Well, she has got arthritis and had two knee operations when she was only about 3 years old, so we don't push her. On the other hand once she's stopped the stall-routine she skips off at a spritely trot!

So i'm getting slightly frustrated with the scale now. I was completely on-plan in UK but the scale says i haven't changed. I shouldn't care because i'm feeling good and i'm mid-normal-BMI at 20.6, but i just want another 2lb off so that i'm in the weight-box that i was in for 18 months up til Decemberish last year. Anyway, i'm still motivated to see what i can do through February despite the fact that we have 3x major parties lined up for the next 3 Saturdays!

Back at home and getting back on track. Thought I might have to go back to dog sit (after bringing all my stuff home) but it turned out OK.

Will give myself about a week until I do the Feb. weigh-in. :

Dagmar

dropped a little bit in the last week and am now tantalisingly 0.1kg higher than my Target Weight Box at 53.1kg (116.8lb). Of course the plan is to be in the middle of the box not the outer edge, but it's realistically going to take at least another month to drop another 2lb because what i'm doing already is the most restrictive i'm prepared to be to get there. Ah well, time will tell.

At least we have power restored! We had a big storm over the weekend and the tree outside fell against our power lines, so yesterday morning an emergency crew rocked up to make it 'safe' (the tree if it fell completely would fall on the road, which is a bus route and also on to the zebra crossing), so during the safe-making process they disconnected our power, then chopped down 80% of the tree, left the branches on the road, taped up the crime-scene and went home without bothering to reconnect our power - so we were left without for about 20hr yesterday, and when i called to enquire they said that 3000 homes elsewhere were without power and i should make provisions to be without until the weekend!!! Anyway, luckily it got fixed during the night and we're back in business this morning.

Angie, glad that you got your power back!

Does anyone here follow a version of Intermittent Fasting? I was reading about it and found that different approaches range from eating only ever other day to fasting for 16 hours (i.e., overnight) and then having an 8 hour eating "window." During the eating window, one eats full meals at mealtime and does not snack in between.

Supposedly cutting out snacking helps reduce blood sugar (and insulin insensitivity). Eating full meals at mealtime helps turn off ghrelin, the hunger hormone. The idea is if you eat only small meals, the ghrelin level doesn't drop enough to signal that you're full. This leads to feeling hungry all the time and wanting a snack.

I'm interested in what experience you folks may have had.

i stop eating by 5.30pm usually and don't eat anything more until breakfast at around 8.30am, if that counts as IF? That's because i'm fresh out of calories by that time
I don't snack anyway generally.

Personally i see the benefits of IF as just a means to bring about a reduction in overall weekly calories.

Also it's easier to resist hunger if you have strict definite rules, eg if you feel a bit peckish at 9.00pm but know you're doing IF you tend to just ignore the hunger, and of course it goes away after 20min or so, whereas if you're giving yourself the opportunity to think shall i/shan't i eat something, then it becomes a bigger issue to resist and you're more likely to eventually eat something.

I can see IF would definitely work in whichever time sequence you fancy going for though.

Thanks, Ange!

I don't think the idea is necessarily a reduction in calories, although that may happen. I think the main idea is to "reset" metabolism to burn fat during the fasting periods. And also, to make sure that when you eat a meal, you eat a decent amount of food to feel full and satisfied. It's just not helpful to go through life feeling hungry all the time. I can attest to this!

I know what you mean, JayEll. I have fallen into an unhealthy "eat all day" pattern. One week I tried to break it by fasting until noon, then eating until 8 pm. That worked a couple of days until I had to change my normal schedule. Then I got frustrated by the whole thing. It will take more planning than I feel I can give it right now. For example, tomorrow it will be a grab and run breakfast with no time to prepare anything for either breakfast or lunch. I won't get home until mid-afternoon and I'm afraid hunger will get the better of me. Sometimes I prepare food to take with me, but tonight I'm too tired and still have to make a salad for dinner. I wish I had a personal chef and didn't have to deal with food prep!

I eat 3 meals a day and 2 snacks plus a "dessert" in the evening at around 8 p.m. Breakfast and lunch are generally the lighter meals and dinner is the bigger one - more food prep time. My schedule Mon. - Fri. allows me to eat and snack at the same times every day so that makes it easier.

I only really feel "hungry" at around 4 p.m. It's usually not real hunger either but the caffeine crash from the rest of the day. I had to experiment a lot to find a snack that worked at that time to reduce the crash and prevent me eating non-stop until bedtime.

I find a regular food schedule works best for me. I've tried fasting but I end up non-stop eating after the fasting window closes.

Dagmar

yeah, i'm lucky in that i work from home most of the time, and i don't eat evening meals with hubby during the week either - this means i'm free to eat when i want, so when i did my big diet push in 2018 i got in the habit of allowing myself to eat whenever i was hungry - but i had to be sure i was hungry, not just bored etc - and then i ate a proper meal. So i had brekkie at 8ish, then i was hungry by 11.30 and ate, then i was hungry again by about 4pm and then i'd used up all my calories. So i'm similar still now, except that i'm eating bigger meals so i can go an extra hour between them quite comfortably.

JayEll - i get what you're saying about the metabolism thing, but is it true? Other stuff you read says you keep your metabolism up by snacking regularly! I'm not saying i don't believe it but i am saying that you can always find someone else's study that gives the opposite results!! IMO the only universally agreed dieting knowledge out there is that a calorie deficit is needed to lose weight, so i tend to be quite sceptical of every diet option that claims their method doesn't operate by this mechanism, and most effective techniques are just different ways of achieving that aim. I'm a big believer in doing whatever you want that suits the individual though, and that you're your own experiment

i'm back in my target weight box today - 52.8kg (116lb) - hurray!!!
Will aim to keep going for a couple of weeks (til end Feb) before maintenance-proper, but feeling relieved to be back.

So it took me around 5 weeks slacking off to put on 5lb during all December and 1st week Jan, and now it's taken me 5 weeks to get it off again.
That's about as fast as i can comfortably go, but pretty excited to be here

Ange

Dagmar

Good for you, Ange! Back in the box!

Howlin, yes, scheduling could be a problem sometimes. I'm thinking I'll just eat "brunch" and then dinner--this would leave me enough time flexibility to fit in with others. I haven't eaten "breakfast first thing" at home in a long time.

Dagmar, that was the pattern I used to lose weight, pretty much. You've been maintaining your weight for a long time now, so it clearly works for you.

I've been maintaining my weight, too; but it's way too high. I need to burn off this fat...

And I'm remembering a 10-day meditation retreat I went on last summer, where meals were provided three times a day and there was no snacking in between. I ate lots when the mealtimes came around. When I got home after that retreat, I found that I had lost 8 pounds. Hmmmm. Those 8 pounds slowly came back once I was home again and went back to eating in my "regular" way.

Ange, yes, I know there are all kinds of opinions about frequent small meals versus larger spaced-out meals. I agree about the calorie deficit! I just need a different approach...

I found that automating meals and snacks made it much easier for me to maintain my weight. All that weighing and choosing and looking up calories was taking up a lot of time and then I would overeat out of resentment at having to spend so much time prepping the food. We get food "boxes" delivered twice a month too and that again automates the process. I get 4 meals (2 servings each meal) in the box, with everything pretty much prepped, portioned, and even condiments and spices are included. There's a step by step recipe which also lists the utensils needed. I order "easy prep" so the meal goes from box to table in about 20 minutes.

I also found that taking away the idea of "food as reward" and eliminating alcohol also helped a lot. It took me a long long time to get my head around those two.

And finally I do eat things that are off plan and then go right back on plan. We are having chocolate mousse cake tonite to celebrate Valentine's and DH's birthday. But, instead of eating way too much cake and then feeling sick, I am going to cut the cake in half, freeze half for my birthday celebration, and go back on plan tomorrow.

Dagmar

Only had one piece of cake - very rich - and got the rest wrapped and into the freezer before DH could protest.

Dagmar :

Good work on the cake, Dagmar. And it's nice to have food in the freezer.

I have friends who use a meal service, and they like it. It seems to me like it would be expensive, though. Have you compared the cost of the service with regular grocery shopping?

I've been used to eating smaller meals at mealtimes, particularly at lunch. Of course this gets offset by snacking! So once the snacking is eliminated, I need bigger meals to feel fed (and because Intermittent Fasting requires full meals). I've added extra vegetables and more protein to meals so that I both get more nutrients and feel fuller.

The idea of IF, as I understand it, is that after 12 hours of fasting, glycogen stores (in muscles and the liver) have been used up, and so the body must turn to fat burning to maintain blood glucose. That's why 16 hours is considered a good length of time for the fast.

In contrast, the "full meals" during the eating window shut down ghrelin production. Ghrelin is a hormone that increases appetite. When eating small meals and snacks throughout the day, ghrelin doesn't get reduced very much, and so the hungry feeling persists or comes back quickly. I expect many of you already know how it's supposed to work.

Bottom line: fat burning turned on, then ghrelin production shut down.

One is not "trying" to lose weight, but for many people, burning fat leads to weight loss--or if not, at least to better body composition.