Day 11

Popped up to 184.4 lbs this morning, that's probably because I'm using my scale again (used my parents' yesterday). No biggie.

Now, some news. Fast is officially broken today. Darn it, not the 30 days I was hoping for, but I promised I would listen to my body.

I was hungry. There were no temptations before me, no smells to entice me. I felt hungry, so I had a glass of water. Then another. Then I had a bit of honey. No go, my tummy was asking for food. So I complied.

I had a Strawberry Nirvana smoothie from Jamba Juice with some sliced almonds on top. It was very nice. Then the BF and I went to Genki Sushi and I had a salad with soybeans in it, hot tea, about half a poke bowl (poke is raw tuna with seasonings, the bowl just means over rice) that wasn't good so I didn't eat much, I ate a few pieces of garlic chicken and I had a fried shrimp (ebi). It was all very nice, and while the fast wasnt broken perfectly, it was still done in what I consider the range of "healthy" food to not be in any danger of blowing everything completely.

It's still a tossup if I'm going to have a papaya for breakfast tomorrow of if I will fast, we shall see.

My BF's birthday is on the 22nd and I'd like to take him to Kobe Steakhouse (he loves that place), so I didn't want to go back into a deep fast prior to it and feel sick when I ate there.

So I'll attempt some intermittent fasting until then, which in my opinion is much harder than a long fast, because you're constantly struggling with the hardest part, which is day 1.

I feel somewhat secure that since I finally reached past the 185 mark that I will hopefully be able to easily maintain closer to this weight than going back up into the 190s again. I feel that the difficulty I had getting there means my body was resetting itself. At least that's my theory.

So, IF and healthfull eating (yay broccoli and brown rice!!) until the 22nd, enjoy a lovely teppanyaki dinner, then I will hop back on the fasting bandwagon again. I'm starting to think that a 30 day fast in undoable with the pressures of daily life, and is best suited to a retreat setting. With that in mind, I think I will just strive to do 7-14 day fasts as often as possible with rests between until I reach my goal. Obviously this will have to be rethought if I only succeed in gaining and losing the same 10 lbs over and over! Considering though, that a 7-14 day fast is pretty much what I've done to get me here (and I maintained the 195 since May), I have a good feeling about it.

While I wish I had managed to stay the course, I leave this fast without guilt (ok ok, maybe a little, but I'm trying!) and with no regrets. I'll try to do right by my body, and since it's been rewarding me with looking better every day, how can I do wrong?

And you shall see me again, as soon as I can muster the willpower again to make it the first day, hopefully very soon after the 22nd.

Day 10

183.4 lbs this morning. It's all gravy now :)

Have a very dry mouth today, and the Diet Pepsi I sipped from made my tummy a little sick, so I'll stick with water today. I'm in exciting new territory now, numbers that have not been seen for years. There is no bad at this point.

I'm going to keep on doing what I'm doing.

Day 7

185.4 lbs! Woooohooooo!

I can't remember the last time I weighed this, but I'm thinking it was around the end of 2007 when I was laid off.....I think.

So wonderful! I was cleaning up yesterday and I found a mailing box full of clothes I had ordered from Target ages ago.....like, a year or more. I had them packed and boxed up to mail back to return, but I squirreled them away for a while thinking I would lose weight and they would fit. Hehe.

Well, having discovered them yesterday, I tried them all on! The pants gave me a huge muffin top, but they actually came up over my but and zipped up this time. The shirts were decent, the ones with the cap sleeves were too snug. I'd give everything about 10 more lbs. before I can comfortably wear them. Isn't that funny? I can actually think in terms of weeks instead of months like other people losing weight do.

I've been getting weird tummy grumblings.....not hunger, just grumbles and sloshings. Kind of weird, but tolerable. Everything is hunky dory. Nothing new to report, no bad things, only good and easy. Haven't really started to miss eating yet, haven't really thought about it much.

Day 6

Hooray! Down to 186.4 lbs this morning, I'm essentially back where I started when I broke my last fast. Now everything is a fresh loss.

I'm feeling great, I have lots of energy this time around, except the weak day I posted about.

The horrible flavor that I can't get rid of is back. Honey doesn't help, mints or brushing your teeth/tongue don't either. It seems that sucking a couple grains of sea salt does though! Yes, I've discovered salt this time around. I can't remember where, but I read that it was a nice addition to a fast. So now when I have the urge for a flavor or a bad/dry taste in my mouth, a couple grains of salt (these are the larger sea salt crystals) on my tongue is wonderful! I think I like it even more than honey.

I've also been "treating" myself every morning with a cup of hot tea and a spoonful of honey dissolved in it. Gives me something to look forward to.

Now that I'm in the exciting "new loss" territory, I'll probably be posting more regularly again because I'll be excited at seeing these numbers.

Day 5

189 this morning. I was very weak and tired yesterday, I was feeling great today.

Drinking diet coke/pepsi when I feel like it, and honey and tea as well. I'm feeling good, and very happy to be back to fasting. I was completely bingeing after going off my fast improperly.....and I mean completely!

It's very nice and comforting to feel back in control. I have to warn you, it was very difficult my first couple of days to stay on this fast. I had never had such difficulty previously. so I attribute that to the poorly broken fast and the total gluttony since then. I would recommend to anyone who is really, truly struggling with beginning a fast to try to go just a day at a time, and if you really can't find the willpower to continue, to eat healthy, fruits and veggies, and try to start your fast again. Starting my second fast after the healthy eating habits I gained from the first one was so effortless.

But now all is well, I'm on day 5 and I'm feeling pretty in control. I even made brownies today and I felt hardly a temptation, though I will admit I ate a couple crumbs that stuck to the knife while I was cutting them!

A new fast, day 1

Just documenting the start day of a new fast. This time I'll be aiming for 30 days.

I'm not sure of my start weight, because I didn't weigh. I figure I was between 195-198 to begin with. I'm not as interested in the daily losses, as much as the overall. I've become very zen about the whole thing :)

Will post updates less frequently as I'm in a very redundant stage for this blog. I'll get more thorough when I reach around 2 weeks or so.

Blag (aka Day 1)

Bleh. I feel icky. There is a lump of food in my stomach that refuses to go away.

I broke my fast Sunday night as well as all day Monday. That was an experiment in crappiness. I did everything WRONG, and I'm paying the consequences of my actions today.

191 lbs today. 5 stinking pounds in a day and a half of craptacular eating. I suspect 3/4 of that is sitting, undigested in my stomach at this moment.

I just couldn't get around it though. So I'm going to have to take this as a learning experience and use my knowledge for good, not evil.

What have I learned? Don't break a fast incorrectly. Do no go immediately into eating chicken fingers and cheesy french fries with ranch dressing. Delicious as they may be, your poor tummy doesn't know what the hell to do with that crap after 11 days of lounging about with its feet up. Break a fast properly, with juice the first day, fresh soft fruit the next, and so on and so forth.

Well, I'm hoping on the bright side, that this will help me power through that little stall I was having and get me down to the lower 180s sometime next week.

It's hard not to be annoyed when you lose ground this way, but such is life. You are out there, fasting on your own, without the support of most of your friends and family. Being told you are anorexic and crazy if you dare to tell someone 1% of what you're doing. I wish I had the resources to do this in a treatment center, far from those who will talk down to you with no knowledge and farther from those who want you to eat. So this could be your story, and that's why I'm posting it. There is ALWAYS recovery after a screw up. That's called LIFE, people. Nothing is perfect, it's just about getting up, dusting yourself off, taking a lesson from it, and moving forward.

The only way I would fail is if I didn't restart my fast immediately. I had considered going off for a week and restarting, but that was with the belief I would have eaten more reasonably and healthily than I did. Since I chose not to, I don't feel I'm ready to make good choices like I did at the end of my first fast.

Another good way to look at this is now I can go for another 2 week fast and manage to do a month long fast with 1 break in the middle :)

Now a cousin is visiting. She's coming in today (oh when will this END!!) I will tell them I'm seeing them on days I'm fasting (IF). If they bug me to visit on days I'm not fasting, I'll tell them I'm purposely seeing them on my fast days to keep me from overindulging when I'm not :) That sounds like a good plan!

I'm bummed at the idea of having to go through some of the detox crap again. :(