I haven't been doing super awesome in this quarantine when it comes to my health and fitness goals. To try to get back on track with my goals I decided to embark on another fast, this time extending it to five days. Similar to my last fast, which was three days, I chose to continue to include some diet sodas and water enhancers but the majority of my intake was water. I made sure to add in electrolytes so that I wouldn't have muscle cramps and other side effects as well as limited my exercise significantly and added in some extra sleep each night.
My results were actually really good on the weight loss front but I wouldn't recommend this as a purely weight loss tactic as it can be quite difficult and has a potential to cause issues with your mental view on food if you have issues in that realm. So, results: I lost 10.3 pounds (but I gained 2 pounds back over the next two days so I would say just over 8 pounds in 5 days). As for measurements, see below for the amounts I lost during the five days. Chest: -1.5 inches Bust: -1.2 inches Thigh: -2.0 inches Hips: -0.5 inches Belly Button: -1.5 inches Waist: -1.5 inches Arm: 0.00 inches Neck: -0.3 inches Calf: -1.0 inches Total Inches: -9.5 inches All in all, I would say it was a good experience but there were definite down sides. For instance, my energy levels were noticeably lower during the week. Watch the above video on my channel (subscribe for new content 3-5 times per week!) about the results and experience. Until next time, Fasting is not a new thing in general and it’s not a new thing for me personally either. I’ve fasted for surgery, for blood work, and I’ve done intermittent fasting on and off for the past year. I’ve never been a breakfast person so it wasn’t a difficult switch for me to do once I got into ketosis. This time was a little different though as I went for three full days. The longest I had ever gone in the past was 24 hours or so.
I hadn’t intended to fast for 72 hours when I woke up on Friday morning but nothing seemed good to me, and I certainly wasn’t interested in my packed lunch. In the past I would have likely just thought about what could fit my macros and then gone out and purchased something but as I am trying to save money I decided to just wait until I got home to eat. After all, I wasn’t hungry and I had food in my lunchbox if that changed. Once I got home I got busy with odds and ends… cleaning the house, teaching classes, writing up student feedback and etc. and completely forgot to eat. When I realized I’d gone well over 36 hours the next afternoon I figured I may as well push it and see if I could do a 72 hour fast. I had heard of really good results when it came to autophagy and general wellness for a 72 hour fast and I still wasn’t particularly hungry so figured now was the time to try it. Most of the time during this fast I wasn’t hungry. There were the occasional urges to eat but they were from boredom or that it was the right time with two exceptions so were easy to ignore and go about my day. The first exception was when I was teaching a class all about food. Talking about food and being hungry for 25 minutes made me think hard about going and making something to eat in my kitchen but, as it was the first of 5 classes that night, I was back to being not hungry by the time I was finished teaching for the night and just went to bed without dinner. The second exception was right at the tail end of the fast. I had been cooking hamburgers for meal prep so the house had smelled like burgers for hours and, I’ll admit, I started watching that timer count down to 72 hours during that last hour or so. The experience was actually really good overall. I felt very relaxed all weekend, got in a simple workout routine, cleaned my house and slept really well. I will definitely try to incorporate at least one of these per quarter if not more often as I hope to see some results with tightening skin (from the autophagy) as I continue to lose weight. I would not suggest going from a carb heavy diet directly into a fast though, it would likely be miserable, at least from my experiences with intermittent fasting and OMAD I can imagine that I would not have made it to the end. Results of the fast? I started Thursday at 231.4 and ended Sunday at 226.4. That’s a five pound loss, which is amazing. Not all of that stayed gone after eating my first meal, as expected. The next day I weighed in two pounds heavier and the day after one pound down from that weight. So I would say that it leveled out at four pounds lost for the fast after taking into account that first day’s fluctuation. From the autophagy side of things I didn’t notice much of a difference but hope to as I have more loose skin to get rid of. Fingers crossed! Until next time,
While I don't eat a lot of sugar typically, and rarely any processed sugar but after a week back on grains a little while ago my carb and sweets cravings came back with a vengeance. I needed to kick those cravings in the booty if I was going to succeed in sticking with eating the way that makes me feel the best so I decided to give the 21 Day Sugar Detox a try. I regularly listen to Diane Sanfilippo and her co-host Liz Wolfe on the Balanced Bites podcast and have heard about the 21DSD program several times through that show but also from friends in the online community- similar to how I learned about Paleo actually. During the 'prep week' otherwise known as the week before you start the program was mostly about preparation- as the name suggests. I read the first third of the book, downloaded the 1 page cheat sheets to my drop box so that I could view them on the go, took the quiz to see what level I should do, and planned out my meals for the week. I was level 3... no surprise there since I typically eat a more paleo style diet already. I really am going to miss dairy though... sad day. Other than that the plan looked fairly straight forward so I planned out my meals for the week and got ready to go. There is a meal plan in the book (and the recipes look really good) but I am a little bit of a picky eater (working on that... trying a couple new veggies every month!) so I didn't want to stick with the planned meals list because I felt that would make it more difficult for me to follow the program. Instead I am going to be eating from the yes/no food list this week and following the rules as set forth in the book. Next week I will likely bulk cook a few of the recipes in the book though as they look pretty tasty. I appreciated the FAQ section as well as the day by day thought process section and would recommend that anyone who does not already follow a fairly low sugar and/or carb diet read through those sections especially. On another note, my biggest food weakness is my diet soda... it's horrible for me, I know and understand that completely, and yet I still drink it... even though it is way too sweet for me to really enjoy fully at this point. I'm addicted. Admittedly so. This detox gives me an opportune time to kick this habit for good. While I am not looking forward to the withdrawal I am looking forward to saving some money and getting the chemicals out of my life for good. I'll be updating you at the end of each of the 3 weeks of the detox and then reviewing the book as a whole at the end of the program. See you on the other side!
Books from this program should you be interested in doing the detox with me: |
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