waiting for the whoosh - badgergirl's journal page 25

[badgergirl]

B: coffee with milk
L: sardines and salad of cucumber, tomato, capsicum, olive oil
D: roast chicken and whatever veg the husband supplies ETA: beetroot with ham, broc, capsicum. Plenty of chicken skin as fitday (yes, the nemisis) had me under powered for the day

Exercise - more walking than usual - about two hours.

I keep humming that Simon and Garfunkle classic 'hello ketosis my old friend' to myself as encouragement, that and imagining that I'm being powered by butt fat. The body changes as the lard crept back have been instructive: inner thighs, butt, stomach, breasts, upper arms, thighs again, butt again, face, thighs again, butt again. I managed an IF (coffee doesn't count, right?) of 19 hours just to get this butt-fat-burning party started. One day I shall master fasting, but not this day. Also, January and February will be dry months. That feels like a healthy decision to me right now - wine consumption has been increasing at a rate that has made me uneasy (literally, I get depression hangovers that are far, far nastier than the physical ones - I was awake at 2am on 1 January thinking longingly of hanging myself - not good).

I look heavier, softer, but not fat. I feel revolting though. Skirts fit. Trousers do not.

The quilt of dreams is turning into a nightmare once again - the machine quilting is a real challenge to me (machines are not my friends and my model is very basic and unhelpful). Once that is finally out of the way, I'm thinking I'll expend my creative energy on something a little different. Watch this space.

[badgergirl]

B: coffee with milk
L: tuna, 1/2 avo, salad of cucumber, tomato, capsicum dressed with lime juice
D: some sort of chicken I assume - will add later once husband obliges. Husband has been incapacitated all day with a mystery pain in his middle - perhaps appendicitis says the doctor; perhaps too much splashing in the pool yesterday, say I. Chicken, sour cream, lime juice and curry powder (quick and dirty paleo coronation chicken?); half avo; mixed salad of spinach, cucmber, roasted beet and broc.

Exercise - I fully intend on reaching the two-hour mark today, with a dog walk tonight as I am not on small boy duty. ETA: except it is boiling hot out there, so no extra walk. Tomorrow is forecast to be 41. Oh. Good.

Today's inspiration is sung by the Prodigy...
Yo' I used to check out lyrics upon the Format
Build with Skill with Technique-computer A~DAT
My Lyrical Form is clouds on your Brainstorm
I get hyped, Think, Thought flow
Acrobat, Sync the track, Pump the track
Dance missions, clubs like spores react by
Strobe visions, and hurrying more
Reflects on the dancefloor
Blowin' Up
And having mad people
Showin' Up
Packing Crowds, Jam Packed Venues
Needles Collapse, While Atmospheres Continues
Sprinkle that, Winnin' like that
Movin' like that, Hittin' like that
The melody is skinny not Phat!
Yeah, I'm on the Energy Source
The Cosmic Boss with Prodigy
Different astrology
My intellect's Devour
"With BUTT FAT Power"

[CHORUS]
Blows your lard Drastically, Fantastically!
Blows your lard Drastically, Fantastically!
Blows your lard Drastically, Fantastically!
Blows your lard Drastically, Fanta...

Win, Spin back rewind-butt fat Power
Blows your lard Drastically, Fantastically
It has to be, Automatically
To check it out, You'd better work out,
Change to another route
My techniques, Strategies, Abilities
I leave cords of mikes hanging like spring leads
Do a track so fast, beyond the human eye
Lyrical Tactics, Vocal Gymnastics
E's and Pepped Up, You get Scrapped Up
Smacked Up, Backed Up
Your crew's all Cracked Up
Checking flow, Pick choose Quick, You can't Stick
My medical Range is Strange as angles
You get tangled, Twisting side infections
Channels Repeat, Complete, Can't Compete
Check that our Texture, Mind Adventure
Exploit the Point, It attracts, To Devour
My intellect's proceed..."With butt fat Power"

[CHORUS]

Back Attack and Whack Patch
You're faxing me, you don't want none
High quality acts should be
Still standing, Damaging your other manic
Quick Reverse, Potent as the First Verse
My Amplifier blows on your World's Higher
World's Sire, Cuts like a Barbed Wire
Record player, I pull up on you every day
Fast Forward, I move and I Swing Toward
Exit Load, Put your brain in Right Mode
Selected Mix, The man with Perfected Fits
Has Lightly, Bite Me
Copy Xerox, Cops, Handblocks
You can't knock some out of there
Upbeat Liftin' Shiftin' Persistin' Intelligent Kingpin
Keepin' Astrology, As I roll with Prodigy
"With butt-fat Power"

[badgergirl]

B: Greek yoghurt, coffee
L: chicken salad leftovers from last night's dinner (smallish)
D: cold meats (turkey, smoked salmon), sour cream, 1/2 avo, salad - no cooking owing to roasting temps outside (seriously, even the Aussies are wilting); two Greek-style frappes

I guess I am going the moar fat route. Fitday puts me in the low to mid 60s in terms of macros; my daily calories are well under 1500. I expect whooshing to commence shortly, if it hasn't already. Probably over optimistic, but I'm hoping to undo three months of bingeing in two months. Fucking bacon man. I still miss him.

This is interesting (to me, at least): breakfast makes no difference to my hunger cues. If husband makes coffee in the morning (and I have no need to go into the kitchen before I drink it) skipping breakfast is not in the least bit difficult; indeed, I am then less hungry in the run up to lunch. However, if I make coffee (a multi-stage process involving heating milk and getting the espresso machine going - goddamn, I miss my Bialetti moka pot) in the minutes this takes I require feeding.

Tomorrow is the weekend - my downfall. And on Saturday we are hosting three small boys for our small boy's fifth birthday party (one of two such events - blame the husband - there's an open-air event a week on Sunday). Sugar, sugar everywhere...

Exercise - walked for 50 minutes this morning before the heat of the day (41C and the wind is brutal - strips the moisture from your skin) kicked in. Actually, no. Husband is in charge of small-boy's party this year, but it became evident on my return home that eff-ay has been done in prep - including not buying key ingredients for Ninjago-themed cake. So. In >40C heat I walked to the supermarket and back and did the needful. I make that at least 1.5 hours for the day. The heat is ghastly...

All said though, I think I'm firmly back in the saddle - no boozing, no pnut butter, no sugar, no bingeing or going off piste. All of which is good because I have an appointment with the sadistic mental wellbeing nurse on Monday.

[badgergirl]

Well. That was quite a day.
B: chicken with curried mayo, few nibbles of cucumber and capsicum (found in the fridge while making space for small-boy birthday foodstuffs)
L: mini hamburgers and sausages - 3 or 4 of each, few mouthfuls of salsa, cucumber slices with sour cream and smoked salmon; strawberries and apple slices; mouthful of chocolate cake
D: few teaspoons of dips (I'd cut them with sour cream does that make them moar primal?), two mini burgers, three mini sausages, lots of cucumber slices with smoked salmon and sour cream - 10 maybe.

I am very full.

The list of things I didn't eat is equally long, if not longer: three different kinds of pizza; cake; chocolate ganache; smarties and nerds (just realised the unintentional humour of husband's choice of sweets); mini cinnamon doughnuts; tortilla chips...

[badgergirl]

I'm fighting the machine to create a nice result - quilting, that is, although the same could be said for life in general, I suppose. There have been tears and tantrums, but - fingers crossed - I'm beginning to make tentative progress. Typical weekend gorging, though, on the food front:
B/L - they sort of merged over a few hours: mini sausages (five? six?), mini burgers (three?) and half an avo, coffee, glass of diluted juice (there goes ketosis)
D - spinach and pine nut dip, onion and sour cream dip, evaporated milk (comfort food - a taste of being a little girl)

I think I've proved I can binge on fat

[badgergirl]

B: coffee/IF
L: IF
D: cold meats and salad

Tonight's appointment with the infamous and hated mental wellbeing nurse will be in a fasted state. Do you think I'll get the mental clarity I require? Do you think I'll come home via the bottle shop and stuffing my face with chocolate?

No trains this week - thanks Victorian public transport! - so a longer commute on buses with a longer walk too. Exercise: 90 minutes brisk walk.

Home now. This is priceless... My appointment was cancelled at their end while I was already on the bus coming home. The weight of anxiety lifted from my shoulders. I felt instantly happier and euphoric. Perhaps this is the mental wellbeing she dispenses?

Okay. My tiny mind is officially blown. Skipping both breakfast and lunch makes no difference to my hunger cues. I am no more hungry now - waiting for dinner - than I would be if I *had* eaten those two meals. At this point I am willing to concede that my appetite is in no way related to hunger. Appetite (used here to mean the desire to eat) is entirely separate from hunger. Now, I am hungry, but I am not compelled to eat. Indeed, it is actually easier to ignore hunger than it is to ignore appetite.

So.

Given my well-recognised and recorded weekend appetite to eat and gorge, what would happen if I skipped breakfast and lunch during the week? Would the energy deficit give me some weekend leeway or am I just setting up another way of purging to justify the bingeing?

It's a puzzler.

[badgergirl]

B: coffee made with semi-skimmed milk and two teaspoons of liquid (it's still hot here) coconut oil
L: IF
D: turkey, smoked salmon, raw beet and carrot salad, cherry toms, chorzio, lettuce, waldof salad (celery, apple, walnuts and mayo), 14 olives

I'm at work, it's 7.30am as I type, and I am hungry. Dinner feels a long way away! Yesterday skipping meals went fairly well, but I'm not so sure that today will be as easy. Butt fat power has yet to kick in perhaps - I walked a little extra to already put me at 50 minutes for the day. Anyway, a little hunger is no bad thing. I'll see how the day pans out.

Hunger pang update: breakfast hunger passed at around 9am and now, at 12.30pm, I have my usual 'let's eat lunch!' feeling, but it's no more intense than usual and, I guess, it will fade away by around 1-2pmish. You'd think the body would increase its eat cues after a skipped meal, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

Last night I only got gnaw-my-arm-off hungry when I knew dinner was being plated up. I'll be home in five hours and should be able to eat immediately, but that's still two days of 24-hour (just) fasts broken with a normal dinner. Is this regime in any way livable? I'm not sure. I like eating and I prefer not to have hunger pangs. I will assess on Monday of next week to see where I am whoosh wise.

Also, we'll see what the weekend holds in terms of stuffing my face - I'm still suspicious that this famine/feast cycle is playing into ED hands.

Hunger update: as predicted, at 2pm I'm back to zero hunger - as if I'd eaten lunch at midday. I went for a quick lap of the park at lunch time and feel fine. I walked for another 40 minutes as part of my commute home and, again, felt 'normal' - not ravenous, not faint - as I walked through the door (and immediately sat down to dinner with man and small boy).

I also wonder, on a positive note, if - since these eat cues are learned rather than 'true hunger' - whether I can retrain myself. Is it worth it? What does one gain (apart from calorie restriction/a smug feeling)? I do enjoy eating...

Final hunger update: I ate a nice dinner (about 650 calories, according to Fitday) and feel neither hungry or stuffed, just...an absence of any stomach-related sensation. I think I will do this again tomorrow and Thursday. Face looks thinner - it's a tiny change, but I can see it.

[badgergirl]

Another day, another fast. I seem to have lost - bloat, fat? - some girth overnight, which was a nice surprise this morning.
B: coffee made w/semi-skimmed milk, aiming to have a little bit of butter later just to up the fat a smidge
L: IF
D: plans are afoot for a cauli-stilton soup and I'm not sure what else, if anything ETA: ham, turkey and a nibble of brie.

Fitday makes the day just over 900 calories.

Hunger levels have been minimal this morning. Is this the beginning of retraining my hunger cues?

I'll manage about an hour and 45 minutes of walking today.

It's much colder (20C) than it has been and I feel the need for tea.

It's also the small boy's fifth birthday. Not-so-small boy from now on, I suppose. Given the time difference, I was just entering labour around now five years ago. Talk about a life-changing event.

[badgergirl]

Wow. This fasting business certainly cuts down on the groceries. I have a few things in the fridge that need eating up, but I have yet to have a meal opportunity to use them.
B: coffee made with milk and 2tsp of coconut oil (a solid again now, thank goodness)
L: IF
D: small bowl of cauli and stilton soup; Spanish omelette (no potatoes)

Hunger levels continue to reduce. I've yet to feel much of a difference in my clothes - it is after all early days and it took a solid three months of overeating to get here. Also, it took a few weeks before the fat started to form so perhaps it is simply a case of waiting for the tanker to turn around in each direction.

Two hours of walking today.

[badgergirl]

Okay. So, as of today, I've spent four days with the one meal-a-day crowd. In bullet points, here's what I think I've learned:

• Hunger is not a dimmer switch. It's either on or off, but it does not increase in intensity for each subsequent on period.
• Hunger passes once the usual mealtime has passed - for me that's about two hours.
• Hunger - within that two-hour slot - does not increase in intensity.
• Black tea helps (for me that is a weakly brewed Earl Grey or Ceylon with ginger).
• Each day a mealtime hunger pang is ignored that pang reduces in intensity and length the following day.
• When breaking a fast (and mine have each been 24 hours - dinner gets later each day by about 15 minutes) it is important to eat slowly and varied things to allow the stomach time to register that, yes, food is here. I struggle with eating too quickly at the best of times, but I have to REALLY fight the urge to gobble after I know I have skipped two meals - this is more a thinking issue than a hunger issue as I have not felt and hungrier than I usually do.
• Skipping meals is a no-brainer way to reduce calories (well, clearly).
• I really can do this with relative ease as long as I do not have access to food.
• Fasting has highlighted what I already knew - I rarely eat because I'm hungry. I usually eat because I'm bored/love eating/trying to ignore something else I should be doing/don't want to feel a difficult emotion.
• Eating when hungry is no more pleasurable to me than eating for any of the above reasons; this is something of a disappointment.
• Fasting is more of a willpower game with one's own thoughts and doubts than a hunger trial.
• However, the psychological cost of skipping meals is somewhat tiring - using willpower is rather draining.
• While for many people one meal a day is viable, it is not a lifestyle that makes me happy - it's a short-term hack at most.