Monthly and Annual Goals

Although I prefer to call them challenges rather than goals... so then my goal is to succeed at my challenges.

Words are funny.

So I am attempting (again) to meditate daily for a full calendar year and/or 365 days in a row.

I have completed January successfully!  So I want to celebrate that win.

There was a big routine change in the middle of the month with kittens entering my life, so my habit of meditating 8 minutes downstairs while my coffee brewed stopped working on work days. Kittens are very distracting.  This week I switched to meditating upstairs first thing upon waking. So far so good.

Onto month #2!

I also have short term monthly challenges, so more on February's challenge later.

closing out 2019

It's been the greatest year full of growth. Sometimes painful as life can be but still so precious.  My word for 2019 was accomplish and wow that word really suited the year.  So much has been accomplished.

I am still losing weight (slowly) and gaining in strength. My awareness of how mood and food interact is growing. My meditation practice is strengthening.  I am constantly finding new non-food activities to enjoy. My thought models are useful. I can do a plank much longer than I realized, LOL. 

I have several other private writing groups which leaves less time for blogging here, but that is just where I am at... and that's ok.

Wishing the world a lovely and peaceful 2020. 

Nanowrimo 2019

Everything is well here.  I have been focusing on uncoupling food from my mood and it's going well. Maintaining my weight loss. Sometimes it seems slow but still it's happening.

Now that every single bit of graduate school is completely behind me I have been slowly bringing back fun stuff that I love.  One of those things is Nanowrimo. 

I am so excited to be able to really commit to it this year. I can't wait to visit the characters and world I have been building over the past 10 years.  I am at 1700 words so I am off to a slow start. I am not sure of my plot or anything else.  But I am writing and it is wonderful .

Summer end check in -Autumn is almost here.

Last day of summer here and time for a check in.

The two issues from my last post:
-Leak proof container for on the go dressings and sauces. This has been purchased but I have not had a good chance to use it.  Tomorrow night may be the time as we are eating out for autumnal equinox.
-Food waste. It's going better. I am slowly transitioning to buying less, cooking less, shopping for less -- Still a work in progress but that is ok. One thing I decided was, since I am not cooking Thanksgiving this year I will not be buying my own turkey for those of here at home. It is simply too much food for us. This by itself is a major change. It will be weird to not be ordering my turkey during my birthday week.

Since my last update I have had 4 trips (3 by plane),  one dying dog and completely finished my masters degree. It's been a lot the past 6 weeks.

I have maintained my weight loss but have had no new lows. However I am still very committed and have been keeping up all my new habits. Now that I have room for new projects in my life I am going to be very thoughtful this year about continuing to build on my habits, continue to lose weight and get to goal (no matter how long it takes me). Some of my new projects include an online support group, NANOWRIMO and artsy community classes.

The support group will need a lot of online time from me but I will still be reporting here as I consider this more of a personal journal.

It's been (over) a year!

Well today is a year, plus a few days, of my re-commitment to low carb/carnivore/keto eating. 

My pie in the sky goal was to lose 100# in a year. I am down 63 pounds and feeling great. I knew back in June that I was not going to meet my bigger goal within the year so I did some research on how to handle it. 

This led me to the gap vs. the gain. I choose to focus on how I started 63 pounds heavier a year ago. I have made huge, huge strides. I have even figured out how to eat when I am up at the lake! I am capable of losing weight when I am on vacation and feel great about it.

I also set a July goal of getting below 170# and I made that goal, now I am working on my August goal. It's doable but challenging - we will see.

I have also set my long term goal of losing 100+ and getting into the 120s by the end of the year. This is quite the stretch goal. But no matter where I end up on December 31 I will be better off than where I am today. I will have learned more, problem-solved and be healthier in a hopefully smaller body.

Currently I am working on a couple of things. I need a small leak proof bottle so that I can take a vinaigrette with me when I eat out. I love salads at this time of the year, but restaurants seem to have the nastiest dressings. I am also tired of food waste at home. I am brain-storming how I can get my food purchases to line up with how much food is going to be eaten in my house. I hate wasting food!

Hopefully by the time I check in here next I will have both of these solved! peace out.

Turning down the volume

I have been working on eating the correct amount of food for a person who weighs 58 pounds less. I have been somewhat successful.

I have noticed that I tend to cook too much.
I tend to put too much on my plate.
It was harder up at the lake as I was out of my routines.
I tend to want to finish off what it on my plate because I am lazy about putting food away.
I am noticing that my brain still thinks I need to eat more when my body feels full, stuffed even.
I can tell I need to keep doing thought work and stop blunting my feelings with food.
I am still trying to re-define the parts of my life that revolved around food.
I have been peering at naturally thin people's serving sizes to get used to new amounts I am shooting for.
I don't expect everyday to be the same.

Headed back for the lake and determined to make this weekend more successful than my last trip. I will figure this out! For sure.

A bit over 4 months

Within a week of my previously complaining post I got a new low on the scale. Only a half a pound but I still celebrated. My measurements never seem to actually change much even when my clothing gets looser. I need me some scale love. It's really helpful to my mental outlook.

So yay. Now I am ready to head up north on a working vacation and do my best to get a new low while there. This is a step on the path to my monthly goal.

I would really like to move into a lower range of weight this month. That range is 3.5 pounds away.

I feel pretty determined to do all that I can do. I am working very hard with the emotional component of eating and trying to adjust the volume of food I take in while paying more attention to how full I am actually feeling. If I am successful I will blog about it afterwards.  Well, I guess I will blog about it either way!

It's been four months

It has been four months since I have had a new low on the scale. At first I was patient because weight loss in never linear.  I have been pleased that I have been maintaining within a ten pound range. 

But the truth is I don't want to maintain, I am not at maintenance weight. I want to keep on losing another 40+ pounds. 

These past 4 months were not wasted. I feel that I have been learning a lot. How to travel both for work and vacation and balance out my eating plan. I have been doing a lot of mental work to accept that I need to change old thoughts that don't serve me and contributed to my weight issues. 

I don't want to be a foodie anymore. I want to find other healthy ways to celebrate and commemorate important events in my life. I don't want to spend much time trying out new recipes or creating new dishes or eating at new places. I do better when my food choices are limited. I don't want to turn to food to buffer discomfort. I want to be okay with the fact that in order for the end result to change what I put into it needs to change also. I want to keep learning and growing and I want to accept things that aren't easy.

It's interesting to me that these are not universal at all. Other people may need to change other stuff in order to lose. There are plenty of thin people who can be foodies or cook a lot or bake or celebrate with lots of feasting. Currently this is not me.

Primed with this insight I am going to start tweaking things with more deliberation if I don't see a new scale low in 2 to 3 weeks.  We'll see what happens. It will be interesting no matter what.

post Europe

Well my vacation is over and the 4+ days of jet-lag have almost cleared out. I was super happy to see that I did not gain weight over my vacation even though there was quite a bit of carbs and wine over the 2+ weeks. 

In fact it seems that my weight range has shifted downwards by about 3#. 

I attribute that to being in a totally different food environment and my overall stress levels being lower and all the food being different on the micro level. Different water and different soils growing the food.  The same thing happened to me the last time I spent a couple of weeks in Europe. Of course my activity levels are also different. I tend to do lots of walking on vacation. Most days I walked until my feet were sore and I almost limped back to the apartment.

I feel so much more confident going forward with my eating and maintaining my weight loss. Although I probably will not make my goal of 100 pounds gone in a year I still feel good about my (slow) downward weight trend and my increasing health and comfort.

Now I am looking forward to the rest of the summer. Doing some fasting. Maybe doing a bit of carnivore for a couple of week or months. Or perhaps I will wait for cool weather to do that...
 

Europe, Keto and Food

Food on vacation has been going fairly well. 
I cannot find 100% chocolate any where and I really miss it. 
I have figured out bacon and eggs and olives and so much cheese at home in the apartment. 
There is lots of Indonesian and Suriname take-away. Both yummy and easy to avoid rice, bread and potatoes.
My blood glucose and ketone numbers have been good even with the occasional piece of bread, potatoes or spoon of rice or fruit. 
My scale isn't working but clothing feels normal.
Stress is way down.  
Italy next, but I am not fussed about it. I feel confident that I can handle it.
All is all vacation has been going well and I am looking forward to seeing the dogs and getting back to fasting times.

remembering to breathe

or perhaps breathe deeply?

I am getting ready for vacation and everything is very full of stuff, both work and personal life. Wrapping up projects, sorting packing questions and arranging pup care are a needed yet stressful parts of the preparation. 

My success at work-travel, fasting and eating aside. I find that a 2 week vacation is raising a different set of questions. Do I want to take my meter to measure glucose and ketones occasionally?  (yes) Is it worth it to buy a small traveling scale as I feel that helps my overall awareness level? (probably) Am I ready to interact with food and eating on vacation in a new way? (um...sure?) Can I relax and reach for more intuitive eating patterns? (that would be nice) Can I accept that I can not make concrete plans as a lot of travel to a new place deals with facing the unknown? (yes, fortunately I don't have to like it) 

So ... I am going to do my best. Focus on relaxing more than fasting. Focus on awareness of the new and wonderful more than worrying about all the stuff I don't know or can't plan. Focus on pleasure and light.  Focus on trusting my body.

And remember to breathe deeply as often as possible!

more work travel success

My business trip was one day shorter this week and I got a 44.5 hour fast in along with a 34 hour fast. There was a long of flight delay with stress/boredom flying out so the fact I didn't eat was a major victory for me. 

I also forgot that when you are in the south and you order smothered pork chops they will be breaded even if the menu doesn't say that. As per usual when faced with the unplanned I defaulted to eating. (I would love for this to change some day) They were extremely yummy and my blood glucose and ketones bounced back well. However they may be the reason why I was actually hungry for breakfast Friday morning -- that's why the second fast was only 34hours.

My wife laughed herself silly when I told her about it ... of course they would be breaded.

This coming week is busy and has no travel so I am going for a 72 hour fast midweek. 

Then there will be tons of vacation travel so that will be the next challenge.  I wonder if post-vacation things will be a bit calmer. I may be kidding myself.
 

fasting while business traveling

I kept on thinking all year that I 'should' be able to fast while traveling for business. Thinking but not doing.

Finally last week I managed it. I got a 48 hour fast in and a 40 hour fast in during a travel week. It makes me very happy that I managed to do this. Now I have another work travel week and I will repeat my success.

I wish I could put my finger on why I was able to do it. I got more comfortable with saying no....I had a bacon stash for emergency boosts... I kept trying trip after trip.

I suppose the "try, try again" was really the key thing. No new lows this month yet, maintaining in a narrow range with downward trend. Feeling committed and healthy and I believe the stress levels are also trending down.

pretty sure my cravings aren't hormonal

In yet another attempt to calm my cravings I tried two things last month.

I stopped drinking flavored waters, tea and coffee during my fasting hours. The theory was that the flavors (even though 0 calorie) were somehow triggering insulin and/or cravings.

It didn't make any difference.

I also did 3 weeks in a row of routine ADF on MWF. Just finishing up the last Friday fast now. Again no change in cravings. 

In fact as I came home from walking dogs just now I realized I wanted to eat. I was craving eating. I am still physically stuffed from last night. I literally don't know where I would put it and it would probably make me feel sick. Still want to put food in my mouth and chew it.

I think I need to accept that right now my cravings are purely mental/emotional/stress-based.  I don't want that too be true but it seems that it is.

Oh well. More reason to meditate.

On the bright side: I lost another half inch on my chest, my body seems to be doing that re-composition thing, more fat getting squishy and I feel committed and motivated to keep on with my health journey.

 

stretching out fasting experiences

I have played around with alternate days fasts at times. I don't find them harder or easier then other fasting patterns but many people swear by the consistency and routine of them.

The week after my last work trip I fasted MWF at least 36 hours and ate T,T, S,S. It wasn't easy but I did it. 

Then I did it for another week. First time to put 2 ADF weeks together back to back!

Now I am in the midst of my third ADF week. Not really easier but I am enjoying the challenge. Come Saturday I hope can report success and give an April health wrap up. 

My seven day moving weight average is trending down this month but no new lows to report. I feel like I am in a consolidating pattern and the high levels of work stress aren't helping anything. 

Fasting and Trips

I had a solo car trip to make for work this week, seven hours one way. I like driving and car trips. I was hoping since I would be on my own with no kitchen that I would be able to fast easily but that did not happen. I fasted 20 hours the first day and 17 hours the second. I had no issues eating on plan when I ate. Although the coleslaw I had tasted rather sweet so I didn't finish it.

I am still trying to learn from this experience to see what I can change in the future. When I am on a work trip I find it hard to turn down 'free' food. I did not bring things to distract me, perhaps a knitting project would have been helpful. Also although I like driving, it still makes me tired, when I am tired I want food energy...

I am not sure what I can change in order to fast 24h+ while on a work trip. 

I have 2 work trips by plane and not solo coming up in May and I may plan on eating one meal a day on both of them in order to decrease stress levels around work trips. Maybe at some point in the future I will be able to avoid restaurant food while traveling. 

As always I am a work in progress.

No travel for the rest of April but many, many deadlines to meet.  I plan to eat the foods that make me feel healthy, meditate, fast at least 16 hours every day, eat plenty of protein to see if it helps me feel more satiated and continue my weekly slow strength training.

April Ease

The first week of April has been good to me.  

I had some big NSVs.  

My waist measurement took a dive and I am at 33 inches.  Nine inches off my waist since August.  Since I use the waist/height ratio as a proxy for hyperinsulemia this is a very important metric for me.

One NSV was mental. I acknowledge that I didn't give up last month when things were so hard. I kept on putting one foot in front of the other even though I wasn't feeling it. I have since heard from one of the IDM educators that March is a typical time for people to have a slump. I do think that is the perfect word to describe it. I felt like I was in a slump.

I did a 3 day fast this past week and it was good. It felt 'normal' and enjoyable. I focused on the good parts of fasting. I love that light, my digestion is resting, feeling. I also started measuring my GKI in the evenings. Seeing those low numbers at that point of my day was motivating. Except for an evening fasting booster when needed, the rest of my hours were clean - unflavored water and black coffee and tea. I also made my own version of 'ketoaid' morning and night to keep my electrolytes as happy as possible. My weight was within a half pound of my last low. All in all a great week.

This upcoming week I am traveling solo for work. I am hoping to fast during that trip. I will see how it goes.

When to push and more NSVs

It's the end of March and it has been a weird month for me. After 7 months of losing weight I have spent this month holding steady.

It may be my body needed a month to adjust to being 50+ pounds less. It may have been caused by the 13 restaurant meals this month! No matter what fasting pattern I tried I could not seem to convince myself to fast for over 41 hours and I only did 41 hours once the entire month. Was I more hungry due to my increased exercise levels in February or from increased stress or both? I also had a big emotional decision to consider and make, a lot of energy went towards that. Post-decision I feel great but implementing it gave me less push to keep fasting longer. All the above combined made my month a bit static as far as weight loss and there were no changes in measurements either.

This month had great things. The annual IMAD, Playford ball and Gilbert&Sullivan outings were fabulous. The snow is gone and spring is really here. My energy levels are good -lots of project work getting done. I stopped drinking flavored coffee and waters during fasting hours. I think (for me) they were triggering an insulin release. Several NSVs. Two recent: wearing a navy/white striped dress from my closet and wearing long pendants, they now hang 'right'.  I ate on plan all month except for one small piece of cake at an event. It tasted surprisingly good after I scraped off the frosting.

Looking back at March I realize that things went fine. It was weird to feel like my push setting was off or diverted but I couldn't force it or trick it. I hope that my scale movement (or inch loss) picks back up in April and I will continue to work on what I can control; my attitude and effort.

Of course I wouldn't be me if I wasn't going to try new things in the upcoming month. I am hoping my cravings lessen again. I plan to fast, hopefully 2-3 days. I plan to use bacon/broth/olives as a fasting boosters when needed. I will keep on avoiding flavoured water and coffee unless I am eating a meal. I want to track whether I am having a high or moderate protein day. I will use the "deck of cards" approximation to do this. Then I want to see if larger protein days are correlated with higher GKIs. I am considering moving my keytone/glucose measurement to the end of my fasting period to see what those patterns look like. Since there is a ton of travel planned for May I want to eat very very few restaurant meals in April. I wonder if I could do none for a month? I would also like to spend some time thrift shopping and find a new raincoat for the season. My old one, which I still love, is now huge on me. I also hope to get outside daily and notice spring coming.

I will see how it goes. As always I am a work in progress.

Unexpected NSV

One non-scale victory I 'saw' this week. I have scars disappearing.

I was listening to an intermittent fasting podcast where someone was talking about scars going away and it was like a light bulb went off for me. I pulled up the leg of my slacks and sure enough the scar on my right knee is gone.

I got that scar when I was 12 years old! I had that scar for decades. I still remember the injury. It was the first time in my life I had stitches.

Now I look at my knee and I can see a faint line if I am in strong sunshine and completely extend my knee joint. The surface of the skin looks different then.  But of course I know where to look. I can't imagine anyone else would ever notice anything.

It's weird and stunning. Then I checked my ankle surgery scars and sure enough they are fading as well. So are two recent scars on my shoulder blade and hip from precancerous skin removals. My scars from back surgery 15 years ago also look different although it's hard for me to see them.

Of course scar fading was not an outcome I thought about when I started this journey but it's rather thrilling. Especially during a month when the scale isn't really moving, it's nice to know my body is still healing in other ways.

First half of March plans over-written by the Unexpected

Oh well.  The first half of March was not at all what I had in mind. 

First the 4 day fast did not happen. Even though there was no one and no food around my cravings to eat were intense. I ate about one meal a day with 18 hour to 26 hour fasts in between. Apparently my cravings aren't triggered by environment - that is useful info.

Then I needed to go out of town unexpectedly for work. So there were too many restaurant meals. It was a smallish group and I simply felt too weird and unprepared to fast with a bunch of strangers 'watching'.  They could have probably cared less but ...  preparation is so important for me.

I stuck to meat and veg meals that had slightly more carbs in breading and sauces but things tasted strange and sweet and very unsatisfying. 

Now I am home and back to eating normal for me and getting ready to throw another birthday party for family this weekend. March feels very hard.

My cravings are still through the roof so I am doing a couple days of 'fat-fasting' and trying to reset. I want to do the consistent every other day pattern for the last 2 weeks of March. Hopefully my plans will not be derailed again. *fingers crossed*