Hi, to all my worldwide 5:2 friends! It has been a long time!
I have been off here for quite a while; as it happens, life gets in the way, other things take priority, and, unfortunately for me, I lost focus of my eating plan, which had started with 5:2 and a successful loss of several pounds, morphed into 4:3 and low carb and more serious IF and giving up hard core gym time in exchange for HIIT, and since then (1-1/2 years), I have pretty much kept off about 40 lbs or so. Still not at my “ideal” goal but the thinnest I ever was, so not unhappy.
Fast forward to late last year, and I realized that I had put on 10 lbs, had become a couch potato since knee surgery, and was using every excuse I could find to justify every poor food choice I made. It took until around March of 2017 until I thought back to what I did back at the beginning to lose the original weight,and I decided to restart my whole food life from the start.
So I began 5:2 again, religiously, NO EXCUSES, but beyond that, I had started watching some videos on dietdoctor.com, having followed the link from Dr. Jason Fung’s web site. The one video that really hit me was the one from Dr. Eric Westman “How to Do an LCHF Diet”. In his presentation, he “role plays” his actual position as head of nutrition counseling at Duke (I think) University hosital, and he treats you as if you were a patient signed up for his program.
The one thing he says that THUNDERSTRUCK me is this: He has a list of approved foods, and he holds it up and he says, ANY TIME YOU DEVIATE FROM THIS LIST, YOU SET YOURSELF BACK 3 DAYS.”
I thought to myself, wow! That is why I was never losing weight! I would eat really good for a couple of days, then to congratulate myself, I would treat myself, thinking it was only hurting me for a couple of hours or a day! But 3 days! I never thought of it in those terms! But once that hit home, I was done “cheating”. I don’t even think of it as cheating anymore. Since I watched that video, I haven’t eaten ONE piece of bread, muffin, cookie, fast food item, ice cream, and my one low carb “treat” that I used to have every other night (or, yeah, sometimes every night, to be honest, and in large quantities) is now once a week, and a smaller quantity. What a huge impact that man and his words have had on me.
Another change is this: On Dr. Fung’s web site, it was said, and I do believe, and it is said here, that steady state cardio has little to do with weight loss. And I agree. It can even derail your weight loss. I am not so sure any more. Since I restarted what I explained above, I thought, I sure would like to be a firmer thin than I was last year. Sure, I was thinner. But I never had that flat belly (I am in my 50’s, so probably never will but could expect to be firmer). So 3 weeks ago, I restarted working out. Lightly at first, to see what would happen, then increased. Guess what? The weight is still pouring off! My average is 2 lbs a week. I couldn’t be happier!
I wish I had figured it out sooner, but better late than never! And I may not have all the answers, but maybe a couple. I will update as I go along, and hope maybe this will help others.
11:11 am
17 May 17