We never repent of having eaten too little.

We never repent of having eaten too little.
-Thomas Jefferson

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.
-Peter De Vries

Your body is the baggage you must carry through life. The more excess the baggage, the shorter the trip.
-Arnold H. Glasgow

In eating, a third of the stomach should be filled with food, a third with drink and the rest left empty.
-Talmud

Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
-Samuel Johnson

We've come too far to take orders from a cookie!
:)

Obesity, diabetes... Low carb

I keep seeing statistics that a third of Americans are overweight (BMI over 25) and another third is obese (BMI over 30). I really, really don't want to be part of that statistic -- I'll stay in the normal weight group, thanks.

Another statistic I've heard recently is that by 2050, a third of Americans will likely have type 2 diabetes. Count me out on this one too.

I think that it's possible to avoid this fate (obesity and diabetes) by, above all, avoiding processed food. (Exercise is good too but I think food is even more important.) I'm feeling virtuous about the no flour/no sugar groove I'm in though I do eat a lot of carbs (fruit, starchy vegetables, legumes).

Now here's new research about how cutting carbs can help insulin sensitivity, which can lead to longer and healthier lifespans. The source is a respectable newspaper in Britain, but I agree with a commenter who says we won't see this news in the US press thanks to our official doctrine of low fat (i.e. high carb) diets as being healthful.

All in all, I think I'm on the right path with no sugar/no flour. This article makes me wonder if I should cut down even further on processed food in general and carbohydrates in particular. Could I really give up my beloved Lara bars?

In not-really-related news, I just realized that sugarless chewing gum -- which has been my vice for the last few weeks -- is made with glycerin, which is usually made from dead cows. Not vegetarian. It makes me want to wash my mouth out with soap, and has definitely made me kick the gum habit.
(Warning: vegetarian rant.) My friend says that it's such a small amount, why worry about it? I say, if you knew there was just a little bit of baby blood in your gum, would you want to chew it? Even if you couldn't taste it? Of course not.
Saw a great bumper sticker today: MEAT IS GROSS.

before & after pictures

…not mine, of course… because I'm not "after" yet. Maybe I’ll post some when I reach my goal!

ObesityHelp.com has tons of before & after shots on their website (scroll halfway down, on the right). Very inspiring pictures. If these people can do it, so can we! I find it really interesting to see how bodies adapt to different weights and where weight is gained and lost. A few things have struck me…

• Losing weight takes YEARS off a person’s appearance. I’d say it takes a year off for every 10 lbs lost. For people losing 100+ pounds it’s really dramatic. A reminder about how hard it is for the body to carry all that baggage around! The few exceptions are people who lose all the weight in their faces and end up looking emaciated... I guess it's a risk I'm willing to take.
• People’s basic body shape stays the same. Your lumps can grow and shrink but they don’t move much. The proportion of the head to the rest of the body changes though, the head seems to grow as the body shrinks.
• I find the thinner version of people much more aesthetically pleasing. Fat bias? Perhaps. On a side note, I have noticed that in public I take notice of people thinner than I am, so I can look at them and envy them and plan to be like them. I sort of look past the people my weight or heavier. Same phenomenon?
• People often put disparaging notes along with the "before" photo: "me and my fake smile," "I can't believe I went out in public like that." It's a tribute to the psychological pain of obesity.
  

6 months!

I just realized that I missed my 6 month anniversary! It's been six and a half months of Fast 5. Here's to six and a half more months, at least!

I'm about 9 pounds away from my original goal weight of 150. Once I get there I may reevaluate and lower the goal to 140 or 145.
At my loss rate of 2 lbs/month, 9 lbs will take four and a half months. That means I should make my goal by the middle of March 2011. Wow, when I put it that way it seems like such a long slog...

My friend was doubtful about entering med school in his late 20's, knowing he wouldn't be fully trained until his mid 30's. A friend told him to go for it -- he's going to turn 35 anyhow, he might as well be a doctor at the time!

So I guess the same applies to weight. It'll be March in five months whether I gain weight or lose it. Might as well lose it!

Tools

The more we know, the more control we have.
We can make better decisions about how to handle situations. I willfully ignored nutrition because I knew I wasn't eating well but didn't really want to know how bad it was. It was a big step emotionally to start recording things – even things that made me look bad – but it’s been invaluable.

First is Weight Chart at www.weightchart.com. Seeing the downward trend over time really helps keep me from getting upset when I’ve gone up a pound or two or am on a long plateau. And when I lose a pound, I can’t wait to plug in the number and see the little line go down. It also provides monthly and weekly averages of weight loss. WeightChart has another neat feature that lets you calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and how many calories you need per day to lose or maintain your weight. You can set goals and it will tell you if the goal is reasonable and reachable.
For example, here is my daily record for the last 10 months and the monthly average. You can see that I'm on a 6-week plateau.







Which leads us to counting calories…
Lose It! (www.loseit.com) is available both as an iphone app and online. Honestly recording EVERYTHING that goes into my mouth was a big shock and it’s helped me identify the calorie bombs. (Mmmm... fresh peanut butter... I can eat it with a spoon, a lá Homer Simpson eating mayonnaise.) Recording everything keeps me honest. I hate seeing the calories pass into the red zone for a given day – that in itself is a motivator to stop eating. I think of calories as cash I spend on different foods and when it runs out, I’m done. (Except on the days when I go over, of course.) I’ve also become much more aware of the calorie content of different foods and I tailor my choices accordingly. For example, there’s no way I’m going to waste 350 or calories on a smoothie (that’s the same as a huge bowl of chickpea curry at dinner) - I'll have a plain tea or coffee instead of the smoothie. I track calories almost every day.

When I was running more I would use the Nike run app to record runs – it was very rewarding to see the miles add up. As my injured ankle gets better I’ll start doing that again.

Does anybody else track calories daily? I worry that I’m getting a little obsessive.
What tricks and tools have you found useful, my fellow fast-fivers? Basically,
How do you stay motivated?

Good luck to everyone!

who's that?

Even with the very slow pace of my weight loss (about 2 pounds per month) my body is changing faster than my image of myself. I have a mental image of myself as fit but pudgy -- it's sort of funny to see pictures and think, hey, I look better than normal. It's hard to realize that that's what I look like now! Not perfect, but definitely better.

In other good news, I ran yesterday on my gimpy ankle and it doesn't seem too much the worse for the wear. :) I'll start running short distances once or twice a week and hopefully be back to regular 5k's within a couple of months.

I've been around the same weight for five weeks now. I'm hoping the plateau will break within the next two weeks, by the end of the month.

I will do this

I will do this. I will lose these last annoying 12 lbs.
It is a choice and I have chosen; I have decided; I have declared.
I will do it. I will it.

oof

I've been gaining weight, back up to where I was a month ago. 162. Bleh.

Yesterday I wasn't hungry at all and my stomach actually hurt every time I ate something... and I kept eating anyway. It was a weird kind of eating as self-punishment. I do feel that my relationship with food has improved but it has a long way to go yet.

I changed the blog title a while ago to "fasting my way to me" because I believe it has brought a lot of clarity about who I am and how I need to relate to my loved ones. It really is helping me to grow up and make tough choices responsibly. As they say, time heals all wounds -- but in the meanwhile the wounds hurt.

not for everyone

Someone I have talked with about Fast5 recently tried it for a couple of weeks.
She decided it wasn't for her.

Food preparation is her main hobby and avoiding it during the day left her without one of her favorite pleasures. She was happy to see that she is strong enough to fast all day with no ill effects and she's planning to skip lunch on days she doesn't feel like packing one. She would like to lose a little weight but that isn't a strong enough motivator at the moment to keep up with Fast5 when she's really not enjoying it.

I, on the other hand, love being released from dealing with food for most of the day. To each their own.

gremlin

I feel like there's a part of me that's terrified of success, a little voice that urges a life of sloth and cake. I need to sooth that little gremlin, convince her to join me in this journey rather than fighting me the whole way. My gremlin is like some loudmouth high school bully, all hot air and attitude hiding a bad home life and need for love. The hard part is to engage with her rather than just shutting her out. The gremlin can learn and change, and I can learn and change, and I must let go of my fear so I'll be strong enough to love even this horrible little gremlin, this fearful part of myself.

positive

24 weeks of Fast5... and at the risk of seeming smug, I'm happy with how things are going.

I'm not craving sweets/bread. They've passed to the "do not eat" list, along with furniture, plastic fruit and animals.
I'm enjoying exercise. I get annoyed if I have to skip more than a day or two.
I wake up with energy.
I think about food only during my evening eating window.
I'm losing that emotional connection to junkfood. It looks plain nasty, not like a guilty pleasure.
I'm so confident I'll reach my weight goal that I'll say what it is: 150 lbs. I don't think I've ever written that down; I was hedging my bets in case I didn't make it.
Wow, I've come a long way!