W75D0

This is the end of week 3 for me on a Protein Sparing Modified Fast. I eat chicken and fish through the day netting 140ish grams of protein and I have romaine lettuce with green olives and a little ranch netting < 20g carbs - total calories is less than 800 and I feel great. I did not add a workout in like I had hoped until yesterday which was really good.

waist - start 49 now 46.75
chest - start 43 now 42

my weight isn't dropping way off like it normally would. I started at 291.4 and now 277.2

I fit into XL shirts again. It also occurred to me that my waist is about 20" larger than it was 20 years ago. I had between a 28 and 32" waist. My thighs are 29" now - they've always been big because of rollerblading and playing hockey in my teens and 20s.

Two friends of mine have pissed... uh I mean inspired me to push on. I was also inspired by the fact that my dad and grandmother have alzheimers and I was reading some papers on belly fat in your early 40s and the higher risk of dementia in your 60s-80s. I also came to an agreement with myself over past survivors guilt. I don't feel it anymore - once I figured out I was literally killing myself by eating I worked through those issues.

W72D5

I've felt great today until after a cold motorcycle ride.  It's either the cold or because I've not eaten as much as I anticipated up to this point.  Either way, I've not felt good since getting home.

I'm still in low ketosis (15 mg/dL or .8325 mmol/L) I'm not sure why - I only had egg whites for breakfast.

I didn't log a lot today.  I felt good.  I was distracted by work issues and wrapping my head around a new personal project that I'm in love with.

By the end of the day I hit 40 mg/dL or about 2.2 mmol/L which is fantastic.  I feel great - much better than I did about 6 hours ago

W72D4

Well, I slept well from 10:40p to 3:40a - ugh.  Not enough hours of sleep.  I have a headache.  I'll admit that this lack of sleep is likely due to starting an exciting project about a week ago and not wanting to stop until it's complete.  It's been an almost 30 year dream and it's finally in the realm of doable.

I decided to do my body fat calculation this morning, since it's been a while.  For that I go to Scooby - http://scoobysworkshop.com/body-fat-calculator/

Body Fat %: 32%
Lean Body Mass: 191 pounds
Body Fat: 91 pounds
Fat Free Mass Index: 28

I did a lot of research this morning on PSMF and that's how I'm going to proceed.  I'll workout 4 days a week doing bodyweight strength training for about 30 mins a day (read: climbing rock wall, simple TRX).  I'll still drink the 14 cups of water.  The difference is that I'll eat mostly lean protein, veggies, no fruits and no starches (so bye bye carrots and corn).  My plan is to go from now until Monday and see how I feel.  Since I stay under 20-30g of carbs I can substitute some of the protein shakes.  This all sounds familiar to me and may be something like I've done in the past.  The goal is to stay about 600-800 cals a day.  I'm spurred on by this loss of weight the last few days and I want to keep going, but healthier.

FTR, I don't eat horribly now.  I eat more fruit than I should, mostly apples.  Every once in a while I binge on junk food until I get back to the weight that I started at.

Let's see how the day goes.

So far, the day has gone well.  Day 4 is almost over and I'm firmly over 40 (mg/dL) on the ketones .  I've had chicken today and some eggs this morning.  I need to get in more calories for the day, but I feel ok.  My monitor is killing my eyes, otherwise I'm doing well.  I do need to pack in more than 6 cups of water today.  I'll get on that after I'm out of work.

I was well into ketosis last night.  I made the mistake of eating some cauliflower so I dropped out of high ketosis into a low range.

W72D3

Yesterday went by extremely slowly.  I think that was because the tasks I was working on were taking hours at a time to run and I couldn't leave my desk while they were running.  I had some heartburn yesterday so I countered with a couple snow peas.  I drank a lot of water.  I'm down another 3+ pounds.  I also haven't had a bm since monday sometime.

This morning I feel ok.  I am a little tired, but not overly.

As the day went on I felt really well.  I had more energy.  My focus wasn't great.  I tested my ketones and I was between 15 and 40 so I'll say it was 27.5.  My headache went away.  I decided to read up on the dangers of water fasting... I thought I had before I started, but I probably wanted some kind of cognitive dissonance or confirmation bias who knows what you do when you're desperate.  Mostly, I was competing against a friend of mine, he doesn't know it, and it may be one of the few times I ever feel competitive.  In any case, my brain convinced me to lookup the health effects and while death hasn't been a factor in staying fat it seems anti-conducive to getting healthy and losing a lot of this weight.  I decided to do some more research; I want to lose weight and not die.

I ate some chicken, cheese, and sunflower seeds last night.  I chose those foods on purpose.

I decided to look more into a short term PSMF (protein sparing modified fast) where I eat mostly protein during the day and stay under 20g carbs by eating veggies (not starches, carrots, fruits, alcohols, etc).  We'll see.  it's time for bed.

W72D2

Yesterday wasn't as rough as I thought it would be.  I read a lot of articles on fasting and they made it sound like I was going to die the first 24 hours.  If I hadn't been used to fasting for years I probably would have.  By fasting, I mean that I used to only eat dinner; however, I would drink a lot of Coke through the day.

I had some hunger which I would counter with 2 glasses of water.  I had a headache towards the end of the day, which went away right before bed but is back now.  I got up to pee a lot last night - three times and I emptied my over-full bladder.  Water weight loss put me at 3 pounds down.  I did my measurements yesterday and I'll do them every Sunday.  My plan is minimum of 5 days - I'd like to go 14 days.  I am not planning to workout during the fast, however, I haven't ruled it out.  I want to workout I don't think it's a good idea.  As for whether fasting is or isn't a good idea - we'll have to see.  Being 100 pounds overweight isn't a good idea either.  I'm not doing this to lose weight; I'm doing this to drop sugar completely.  I am a sugar addict and cutting Coke was hard enough, now it's time to cut out everything for a bit and "start over" so-to-speak.  When I'm done with the fast I'll introduce food slowly - like watermelon and soup.  Then add more veggies and fruit and some meats.

I did wake up tired.   I slept 8 hours and was still ready for another 2-10 hours of sleep.  I'm sure part of that is that I woke up multiple times and after the last one I didn't get back to sleep.  I did have like 12 kernels of popcorn last night to get rid of my heartburn.

W72D1

I'm going back to daily logging. I use myfitnesspal to log my food and workouts, but I have no accountability so if i don't workout then i have nothing out there that holds me to keeping on track.

I have grown tired of the constant back and forth with myself. I've been keeping regular track of my weight since 2008 and blogging about it since 2012. It has occurred to me (before) that I am killing myself with food. I get to a point where I'm happy with my progress and then what do I do? I eat butterfingers, caramellos, and reeses peanut butter cups until I get back to where I started. Earlier this year I realized that I wasn't taking care of myself because, I thought, that I had survivors guilt. Some go into a hypertraining state - I went into a hypotraining state and hyper eating state. I believe I'm literally trying to kill myself with food by staying fat so I don't have to pull the trigger, but wait for a heart attack or stroke to just end it. I advocate for suicide prevention and here I am killing myself. Since I hit that thought again on Friday night I've done much better. I had some candy on Saturday and I drank a lot on Saturday night. I haven't had any cravings since Friday.

I say I'm tired of regret and not doing what it takes to feel better; subconsciously, my brain has been telling me I need more pain and suffering.

Today, I start a water fast. I'm planning 5 days and see where I'm at Friday night to see if I'll continue on.

W70D1

It has been such a crazy ride.  70 weeks and virtually no progress... and that's just what I've posted about.  In reality this struggle has been going on since Dec 2008 (416 weeks)... and that's too long.  I still haven't figured out how to get past the feelings of unworthiness that I believe hold me back in accomplishing my goals.  So this run I'm reminded of a Bruce Lee quote, paraphrased, choose to do one difficult thing each day; even if I don't want to work out, i'll choose to workout when and how I'm supposed to.

This last week I cut out almost all sugars that don't come from fruit, veg, or meat.  I've felt great.  I did have some sweet tea, an amaretto sour, and 4 slices of bread -- after the bread I had really bad headaches.  I didn't do bad last week.

This week I hit the workouts more.  I will do 10-20 mins on the rockwall, 60 mins on the stationary bike on the hardest resistance, and 30-60 mins of strength training wearing a 10# weight vest.