Day 69, Feast Day #36
Nine days and no progress on the the scale. I was expecting another plateau, but that doesn't make it any less irritating. The good news is that despite breaking my fast with half of a frozen pizza, I did not gain anything back. Zach had a rough day at work and was feeling mopey and tired, so I picked up a frozen pizza to cheer him up, along with some necessary supplies for when my mother comes to stay at our apartment for the next few days (aka a large bottle of white wine and whole milk for her coffee). I know it is not good to emotionally eat or encourage that type of eating, but in my defense Zach was hungry, we had a lot of chores to do to prepare for my mom's arrival, and it did cheer him up a lot more than some Swiss chard would have.
I may end up with an extra feast day or two this weekend with my mom being in town for my brother's college graduation. We'll see how things go. She normally only eats one meal a day (dinner) aside from coffee and likes to take an hour long walk daily, so maybe I will just roll with her one meal schedule and try to walk with her after Friday. I guess my mom is an intermittent faster already. I used to be unable to understand how she could go so many hours without eating. Now I understand that the body adapts to a one meal schedule like anything else.
I am a big fan of National Public Radio and pretty much all public media operations. While I am off doing family stuff for the weekend, I recommend reading this interesting NPR article that was posted today on how anthropological research is pointing toward diet as the source of obesity, not lack of exercise. Exercise is still good for you, so don't think this justifies being a coach potato.
Day 14, Feast Day #8
One of the worst things about alternate day fasting has got to be when a fast day lands on a special occasion, holiday, or other important or rare social occasion. Being hungry alone is tolerable. But it is just masochistic to be hungry in a group dinner or party setting. For me, April is a birthday laden month which includes myself, my mother, and friends.
Now I have no plans to be so strict with this diet that I end up offending people on special occasions or holidays. Especially when the person likely to be offended is the same person that carried me 9 months and brought me into this world.
My mom's birthday is next Monday, so Zach, my brother, and I are driving down this weekend to spend some time with her. The drive is three to four hours depending on traffic, so we won't make it into town by the end of today's feast day. So what is a girl to do about mom's birthday dinner on Saturday, a fast day?
Zach and I have come up with a decent compromise for this type of socially obligated eating and/or drinking function: the occasional 800 calorie not completely cheating day.
Why 800 calories? It seems that a good number of the research papers I have looked at related to intermittent fasting will use a 800 calorie day as the fast day calorie allotment. Some even go up to 1,200 calories on a calorie-restricted today. So it is cheating in that 800 calories is much more than the usual 400-500 I get on a fast day. But 800 calories is still only 40% of a normal 2,000 calorie diet or 50% of a 1,600 calorie diet. With 800 calories one can eat a decent meal and have a drink easily.
I know very well without any restriction, I will overindulge. After all, my eating habits up until this point lacked boundaries. Hopefully Zach and I can stick to our cheat day strategy and not go crazy. I am also hesitant to just full out eat on a normal fast day because I feel like it would make the next fast day much more difficult.
Have a great weekend!
