Day 149

June 4, 2009

January 2009

May 2009

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I know! It’s been forever since I posted which might have led you to think I’d fallen face first into a triple chocolate mocha cake with hazelnut buttercream frosting but contraire mon ami! I’m still fasting and to date have lost just over 50 pounds with about 10 more pounds to go. Aside from my 5-7 shakes a day, depending on how much I’ve exercised and how hungry I am, the only thing I’ve eaten in all this time since January is a bite of bread and sip of grape juice at church every Sunday, 1% milk in my daily espresso, two radishes and 1 leaf from a brussel sprout. I know. And yet, my weight loss for a fast has gone slower than I thought. The average weight loss for women is 3 pounds per week. My average is 2.4 pounds a week or 10.1 pounds a month. I talked to the fasting doctor about this during one of my exams (I’m in stellar health FYI) and he explained that some people have bodies that are built for survival. He jokingly said that were I ever stranded on a desert island with others, I would be among the last to survive. So while it’s frustrating to have a “survivor’s body” I’m also grateful to have this information. Not because I anticipate getting stranded on a desert island anytime soon but because it explains why I’ve always had such a hard time losing weight, even when I was moderating my caloric intake and exercising in the past. The downside is that there’s every good chance that to maintain my lower weight I’m going to have to have to set a daily caloric intake that’s lower than others my same size. I’m probably looking at developing a way of eating that has me between 1350 -1450 calories a day. That’s certainly not unmanageable but it just means I’m going to have to be really intentional about what goes in and how much energy I burn out.

So anyway, D and I have been talking and while we still have a little more to lose we’ve decided to begin transition on July 7. Transition is a three week period when you go from a total fast to beginning to SLOWLY incorporate food back into your food and by slowly I mean the first week all we do is substitute 1 shake for 3 ounces of boneless, skinless chicken baked without oil. The second week vegetables and fruit are slowly added and the third week whole grains. I’m planning to continue on a partial fast for some time, meaning that at least one of my meals and snacks a day will be a protein supplement shake and everything I eat will be nutritional, avoiding all empty calories (white flour, sugars…) for a long period of time and when eaten it will be planned and infrequent. As they say, and as you know, the hard part isn’t losing the weight, it’s keeping it off.

I sure have a lot more I could catch you up on in terms of the new adventures in clothes shopping and all the emotional stuff, great and not so great, that comes with reaching a near normal weight after a lifetime of obesity but for now, it’s time to focus on getting a sermon started. More later

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