Tuesdays are the Wednesdays, the ‘hump days’ of my food life. The week starts on Monday, and Mondays rock because Mondays are “eating” days and I can eat and drink anything I want. Yesterday, I fixed something from the category of food both my husband Steve and I both really like–hot and hearty sandwiches ala “Sandwiches that You will Like”.
I made an Texas/American twist on Stromboli, Hoagies with garlic chicken/mozzarella sausages smothered in home made, home canned BBQ sauce (more on the homemade goodies later) with caramelized onions and Swiss cheese on the grilled hoagie halves, and served with sweet mesquite seasoned oven fries. Nom nom nom.
But every yummy Monday is followed by a fasting Tuesday. I can eat NO MORE than 400 calories, and believe me that isn’t much.
I weigh everything I eat on Fast days. Like wine. Did you know that a glass of wine (103 grams) has exactly 74 calories? I drink two of those on Fast days and spend 150 calories just on wine. Most green veggies (except avocados, are they a fruit?) are about 35 calories per cup. You can eat a lot of greens before you hit 250 calories, but watch out for what you put on them! Salad dressings vary, and Ranch is the WORST at 350 calories per two tablespoon serving. O/V is lowest at 36 per tablespoon. And these are naked salads–no croûtons, tomatoes, crunchy nuts, fruits, or cheese. Just the green stuff. I’ve also been enjoying fresh asparagus from the garden on fast days, so this is not a living hell.
But right now I am utterly empty, stomach growling. It is one thirty in the afternoon and my last food was the hoagie and oven fries yesterday at 5:20 p.m.. So I am in full fast mode and my mitochondrial DNA has shifted into “repair” mode. My blood chemistry is on the mend, my blood sugar dropping like a stone, my triglycerides turning into ATP–all according to the plan. And the best part is I’m shedding about 8 lbs a month fasting three days out of seven every week (for the rest of my life). When I get all those blood tests done again I expect to see a lot of improvement.
In about two hours I will get the scale out and tipple my first glass of wine. It’s a localish vintage, from the Columbia Valley (where I was raised) in eastern WA. What used to be rattlesnakes and sand dunes peppered with old growth sage brush and a light dusting of Cesium 14 is now miles and miles of vineyards growing Cabernet grapes just for me.
The reason I can handle not eating on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays until my telomeres get too short and I croak is that tomorrow is Wednesday, and I can eat WHATEVER I WANT!!! Thus, Alternative Day Fasting is the doable eating lifestyle that will enable me to not eat myself to death, waddle around overweight and butt ugly, and fix my “issues” from within. Plus, those telomeres should last longer according to many studies on calorie restriction.
I got over the worst hurdle in the first month, that of cooking for and feeding Steve, since he isn’t big and fat with high blood pressure and needing double full knee replacements. He just has a “normal” beer gut, and not an ounce of fat anywhere but his belly. The only place I don’t have fat is my hands and feet, and if I hadn’t started the Alternate Day Fasting in April, I think I’d have at least one fat finger by now. I was gaining every month. 180. 190. 200. 210. 220! Good frigging CHRIST I got up to two hundred and twenty frigging pounds!
But I can fix him food and flee while he eats it. I am a very good cook and he om nom noms his food, raving about how good it is. I was so surprised I could handle this by swigging good wine and telling myself: “Tomorrow you can have ANYTHING you WANT!”
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