. At the end of the period I will go through and add it all up, and probably give myself heart failure. I’m already regretting yesterday morning’s bacon sandwich.

I’m aware that my estimates may not be very accurate in the final reckoning, as I won’t be weighing foods to the last gram or querying the ingredients in my take-away curry. I’m not too bothered by this as what I am looking for is patterns and comparisons, items that really jump out, rather than a 100% perfect record of my consumption. On second thoughts, I may have to measure the wine volume…

I’m sure that I will change some of my food choices along the way, but hopefully that will not be a bad thing and I will avoid becoming obsessive about it. Knowing it is for a limited period will help. I’m committed to getting healthy and active and improving the quality of my life as a result, and I have lots of wonderful support to help me get there, so no excuses. As always, results will be reported here.

Day Twenty-one: thank-you...

...to everyone who took time to leave me a note after my rather wallowing self-pity party yesterday, both here and on Facebook - Sarah, April, Eric, Vel, sis - and of course my darling Dream and my lovely bf who gave me lots of cuddles and didn't judge me for being a miserable old bag. It's really great to get support from other people who are doing this, especially if they have been at it for a lot longer than me!

The irony is that I have always intended this to be a long term effort. One of the things I like about the approach is that it is so sustainable, I'm sure I could keep going with it indefinitely. But, but, but... 

I will be back on my bike tomorrow so hopefully that will make a difference, both to my results and my overall energy levels. I would love to do more exercise but my joints protest if I try too much, even walking.

I really, really, really don't want to count calories on non-fast days. It completely defeats the object for me. The whole point of this strategy was not to have to watch every mouthful every day. As it is, I rarely eat pudding/cake/chocolate and have much smaller portions than I used to. As I write that, I'm remembering the stolen Cadbury's Heroes from the tin at work last week... dammit!

So. Onwards and downwards. Today is going to be a very long day. I'm getting overwhelming urges to eat mountains of toast. But I'm not bloody going to. Instead I'm giving a big wave to the three people who I know started fasting last week (you know who you are) - brilliant effort all round and I look forward to having you along on this journey.

Trying to stay motivated

So today was weigh day, and as expected, the results weren't great. I've lost 2 pounds in the last 4 weeks, one inch off my waist and stayed the same everywhere else.

It's hard not to feel disappointed. I've been finding the fast days are getting easier, so the irrational part of my brain wonders if I'm not suffering enough to get results. Does it have to be horribly hard work in order for me to deserve the benefits that I want?

Looking at the maths, if I continue to lose at a rate of 2 pounds every 4 weeks, it will take me another 6 months or so to get to my 10% goal. That feels wretched.

Trying to looking at it positively, I've now lost a total of 10 pounds and 5 inches off my waist. This is actual progress, compared with not doing anything and getting gradually fatter and fatter. In that respect, I have no choice but to keep going. The alternative is to pretty much give up hope of ever getting healthy and active. I walked to the park and played with my kids for an hour yesterday, and my hips, knees and ankles were aching badly by the evening. This is the longest I ever stayed on any kind of program and I know that trying something else will be even less effective, so however slow progress is, I have to stick with it.

Fast day again tomorrow.

Day Twenty: timing and experimentation

There are quite a few schools of thought in the diet world that claim that when you eat is as important as what you eat. Debate has raged over whether it is healthier to eat three regular meals a day, or graze 5/6 smaller snacks instead. Accepted wisdom is that the earlier in the day you eat, the better - we are constantly urged to ensure we have a good breakfast to set us up for the day. I worked with a personal trainer for a while (honest) who convincingly argued that carbohydrates should be avoided in the evenings to prevent weight gain. I could see her logic - she asserted that if we eat carbs while we are active (awake) they get converted into sugar and used up straight away. If we eat them then go to sleep, they get turned into glycogen and triglycerides - i.e. fat, which we have to work harder to break down the next day. 

Personally, I've always thought that it's the total amount you eat versus the amount of energy you expend that counts, regardless of timing or content. But even in the intermittent fasting world there are many different approaches - people who eat nothing for 16 hours and then all their calories in the following 8 hours; people who fast every other day, or 3 out of 7 days; people who eat all their fast day calories in one go and those who spread them throughout the day. Michael Mosley eats his as 2 meals - breakfast and dinner. However, as with so many aspects of this strategy, he doesn't insist that his way is the best way for everyone else. 

In a recent interview for the Sydney Morning Herald (bless the internet), Mosley addressed some of these questions, including the old favourite, the breakfast issue:

"Everyone needs to eat breakfast"

Not true, Mosley says.

He mentions studies where some people, when they are forced to eat breakfast, actually put on weight. "It depends on what your body likes to do," he says.

Which is why Mosley ultimately believes in becoming your own guinea pig. Depending on our own physical make-up and routine, we reap benefits differently. It's a matter of absorbing the information and trying it on for size.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/michael-mosleys-five-biggest-health-myths-20130920-2u3vb.html

In the spirit of self-experimentation, I looked back over my recent blogs to see if there were any patterns emerging. I noticed that fast days at home tend to be much easier than those in the office. I had put this down to the fact that I am more active on office days, so expend more energy. As a result I tend to eat more earlier in the day on office days, leaving me struggling in the evening. Conversely on a work at home day, I don't eat anything until lunchtime. But then I thought, maybe it's the different eating pattern that makes the difference in how I feel, rather than the change in energy output?

Yesterday, Day 20, I decided to try not eating in the morning on an office day. (My Wednesday work event was cancelled so I could fast as normal, yay!) I really wasn't sure how it would go, as I had to be in early and alert for a workshop, and walk a mile or so around London between meetings in the morning. As it turned out, apart from a wobbly moment when I was assaulted by the sight of a tray of bacon sandwiches at the workshop, it went really well. It was probably the easiest office fast day I've had so far. I felt great all day, not at all hungry even into the evening and at bedtime. Today, the day after, I still feel great and have bags of energy.

So there we have it. Apparently I am not a breakfast person - not on fast days anyway. There was, in fact, a bacon sandwich in my life this morning. I will repeat this experiment over the coming weeks and see if the success repeats.

I've now completed 10 weeks and am due to weigh and measure on Sunday. I have a feeling that the rate of loss has slowed down considerably and am no longer confident of averaging at a rate of a pound off per week. If this is true, I will try to contain my disappointment and keep soldiering on. 

A colleague at work today told me that another colleague had asked her if I had lost weight as I was looking really good. Yay me! As long as I'm heading in the right direction, every week is a success, even if it takes me longer than I was hoping.

Day Nineteen: waking up

There are a few moments as I wake up on a fast day when I forget that it's a fast day. My dozy brain wanders to thoughts of breakfast, and then I remember. I get a brief pang of "oh bugger" and then I think about coffee and everything is okay again. And breakfast tomorrow will be twice as tasty.

Not about fasting

This is completely off topic but hey, it's my blog so I can write whatever I like.

I work for a very large global company. As with most companies of this size, we work hard to promote diversity and inclusion. I am a member of the LGBT network, and last Thursday went to an event they had organised to promote the importance of straight allies in the workplace. It was fantastic to have some very senior members of staff from both my company and other FTSE100s talking about the work being done to include and encourage LGBT staff to be able to be themselves at work, along with representatives from Stonewall in attendance.

One theme that kept re-appearing throughout the evening was one of the reasons why straight people were standing up for their LGBT colleagues. It came down to respect - to treating people the way you would want to be treated. This is not an LGBT issue, or a gender issue, or a diversity issue. It's simply a human issue.

The word "nice" has been much maligned over time. I remember over 20 years ago being told never to use it by my English teacher. I think the time may have come to reclaim it. I think we can sum up all our aspirations about how to behave with our fellow humans by saying - "Be nice."

Nice is kindness, and calmness, thoughtfulness and tolerance. Nice is being considerate, helpful, even that old-fashioned value, being polite. Nice is about respecting other people, about not jumping to conclusions, about not assuming you know everything about everyone else's situation and motivation. Nice is not judging, not being mean, not taking advantage.

I fail constantly in my efforts to be nice, but events like last Thursday remind me how important it is to keep trying. And when someone is nice to me, to really appreciate it.

Caitlin Moran recently published a letter to her daughter in The Times, with advice from beyond the grave. As always with Moran, it is full of humour and and neat observations. The first item on her list stuck with me:

“The main thing is just to try to be nice. Keep slowly turning it up, like a dimmer switch, whenever you can. Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux."

Excellent advice.


_________________________________________________________

You can read the whole letter here:
http://fuckyeahcaitlinmoran.tumblr.com/post/56512417071/a-letter-from-caitlin-moran-to-her-daughter-from-beyond

Day Eighteen: mindfulness and distraction

Overall, fast days are getting easier and easier to manage, as I learn how to deal with the effects on my body and mind. I suspect there will always be odd ones like last week that are a real struggle, but generally it's not a big issue. I no longer get the nausea and wooziness, just a hollow and occasionally embarrassingly loud stomach.

That is not to say I don't get hungry. I do, and I have two ways to manage it. The first and easiest is distraction. It's no surprise that when I am busy I have less capacity to think about the hunger, plus the time goes faster. This week I fasted on Wednesday rather than Thursday, as I have a work event this evening which would be no fun at all to fast through. I was slightly apprehensive as it was a full work day with a lot of meetings that I would need to contribute to. As it turned out, this was the best possible way to spend the time, as I ran around like a loon getting it all done and having to concentrate hard not to look like an idiot.

However the meetings were all over by 3 o'clock and I had to last out until at least 7 with no food. Distraction was no longer an option - I didn't stop working, I was just sat at my desk rather than running around. I therefore had to turn to the second technique, which oddly is the complete opposite of the first.

The concept of mindfulness has been around for a very long time. It is a central tenet of Buddhism, but crops up in many other cultures. There are a lot of different ways to describe it, but I think of it as being detached, almost observing myself as an outsider. This article explains the non-judgmental nature of this inner voice:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-wootton/mindfulness-happiness_b_4019398.html

My life can be so busy that a lot of my actions are on auto-pilot. Mindfulness is a conscious switching off of the reflex reactions and thoughts; it is "paying attention to the present moment without judgement". I did a course on meditation once and learned that it isn't really about emptying your mind, but simply noticing when your mind wanders and gently bringing it back to a point of focus.

Applying mindfulness to hunger works for me by noticing when my mind is wandering in the direction of food, discomfort, self-pity, resentment, cake etc., and detaching my thoughts from the hunger. I can then consider it unemotionally - yes, I am hungry. Yes, I am physically uncomfortable. But, it is no longer relevant. It is just something that is happening in that moment and I can accept it without letting it intrude on my feelings.

This generally works for about 2 minutes before I realise I'm visualising chocolate again and have to start over...

Next week I have a new challenge - I have work events on both Wednesday and Thursday, so will either have to fast two consecutive days on Monday and Tuesday, or on Friday which is my precious day off. I will see how Monday goes first.