I've pretty much maintained my weight since I last wrote. Actually I gained two pounds overall:
You might say that's not too bad considering the holidays, and I didn't totally go off of the deep end, but I certainly have not kept up with my goal of losing 50 pounds in 90 days. I didn't record what I ate every day either. I'd say probably half the days I've been fasting most of the day, until late afternoon/evening, and the other half I've been eating a few bites here and there throughout the day, then more at dinner/in the evening. There have been one or two days that I have just lost control and eaten way too much. I have continued to weigh myself most days, and that I am sure has contributed to me not gaining more than I did.
So here we are. I can't go back and change what I've done, do I give up, start again, or still try to reach my goal? I am certainly not going to give up. I thought about starting again, but for me at least, I know from experience that each time I "start again", it lessens how seriously I take the goal. If I start again today, what keeps me from just giving up again in a couple weeks and starting again, etc. I guess in a way that would work and over time I would lose weight as long as I don't gain between efforts, but that doesn't feel satisfying for me. I think the best course of action is to keep to my goal, and with determination and fortitude, go forward and make it happen!
So how will I accomplish this? Well, you may know that I've done long term fasts before, and I know they work and really improve how I feel. They also improve self control and can be spiritually very beneficial. There's some history of using very long term fasting (months with no food) for curing morbid obesity, before the advent of bariatric surgery, with some success. So my plan is simply to fast until I am below the red line. I'll be taking vitamins of course, and drinking plenty of water, but other than that no calories until I am below the line.
So how long will I be fasting? I'll fast as long as it takes, but according to the math, my daily calorie expenditure is right around 3500 Calories, so I can expect to lose about a pound a day. I'm about 10 pounds over my goal right now, and my goal goes down about a half a pound a day. So we're looking at about a 20 day fast to get back on track. I actually think I'll lose a little faster than that based on past experience, and based on the fact that some amount of the weight I've gained is water weight and will come off pretty quickly when I stop eating salty foods. I think that however long it takes, it will be worth it!
I did a 10 day fast at the end of my first 50 pounds in 90 days challenge in order to make my goal, so this will be one step up from that. If I start to see really adverse health effects from the fast then we'll address it and go from there, which may look like a couple of 10 day fasts, or alternate day fasting, or something like that. But unless there is a crisis, I know I can and will fast until I'm back on track.
So there you have it. We'll see how this goes. I've wanted to do this longer term fast for a while to get back on track, but I haven't written it down. And we know that a goal not written down is just a wish.
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