Fasting for Weight Loss: 4 Options for Intermittent Fasting

27th day on Slim-Possible-April Challenge. This is what I had for breakfast today. Dim sum. This is my all-time favorite after pasta. No, not really. My favorite food is food.

I'm a stay-at-home (SAHM) and sticking to diet plan is hard when your entire kitchen is at your disposal 24 hours a day. As a SAHM, I have a completely sedentary lifestyle, I can't get dedicated to my workout so I tried to focus more on my diet. I tried to create a calorie deficit for weight loss. First, I tried water fasting. But after one success and millions failure, I tried juice fasting. But I can't get rid of thought on foods, so I resort to low carb diet. No potatoes, no white rice, no white sugar, or white flour. To avoid drinking sugary beverage maybe easy but it's hard to cut rice out of my diet completely because I'm Asian and rice is a staple food. So to be a bit flexible, I allow myself to eat anything I want, including white rice and white flour (products made with it such as bread, cake, cookies, crackers, pretzels, doughnuts, bagels, and muffins) but no more eating after 2 pm. I've decided to do a daily intermittent fasting throughout this Slim-Possible-April Challenge, which is no solid food after 2 pm. But again, this diet plan deliver no success so far. I can't stop eating and I'm not even hungry. Feeding the kiddos little snacks and tasty treats is hard. I often end up eating what they eat! And other time it started with food cravings which when I allow myself a small bite will eventually evolve into overeating or maybe worst - episodes of binge eating. 

I know it's so annoying to hear me rant about failure after failure. Even to the hubs, he's already tired to hear about my diet plan, this diet strategy and that, but to see no success. He thinks my major failure is lack of discipline. He advised against fasting. Fasting leads to overeating, according to him. But fasting has always had a special place in my weight loss plan. Fasting cleanse out your body and most important I believe fasting can help break your unhealthy relationship with food.

There are several option of intermittent fasting suggested by Rob excerpt from his blog Fitness Through Fasting. You can practice this right away to build experience, strength and confidence. 

 Intermittent Fasting options are as follows:

1. Daily Intermittent Fasting

As in Catholic Lent Fasting and Muslim Ramadan, here you would fast from sunup to sundown – approximately 12 hours daily. The fast is broken each night with a light meal, preferably of lean fish or poultry, small portion of carbs (4oz baked or sweet potato, brown rice, multigrain pasta) and steamed veggies. The eating window remains open until dawn, but for most of that time you will be sleeping.

Twelve hours to eat, twelve hours to fast… and so the cycle continues each day. I strongly recommend that you do NOT eat anything after 10PM. Just because you have twelve hours daily to eat doesn’t provide license to overeat. You can get up in the AM, have a light breakfast (oatmeal with skim milk, three egg whites and four ounces of ground turkey is my personal favorite), and then fast for the next 12 hours.

Remember this motto: Progress, not perfection. In other words, certain days you may feel great and want to fast for another few hours. That is fine. But try not to exceed 16 hours of fasting each day, so as to not interrupt the Daily (IF) cycle. 

Estimated Weekly weight loss: three to five pounds. The key to successful weight loss with Daily IF is to eat clean meals; keep the consumption of fat and sugar low.

2. Every Other Day Intermittent Fasting

Another form of intermittent fasting is to go for an entire 24-hour cycle every other day. Example: You fast from 8AM Monday morning to 8AM Tuesday morning. Eat lightly on Tuesday. Wake up on Wednesday at 7:30AM and have breakfast. Start the fast at 8AM until the same time on Thursday… and so on.

Estimated Weekly intermittent fasting weight loss: two to four

3. Half Week Intermittent Fasting Information

Fast for 3.5 days weekly. Example: Fast from 8AM Monday to 8PM Thursday. You can return to regular eating for the rest of the week.

Fasting would resume the following Monday at 8AM – repeating the same cycle.  This system requires caution, however. Since one does not eat for 84-hour periods, it will be necessary to follow the breaking a fast instructions, listed towards the end of this book.  

Estimated intermittent fasting weekly weight loss: three to five pounds.

4. Seven Day Intermittent Fasting

Fast for an entire seven days, return to your regular diet for seven days, and then fast for another seven days. Similar to the Half Week method, you will need follow the breaking a fast instructions.  

Estimated weekly weight loss: Five to 20 pounds during initial 7-day fast and five to seven on subsequent ones.

These are some interesting books on fasting. Do check it out!

1.Toxic Relief: Restore health and energy through fasting and detoxification by Donald Colbert, MD
2. Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing for Life by Cherie Calbom MS
3. The Fast Diet by Michael Mosley
4. The Fast Diet Cookbook byy Mimi Spencer
5. FastExercise: The Simple Secret of High-Intensity Training by Michael Mosley
6. The Green Smoothie Bible: 300 Delicious Recipes by Kristine Miles
7. How to Lose 40 Pounds (Or More) in 30 Days with Water Fasting by Robert Dave Johnston
8. Water Fasting: A Comprehensive Guide & 40-Day Water Fast Personal Journal by Jennifer Thompson
9. 7 Lbs in 7 Days: The Juice Master Diet by Jason Vale
10. Master Cleanse 10-day Organic Kit with Book; The Complete Master Cleanse

When my willpower fail, it's very easy to say that dieting is not worth it. It's very easy to give up completely, very easy to call it quit. But it's OK to fail. Just like Zig Ziglar once said, "You clearly understand that failure is an event, not a person, that yesterday ended last night, and today is your brand new day." 

If you are in the same boat with me, let me tell you this. Your weight loss momentum might gone, your weight loss plan maybe failed, you screwed up your eating plan, your exercise plan gets all messed up but we have only two choices: First, keep walking backwards. This will surely take us even further away from our goals; Second, to accept our lack of perfection as normal. Learn to forgive ourselves, and take two positive steps down the path that brings us closer to the future we want. So I choose to keep working on it! I believe it will get easier over time. 

Tomorrow will be a brand new day. Good night for now.

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Fitspiration Friday: 100 Squats a Day for 20 Days

Day 11. Yesterday marked the end of the first 10 days of 30 days Slim-Possible-April Challenge. Cheating my way to blogging everyday is a real challenge but I will try to update as frequent as possible.

I have committed to not weighing in the entire month so there will be no weigh-in update. I try to eat as clean as possible but I'm still far from perfect. I admit I did cheat on hot dogs and cakes few times but my victory was I'm NOT dwell on binge eating for hours like I used to do before. When I slipped up, I simply clean up the mess and just move on. It wasn't easy. Like many of my binge episodes, I tend to tell myself to start the diet all over again tomorrow and decided to totally blew it. But I feel powerful this few days that I am finally able to get over it. Non-Scale Victory, yay!

Fitness wise, I didn't workout regularly as planned. I don't want to explain. I know I could make it if I find time for it. This is one area I need to improve. So one more challenge this next 20 days is 100-Squat-a-Day Challenge. Not challenging enough for some people but hey this is a very good excuse to lift your butt off the couch and get moving. 

100 Squats a Day Challenge 

1. Take a ‘before’ photo so you can post an ‘after’ photo on Day 30. 

2. Start with 100 Squats a Day and do them every single day. 

( Beginner: Start with 10 Squats a Day, everyday. Up your squats by 10 each week. So on Day 7 for example, do 20 squats non-stop.

Intermediate: Start with 50 Squats a Day.)
3. Set your timers.
4. Try to complete this squat in the fastest time as possible. * Focus on holding perfect form for the entire 100 squats. Back straight, knees wide, hip crease beneath the knee, or it doesn't count. 

5. Do them as fast as you can at least once a week. 

6. When you're done, come back and tell me your times!

7. Aim to eventually get under 2 minutes with good form. (Post a video to get your form approved!)

Will you join me?

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The Scale Factor: 4 Reasons Your Body Weight Changes on the Scale Throughout the Day

Yesterday. 6th day on Slim-Possible-April Challenge. I know that the number on the scale doesn't define my health and self-worth. I've heard of that like zillion times. I have decided not to weighs myself until the end of this April, which is the end of this Slim-Possible-April self-challenge but I don't know why yesterday my heart was so itching that I want to step on the scale and peek what's my number so far. Ha ha~

The last time I weighed myself I was 74.3 kg, that was early April. I feel that I had been improve a bit. I have learnt to not dwell on binge eating whenever I slipped my diet, I stopped eating heavy meals at night, I am not exercising religiously but I'm doing pretty good than before. I banned bad foods in my house because I believe you'll tend to eat healthy foods if you're around healthy foods. Having done almost all the right things, I expect to see something positive --- on the scale. But this is one of the most regretful decision I've made so far. Ha ha sound so pathetic. I read the scale yesterday: 75.9 kg! I step off and on the scale to see if the number change. Because I thought it could be something wrong with the scale. May be broken? But when I weighed myself again it still read the same number. If I could explain my mood in graph, my mood changes at that time have dropped drastically to the lowest point. I felt extremely sad all of a sudden. C'mon, this is ridiculous, Honeybee. I just restarting my weight loss journey a few days ago and changes doesn't happen overnight, right?

I know I'm not alone. We've all been there. We don't want to be a slave to the scales, but sadly we are sometimes.

UNDERSTANDING THE SCALE FACTOR

Here are four things we all need to know about our changing weight:

1. Period

My period just ended yesterday when I weighed myself. Women will retain water during their cycle. Much to my relief, this probably could explain the weight gain.  Just being too dramatic. *rolling eyes*

While some women do not gain any weight, others can gain between 3-5 pounds of water weight during her menstrual cycle. Bowel problems and a natural drop in progesterone are the most common reasons. Also, magnesium levels in the body typically go down in the days before your menstrual period starts. As the magnesium level drops, insulin levels rise resulting in the need for more sugar. When these cravings hit, you may eat 200 or more calories than you would normally.

2. Water retention

If you suddenly consume more sodium than you are used to, you will likely retain water. Conversely, low consumption of salt can result in temporary weight loss. I remember my sister once shared me her first "slimming center" experience.  She was measured and weighed before treatments. Treatments includes slimming massage and hot blanket therapy. The blanket therapy session made her sweat profusely and after the treatment she lost 2 pounds. That weight loss is primarily water weight. Not fat. Water can alter your weight by as much as 10 pounds (or more). This is one of the main reasons diuretics are so popular— weight loss tea, salt water cleanse, fiber supplement, etc. They flush the water out of your system, resulting in weight loss but the loss is temporary.

3. Glycogen stores

Your liver stores carbohydrate in your body in the form of a substance called glycogen. For every gram of carbohydrate that your body stores via glycogen, it also stores three grams of water. When you cut back on carbs (or dramatically cut calories) the body burns of this glycogen. Conversely, this weight comes back as soon as you eat carbs (or increase calories dramatically.) So if you gain 5 lbs 2 days after a big carb up, this is probably the explanation.

4. Workout

"A person's scale mass is a combination of muscle, fat, bone, the brain and neural tract, connective tissue, blood, lymph, intestinal gas, urine, and the air that we carry in our lungs. Immediately after a workout routine, the percentage of mass in each of these categories can shift as much as 15 percent," says Jeffrey A. Dolgan, a clinical exercise physiologist at Canyon Ranch in Miami Beach, Fla. "Intense workouts cause variability on the scale due to factors like hydration status, inflammation from muscle damage repair (we call this delayed onset muscle soreness), even the amount of intestinal by-product or urine and blood volume."

I don't want to be a slave to the scales anymore, but I can keep this one, maybe?

To end this post, I want to include a quote from Steve Maraboli's Life, the Truth, and Being Free: "Get off the scale! It’s true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!" Indeed. 

What method do you use to measure weight loss progress? Do you think the scale is still useful? 

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Weight Loss Challenge 2014: Slim-Possible-April

Sorry I have been silent all week. It was school holiday and we spent the entire week at my parents'. I can't find time for blogging over the holidays, same for dieting and exercising. Totally abandoned!

So this April I'm giving myself a fresh start, starting over with eating real food, kicking bad habits. If you read my older post, you'll know that this is not the first time I had mention about 'starting over'. You maybe fed up to read about my no-ending weight loss plan and story and my struggle to keep up with it but hey, who cares? I have failed many times but giving up is not an option.

I received a notification from fatsecret.com yesterday, and I was taken aback with my weight loss effort so far. The last time I updated my fatsecret account was a year ago today. I was 74 kg, lost and gain back 6 kg during the period. After a year I am back to square one. It's frustrating but like what they used to say, "don't be upset by the results you didn't get with the work you didn't do." I did a simple SWOT analysis to review my weight loss plan and come to a conclusion why I'm not getting anywhere yet: It's because I'm not pushing hard enough, I'm not exercising consistently, I eat more calories than I burn and following all the wrong diet.

To push myself, I set another weight loss self-challenge this month. I call this Weight Loss Challenge: Slim-Possible-April. As a matter of fact, I'm kind of afraid to blog about this here, because I scared if I'm not losing weight, if I'm not reaching my own goal in specific time, I would end up embarrassing myself. I worried that I would make a fool of myself. If you're wondering why there's no more 'report' of my weight loss plan for some time now, it's not because I'm quitting. I'm still working things out behind this blog, but am afraid to share to the world what I'm up to because I worried about not making any result. I don't want to boring my readers to tears with such a "long lame story". I did that and this. But result zero. So I choose to blog about my weight loss only after I reach my 1st goal. That was what I planned last year when I noticed the scale stuck at 74 kg. Nah! Maybe this is another reason why I never reach my goals. Fear and self doubt. This can be a weight loss barrier that holding anyone back from taking risks. 

I need to remind myself again, that the first objective I set up this blog is to document my journey, and by doing that I will hold myself accountable. [Dear myself] My weight loss journey is not suppose to fascinate other people or to please some one else. My weight loss journey could be boring, but this is my story and I'm so blessed to have my readers' back, someone who listen to my struggle, offer me encouraging words I needed and I can't be thankful enough for that kind of support.

Okay, here I'm shouting out loud my Slim-Possible-April Weight Loss Challenge as a way (I think) to getting past self doubt and trusting in my ability to achieve. 

The plan:
Diet plan
1. Daily Intermittent Fasting.
2. Stay under 1300 calories.
3. No junk food, no deep fried food, no fast food.
4. No soda.
5. Get 6-8 glasses of  water per day.
6. Drink a cup of green tea.
7. Eating as clean as possible

Workout plan
1. Exercise everyday except Sunday and Wednesday (Rest day)

Goals
1. Action! Work the plan.
2. Lose at least 5 kg by May 1, 2014.
 

I have no problem with not drinking soda but saying goodbye to junk food and fast food for the next 30 days? It could be a real challenge. It's hard to walk into a convenience store without junk food blasting you in the face. Staying within my calorie budget each day is also difficult because snacking is my old, bad habit that hard to brush off. It's all too easy to slip into mindless eating habits. But that's the reason it is called a 'challenge', isn't it? If this is easy you wouldn't call this a challenge, do you agree?

Sorry for rambling. I will keep you updated. Now your turn, share in the comments:

What is your biggest insecurity in 2014? How are you going to overcome it and move confidently past it?

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