Diet tales

The scales have been indicating the weight was still slowly climbing - I once thought 90 kg was a barrier I would settle at, but it reached 93 kg probably a few months ago and stayed there.  In fact, it was one morning's reading last week of 93.3kg that made be decide enough was enough.

My famously sedentary lifestyle obviously is not helping, as is living in a household of only 2 adults again leading to eating larger size servings of leftovers.  (Both my wife and I are having trouble adjusting cooking sizes from "enough for 4, with some leftovers" to "enough for 2".)   

Anyway, I've dieted before, more or less successfully, using the old 5:2 diet, but I usually ended it because of getting sick of trying to work out how to make 500 to 600 calories on a "fast" day as tasty and as filling (and varied) as possible.  

So, I commanded Youtube to tell me what other system to try, and one that works pretty quickly too.

It seems that the various types of "fasting" diets other than 5:2 are now getting the most attention:  the restricted hours one; or alternate days; or even more extreme stuff.  

I went with alternate days. The advantage that appealed to me is the simplicity of just not eating on the days that is my duty, and not calorie counting at all on any day of the week.   I also ignored the advice of some to ease into it by things like skipping breakfast, or lunch, for a while, or whatever.    I just stopped eating for a day at a time, and eating what I want on the next - although I have taken the universal advice of not having a high carb breakfast and having (for example) a nice two egg omelette with ham, cheese, spring onion and little bit of diced tomato in it, on one piece of wholegrain toast.  That really is a very filling breakfast on a very empty stomach.   And later during an eating day, I really don't find a desire to eat any substantially larger size portions.   Even if you do take a particularly rich meal, as the people on Youtube say, there's no way you're likely to eat anything close to the calories you missed the day before.

The first few fasting days were pretty hunger inducing - although it's not hunger pangs as such that bother me, it's more the general "off", slightly headachy, feeling of knowing your body would like some food now but can't have it.   But yesterday - fasting day 5 since I started just over a week ago - I felt fine all day.  It really didn't feel at all like the earlier days, and came with a clear and non distracted mind (as lots of people claim fasting provides) and I really only started to feel a tad hungry when I went to bed late last  night.

So yeah, I hope I have reached the point that the body has just accepted the fasting days and stops complaining about it.  Curious to see how tomorrow goes.

And how has the weight gone?   Surprisingly quickly - in fact I'm starting to wonder about the scales.  After 5 fast days (alternate days only), the scales showed 89.2 this morning.   I do weight myself the same time each day, before breakfast, and after toilet, which no doubt means it's the lightest I am all day.   But from 93.3kg (or even if that reading was not quite right, let's call it 93) to just over 89kg is more than I expected.

I know that the first few kilos can drop quicker on any diet than the later ones, so I shouldn't get too excited.   I think, ideally, a weight of 85kg would be OK to reach and maintain.  Depending on my exact height, it looks from BMI calculators that 84 would put me just under "overweight" by a tiny fraction, and 85 puts me a tiny fraction over.   But depending on how my trousers are fitting, which have been bought for a weight closer to 90kg, I think a long maintained 85kg might be fine.  If I can fit comfortably into the suit pants I bought - I dunno, 9 or 10 years ago? - I would be happy.

So, we will see how we go.