The only way I have ever been able to lose weight is by fasting.As soon as I eat I want more. It has always been that way. Only I didn’t have a proper method before. I lost fairly large amounts of weight before but put it back on again, usually when I was pregnant as then I felt sick on an empty stomach and hungry as soon as I ate. So I ate… I lost the pregnancy weight again after my first two children (breastfeeding helped) but never shifted the weight gained in a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage and then added to it again with the next one. And there I stayed for twenty years, 100kg:(( Everytime I tried to lose weight I got hungrier and ate more. But my set point stayed the same and I would return to it, probably because my diet isn’t actually very bad. I’m vegetarian and prefer savory to sweet and don’t drink anything but water and black coffee. But I was so big:( Always:(
I have always had asthma that makes exercising uncomfortable and I have had fibromyalgia for the last ten years after some very stressful life events and sleep deprivation. I was able to be more active for a while when I was given a stronger inhaler and tramadol for the pain but the side effects became so bad I had to stop taking it. This meant I was suddenly less able to be active and the weight started creeping up. It got to the point that the tasks I had no choice about doing felt like huge challenges to be tackled. I managed to manage the pain by learning to shift my focus to concentrate elsewhere but the physical restrictions caused by the weight can’t be worked around. One day I realised enough was enough. I was lucky enough to know someone who had been vry successful on the 5:2 and so began to read. And read and read; I spent most of the night reading. I began the next day on ADF.

That was two months ago. I haven’t missed a fast day since. Luckily Christmas fell on an off day. I was rather disappointed with myself about how much and what I ate around Christmas but the fast days held. I am now back to my usual 100kg and my clothes are loose. Further weight loss will be into territory not visited for over twenty years.

I find I am still thinking about food a lot but I am channelling it into planning what to cook. As a consequence I am cooking healthier tastier food. I cook a great big pot a few times a week and just have one bowl if it is a fast day, then more for lunch the next day. I cram in as many veggies as possible and various sorts of beans. I have also stopped eating bread and pasta and anything sweet. I find that sugar cravings go away after a couple of weeks. Luckily I had already done this prior to starting to fast so I didn’t have to face those on fast days except for a few after eating a couple of puddings at Christmas. I really haven’t had problems with hunger since the first week. Psychological desire for food is stronger and is what gets me on non fast days. Eating as an activity is what I miss. I have come to realise that food often makes me feel unwell, especially bread etc and that I need to allow myself time for digestion rather than try to work with a full stomach. The one time I got dizzy was when I ate a big lunch on a fast day, went straight back to work and nearly passed out several times when I stood up from kneeling down. I now know that I feel much better when I don’t eat, so if I have physical work to do I put eating off until I have finished the work, or if it is extended eat only very lightly. Because of this I sometimes struggle to eat enough on non fast days which I think is important both to keep up your metabolism and ensure you get sufficient nutrients. Working on fast days is not a problem although I do sometimes get a bit grumpy towards the end of the day when I eat my single small meal. I have had some headaches, but I always get headaches so it is hard to know if these are different or just the usual ones. And some digestive upset as is to be expected with a change in diet.

The benefits I have seen so far are loose clothing, much less inflammation and pain in my arthritic fingers and an increase in my ability to use them – I was struggling to write before as my index finger is deformed and was very tender and lumpy but I can now use it a bit. I have also been far less anxious and life feels more hopeful. Despite the state of the world and the backward steps being taken! I think the fibromyalgia is better too, although I had already been managing it better beforehand. The test will be will I be able to do more as the days get longer again (I work outside). I think I am already doing more than before and feeling less pain afterwards. I wasn’t able to do any gardening last year and I planted a lot of bulbs this week, I hope I will have the strength to do more. The worst part of coming off the painkillers was giving up on the garden.

I am not weighing myself, but doing a few measurements and observing the fit of my clothes. A pair of pyjamas fell down the other day which was nice:) Fortunately no one saw, or it wouldn’t have been nice at all! I don’t want to obsess about the scales and anyway they don’t seem to give a consistent reading, weight can’t change by 8kg because one drank a glass of water!

I will try to keep this up as a log for ongoing motivation and to be able to look back later hopefully after lots more good outcomes.

Right I bought the fast exercise book, cleaned my son’s room so I could get at his exercise bike (a workout in itself!!) and actually did some deliberate exercise which I would normally avoid at all costs. I intend to do that three times a week – the exercise, not the cleaning, although that may turn out to be necessary too:~ I carried on on the bike after the intense bit and did a couple of kilometres. I could have done more but thought I had better see how I feel tomorrow. I have quite a bit of physical work that I need to do and it is going to be really cold so I don’t want to be in extra pain.

The strength exercises made me hurt just looking at them. I will leave those for now but I have taken to dancing about intensely and energeticly for a few minutes when I feed the pigs as there is room in the barn and no one can see me except the astonished looking piggies. I always have music playing to focus away from the pain so I may as well get some extra benefit from it. I have been doing that for a while but maybe it counts as fast exercise. I certainly can’t keep it up for long, but probably longer than before I started fasting. It certainly gets my heart rate up!

I haven’t used the exercise bike again yet as I have had a very active week otherwise and was already hurting too much. I am hoping to get into the swing of it next week. We had visitors so I had to get a lot of work done before they came and my fibromyalgia reared its ugly head and told me that I had overstretched myself. But it would have been worse before I started fasting. I couldn’t have done my work outside and then cleaned the house and then cooked a meal the way I did yesterday a few months ago. And it was a fast day which I kept to despite being so active.

It does feel good to be more active. I have done an awful lot of sitting since I stopped taking pain meds. In some ways the rest did me a lot of good and I made good use of the time by learning several new languages but the weight I gained was making everything more difficult in a vicious cycle that needed to be broken which fasting has done.

The way I feel when fasting has been a huge surprise to me. That rubbish about feeling weak if you don’t eat is so widespread and easy to believe. I work longer and harder when I haven’t eaten and feel better while doing it. I now realise how much digesting food takes out of you and how it affects your ability to work while doing it.

I am an extremist too. I never do anything by half but I need to be sensible and not sabotage myself by overdoing it. The temptation to turn every day into a fast day is one I need to resist.

Today’s fast is a bit challenging as I ate early with the visitors. I have extra time to get through this evening and for some reason I am hungrier today. But tomorrow will come soon enough and I can eat then.

Well my experiment with the exercise bike was an abject failure. I only did it the once. Hopeless!! But I did always despise exercise for the sake of it. I would rather be doing something useful. This morning I spent several hours pottering about accomplishing things instead which suits me much better. Despite the icy morning I did a bit of gardening, clearing debris so we can see the snowdrops better. They have multiplied really well and seem to like it here as do the helebores. I wasn’t expecting them to flower as I only put them in last year but quite a few of them are and there are a few primroses out too and lots of other bulbs poking up, plus the viburnum and the mahonia which have been in bloom for ages. I did some weeding too but stopped after I got my fingers stung trying to pull out a stinging nettle. I should have dug out some gardening gloves instead of carrying on in my fingerles ones:~ Oh well stinging nettles are supposed to be good for arthritis… I love the evry early spring when the hidden treasures start to become apparent:)

Working without eating first is suiting me so well. I didn’t eat until half past two yesterday despite it being a non fast day. Listening to an audio book while I worked helped me not think about food. Oh except I had a cup of marmite with a few bits of dried seaweed in it, only about six shriveled tiny bits but which swelled up to nearly fill the cup! Tasty and satisfying.

I am feeling more cheerful this morning as when I weighed the number is actually down for the week despite the big bounce upwards and the way I have been feeling. I am convinced that my belly feels bigger. Perhaps it is because of the way the rolls are redistributing themselves as they shrink? I have also been drinking much higher quantities of hot drinks which make me feel very full. I really expected this morning’s measurement to be higher as I ate a really big meal late in the evening yesterday and was very uncomfortable afterwards. Tortellini again. It is my downfall:( But I didn’t put any of those on the shopping order this week which is a step in the right direction, although there is still some in the freezer.

And the magic number this week is 220lbs. I have reached the 100kg mark, my floor through which I must pass. (I would really like to switch the scales to kg but they are the awkwardest things to use, even my son (computer science student) can’t work out how to do it.)

I felt rather unwell again yesterday evening with more pain but I did work all day and threw in some more gardening at the end as I didn’t want to sit down before I could put the animals away at dusk as I would have needed to change to do so. I couldn’t have done that last year. Then I was struggling to finish my work at all as the pain was so bad and my stamina so low. Every day still feels like a battle but I am accomplishing much more and am more hopeful that it will continue to improve.

I can’t imagine ever actually enjoying exercise for the sake of it, but then I couldn’t have imagined enjoying not eating which I do sometimes now. Not always, but sometimes. And I actually enjoy eating more when I do less of it and feel so much better. I would still like to add in more exercise. The idea of the quick benefits of HIT are very appealing, but I do need to be careful. It took me a long time to learn that I needed to rest enough to manage my fibromyalgia, I can’t just ignore that and I need to not just jump in wildly and jeopardise my chances of making it into a routine. The exercise bike still has good potential if I watch something or listen to an audiobook while I do it. I find I can’t just sit and listen to an audio book or I go to sleep so perhaps that will appeal to my need to multitask, but only if I can concentrate enough to follow the story. I listen in other languages that I am learning so it takes quite a bit of mental effort.

Poggy-Vegan, thanks for wishing me luck:) IF is such a powerful tool isn’t it? Everyone ought to know about it. I’m glad it is helping you too.

Menopause is toying with me at the moment, I go for months without a period and then have several months with one every three weeks. Last year I went about six months without and really thought it was all over, but no. I think that could have had something to do with the increasing rate of gaining that has made me so determined to remedy the situation. But I have been been big most of my life. I’m tall too so I carried it fairly well until this last year, but now I just can’t put up with it anymore.

I have been vegetarian or vegan most of the time since I was sixteen. I probably was thinner while vegan although as that coincided with my heavy gardening phase it was probably as much the extra work as the diet. That ended when the doctor decided that she didn’t want me using so much tramadol (after suggesting I use it in the first place) and I became disillusioned with the whole painkiller thing and went cold turkey off the horrible things and I was suddenly unable to do a fraction as much as previously. My poor garden:( My poor body:(I didn’t even have the stamina to stand and cook and so started eating cheese as it meant I could eat faster food like pizza and and tortellini. Nothing could induce me to eat a corpse though. I would try to go back to being vegan but I think eliminating carbs is more important right now.

I would hate to work in an office. I am outside every day,moving around and seeing the seasons change. I work longer hours in the summer as my day is dictated by the day light. Hopefully by the time summer comes I will have lost more weight and may be able to do something with the garden again, although I am not going to set my sights too high as a failure would not be good for my motivation. So I am not going to try to resurrect the allotment, but I will try to have a go at the main garden.

ADF12kgless : some of those flavours sound nice, I’ll look out for them. I have only ever liked black coffee, I love its bitterness. I can’t imagine putting fat in it, although I have now read about that in several places. I think you are right to concentrate on the fasting first. We can be our own worst enemies when we get carried away. Do you think that perhaps trying to do 23/1 everyday might be too much too? It seems to me that you might struggle to eat enough in that window of time to keep your body from reducing your metabolic rate to compensate for the reduction in calories. I am trying to keep eating on nfds to a window of about six hours, but not be too rigid about it. Rigidity risks breaking everything I think. I hope you day goes well.

I’m fine apart from an aching back and being chilled through from alternating between sitting bent over in an unheated room with the door continually being opened and closed and going outside to fetch more animals to groom. I think this is the worst weather for getting cold, just above freezing but with the air full of damp so it gets right into your bones. Once it goes below freezing it gets drier and I am far more comfortable with it.

It was a very busy day so I didn’t eat until three even though it isn’t a fast day. Not sure how I will make myself eat enough today actually. But isn’t that a great problem to have!

I have just bought some coconut oil too having read about the benefits. So far I have only used it in a coconut curry but my sister spreads it on toast and makes nasty looking microwave cakes with it even though she is supposed to be losing weight too. I bought avocados too but then didn’t fancy them and let them go off so I’m wary of wasting more. They used to be a big favourite of mine so not quite sure why that happened. I hope I’m going into ketosis on fast days. There seem to be mixed views about how long it takes. I think trying too hard to concentrate on doing that would be counter productive though as I have made so many changes already. But it is one reason I don’t want to cut out cheese again. The fat in that helps with satıety and helps me avoid wanting carbs. But I’m not going to go mad avoiding carbs. The ones in beans are fine by me, and those in veg. I have never been much of a fruit eater so that isn’t an issue. I just won’t start and the last time I ate a banana I bloated really badly, the exception being when we have fruit in the garden. I enjoy apples straight off the tree, and red currants and gooseberries. And cherries if the pigeons don’t get there first.

Oh, are you German? I have been learning German for a few years now. But I’m not confident about using it the way you are using English. But I much prefer watching tv series in German to in English and I listen to lots of German musıc and audio books.

I have tried vegan cheese but find it quite revolting. I would try those crackers but have no will power with that sort of thing and would polish them off in no time. I find it far easier to say no to the first than to the tenth:~

I couldn’t resist measuring again despite resolutions. But hey, I would rather break this resolution than break the fast! And the weight confirms that I have broken the 100kg barrier:) This evening I am 99kg and this after having eaten so I feel safe saying I am really there. And I can now suck my waist in to less than half my height. It isn’t really there yet as I do of course need to breathe but that healthy marker is in view. Oddly my hip measuement has gone up but I put that down to gravity resettling my ever changing belly. And the purple trousers I was so pleased to fit into are now loose:) I have another pair a size smaller that I may try soon. And luckily the bras I bought last year but which were too small (buying bras online is so hit and miss) had not yet been given away so I retrieved them as the ones that did fit are getting increasingly loose.

Today’s fast has gone smoothely, more belly rumbling than usual, but tonight I don’t even want tea. Cold water is hitting the spot nicely. Mashed beans with a little feta and salad for tea, and although waiting until half five is more difficult it is doable. I didn’t even finish the bag of salad as I was full.

Oh dear, what a bad day. But those tacos were bound to be problematic weren’t they? I doubt I could have resisted the veggie ones. Put bringing those in on your bad ideas list and move on.

I suspect the sugar you have eaten is responsible for the strong desire to eat. I have to give sugar the Holy Grail treatment — None shall pass! Maybe give yourself permission to eat whatever non sugary and non carbfull food you want while you get that back under control. Then fasting should be much easier. I had done that before I began although I had a minor wobble at Christmas when I allowed myself cheesecake for pudding. I always find it easier to say no to the first sweet thing than subsequent ones. I try to remember to remind myself that however many I eat it won’t feel like enough so having none is the only way to feel good.

Adf12kgless it is great that posting redirected you:) Trial and error does get you closer and closer to where you want to be, it is not a disaster when you don’t get it spot on. Life is too complicated for perfection. All you can do is your best, live and learn! Oh dear I’m using lots of cliches but I hope you get the gist. I’m not a very social person and completely understand your feelings of awkwardness. It certainly seems reasonable to me that they should accommodate your needs in something like this that is so important for your well-being rather than expect you to comply with social niceties to do with food. I’m odd enough that no one expects me to comply with anything! It has its advantages…