This blog used to have a lot of dieting posts on it and then I lost 100 pounds, got depressed and gained back 130 pounds. I'm in the process of getting back in shape again. But at the age of 45, it's much tougher than it was when I was in my 30s.
The January Change
Recently, I changed my eating habits. January 3rd, I went from being bad about eating to eating 150 carbs per day, 3 meals, and fasting for 16 hours. So I'd eat breakfast at 11am, then lunch at 2pm, and finally dinner at 6 pm. For those of you who already know the intermittent fasting concept, you'll notice that I actually did 17 hours of fasting because eating is when you start eating, not when you finish. So that's a 7 hour window of eating and 17 hours of fasting. For more info on intermittent fasting, see this video:
As for the food I eat, I eat 4 scrambled eggs for breakfast (practically no carbs), 2 sandwiches and a side for lunch (around 60-70 carbs), and whatever we have for dinner, but limited to 60-70 grams of carbs.
For fluids, I drink 64oz of green tea sweetened with 1/8th teaspoon of Stevia powder.
The February Change
But all of that changes again on Monday. Not a tremendous difference, but enough to cause real change. See, I've hit a plateau with my weight. I'm stuck at 347-349lbs. I was 362 when I started on January 3rd, so I've lost some weight. I also do some small weight lifting (working into larger weights) and have gained muscle, but I want to burn this fat off. So here are the changes I will start on Monday:
- I'm combining breakfast and lunch. I'll be having the scrambled eggs as sandwiches with a banana on the side. Eggs are nature's perfect food, basically. And I need a bit more potassium in my diet for many reasons.
- I'm adding a tablespoon of nutritional yeast to my scrambled eggs. They are VERY high in the different vitamin Bs and are easier for your system to absorb than a pill. The vitamin Bs are very important for metabolism and quite a few other things and I don't get nearly enough.
- I'll be eating at 1pm for breakfast and 6pm for dinner. So that takes me to 19 hours of fasting and a 5 hour window. See the above video for why.
- I'm adding 2 tablespoons of apple cidar vinegar to my green tea. Apple cidar vinegar is great for many things. It helps clean up bad proteins, clears up issues caused by a high alkaline body, etc. I've used it in the past to combat tooth infections and it worked amazingly. So I figured it's about time to put it back in my diet.
- I am also going to work towards waking up a bit earlier and getting some exercise in during the later hours of the fast versus after eating like I've been doing. It's always better to exercise in the morning, and currently I wake up about 15 minutes before work, since I work from home. I need to break that habit.
Conclusion
Those are the main changes. I'm hoping this helps me with the plateau I'm on. Once I'm used to it, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to make another change and move my eating time to 2pm, which will put me at 20 hours of fasting and 4 hours for an eating window. That should be the optimum to get the weight off. We shall see how it goes and find out if the intermittent fasting concept really works. It has so far as I've dropped from a fasting blood sugar of around 300 to around a 110 and have managed to stop taking insulin and I've lost 15 pounds in about a month.
If you'd like to keep up with how I'm doing, I post my weight and blood sugar levels on Twitter on a regular basis.
Hopefully this post has given you some ideas if you're struggling with blood sugar and weight issues like I am, but before you make any major changes like this, please consult your doctor. I have let mine know everything I'm doing every step of the way and we're keeping an eye on my blood work.
