Weigh-in: 323.4

At 3 weeks, I’m down approximately 7 lbs or just over 2 lbs per week so far since I was pushing just over 330 when I started this intervention. 

While its not spectacular it is going in the right direction and I have to keep reminding myself that this means if I can keep this up I’ll not only have gotten back to where I was at the end of the Optifast program but I’ll have exceeded the 245 lbs that I bottomed out at in February last year. My initial goal weight is 210 at which point I’ll be switching from measuring based on pure weight to body fat in order to determine where I should be at longer term.

Things that have gone well this week

The 16:8 approach is definitely (mostly) working for me. I’m finding that waiting until 12:30 to eat isn’t that bad although there have been a few days were I’ve been physically hungry prior to that and ended up grabbing a shake around 11:30 instead. 

Similarly at the end of the day, I’ve sometimes had this driving need to eat something before bed. I know that is psychological and not physical hunger. As people in my condition know however that psychological drive is very powerful and can be overwhelming at times. What I’ve done in those cases is a small (i.e. 1/2) portion of chicken or fruit.

I’ve also noticed that my hunger satiation doesn’t kick in for at least 20 minutes after I’ve eaten something. While its a bit tough to not simply say, I need to get something a bit more to eat, I have been waiting 30 minutes before trying to determine whether what I’m experiencing is real hunger or not. I’ve taken note of the change in how I feel between these two times and so just try to keep reminding myself that I just need to wait a bit before doing something I will regret later. (Isn’t that always the case)

Things that could be better

The high calorie / high carb day has ended up stretching into 2 or 3 days the last two weeks before I’ve gotten myself back to the program. What I’m doing to mitigate this is no longer thinking of Saturday as my high carb day. Rather, if I slip by a day or two I move the entire schedule out. This means if I’m back on track on a Tuesday, then the following Monday will be be my high carb day not Saturday. 

Sleep is still a problem but its better than it was. It is definitely something I need to work on.

My activity level, while a lot higher than it was 2 years ago, it still not back to where it was in January. I need to work on that as well. Having the pool open now thou helps

Recommendations for Improvement

I’m noticed that fruit does not seem to impact weight loss to the extent I had originally thought it might. I like apples and bananas and have been generally using those as a filler for when I want something to eat but don’t want to do something foolish. Specifically because I’ve done the whole carrot thing and while I like carrots, there are only so many carrots you can eat before you get sick of them.

FoodStruct has this whole thing on the benefits of apples and bananas on weight loss which I recommend people check out.

While technically fruit is a carb, I’m not treating it as such anymore in terms of determining what represents a high, medium, and low carbohydrate day. The reason is the amount of resistant starch that is present as compared to having a muffin or timbit (damn you Tim Hortons!!!).

This also makes things a bit easier in that it has reduced sugar and carb craving. The natural sugars in fruit don’t have you feeling deprived of other foods which are far less healthy.

— Kevin