One Diet a Month - The Book Proposal

It had to happen, I'm writing a book about it.

People keep asking me when I am going to do this, and I have embarked on a separate writing project already by writing a minimum of 1,000 words a day for a year to kick start that pesky writing habit that I never did much with.(www.constantwriting.blogspot.com)

So after yet another reminder that I should get around to this from Gary's editor friend (who coincidentally very politely rejected a novel I wrote over twenty years ago, no hard feelings I swear) who when told of my plan said 'that will be easy to sell!' (or something of that ilk) which is pretty encouraging, so here I am getting around to it.

Because I am writing daily in the fictional arena (at least for now) I'll do this as a separate exercise and follow the commercial model of creating an outline and then creating some sample chapters and then sending it off to see if there is any interest in it. As I have plenty of material in my blog and a year of comments and mentions on Facebook etc... it will be easy enough to reconstruct my year of diets in a single slim volume (with pictures and some fave recipes for added flavour).

Fingers crossed.



Here's a first draft of an introduction.

 Introduction: How did it all come about?

Back in March 2012 I was at least 126 Kilograms as the last time I had checked was back in 2010 and the 126 showing on the scales in my parents house gave me quite a fright. How did I get that heavy? And I certainly was a fairly heavy, unhealthy person like many people become without noticing how.

I accepted that I was big, probably 'technically' obese but I never really thought of myself that way. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror or in a photo and think 'I can probably afford to lose some weight' or something less flattering to my self image if I was feeling down or depressed.

But did I class myself as 'fat' in my head? No, not really – I did what I suspect most people did and just did not think that much about it. Certainly my doctor had advised me to lose some weight and every now and then if I annoyed my wife enough she'd make a comment about wanting me to be alive when our kids grew up, which was pointed and true but never sunk in. Denial is a powerful tool when left alone, which is basically how it works anyway right?

In February my sister in law got married and I was at home alone that morning and catching up with the wedding party later that day. I grabbed the shirt and pants that I was supposed to wear and found to my horror that the nice dress shirt I had bought the previous year was quite tight. Because I wear casual clothes to work (the advantages of being an IT cliché) I had no fall back position. I put it on and took a bus into the city, stopping off at work for a little while to get some things done before heading down to the Hilton where the wedding was being held.

I knew that the shirt I was wearing was too small, it felt tight and had been cutting into me for the bus ride in to town, and sitting at my desk I could feel it grabbing at me and thinking about spending the next ten or more hours in the shirt was too much to bear. That shirt that did not fit, the largest one I had was a XXL and had been a little loose when I had bought it in 2011 and here I was in February 2012 an hour before I needed to be at the ceremony standing with my wife who looked fabulous in her Maid of Honour's dress, while I was feeling like a sausage bursting on a BBQ in summer. I went out and bought a bigger shirt from a shop in K Road, who kindly ironed out the creases for me, sold me some cuff-links and sent me on my way immensely comfortable again.

This could have been my wake up call to lose weight. This SHOULD have been a wake up call to lose some weight. It was not.

I just carried on as normal and it made no difference except now I had a funny story about being so fat I had to buy a shirt an hour before the wedding I was going to. You can laugh at yourself, and we all know you should not take yourself too seriously and we just carry on with things the way they have always been. The only difference was that I now had a nice dress shirt I could wear and be comfortable in.

In March 2012 I was reading an article in the NZ Herald about a new book all about Sugar and how it was the bane of modern life. The author sounded a little unhinged and like an anti sugar zealot preaching the evils of Sugar. I instantly dismissed the idea as the raving of an over enthusiastic person selling a book based on fear and over emphasis on one 'silver bullet' solution which I have always been suspicious of. Despite this the article stayed with me for a a few days not because I thought it was true but the idea that it was almost impossible to cut sugar out of a modern diet, because it was so pervasive.

I thought about this for a day or two and got the idea in my head to see how hard it was to cut sugar out, was it that hard to do? I had no real idea about diet, the plan that would form after that first month and I had no intention of losing weight. I assumed that I may lose a couple of kilos and that could be ok, but then and there it was a bonus effect. I was satisfying my curiosity, proving the claim true or false that sugar was really that pervasive.

So I made myself a mental challenge, and told a bunch of people I was doing it and why, it was an interesting thing and it got me thinking about additives and how much we don't know about what we are eating.

While it was a 'diet' by definition, I did not do it to lose weight, not at first. Then the coolest thing happened, spoiler alert if you've not figured this out from the cover, but I lost weight and quite a lot. I had to buy some scales because I had none, I had not weighed myself in two years and the last time I did I didn't like the number I saw. I had lost nine kilos by the end of thirty days.

Nine kilos just by cutting sugar completely. Lisa, a woman I worked with told me she read about this diet that the comedian Jimmy Carr was on where he stopped eating at 6 pm and had no caloric intake after that, and that I should try that next.

From this initial curiosity, the grain of an idea of changing up the diets, my willingness to blog about the results I came to the conclusion that I would do one year of dieting in 12 one month diets.

The rules were simple, I started on the 10^th day of each month and commenced a new diet until the 9^th of the following one. The diet had to be simple, a simple rule in one sentence or a few words. If it were complex I knew I would not do it. I was pretty sure I could make it through 12 types of simply expressed diets in twelve months and post once a week on my blog.

The weight fell off initially because I was doing something, anything to improve the way I related to food. I added exercise somewhere around the halfway mark of the year and by the end of it all I had done thirteen separate diets in that year. I had lost forty five kilos in weight alone, I had changed my wardrobe twice and even ended up on Television in Australia's Channel 9 talking about my plan.

I'd like to claim credit for being a dieting genius and having a goal and sticking to it, weight and health wise. In reality this was a lucky confluence of events that changed my life for the better and in ways that still surprise me have inspired others to make similar changes or take on some of the many, many lessons I have learned.

I blogged about my progress every week for the 52 weeks, and daily in the last few weeks when I was heading to the finish line and creeping up the to the magical mythical number of my BMI. A number if you had asked me at any point of my life after turning twenty until just before I got to the end of my year of diets, I would have said was impossible.

In the end it was not impossible, it was not even improbable.

It was doable.

Favourite Diet Foods: Rocket and Bulghur Wheat Salad w/Pear, Dates and Feta

So technically this is a salad I started eating AFTER my diet ended, but as it did my food habits have gotten a lot better anyway, and this is one of my faves currently.

Meanwhile weight is maintaining in the 86/87 range and I have been at this for about 2 months now (comes and goes from 85 to 88 at times but not much outside of that) and other than the two fasting days per week I eat what I want, it's just that what I want these days excludes most junk food, fast food and red meat is on occasion, and I would estimate vegetarian is over 50% of my week most weeks.

Ingredients

1C cooked bulghur wheat

1 packed cup rocket

1/2 C pitted dates chopped

2 Tbsp feta

1/2 pear cored and thinly sliced

2 Tbsp sliced almonds toasted

Dressing 

3 Tbsp EVO

2 Tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 Tbsp maple syrup

salt to taste

Assembly

Mix dressing together in large bowl.

Add bulghur wheat and dates to dressing, toss.

Fold in feta and pear.

Plate onto rocket.

Sprinkle almonds over the top.

Note:  Substitute feta for goats cheese. Use couscous or quinoa instead of bulghur wheat,  walnuts instead of almonds.

Favourite Diet Foods: Asian Salad w/Spicy Peanut Dressing (caution, may contain nuts...)

A few weeks back I decided to add some recipes of my favourite diet food, and promptly did no such thing.

I have been concentrating on my writing blog and cracking through on the one thousand plus words a day goal but that then takes up all my attention and by the time I finish writing I am no longer interested in finding, writing and posting the recipe.

So now I have posted on this blog first and will go and bake my Monday Cake and THEN head to my 1,000 words (which is closer to 2,000 these days).

So here it is, spicy peanut dressed salad. Definitely not boring.

asian salad with spicy peanut dressing

Ingredients: Salad

red cabbage shredded

carrots (use peeler to slice into ribbons)

cucumber (cut in half, remove seeds and    use peeler to create ribbons)

capsicum (red or yellow) finely sliced

mung bean sprouts

coriander (chopped)

spring onion (finely chopped)

peanuts

Ingredients: Dressing 

4 Tbsp smooth peanut butter

2 Tbsp lime juice

3 Tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp honey

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp finely chopped chilli

water for texture

Directions

Combine cabbage, carrot and cucumber ribbons and sliced capsicum. Add coriander and spring onion.

Mix together the dressing, adjust to taste. 

Add to salad and toss.

Top with mung beans sprouts and peanuts when plating.

Goes great with grilled fish. 

If mangos are in season. Peel and slice a cheek into strips, add to salad, it offsets the chilli with a bit of sweetness.

Favourite Diet Foods: Celery and Apple Salad w/Walnuts

Celery and Apple Salad w/Walnuts

At various stages through my dieting adventure people would ask me how hard and how painful it was dieting, as if the only food I could eat was plain, tasteless and more effort to eat.

Far from eating bland and tasteless food I actually rediscovered my taste-buds and change the way I looked at certain types of food, particularly the fresh variety.

Salads became less of a thing to dodge, to a filler with healthier meals, to a main course in it's own right. By the time I had made it to the Raw Food Diet month I had a number of salads I had eaten with frequency from my Vegan and Vegetarian phases, and had taken up a notch by transiting to totally Raw.

A few people have since been asking advice on what to eat when on certain diets and what my favourite recipes are, so with some help from my chief cook, designer and photographer here's one of my favourites.

celery and apple salad with walnuts

Ingredients

1 Cup celery finely chopped

1 granny smith apple chopped

spring onion finely chopped

1/2 Cup walnuts toasted

cos or iceberg lettuce to serve

Dressing 

3 Tbsp low fat mayonnaise 

3 Tbsp light caesar or ranch dressing

1 tsp honey

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Combine dressing ingredients. 

Add to chopped celery, apple and spring onion, toss. 

Plate onto shredded or whole cos/iceberg lettuce leaves.

Top with toasted walnuts. 

(Obviously if you're going raw, don't toast your walnuts, go with raw) 

(Also can be bulked up with added diced leftover chicken, or small cubes of cheddar)

Unexpected Side Effects of Weight Loss

May 2011 to May 2013

83 Kilos again, back on track.

In a few days it will be one month on from my year of dieting and my transition from one diet a month experimentation to ongoing sensible diet and maintenance. Not quite as snappy as one-diet-a-month is it?

Much less punchy and quirky and much harder to explain.

One of my good friends at work found a photo of me from May 2011 a year before I started this project April last year. A number of people were struck by the change in me, and because the change happened gradually over the course of 12 months it was not easy to recognise the man I was. I surely don't.

So I happened to be wearing a red shirt by sheer coincidence and got another good friend to take a new picture of me on the opposing wall and a few magic photoshop minutes later and voila! Before and after shots are immensely gratifying.

Which brings me to unexpected side effects of dieting, the things which I never thought about but all of a sudden either happened or changed.

1. I lost weight in my feet. Surprisingly not long after I noted that I need to downsize my belt and my pants, I found that my shoes (I usually went for wide fit) were loose and my socks were loose too. I was still wearing the same size shoes and socks, but they had stretched around my feet and now I fit shoes which I had found too narrow before.
2. General weariness has lessened and I feel healthier and better all around. When I had a bit of a binge after the end of my diet I actually could feel (psychosomatically perhaps, but there none the less) the food having an ill effect on me. Like that scene in Super Size Me where the consumption is making Spurlock feel ill.
3.  Taste changes. I still like sweet things and still like some junk food, but now I find that I have trouble stomaching much of it. I find it hard to overeat even when I really like something. Likewise in certain salads and vegetables, I had no time for before I now really enjoy. Food actually tastes better, must be all the processed crap clogging up the buds. I have no scientific basis for this, but hey works for me. 
4. Warding off sickness faster. In the time BCE (Before Consumption Ended) I would catch a cold and be sick for 1-2 weeks and rely on anti-biotics and inhalers, generally being miserable. In the time AD (After Diet) I have had two serious colds, each of which last about 2 days and I took no drugs, saw no doctors and needed nothing but a bit of sleep. Immunity boost FTW!
5. I don't recognise myself. As above when I see old photos of myself I look like another person. When I see myself reflected in a shop window or similar, I don't recognise that person either. So my self image is POV, but not when I see myself relfected, in pictures or on video.

Continuing the diet is not as punishing or as hard as I thought it would be without the short term end point to leverage off. Instead it is more a matter of when I see weight creeping back up it worries me and I take action. A few weeks ago I put on 6 or 7 kilos and hit 88 in short order after ending my year.

By following my plan and sticking to it in general terms, the new Uber Diet is working pretty well and I am 83.3 Kilos again, which is a nice weight to be at.

3 weeks later - settling into a better rhythm

Back down to 84 kilos, my new goal is to stay as much as possible in the lower 80's - where I feel best and healthiest without resorting to excess ugly foods rich in sugar and fats.

That means a lifestyle change of sorts. Without resorting to a short term diet plan, or punishing myself with a long term (the idea of dieting with no end is depressing) diet, I have settled on the idea of a new lifestyle, one that serves the basic concepts of what I have learned about food and myself in the last year and makes a regular regimented schedule that is easy to maintain and allows me to enjoy food without guilt or excess.

The idea is, for the evening meals:

Red Meat - once a week.
Chicken - once a week
Fish - twice a week
Vegetarian - three times a week.

Some of the Recent Dishes for Lite Dinner

Evening meals should be low or no carb, leftovers (particularly carb ones) will be lunch the next day. So for example we had fresh Terakihi Fillets tonight with chips and a salad on the side. The kids ate fish and chips, I ate fish and salad, but will take leftover fillets and the chips to have for lunch tomorrow.

The plan also includes Intermittent Fasting which is a very good way to feel virtuous and in control of any days where I snack or eat a heavy meal, which I will undoubtedly do. On Tuesday and Thursdays I'll stick to the IF plan and basically have a fruit lunch (filling but lo cal) and then have a lite salad and/or grilled fish option for dinner.

Weekends are always going to be the hardest as during the work week it is easy to stick to a sensible plan and be far too busy to be snacking anyway. Fasting is incredibly simple when you are busy, but when you are home it's easy to lose focus and pick away at whatever is around, especially when the kids are grazing animals interested in a constant stream of small amounts of food and resisting meals wherever possible, as a strategy I know that will not work for me.

So there's the plan, weekends will be the upper end of my weekly bell curve, it will dip on the tues/thurs fasting combo and by having a porportional idea of what kind of food we will be eating, it will become second nature.

Now to see how well I can stick to this. It's more open ended and that's something I struggle with as a concept, but I just started getting new clothes and they fit me now, so I need to stay in this range to stick to my goal of never buying a 'size up' again.

15 Days Later - Reality Vs Normality

2 weeks afterwards, the reality of returning to normality has hit home.

While I would like to think that my habits had changed, it was shockingly easy to allow myself to eat terribly and start to undo the work I had done. And in a surprising amount of time. In less than two weeks I had put back on approximately 6-7 kilos.

Chocolate and sugary foods were the worst culprits. Because I had so little in the last year I ALLOWED myself little splurges, (one or two pieces can't hurt too much on their own?, I can't keep it up and won't do it again!).

Apparently I am lying bastard. Now it might seem harsh, but the more I look at it the more I see that it's all on me. I chose to accept this and my choices put me on the path to eating rubbish when I simply don't need to and ultimately don't want to. No one was trying to get me back on the chuck-wagon, most people know better than to try and convince me of anything let alone direct me to do things I don't want.

At first I was okay with it, because I expected to put on some weight and I had said to myself that 85 kilos was a good weight, having been down to 81 and feeling that it was a little too thin, and even getting comments from others to that effect.

But then it kept going, and I found myself eating crap food without thought to consequence, or worse, thinking that because I had lost a tonne of weight already, I had wiggle room. My stated goal of having to never buy bigger size clothes was still the 'upper' limit of what I could do.

This simply meant I was making excuses for eating badly.

My body rebelled and punished me, it felt lethargic and weary and the aftereffects of eating crap showed up immediately. My mind though had plenty of patterns and habits to fall back on and I kept making excuses for it.

Just one more won't hurt, I'll plateau and it will stop, I'll take it more seriously tomorrow.

You would think after a year of hard (ish) work to get where I am, losing 45 kilos, disciplining myself without  fail and mostly without exception (I can count exceptions in a year on one hand ) that I would not be so fucking stupid and let that happen.

But I did, and was okay with it.

For about 2 weeks.


To me this what a drug addiction is like - just without all the scary and much more serious and immediate consequences? I don't actually know this for sure, and don't meant to belittle serious and life threatening  addictions in anyway - but this is a good metaphor for me. I have to treat myself to my own version of rehab.

So while I am not going back to the strict regimes of my Uber Diet and I am not going back to the diet roundabout of a diet a month, I am regulating my diet again. 

Maybe I have to do this for the rest of my life, it's not that hard and I still enjoy food and am far from the picture of a miserable and self hating dieter, but obviously it can be so easy to put it all back on again. Maybe that's hyperbole and I'd never put it ALL on, but why put any of it back on really?

I feel fantastically better when I eat well. I sleep better, its better for my wife and kids, it's just better full stop.

I do have to buy new clothes, but dammit I am buying them and getting ones that fit, not settling for having slightly bigger clothes that I know I can 'eat up to'

That way lies madness.

Post Year of Diet Breakdown: 365 Days, 13 Diets, 45 Kilos

After a year of dieting I would have a lot of data to display, piece by piece I'll add them to my blog for interest's sake.

Graph One: Weight At the end of each Diet.

Graph Two: Amount of Kilograms lost per Diet.

 Graph Three: Weight Loss as a Line Graph with figures

It's all over, Rover! BMI Weight Achieved!

So after the final fast day I finally get where I never thought possible.

I am now officially (technically, or whatever you want to call BMI) a healthy weight.

My BMI (Trefathen calculation) is under 25 and now at the very upper range.

Also this marks the loss of over 45 kilograms in a year marked by 13 diets, the reintroduction of exercise and a quantum shift in my eating habits and taste.

It's been a quick year in some respects, not as hard as it sounds and certainly fascinating.

Will it make a good book? No idea, but considering the response that such a change gets from people and the apparent inspiration it gives people it's worth a crack.

IF I can write it without being holier than thou, without being a dick, without being an expert, without knowing what I was doing and without being humourless.

Most importantly, without an extra 45 kilograms.
(OK it's obviously not going to be without a little self-satisfaction).

I'll work on some stats and figures for my final blog post for this project - I'll check back maybe once a month and keep myself honest on my ongoing weight - which I expect to rise, but not more than the clothes size I currently wear.

I'll wait a month before buying a new wardrobe, that way I should know what size I will settle at.

My friends should be well over this by now, but thanks to everyone who supported and encouraged - even though I rejected all such notions initially, once I was underway the ego boost was significant and bloody helpful in some doubtful times (the plateaus).

 

The New Plan - Day Sixteen

The last day - a year later.

The final day is today and I will be fasting for the day starting at a weight of 82.4 kilograms.

Yesterday I consumed less than a thousand calories, I was not fasting but I was not that hungry so I just ate what I ate which was all vegetarian and sugar free with a fruit based dinner.

Seems like this day has been coming for a long time since I started the final countdown and Uber-Diet phase and now that it's here it's a bit odd to think that it will all be over in 24 hours.

The rest of the week will be interesting to see how I adjust to life with no restrictions, I have lunch booked on Wed, Thu, Fri and dinner out on Saturday. Will I be a cheap date and eat like a bird or will I make up for it with eating everything that looks good?

Not sure I'd go that far - but the menus at Hard Luck and Molten are very enticing.

The New Plan - Day Fifteen

Two days to go, still under goal weight.

With approximately 48 hours before the year is up and I am at 82.8 kgs (slight rise from yesterday as expected with a normal eating day of over 1200 calories approx) but with a day in the office (easier not to overeat when you're busy) and a final fasting day tomorrow of less than 600 calories then I expect to finish in the lower 82's (all things being equal and provided I don't overdo it today).

Busy today - loads to catch up on after a weeks holiday from work.

Thinking about the impending writing deadline and the fear of publishing raw copy every day.

Push the boundaries and commit to it right?

Write.

The New Plan - Day Fourteen

The last few days to go.

This morning I got to my stated goal of anywhere 82.9 (or better) with a drop to 82.4 from yesterday's 83.2 (largely due to a long day painting and running about with and early fruit only dinner).

I still clocked in at 1700 calories out of the 1900 or so I need to maintain my weight.

Having been doing this multi-diet for a couple of weeks now I can see the benefit in doing the sugar-free, no carbs at night, preferably a lite and/or Raw dinner with the Intermittent Fasting restricting caloric intake 2 days a week. No snacks also helps.

Put all these together and you get a very efficient but not punishing diet plan.

I have a new regime that makes it quite hard to eat a lot of heavy food, I had a couple of home-made pies for lunch yesterday and they sat in me quite noticeably until my eventual dinner around 4:30 ish - which was some grapes (a decent bowl full) and 3 plums.

A this was Raw and fibrous and sweet and B this was as much as I could eat as I was still feeling pretty good from lunch 5 hours earlier.

Went out to a BBQ and this time the smell of cooking lamb on the BBQ was very alluring, the smell was fantastic. BUT as I don't actually like lamb it was not that tempting just smelled delicious.

3 days to go and one more fasting day.

Who knows I may even just squeak in on my BMI provided I don;t celebrate my goal weight with too much of the wrong kind of food today.

4 days until I have to start writing daily.

Not sure where to start. I will publish what I write every day on my blog, so the diet book may be an aside project - or I may just start the introduction and a few chapters so I can submit to a few publishers maybe.

Maybe.

We'll see.

The New Plan - Day Thirteen

The last few days.

Still in the low 83's and not fasting again until maybe tomorrow or the very last day Tuesday.

A process that feels slow but certainly is not considering that I have lost approximately 5 Kilos in 12 days (from a high of 88 to a low of 83) and expect to drop by at least 500 or so in the next 4.

Yesterday was a non fasting day and I ate well, exercised a little less but stayed to the basic rules of eating sugar free, no carbs after lunch, zero snacks and all within 8 hours (with a Salad dinner).

I had a steak sandwich for lunch yesterday and that comprised the largest part of my food for the day and sat in me for several hours, I had to eat dinner (a salad) by 4:30 but was still a little full and not that hungry by te time that rolled around.

According to the 8700 app I got from some Aussie health website I should be consuming around 1900 calories per day to maintain weight now and I consumed around 1700 and felt quite full especially after lunch. This bodes well for not putting a large amount of weight back on when this is all over next week.

83.2 Kgs

Going to a BBQ tonight and have to eat by 5 pm to finish within my eight hours, and of course it will be Raw so it'll be the salad, but still thats the rules.

I would not mind a wine or a beer but that amount of calories in the evening so close to the finish line would not be helpful.

Definitely going to have a drink with a dinner out next week I think.

Looking forward to eating occasionally without thought to the larger plan.

The New Plan - Day 12

The last few days to go.

83.0 - crawling towards my goal.

I did not achieve a fasting goal yesterday and instead consumed around twice what I should on a fast day - by inattention more than by intent. However I did eat more than expected but less than enough to gain weight.

I have been looking at the various figures for BMI and surprisingly even though there is a math to it - not guess work, a lot of the weight ranges vary when they should not.

So going back to the drawing board on BMI I find that there are two calculations available - which explains some of the confusion.

The original BMI which would put my target weight at 79 kilos and the Trefathen BMI (AKA New BMI) which is apparently more realistic and would put my target at 81.6 kilos.

Either way there is no real rhyme nor reason that shows causation to accept BMI in my opinion, it is a nice goal and statistically aligns with good health. As i have said before though, thats not math or science but common sense, that you can express it mathematically to a range and approximation still is not evidence that this magic number is in any way magical. (unless you equate magic with fiction - in which case it's just magical enough).

I hvae 1 more official fasting day on Tuesday and I am considering a replacement day for yesterday on Sunday. It's not necessary to do this, but there is some satisfaction in going out on my healthiest weight possible.

I feel no different or slimmer than I did say 20 kilos ago, which is interesting. People notice me getting thinner, but I have not really since last year. Gradual changes creep up on us I guess, and now that I have smaller clothes it seems less of a difference to me.

However 43 kilos, I know people who weight that much or less - and thats more than the combined weight of my children.

In 5 days time I'll start my new project of 1,000 words a day.

The New Plan - Day 11

The countdown continues, day 11 and only six left to go.

Relatively close to get to target weight or better with less than 0.5 of a kilo to go.

Today is the second to last fasting day, with my final day also being a fasting day.

All things being equal I should get to my goal this week, however the trick as always is making it through the weekend without weight gain, which is expected after ending the fasting cycle.

When I do gain weight this weekend I should return to my lower weight on the other side of the final fasting day on tuesday next week.

83.1 kgs today.

The New Plan - Day 10

The last week starts here.

So my final day is rapidly approaching and I have 2 more fasting days between here and there.

Around 0.8 kilos left to lose, it's entirely possible I could get there by Friday if I stay low-cal and low carb today and then have the 4th of 5 fasts tomorrow.

Then it's the weekend and that seems to be the biggest challenge - getting through that without the usual rebalancing that seems to happen in that period.

I had a breakfast out this morning and while it was a couple of hours ago now, I still feel quite full.

As usual with the intermittent fasting, the first day is relatively painless, the day in between easy enough. Tomorrow as always is the key.

1 week to go to what is probably not my BMI - but is my goal none the less.

43 kilos down.

After this is all over my writing blog will start. First project a book about my year of dieting, need to put the pun-making part of my brain into gear for a title.

And recipes, diet books are full of recipes.

The New Plan - Day Nine

The countdown to the end, race to the finish etc... 8 days to go.

This is the 3 of 5 fasting days in the final week (just over a week).

Not much to add today - still in the mid 84's today not gaining or losing and while not eating loads, there are still carbs to keep the loss at bay. If I regressed to totally Raw then I'm sure I would be declining still.

However with all diets this is a long game not a lose every day game and patience is a virtue.

I have lost over 40 kilos to get here and that did not happen in a steady downward daily slope. In fact in many blog entries before today I suspect I had reached the dreaded plateau only to find myself progressing again as time wears on. Often I would gain a few kilos ( which is depressing, though it should not be ) before I started losing again.

A change is as good as a rest and sometime you have to let your body adjust to the new way of doing things, it has a mind of it's own, the metabolism.

However wait it out, just over a week to go.

Eyes on the prize blah blah blah.

Not that there's a prize at the end.

The New Plan - Day Eight

Countdown to the end of dieting day eight, nine to go.

Well I seem to have stalled, plateaued or whatever you want to call it - even though am steadily exercising and eating pretty well. It happens on a regular basis come the weekend - seemingly no matter what.

However over all am still in the 84 kilo range and have between 1 and 2 kilos to get to 82 and the upper end of my BMI range (depending on who you believe) which in itself is a bit arbitrary. According to the NHS site I should be 79.9 to be "within a healthy weight" and while I could make it there it seems too much to loose that much in 9 days. I could probably do that if I tried ADF (alternate day fasting) but that seems extreme and punishing, which I would not do. There's pushing yourself and then theres being obsessive about the goal. According to another site 82.6 was the upper range of healthy and BMI. Originally when I checked a few weeks ago on an app I downloaded it also said 75 kgs to 82 kgs is healthy for a man my height and age.

I'm not convinced of the scientific nature of any of these figures. I can see that BMI is calculated mathematically and that stats support the health benefits if you are in that range, but the link to that figure is associative not causative in what I have seen so far. And frankly if you are overweight then of course your health suffers.

Anyway - obviously the plateau has a psychological effect even for a few days - hence my obsession with the detail and reasoning now.

Stay the course and commit to the small change you can make now. It's worked for me so far and I'll be happy to get to my goal stated eight days ago.

82 something here I come.

Fasting day tomorrow and again on thursday so I know at least that my plateau will disappear shortly, but this time from a lower starting point.

The New Plan - Day Seven

10 days to go on the last of my diets - the "a bit of everything that worked" ...

Yesterday only 400 calories burned and 1400 consumed, however still dropping slowly towards the BMI range.

Went out to dinner but consumed nothing as my eight hour rule meant I had to finish eating before 6:30 rolled around.

Not too hard to do despite the fantastic smell of meat cooking on the BBQ - as with a Raw dinner I would not have been eating that anyway. The other advantage in going to someone's place, particularly someone not seen in a while - the overwhelmingly positive reception to the "new"  you is very positively reinforcing. The idea that you are not just "on a diet"  but have physically transformed yourself is ever present and people often answer their questions of "do you want...." with "oh, no thats right" and the job is done for you.

Efficient.

Middle of Easter and no chocolate consumed. Appropriate as I started this the first day after Easter last year and sealed the deal with a Cadbury Creme Egg which at the time I thought was way too sweet and  sickening anyway. I feel no desire for one now.

I could go some plain chocolate, but the desire is not huge, probably more driven by the occasional scent of the kids who seem bathed in it.

I did find some sugar-free chocolate milk mix, surprisingly tasty and very lo-cal. There's more calories in the Skim Milk I put it in. It's from Avalanche Coffee and I recommend it if you feel like a fix.

10 days to go. 84.4 Kilos - still on track.

The New Plan - Day Six

The Countdown to the end, Day Six 11 to go.

Day after a fasting day weight creeps up again, the trick is to not overeat. For the day I consumed about three quarters of the calories required by me on a daily basis and stuck as much as possible to the diet conglomeration. At 84.5 Kgs still on tack for the big picture of continual reduction towards BMI weight some 1.5 kilos to go in just under two weeks.

The thing that has surprised me, when it really should not, is how much sugar is in everything. I went though this a year ago and was shocked and amazed by the amount of food that has sugar in it. Today I was in the supermarket and checked the label of the food i had been eating and discovered I had not been as sugar free as I want to be. Working from memory on food I thought was ok was obviously a mistake.

It seemed like even the diet drinks were being hidden from me today and I searched high and low for food labels on everything.

Yesterday I had an omelettte for lunch with vegetables and chorizo in it. Fine except the chorizo had sugar in it. Tomorrow I'm making Pizza's for a family lunch and I could not find deli meats that did not have sugar in them. I had to go to a butcher and get the made on premises stuff and a verbal guarantee that there was only meat and spices (not one of which was sugar) in them.

I know it's only a small amount, but all those small amounts add up and dammit if I make a rule I am going to stick to it. It annoys me greatly to have to revise and replan because I have things in my diet that should not be there.

Salad for dinner is working well for me and having a decent protein based lunch, am not running out of energy or getting too hungry. Waiting until 10 or 11 for breakfast is a little harder especially with the 6:30 a.m. bike ride. However on 11 days to go and I feel like it's in reach to get to BMI or even lower.

The New Plan - Day Five

The New Plan Day Five, 12 days to go.

Second of 5 fasting days between the start of the new plan and the end of my year of dieting.

As always the day of fasting produces results but the issue is usually one of not overcompensating the next day. And not taking the inevitable weight gain in one day as indicative of a trend.

Yesterday my weight rose slightly because of the previous fast, today it dropped to a new low of 83.9.

Technically I am now one kilo off of my goal weight, but in reality it's more like 1.5 kilos as I will be eating a proper amount of food today. Albeit in sugar-free, low carb and other disciplines applied.

Keep up the double exercise and the diet disciplines is still relatively easy but does require some effort. It was certainly harder on the second fasting day compared to the first and compared to the month of it I did earlier.

I have been reading Michael Mosely's the Fast Diet for tips and some background science and theory on this diet and am finding it interesting.

As I plan to write a diet book myself it is good to see what else is out there. It is common to see a diet book filled with suggested dinner plans or recipes, not sure if this is just filler, expected or a good element to add for people who need help deciding what to eat. I also added a description and some keywords to my blog and made it so it can be found. Feels a bit weird to refer to myself as "as seen on TV" but hey there it is.

Anyway, yesterday burned 900 odd calories and consumed 600 or so.
Ate 2x Plums and an orange for breakfast.
2x pieces of Terakihi and a salad for lunch
2x Plums for dinner.

I like plums, they are filling.

The New Plan - Day Four

The New Plan Day Four - Thirteen Days to go.

Weight yo-yos on a regular basis - this is something I have learned even as I was shedding kilos and kilos at a time - on a day to day basis it does fluctuate.

It CAN be very disheartening and depressing - even if you are expecting it and understand that it is a part of dieting and your body adjusting. 

This is where daily weighing can cause problems - if it does then I guess it's best to focus on the week to week drops.

I am only 300 grams off yesterdays total at 85.1 and I am still just around 2 kilos from goal weight. Because Tuesday was a fasting day the balancing and body compensation from the day after fasting still have to be factored in. However - if you look at the drop from Monday to Wednesday it is still on the decline.

Today is the second fasting so am expecting another drop tomorrow and a resettling on the weekend.

Less than 2 weeks to go and weekends can be the hardest to get through as you face the temptation of a fridge and cupboards and food on demand with little distractio.

However I have a plan, bought a new games console (Wii U) and will be prepping the house for painting over the next 10 days so that will not only keep me busy and active, it will distract me with work to do.

Yesterday burned 900 cals and consumed around 900 cals. Sticking to the Raw Dinner, zero snacks and the 8 hour rule as well as completely sugar free. There's probably a few crossovers with other diets but still feeling on track.

Weight = 85.1 Kgs.

The New Plan - Day Three

Day Three of the Uber Diet

Another 14 days to go and my first day of Intermittent fasting in the mix - as such the largest daily drop I have seen for a while, but such is to be expected. The Issue is what to do/eat on the off days. As I am tryng to combine all the good parts of the diets into one effective and targeted plan it will be interesting to see if I can avoid the usual bounce back today.

Yesterday Consumed 573 Calories, Burned 928
Breakfast was fresh fruit.
Lunch was an Apple and Walnut Salad that compromised about 50% of my daily intake,
Rounded the day out with fruit and dried fruit for dinner.

Started yesterday at 86.2 started today at a new low of 84.8 in other words less than 2 kilos to go to BMI goal of 82.9 or less.

Because the time frame is really quite tight and the regime is strict I feel like I am actually making a real effort here, though without compromising health or food standards to get there.

Getting back to Fasting was harder than I remember it but it certainly helps when combined with the other disciplines.

The New Plan - Day Two

1 day down, 15 to go.

So switching up my diet on the last 2 weeks has energised me and given me a new goal to work towards.

I am a long way from where I started - not just in kilograms but also attitude and intention.

When I started I was not trying to diet, just prove a point/answer a question. Then it became a diet, but without a goal weight and with a anti-boredom theme. Then it started to really work and I kept lowering the bar on what would be an ideal weight to get to. Then came exercise, again so far from where I had started.

Now I am at 86.2 again, down from yesterday and heading towards my goal of 82.9 or better.

Yesterday I burned 928 cals in exercise, and consumed 1138 calories in food, across 8 hours with zero in between snacks with a Raw/Carb-Less dinner.

Today is day one of Intermittent Fasting. Same amount of exercise, already done 45 minutes this morning, and 600 calories allowed for the day.

3.3 Kilos to go in 15 days.

I'm certainly giving it a shot.

New Plan - Day One

The 16 Day Countdown Day One

So I have 16 days left in my year of dieting and I feel like it's cruising to the end and what I'd quite like to do is go out on an all time low/high not on a plateau as the 8 hour curtails my weight gain but does not really drop it by much unless combined with other regimes.

So for the next 16 days I am going to do a little bit of the things that worked and make an Uber Version of my year compressed into just over two weeks.

So for the next 16 days including today I will be combining

Sugar Free
No Carbs After Lunch
Raw Food (Raw dinners)
No Snacks
Zero After 7
Intermittent Fasting (Tuesdays and Thursdays)
Caloric Restrictions (Daily monitoring of calories, exercise and logging all food)
The 8 hour rule (well I'll finish the month within the 8-hour rule)

I was 86.5 this morning. I keep going up from 85 and settling there - so I dip back again and then bounce back,  so it's time to take control of that process a little more.

By the morning of 10th April 2013 I want to be less than 83 kilos which puts me in the upper end of my BMI.

I never thought that this was achievable - but it seems so close and that means a minimum of 3.6 kilos in just over two weeks - which all of a sudden seems like a do-able thing.

So if I push myself a little bit (and I don't really feel like I have worked that hard up until now to a bit of effort seems appropriate) than I can do it.

I will do it.

Without starving myself or doing anything silly, it all must be a reasonable diet not a stupid one.

See you in 16 days.

The 8 Hour Rule: Week Two

The 8 Hour Rule: Week Two

Ok so it's been an odd week, I have been on the 8 hour rule for two weeks now though it feels like a lifetime ago since I was on Raw Food.

As a diet I think it CAN be effective, the issue is really related to what you do with the other 8 hours. In the last two weeks I have gone from 85.6 to 88 to 85.7 to 87.2 and a few in between.

I'm pretty sure that the idea is sound, that if you eat early and finish early then you'll avoid the habits that can lead to bad intake and weight gain. I have found in earlier diets that time of day is key, but it really is balanced by the quality and quantity of what you put in to the machine (your body) in the hours you are eating.

So in combination with a content related diet you can use the 8 hour rule to good effect. If you just use it on it's own it'll likely give you a stasis where you can maintain your weight. If you really want to lose the excess you have to concentrate on the type and content of your diet alongside the the timing benefits of fasting of containing intake.

I'd quite like to finish the year as close to my BMI as possible.

That means 2-4 kilos in the next 2-3 weeks.

This is certainly achievable if I maintain the the 8-hour rule with a largely Raw/Vegan type regime.

I am not going to go the whole hog on Raw/Vegan, but maybe 75% of my diet can be focused on eating unprocessed fresh foods and then have a little fish or chicken to supplement my week.

Then in a few weeks we'll see.

The other thing that happened this week is the TV appearance, so if you're reading this then you'll know all about this already. So many people have asked me when/if I was going to write a diet book based on my diet(s)/experiences. I never really considered this as a serious proposition until the TV show came knocking and it turns out loads of people are interested.

And now I am too. Maybe there is something to this experience. I haven't taken this that seriously - or at least not in my own view, everyone else seems to think it's a triumph of will power and determination, I think I am the only who sees it the other way. It's not a big achievement to me, it's 12 little ones.

Giving something up for 30 days is not that big a deal to me, but when you add 12 consecutive smaller achievements together you get something greater than the sum of it's parts.

So my next blog I had been planning to do anyway - set myself a do-able goal that would focus on creative output rather than big goals (like write a book, write a series of books, learn a language etc...) my next goal will be an easy one (for me anyway) write 1,000 words a day for a year.

I did the Nanowrimo challenge in November and in 30 days managed a single 72,000 word manuscript and it did not seem hard when broken down to the word total per day. So thats my next thing, a minimum daily output of 1,000 words a day.

Starting with a book about the last year of my life and losing a third of my weight.

The Today Show

So I was on TV today in Australia.

Odd but true - and it was fun too.
 

Click here to see it.

The 8-Hour Rule: Week One

The 8-Hour Rule: Week One.

So as expected I put on a couple fo KGs at the end of the Raw food month. I did not exactly go crazy and I did feel sick the first few days as my bowels adjusted to the regular diet again. However after a couple of days I settled down and the extra weight started coming off again. I went as high as 88 KGs (still well lower than when I started the Raw Diet) and as at today am back to 86 KGs - less than a kilo up from the lowest low of the high 85's. This is good as I am back to the 40 KG weight loss, and I felt like I need to be on the under side of that mark for a while. It'd be a waste if I did all this work and then only dipped under it for a few weeks.

The photo above is me in a pair of jeans I was wearing a year ago and were tight around the waist, they were the biggest pair I still have left. I did have some FAT clothes that I wore to my sister in laws wedding on February last year, including a shirt I had to buy as none of my existing ones fit me without making me lok like a sausage. I suspect if I find that I will look like I am wearing a Kaftan or a small Tent.

On the other news front I am going into TVNZ next week to film a segment on my diet plan for the Today Show on Channel 9 in Australia. A good friend of mine pitched the story of my novel approach to dieting - i.e. a different diet every month and they were interested. So I spoke to them on the phone and they asked me pretty much what everyone asks; Where did the idea come from, which diet is the most effective, what was the hardest to do?

So at 9:45 on Tuesday morning I take me and my fat pants to the studio where I assume they will ask me those questions and we'll see how it goes.

It does put me in mind to do what a bunch of people have suggested and write a book about my experiences, not a diet book per se but a book about a someone setting small goals and adding them up to a big one. It's have to be humorous - can't imagine anything too earnest or serious - I would never read that, but I would read a funny one.

3 more weeks until the end of my year of dieting.

After all this I won't be putting it all back on again, my tastes and my outlook have changed and I will watch what I eat and how I exercise from here on out.

I will never buy a size up again.

I'd rather die(t).

No Diet Day (The inbetween post)

The No Diet Day: Inbetween Diets 11 and 12

So today only I am not on a diet, though I did take a break for a few days once before a few months back.

I did 27 days on Raw Food and lost approximately 6 kilos so I have earned it by all means. You can see above the progression I have made in the last 4 weeks. The spike at the start was the night out where I had a large 3 course meal to book end the last night before Raw started. So while the next morning I did gain 1.5 kilos that would not have stayed with me for that long anyway.

In the last 27 days I have eaten loads and never gone hungry, but the desire for hot drinks, processed food and hot meals were very strong at times. Apart from a wee bout of the flu where I had a hamburger (grilled chicken actually) and chips and then two days later a homemade pie (both for much needed energy boosts while sick) I stuck to this diet pretty well considering the effort it takes mentally.

Again the credit goes to my wife for researching and making me exciting Raw Foods (mostly salads of great variety) - without that preparation and effort this would have been a much harder month and a much longer one.

I will note that the first hot food I had after this Raw Food ended made me ill. The burger I had a couple of weeks back did not, but I was already feeling very unwell so it may well have been masked.

As much as I wanted hot food, the nausea and dizziness when switching back to a normal-ish diet was fascinating.

Tomorrow I start my final diet.

The 8-hour rule. Whenever I starting eating for the day then I have the next 8 hours to eat whatever I want and then when 8 hours are up thats me for the day. This will mean most likely a month of skipping breakfast, a decent lunch and early dinner and no snacks morning or evening. So it's kind of like the no food after 7 diet, combined with the no snacking one and the intermittent fasting (as you can also call it the daily 16 hour fast).

One more month to go.

Raw Food: Week Four

Raw Food: Week Four.

Raw Food continues to be an effective weight loss tool with around 4-5 kgs lost so far this diet. You can see progression as above. I have a silly grin on my face because of what Max was saying to me - though having seen the amount I have lost (40 kilos total now) I have earned a smile or three...

A little earlier this week I hit 86.7 - an all time low, and while I have risen slightly from that (yo yo -ing weight during the week is expected) I am trending down still and heading towards seeing 86 regularly or even lower by the end of this diet. Considering I was over 126 kilos to start with (see above) I am amazed how fast and well this process has worked.

This diet ends a week from now and I will be very glad to see the end of it. Not because it makes me hungry, but more for the psychological effects of not having any hot food. I'm not craving any one thing more than anything else but I would like to have any of the following (in no particular order); Hot Chips, Rare Steak w/ Blue Cheese Sauce, a Nandos Extra Hot Burger or a Cup of Tea and Biscuits. I doubt I could eat all of these in one sitting though a year ago I could well have done.

This time next week I will be on my final diet, the 8-hour rule. Once I start eating for the day I have an 8-hour window within which I can eat and then after that I stop until the next day. AKA the 16 hour fast, 2/3rds of the day fasting, the other 3/rd eating. (Hopefully not too much).

Raw Food: Week Three

Raw Food: Week Three

Well the start of week three anyway. I have broken this diet twice this week - though the usual aim is to be 90% Raw according to most sensible sites (excluding the the ones that rant about Raw bringing you closer to God). Only because I have the flu from my kids who had it last week and I have been way too run down on minimal energy.

However I have kept up the exercise as that helps with my breathing, I used to get Asthma when I was heavier - now I do not - but the breathing is labored and difficult with a chest infection, and the rhythm of cycling really helps with that. So one hot lunch on Wednesday and one hot dinner on Friday were my two exceptions. This may have slowed my weight loss this week but has not stopped it at all and I am now at 87.8 Kilos for the last couple of days.

1 Kilo more and I will have lost 40 kilos since Easter last year.

Raw food is not hard when you have an excellent and supportive partner in the diet (she is not on the diet but takes pride in finding very nice stuff for me to eat that is not dull or tasteless).

I would not be doing nearly as well without Max's help, nor would I be eating such great Raw Food recipes.

2 more weeks or 16 days of Raw Food and I hope to have cracked the 40 kilo loss by the end - based on the progress so far (3-4 kilos in 2 weeks) then  thats looking likely (but not guaranteed).

Raw Food Week Two

Raw Food: Week Two

This is definitely one of the harder diets to do but it only takes a few days to get used to it - the problem being that those days seem to take forever and by the time it doesn't seem so bad it feels like it's been like two weeks but in reality it's only 3 days.

I have been having untoasted muesli for breakfast and my main meals at both dinner and lunch have been salads. And loads of fruit.

I have cheese and dairy in my Raw Food diet and am avoiding heavily processed foods that may well be technically Raw. I have not had anything hot for almost a week now and nor have I had a coke or any other diet drink other than juice or water. Flavoured milk also out as massively processed.

Finished my previous diet at 89.8 approx and then put myself up to 91 kgs on the day inbetween as I went out and had a 3 course meal at a restaurant that was very filling and rich and splurged on some foods I knew I would not be eating for a while.

Day 6 of Raw Food = 88.5 Kgs.

Raw Food: Week One

Raw Food Week One

Or more rightly Day One.

So the plan is raw foods only, exceptions (which are common in Raw Food Diets most being only 75% actually Raw) being Milk and Cheese (as pasteurization is just good sense) and some lightly processed foods like hummus (which is sometimes cooked and sometimes soaked).

Last night I had dinner out at www.sundaypainters.co.nz and filled up on a decent 3-course meal before this latest diet started.

At the end of the calorie counting month I had lost approx 2 kilos but the tendency is to fill up your quota and exercise to make up for any excess rather than focussing on proper eating and weight loss regimes.

4 weeks for Raw Food starting today.

Already unsure other than fresh fruit, nuts and salad what this actually means.

Guess I'll find out.

10K a Day - Week 4

10k A Day Week 4

The paying attention to the calories thing does work but it's psychologically difficult to work with compared to something very restrictive like denying a food group or groups.

I will either compensate or eat up to my limit regularly and then over compensate by dropping the limit on some days with no real effect.

Still think it's effective for weight management but it needs to be coupled with other dietary regimes to be effective as a weightloss tool.

In a week I'll start the Raw Food diet which will be VERY restrictive, but I'll also keep a track of the progress in calories and food content via the netdiary tool to see how big a change in diet this represents.

Still at the 90 Kilo mark on a daily basis, lowest recorded weight was 88.6 a few weeks ago but it settled back to 90 fairly quickly.

10k A Day- Week 3

Week 3 - 10 K a day.

Well this is certainly habit forming and while I can maintain the weight on this regime I find to harder to lose weight well. I find that because I have room left in the day after eating well I tend to snack more at night and skimp on meals to create "breathing room" which I then fill.

The lessons learned prior to this about sugar, carbs and timing all have a part to play as well if I want to make it to my BMI weight which is still about 10 ks away. So I need to break the habits that this diary effect has on filling the gaps left by watching and maintaining a calorie balance.

Less than two weeks to go and then I'll be on Raw Food only. So while this can be a good way to control your dietary intake and output (exercise) and the logging is a good habit to have, it's really only effective if you do it conjunction with the other rules of effective dieting around type of food and time of day.

10k A Day - Week 2

10k A Day - Week 2.

This whole app/calorie counter thing is quite cool as it is analyzing my intake and results and then making suggestions beyond my stated weight goals. So Fat, Trans Fats, Sodium, Carbs etc all get logged if I fill in my food correctly and then I get advice accordingly, like add more fibre to breakfast (or even eat some breakfast) etc...

Steadily losing weight on a daily basis but gradually over the week. As Max is still on the intermittent fasting regime then two days a week I am joining her and so that helps with the weight loss too. The good thing is that when coupled with calorie watching the tendency to overeat after a fast is gone as you monitor and measure your intake effectively by paying attention to it.

Current weight and lowest recorded so far 89.6 kilos.

Breakfast still does not get much of a look in and lunch can often be heavy and then I am free to eat whatever I want for dinner but most of the time I eat lightly and go nowhere near my limit as I am in the zone of not needing as much.

I would like to see how much of a stretch it is to reach the upper end of my BMI at 79 kilos, and thats a mere 10 kilos away.

10k A Day - Week One

10K A Day - Week One

Even though I thought when I started this I was going to avoid this diet it seems like a natural progression to try it this late in the year (diet 10 I think?) since this is the real secret to losing weight, controlling your caloric or kilojoule intake on a regular basis.

With help from some apps in the I Store I have determined that my "maintain" kilojoule intake is around 13,000 a day with moderate exercise (minimum 30 minutes a day - I do 43 minutes) and if I want to reach my goal BMI weight it should be around 10,900 per day.

So calorie counting at each meal and snack does a double duty in that you have a goal but you think twice about everything you put in when you count each meal and snack with a ceiling in mind. The first day of calorie counting was also my last fasting day so I was well under the 10,900 limit clocking in around 650 kilojoules. The second day (yesterday) I came in at 6800 kilojoules and that was without exercise. I was not hungry or feeling like I was denying myself but I was very conscious of everything that goes in my body for the day, even tea and coffee.

The 5:2 Diet - Week Four

The 5:2 Diet Week Four

The intermittent fasting works well to keep my weight at the 91 mark after the second day each week despite eating pretty much whatever I want during the other days. It means I have been eating more crap food but not gaining weight.

However the side effect of this is feeling like I am cheating rather than eating well. The effect of high fat, high sugar foods is distasteful and I'm beginning to actively dislike them despite being in the habit of going for them when looking for a snack - knowing full well I can get away with it.

However as my attitude and predilection for them is changing I need to work on not failing prey to that habit knowing that 2 days of 600 calories or less will fix that.

Calorie/Kilojoule controlled diet will be next - thinking it will be likely 10,000 kilojoules limit. According to some sources it should be 13,000 kilojoules if you have an active lifestyle (30 minutes a day or more exercise - which I do) or 10,000 if you have a sedentary one (for people my age and gender). I like the idea of the challenge and gain part so I'll aim for 10,000 a day limit - I have an app for my Phone already to help track it for the coming month.

Interestingly Max has taken to the 5:2 diet this month and will continue it next month on her own. She has lost 2-3 kgs this month.