I have been stuck at 140ish lbs for about 5 months now, after losing about 45 lbs last year. I am happy to have maintained, though I still have cravings and occasional binges, and I seem to think about food all the time. Well, a lot of the time anyways!

So, after starting and stopping, and hemming and hawwing, I decided to try something different. Starting this past Monday, I started getting up off my lazy butt and am doing Couch-to-5K (again- do it nearly every year but stopped exercising while losing weight so I wouldn’t throw myself off with inflammation and water gain,etc). Now, I think I have let it get too far out of control and allowed my blood sugar/insulin resistance to just go overboard, and that is feeding my cravings.

As for eating, I am going to continue with my 16:8 or thereabouts schedule most days. That schedule just works for me in a lot of ways any how. What really throws me is late in the day after getting off work. I head for the fridge and it’s all over.

Peanut butter is a huge craving of mine, so I just forbid myself to buy it now. For one week. I am Low Carb, Intermittent Faster, so I sometimes forget to go to the store to get something to completely satisfy me. Or I get bored easily. And I go right back to things that will put the weight back on. Then I will gain back the couple of lbs I just lost.

Ok, so, for this week only, I am 1. running 2 days, off 1 days, etc.
2. no peanut butter at all
3. no refined carbs except 1 small roll at dinner
4. change after work snack to apple with cream cheese
5. change lunch to few slices of turkey lunchmeat, 1 slice cheese, 1 apple
6.do weights when possible (I am a chronic pain patient so this isn’t always easy!)

I will report back in a few days and again at the end of the week my results. If they are good , I will continue, if not, I will try something else. Something has to be wrong inside chemically, something I can change, just like I did last year.

Beginning of day 3: results so far:

Start weight 142.8
Current. 141.8

Today is normal eating day…3 good meals, with good carbs and even whole wheat bread, lots of good fats, protein,etc.

Tomorrow and Friday, back to 3 mile morning runs, 16:8 and no carbs.

I was getting natural peanut butter so thought it was good for me`…high fat, high protein, low carb..what the heck? Then did some research and it turns out that peanuts raise something called lectin, which does the following:

Lectin and leptin resistance

Lectin may cause leptin resistance, affecting its functions (signal have high levels of leptin and several effects gathering to protect from lipid overload), as indicated by studies on effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms on the function of leptin and the leptin receptor.[18] Such leptin resistance may translate into diseases, notably it could be responsible for obesity in humans who have high levels of leptin.

Interesting what you find out when you look far enough!

So far this week, my cravings are a lot less. So is it mental? I don’t know. It seems like my cravings are SO strong they can’t possibly be anything but hormonal! But I crave carbs a lot…biscuits, bread, etc. I am getting my feast day in after 2 really good fast days, which I think is how I was doing it last year, so we’ll see how it goes! Looks good so far! Thanks for your input!