Britt's 30th Birthday Challenge! (September 22 - January 21)
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I just reread Joe's thread about exercise at a calorie deficit, and I am rethinking yoga now. I practice Bikram (hot) yoga, which is higher energy in a 105 degree room for 90 minutes, which I am sure is very stressful on my body even though it puts me at peace mentally. I'm not eating much due to my decreased appetite -- I haven't been counting, but I have been naturally eating once a day for a little over a week now, and my meals have consisted of ~4 oz of fish, ~1 cup of grains, ~.5-1 cup of veggies, and a small dessert with wine. That is definitely not enough to fuel my practice, and I am concerned about increasing my intake before I've stuck with this for a while. I think that I will continue to just take things slowly until I get closer to maintenance. Maybe I will aim for starting again at the beginning of January. At that point, I will add in yoga and follow my hunger for how many meals I will need per day. I had success eating multiple FAA-compliant meals per day, and I am pretty sure I can maintain if I have 1 or 2 FAA-compliant meals and a regular OMAD meal (ie. one that includes sugar and wine) per day while practicing yoga.0
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You are doing AWESOME!!!
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Thanks, Brenda!1
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I just wanted to echo these sentiments as I have experienced the same thing, and further believe that one of the keys of being successful at this is to reach this point of control. When I realized that I was no longer vulnerable to food in this way it was enormously empowering, and I do think that the clean fasting approach does help one reach this point.But I do think that the intermittent fasting has been a miracle for me in that respect. Especially once I cut out artificial sweeteners and milk/cream in my coffee and started fasting “clean”. I don’t really think about food at all in my fasting window - even when I’m around other people who are eating. I don’t start to think about food until about an hour before my eating window opens when I assume I’m actually truly hungry...
I actually can keep certain foods in the house now and not obsess over them (nuts, peanut butter, cheese). I can even keep chocolate in the house and just have 2 squares a night. And sometimes I even forget to have the two squares. It really kind of blows me away.
I do credit most of this to the “clean” fasting though. On the rare occasion I’ve had milk in my coffee or a Pepsi Max, I’ve had to white knuckle it to my eating window and the obsessive thoughts come back in full force. If someone had told me that 6 months ago, I’d have though they were a conspiracy theorist or something!
It’s also amazing how everybody is so different and some people can handle the artificial sweeteners or some cream in their coffee, but I clearly cannot.
I never envisioned myself being able to be around certain trigger foods like pizza, pasta, etc, and not lose total control and dive in. Or to be able to prepare food for others and not partake if it is outside of my eating window. I have no trouble resisting these temptations, and that feels great.
Also it is amazing how things are different for everyone.2 -
I love that, Jim!
I echo the statement about trigger foods, AND I was really proud of myself because I baked my dessert in the morning and did not eat it until my mealtime several hours later even though my fiance ended up eating a bunch for his breakfast right beside me! I didn't even really notice, and I had to reflect back on it later to realize how big of a deal that is for me.
I am also unintentionally following a clean fast without even my black coffee this time around, and maybe that has something to do with it. The coffee would keep me full for hours, but as soon as it wore off, I would be ravenous and struggling to make it to my window. Now, I am really experiencing hunger coming in one or two very short waves that I am able to ignore pretty easily during my fasted window. Hunger is no longer an emergency. I don't panic when my stomach growls anymore. When I portion out too much for dinner, it is so easy now for me to put some things back before eating or leave things on my plate because I know I can have it tomorrow. I know that if I don't eat enough, I won't die, and I will eat again tomorrow. If I eat a bit too much, I know I will be less hungry the next day and eat less and it will balance out. I used to think "tomorrow" was so far away with nothing but torture in between. Now, it just seems normal.1 -
brittdee88 wrote: »I love that, Jim!
I echo the statement about trigger foods, AND I was really proud of myself because I baked my dessert in the morning and did not eat it until my mealtime several hours later even though my fiance ended up eating a bunch for his breakfast right beside me! I didn't even really notice, and I had to reflect back on it later to realize how big of a deal that is for me.
I am also unintentionally following a clean fast without even my black coffee this time around, and maybe that has something to do with it. The coffee would keep me full for hours, but as soon as it wore off, I would be ravenous and struggling to make it to my window. Now, I am really experiencing hunger coming in one or two very short waves that I am able to ignore pretty easily during my fasted window. Hunger is no longer an emergency. I don't panic when my stomach growls anymore. When I portion out too much for dinner, it is so easy now for me to put some things back before eating or leave things on my plate because I know I can have it tomorrow. I know that if I don't eat enough, I won't die, and I will eat again tomorrow. If I eat a bit too much, I know I will be less hungry the next day and eat less and it will balance out. I used to think "tomorrow" was so far away with nothing but torture in between. Now, it just seems normal.
Everything you and Jim have said is right on the money for me. I have never felt such freedom around food. It doesn't seem to have any power over me anymore. When I forgot to have my chocolate the other night, I couldn't even be bothered to go to the kitchen to get it when I did remember. Before I would have not been able to stop thinking about it. (or any of the other "trigger" foods I now just have sitting in my pantry). It's almost crazy how easy it is once you figure out what works for you.
Also very interesting about the black coffee for you Britt - I've heard other people say the same thing about black coffee... And again, it's different for everybody. Another reason why it's so crazy when people try to ram a particular way of eating down everybody else's throat just because it works for them. Or get angry about it all.
The whole gut microbiome thing is really interesting to me, I'm reading a lot about it and it seems as if they are learning that what microbes you have in your gut can make a huge difference to how you react to different foods and may even influence which foods you crave.1 -
brittdee88 wrote: »I love that, Jim!
I echo the statement about trigger foods, AND I was really proud of myself because I baked my dessert in the morning and did not eat it until my mealtime several hours later even though my fiance ended up eating a bunch for his breakfast right beside me! I didn't even really notice, and I had to reflect back on it later to realize how big of a deal that is for me.
I am also unintentionally following a clean fast without even my black coffee this time around, and maybe that has something to do with it. The coffee would keep me full for hours, but as soon as it wore off, I would be ravenous and struggling to make it to my window. Now, I am really experiencing hunger coming in one or two very short waves that I am able to ignore pretty easily during my fasted window. Hunger is no longer an emergency. I don't panic when my stomach growls anymore. When I portion out too much for dinner, it is so easy now for me to put some things back before eating or leave things on my plate because I know I can have it tomorrow. I know that if I don't eat enough, I won't die, and I will eat again tomorrow. If I eat a bit too much, I know I will be less hungry the next day and eat less and it will balance out. I used to think "tomorrow" was so far away with nothing but torture in between. Now, it just seems normal.
Everything you and Jim have said is right on the money for me. I have never felt such freedom around food. It doesn't seem to have any power over me anymore. When I forgot to have my chocolate the other night, I couldn't even be bothered to go to the kitchen to get it when I did remember. Before I would have not been able to stop thinking about it. (or any of the other "trigger" foods I now just have sitting in my pantry). It's almost crazy how easy it is once you figure out what works for you.
Also very interesting about the black coffee for you Britt - I've heard other people say the same thing about black coffee... And again, it's different for everybody. Another reason why it's so crazy when people try to ram a particular way of eating down everybody else's throat just because it works for them. Or get angry about it all.
The whole gut microbiome thing is really interesting to me, I'm reading a lot about it and it seems as if they are learning that what microbes you have in your gut can make a huge difference to how you react to different foods and may even influence which foods you crave.
That is a very interesting topic. I read a paper about kenyan distance runners and their gut biom and that they produce more keytones if I remember right. I read another article where some lady fixed some big gut problem with a poop supossitory from some professional cyclist. That is becoming an accepted way to treat people with certain gut issues.
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Totally - the fecal transplant thing is being used to treat c. difficile infections also. They've also done experiments with rats where they do a fecal transplant from obese rats into normal weight rats and the normal weight rats subsequently become obese. Fascinating stuff...
(I like your term "poop suppository" better though! :-D )
I've read two books recently about the microbiome topic:- The Diet Myth; Why the Secret to Health and Weight Loss is Already in Your Gut — Tim Spector
- The Clever Gut Diet - Dr. Micheal Mosley
Both are fascinating reads and both actually talk about how, partially because everybody's microbiome is different, we all react in different ways to different foods.
The both also mention fasting as being extremely beneficial for a healthy and diverse (diversity is hugely important) gut microbiome.
I'm very interesting in the stuff you mentioned about the Kenyan distance runners - going to have to look that up...1
