Weigh Day number 6

Happy to report that the “plateau” thingy seems to be receding in the rear view.

Harvest and “putting up” the harvest season is in full swing.  Check out the bitchin’ salsa I’m canning (and chowing down fresh).

I am down now to a weight I can actually write down without wanting to dig a hole and pull the hole in after me to cover my shame.  After six full months of alternate day fasting, 400 calories or less on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays without exception or cheating, I now weigh 188 lbs.  I’m sure, gentle reader that you can do the math and compute my starting weight, but since since that heavy number is now history, we can move on and just say that I’ve lost a cool 43 lbs!  I have not suffered (much), and I have a new skill.  I can plan, cook, and serve a meal to others without eating any of it, not even to taste.  This new skill was my number one doubt about going on a permanent weight loss lifestyle.  (Note I didn’t say DIET.  This is not a diet; this is forever.)  I didn’t think I could do it.  I have gone to parties, events, etc. and managed to not cheat.  I am used to sticking to the fast knowing I will eat tomorrow.  I now arrange my life around the alternate day fasting, because being a healthy weight is THAT IMPORTANT.

When I was a young gymnast and figure skater, I controlled my weight through fasting.  But the only fasting routine I knew was a three day, zero calorie liquids fast–coffee, tea, water, diet soda, and what I jokingly called “bowls of air”.  A teenager can handle this because they are made of youthful energy and vigor.  But my old post menopausal self?  Not so much.  I get dizzy and feel really weird on day two of a full fledged monk’s fast, and by day three I’m sure my electrolytes and blood sugar levels could be dropping too low.  One day fasting, on the other hand, goes by quickly especially if I keep busy, and despite the growling guts, I feel perfectly fine all day, (just a little jealous of others tucking into the terrific food I cook up for them.)

I am nearly halfway down to goal–my former normal weight of 130 lbs.  I should be having the two big surgeries this winter, about three months apart.  If I keep losing six pounds a month (and I might not and that’s OK), I should be approaching goal weight in about ten months, just in time for bathing suit season!  Woot!  Hopefully, I will be both slim and ambulatory enough to do some awesome swimming and diving next summer!

Tuesdays are Fast Days

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!”