IF Diary Day 49 - Successes and Binging (Intermittent Fasting 16:8 Protocol)
Dear IF diary, welcome to day 49!
This week has been a strange one. I went shopping and bought loads of chocolate puddings!
https://unsplash.com/photos/JBIK4QZOFfc
This is weird because I haven’t been eating chocolate at all since starting IF and I am a chocoholic…but the binge craving took over.
When I ate the puddings, I felt awful physically and mentally. My stomach felt bloated, I felt sick and I was angry with myself for eating the puddings.
* I must add that I did still stick to my times and didn’t eat outside of my food window.
I fully expected to have gained weight this week as a result of this chocolate binge.
I am pleased to announce my last 7 days results are all positive!
- Waist – loss of 2cm
- Upper Arms – Loss 1cm
- Body Fat Percentage – Loss 0.9%
- Weight 10 st 5lbs – Loss 1 lb! (Finally a scale loss after 3 weeks!)
Quite the success I would say!
https://unsplash.com/photos/hRdVSYpffas
I want to link a Documentary here made by Dr Michael Mosley. This guy is awesome, he has literally reversed his health issues by following an IF protocol and invented the 5:2 IF diet.
(Source https:// vimeo.com/170735109)
If you are interested in learning more about the effects of IF on the body and I don’t just mean weight loss, I would definitely give this a watch.
My husband has been impressed with the results so far and has decided to try and give IF 16:8 a try.
I will be interested to see how he does, especially being a man and 6ft 2 inches tall, whereas I am only 4ft 11 inches small! I wonder if he will see faster results.
FOODS:
Foods I have been avoiding are:
- bread
- pasta
- potatoes
- pastries
- white rice
I have been avoiding these simply because I know they cause me to bloat up and I get stomach pains after eating them.
I have also noticed this week that nectarines and plums cause me stomach pain and I am unsure as to why this is.
https://unsplash.com/photos/vl3KF_I8gFw
Perhaps it has always been the case but I have never noticed it before, or perhaps it is because I have had minimal sugar in my diet for 49 days and the sugars from the fruit caused the issue.
Who knows! All I know is that I won’t be eating those now either, which is a shame as I love them.
So what DO I eat?
My diet has recently been lots of:
- brown rice
- quinoa
- all kinds of fish
- eggs
- salads
- avocados (lots of!)
- fruits
- veggies
- coffee
- cream
- blue cheese
https://unsplash.com/photos/-Cb-dhW7tqg
I haven’t been eating red or white meat as I haven’t felt the urge to. I have probably had chicken on 2 or 3 occasions since the beginning of the IF protocol.
Having said all this, I haven’t really been focusing on what I should eat, rather what I shouldn’t eat because it makes my body feel bad. The foods on my 'Eat' list are only there because they have a positive impact on my body, not a negative one.
I am sure everyone's list would be different.
Exercise:
The Star jumps experiment is going well. I have increased the amount from 20 to 40 every hour during the daytime.
https://unsplash.com/photos/fOS2IMOzsDA
I know it doesn’t sound like much, but 40 star jumps every hour between the hours of 10 am and 6pm is 360 per day = 10,800 per month! That surely has to make an impact right?
I set silent alarms on my fitbit to remind me every hour, so I don't forget.
Thank you so much for your support on my journey, I hope you are finding this an interesting read and perhaps you have even looked into it yourself as a result!
Look after yourselves!
Much love @beautifulbullies! xx
As a follower of @followforupvotes this post has been randomly selected and upvoted! Enjoy your upvote and have a great day!
Well done, and keep at it! I lost 31lbs last year on the 5:2 "diet". There was another factor for me - my thyroid had become underactive, and I'd gained about 31lbs very rapidly. I was unable to lose a single ounce on any diet until the thyroid malfunction was treated, and I did this by taking high doses of iodine.
Once my thyroid started to improve, I started to do the IF, on April 4th 2017. I found it quite easy to do, as long as I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted on the non fast days. Initially I would eat lots on NFDs, sometimes treating myself with doughnuts. I still lost weight steadily, especially from my waist, which was a joy. Many people seem to lose weight from the waist area on this diet, which is why it's so wonderful.
But after a couple of months the weight loss began to plateau a bit. I noticed that I seemed to be addicted to sugary treats, so I decided to cut out sugar completely for six weeks - while keeping the IF going, of course.
I was astonished at how difficult it was to keep away from sugar. My sugar cravings drove me crazy! Eating loads of bread, and sometimes croissants - but the sugar-free kind - was the only way I could keep the cravings at bay. I'm not sure if it was because of giving up the sugar, but my weight loss resumed and I started to allow myself a sugary treat once or twice a week, but only after doing a hillwalk or other strenuous exercise.
It was fantastic losing the weight, as my fitness soared too. It's much easier to get up a mountain or a climbing wall when you're not carrying the equivalent of a 2-year-old child around your middle!
I found the 5:2 Intermittent Fasting Diet group on Facebook fantastically helpful and lots of fun, sharing recipes etc.
I also have underactive thyroid issues! I have been on thyroxine for years but it hasn't worked as I have a T4/T3 conversion issue, so now I have to self source T3 online because the NHS don't prescribe T3 here in the UK. Luckily my doctor supports me in as much as he does my blood tests to keep a check on my T3 levels to make sure i am not taking too much or too little, but it is a pain having to buy your medication online.
I have to lose about another 2 stone if I am honest with myself, but I can't envisage it happening because my thyroid makes it so hard. I will keep with the IF diet though because I feel better on it and my weight is reducing and as you say, so is my stomach which is the most important area to lose the weight from. Well done on losing the kg's! :D
Thanks! I really feel for you with the thyroid problem, as I know several people who are suffering from this. I did a lot of research into it when my own problems started. I'm also from the UK. Did you know that the UK is listed as the 6th most iodine-deficient country in the world, according to WHO stats? It's partly because the UK is one of the few countries that does not iodise salt. Iodine is very erratically distributed in the soil - that's why seafood is an important source of it. There are several medical practitioners in the UK campaigning for better iodine education and supplementation.
If you have an autoimmune condition, you might be reluctant to take high doses of iodine, as I did. It is a potentially risky and controversial treatment, and it doesn't work for everyone, but it did work wonders for me. If you're interested, I would recommend reading The Iodine Crisis by Lynne Farrow. That's the book that got me started!
Good luck with the IF anyway. I generally hate "diets", but this one really seems to work!
Thank you, I will definitely have a read of that book! I did not know that we are so iodine deficient here in the UK, that would explain a lot. Did you have your iodine boost done at a hospital?
No, I just did it myself. I was very careful about starting low and building up over several weeks. It's a controversial treatment, so you really have to read up on it first, but there's a lot of help online - Facebook groups etc, so you can get feedback from other people who have tried it. There are very few practitioners in the UK who have even heard of high dose iodine. I only know of one, Dr Sarah Myhill, but she has such a heavy workload that she doesn't take on new patients. I read Lynne Farrow's book first, and then David Brownstein's book on Iodine, before I started to experiment with high doses of iodine.
well done, @beautifulbullies!
Well done!
Keep it up.
Thank you @bluefinstudios! :D
Sit ups are good, have you tried them?
Not recently lol my stomach gets in the way! xD I may add them to my schedule. I swear you are my personal trainer without knowing it! haha
I know the theory, carrying it out is something else!
Day 49 well done, you are doing really well and it is really great to be aware of the foods that have a negative effect on your body. I like the idea of the star jumps, i might just incorporate them into my day xxx
Thank you! :D The star jumps are quite fun to do and it gets the blood flowing! xxx
Not sure I could go without chocolate...or red meats. Love me a good steak...now I'm hungry...
haha I didn't do it consciously it just happened :)
Congratulations for another milestone @beautifulbullies. Thanks a lot for spreading the inspiration : )
And hey, we are of the same height, i am 4'11 as well, and married to a british man 6 feet tall. : )
Regards to you and best wishes. X
Thank you @sherylneil! Tall british men are so much better than short british men lol They make much better husands, especially as they can reach things that us short women can't haha ;) x
Congratulations! I'm really glad you survived the binge!
So. I'm into my 3rd week of the Keto diet. I'm losing weight steadily which is impressive because I am way closer to target than I was. Why the switch? Because I can't be trusted to eat minimal or small amounts of bread or pasta. So the obvious answer is to find an alternative that doesn't use them at all.
I've told you that I am a long time 12 hour fast guy, and I am now observing 14-10. It certainly isn't killing me :) And for the record, I am 6' 4" tall-and my target is 100 kilos. A weight I haven't seen since the early 70s.
Thanks for another wonderful update. You really do inspire me.
Well done on the weight loss Big T! I loved doing keto, but I kept self sabotaging and falling out of ketosis. I ended up gaining more weight, but I do love the keto diet in principal. When I look at my current foods, I am eating pretty low carb, but not low enough for it to be keto.
Wow, you are really tall! Now I know where the 'Big' comes from lol ;)
Awww..that looks to be very intetesting formula to weight loss... The IF formula. Will surely check on the videos as i need some input to reduce my bellyy...though already controlled a lot and reduced from 108 kg to 87 kg cutrently....
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Wow, congratulations! That is an amazing achievement! The video is really interesting, it explains a lot about how fasting works and why, but he also tests it on himself so you get an honest version of what it is all about. Great work! :D
Fasting does work. In India Naturotherapy is prevailing over many people it says to give rest to your body once a week by putting yourself on fruit diet...i followed it and benefitted. Apart from it few exercises and avoiding junky food
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I have definitely felt the benefit from fasting and I think I would like to do a proper extended fast too. There is a guy from pakistan who is 101 years old and does 25 mile marathons! He says the key to his health is fasting!
Heard of him....i keep fasting once a week and really feeling better.....good way to control yourself
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Wow you are doing a really great job with this new healthy lifestyle. All of the things you listed that you don’t eat are my weaknesses. I grew up on bread, my parents never cooked a meal without including some type of bread. But I know it contributes to my bloating and stomach pains too. The post was really encouraging as I need to do better with my eating habits. I’m glad the pudding didn’t have much effect on your weight. Keep up the great work and thanks for the inspiration :)
Thank you so much! :D Yes we were raised on bread too but once I started to realise how much better I felt not eating it, it was much easier to avoid. Especially when I'd slip and eat it but then suffer afterwards. So glad you were inspired by the post too!
Oh goodness it’s going to be so hard weaning myself off of it but I do feel bloated every time I eat it. Thanks again for the inspiration :)