I just can't do it. I can't eat the standard diet and maintain my weight. I don't know what it is, but my body just swells up. I gained around 5 pounds during the 4/5 days that I ate everyday (began fasting again on Monday). Granted, the food wasn't my normal organic, fresh healthy foods, but I can't recall making a pig out of myself or eating until I was stuffed at any time. Whatever it was, my body did not like it. My face is puffy and my intestines/colon feel inflamed and very tender, neither of these has happened since last year before I began doing ADF. It was something that I used to live with all the time. I actually 'feel' toxic and I don't like feeling this way.
Today is a fasting day for me. I'm glad, because I know that I'll feel a little better tomorrow and a little better with each passing fasting day until I'm back to normal again. I'm thankful that I have found something which corrects this situation. I don't have to feel this way all the time anymore. I know that the weight will come back off. I'm a little anxious to learn how quickly or slowly that will happen. Will it snap right back or will it take weeks/months to get back to the weight I was at?
About Me
- Muse
- I'm a full-time mom to a 14 year old son. After getting sick 10 years ago, my weight started escalating out of control. I managed to slow down the weight gain, but couldn't stop or reverse it. I tried numerous diets but total fasting was the only method that actually worked for me until I discovered Alternate Day Fasting.
13 comments:
Hi. I'm a long-ish term RSS subscriber to your blog. Your experience with ADF has been inspiring.....as much for your discipline in sticking to it during the initial tough times as for your results.
One question. Has your "fasting day".....over time....stayed the same in terms of caloric intake, or did you fluctuate as time went on? Ahhhhh....this presumes that caloric intake on your "fasting day", while severely restricted, isn't actually "0". Do I have that right?
I'm glad that your experiment with returning to how "the other half lives" is over. You've invested too much time, energy, faith, and blog time (lol!) in succeeding with ADF to jeopardize it for the sake of being social during the holidays.
Rock on......you've done (and will do!) fantastic this whole year!
CHEERS!
D
Hey! I've been reading your blog and wanted you to know that you really inspired me to do this. I was reading about how it helps with people who are genetically predisposed to type 2 diabetes, and I am, so I started on it on Monday. I've been doing really well so far, but I've been eating around 400 calories a day on my fasting days and 1500 on non-fasting days. I hope it works. I only want to take off like 15 lbs. So anyway, I wanted to encourage you to keep going, which I'm sure you will. You're really inspiring and I hope you get to feeling better tomorrow. Take care,
Holly
Hi Theresa,
Hey, at least your facing it quickly. I usually gain 20 pounds before I accept the fact that "maintenance" isn't really working out for me. :-)
Just for brainstorming purposes, I was thinking that when (ha!) I get to my desired weight on ADF that I would choose a "red line" weight maybe five pounds higher, weigh every day, and fast any day I'm over that line. It'll be quite a while before I really get to try this out, though.
Good luck and keep it up!
Student of the Trade,
Thank you so much for your encouragement! I hope that more and more people will be inspired enough to give alternate day fasting a try.
Most of the fasting days I continued to only consume sugarless gum (<5 cal per slice), green tea sweetened with stevia, or black coffee, however after reaching my goal weight I did lighten up on occasion. If my boyfriend was sitting next to me drinking a margarita, I might sneek a sip of it. Once in a while I would get unusually hungry on my fasting day and then I would mix a tablespoon of organic cottage cheese with a tablespoon of flax seed oil. Yechhy! But, you would be surprised what suddenly starts to taste delicious when you are hungry. Also, there was a period I believe back in Feb? or so where I was drinking protein/water shakes, but that seemed to negate the positive effects of fasting so I stopped. I still find that the closer to "0" I take my fasting day -- the better I feel.
Theresa
Holly,
I really hope this works for you too! I know it isn't for everybody, but for those who like it -- it works wonders! If you are a person who has ever made it through a day of water or juice fasting, then you should certainly be able to do alternate day fasting without a problem.
I would love to see more studies done to follow up on the effects of ADF on blood sugar and diabetes. The initial studies were very encouraging! I did some self testing for a while a few months ago -- pricking my finger and measuring my blood sugar levels. Ouch! I couldn't imagine having to do that all day long, my fingers were raw. I'd take a day of fasting to control my blood sugar levels any day over that!
Thank you for the kind words. Yes, I am beginning to feel back to normal again.
Tutufan,
You will get there. You are very determined and I've even run across your posts on other blogs which tells me you are really active in pursuing your goals. I think your idea is a great one for maintenance for those who don't want to continue doing ADF indefinitely.
Thanksgiving was a learning experience for me. I'd forgotten how much pain that I used to 'live' with on a daily basis.
Thank you so much for your continued encouragement!
Theresa
Hi Theresa :-)
Thank you for the response to my "caloric intake on fasting day" question.
I've got another "q" if you're up for another "a".
Aside from total caloric intake on eating days, what are your "top 3" tips for the eating days that you found maximized the satiety through the fasting day? What are your "top 3" tips for things to avoid doing / eating on eating days because those things decreased the length of time that the eating day's satiety lasted?
CHEERS!
David
Dave,
Hmmm. I'd have to think about that one for a bit.
The first thing that comes to my mind is ORGANIC - ORGANIC -- ORGANIC! I don't know why, but eating the organic versions of food shuts off the hunger mechanism in me. For instance, I could eat bowls and bowls of Quaker oats and be stuffed but still keep eating. On the other hand, a small bowl of organic oats, fills me up and I forget about food for several hours.
I find that I easily lose control over snacking after drinking alcohol. I might have a will of steel before the drink and completely say "NO" to a slice a pizza, then I drink a glass of beer or wine and the next thing I know I've consumed have the pizza myself! If that sounds like you, then I'd recommend avoiding alcohol. Not because it is high in calories, but because it leads to pigging out.
Probably the best advice is to not have food-junk in your home. Of course that is only an option most of the time for people who live alone or for people who do all the shopping for the home.
I'd have to think about it more. This would make an excellent blog entry one day.
Thank you again, Theresa. My key takeaway is.....skip the booze and enjoy the whole pizza while sober!! (kidding)
I'd love to hear a few more tips....and if that serves as inspiration for a new blog post.....even better! I'll patiently wait....but then I'll eat a chocolate bar per hour starting a week from today and I won't stop until you post more tips. Lol!!
CHEERS!
David
I have been following your blog every so often and in fact, posted the last entry on 2 of my teams. I hope you don't mind. I admire your ability to do it every day. I find it such a great tool to get control over food and for a quick jump start after holidays. I have had success with many members doing water fasts now. I try to tell them if they don't eat or drink anything but water, the hunger monster stays asleep. Some are hungry if they chew sugarless gum, lemon flavored water or diet sodas. Those things don't bother me but when they eliminated them they can do the water fast. I fast from dinner yesterday, no food today and up to breakfast tomorrow. This is what works for me. Good luck on your journey...
Good luck Muse with getting back on track. It's a very difficult time of the year to stick to a diet. I had done ADF about six months ago and quit after about 2 or 3 months. I am trying it again. My first day of fasting wasn't as bad as I thought, but my second day (after my eating day) has been a struggle. At work I refused the cake at a celebration. However, at the end of the day before I went home from work, I got really tempted by all the leftover cake. Luckily, I made a call to my wife who helped convince me not to have the cake. Anyway, are there any real good ADF sites out there that allow you to post logs of your daily/weekly progress. This is something that would especially be important to me as I am fasting for weight loss.
Mapletree 5934,
What a tough and tempting time to choose to begin alternate day fasting again. Have you ever read Jason's blog on alternate day fasting? He was confronted with a situation like your's at work and he had a brilliant solution. He made himself a plate of food and wrapped it up for tomorrow on his eating day!
http://everyotherdayfast.blogspot.com/
We get so used to depriving ourselves on other diets -- with thoughts like, "no, I can't have that." It is wonderful to find a lifestyle that we can have those occasional indulgences -- we simply might need to delay them sometimes.
I'm not aware of any websites dedicated to alternate day fasting per se. Let me know if you run across any.
Why don't you start a blog and let us follow along with your journey?
Anonymous,
Thank you for sharing my posts on your teams. I'm like you, chewing gum or drinking tea or whatever doesn't make me any hungrier. Quite the opposite, tasting the different flavors of things is just what I need to keep me motivated to keep fasting throughout the day. Good luck to you and all of the members on your teams. It seems that more of us that have success doing this and talking about it -- the more mainstream it will become. I wish that I had learned about it 10 years ago!
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