Me After Weight Loss.

Some of you might be interested in watching this video that I made in 2011, shortly after the start of my website, DietHobby.

All during these past 5 years, I’ve been consistently, day-after-day, putting in  a ton of Focus and Effort on working to achieve my ultimate goal of maintaining my weight within my “normal” BMI range.

Now, I'm 5 years older;  and…despite my consistent dieting efforts….today my body is 8 pounds heavier than it was in this video, (115 lbs then, 123 lbs now).  I’m still working hard every-single-day toward bringing my weight closer to the bottom of my maintenance weight range.  The photo below clearly defines how I view my ultimate goal weight range.

The wind = my weight-loss
RESULTS.

The sails = my eating
BEHAVIOR.

I frequently experiment with various “Diets”, “Lifestyles”, and “Ways-of-Eating”.  I do this randomly, depending on what catches my interest at the time, or what I think will benefit me most at the time.

While I am participating in such an experiment,  I sometimes share small bits of my own current eating experiences, but I do not share anything about other participants.  Also, I don’t make any kind of in-depth analysis while data is coming in…. which means not until long after an experiment has been completed.

As part of my involvement with any specific diet plan, I try to keep an open mind, and I work to suspend my Judgments on the pros, the cons, and the effectiveness of the overall diet.

This past fall, I did quite a bit of experimentation with various forms of water fasting.  Although I had some minor success with alternate day 24 hour fasts; several long-term fasts, including some 3 day fasts, and one 6 day fast, I did not care for it. 

At the start of this year I decided to commit to an experiment of 90 days of some sort of consistent, Intermittent Fasting.

After a week or so, I saw that I would need to drastically change my eating plan in order to succeed at this. 

After trying a few alternatives, I decided to work at strictly following the 5-bite diet again. Eating only 2 meals a day spaced 4 to 5 hours apart, results in an 18 to 19 hour daily fast. Furthermore, the entire 5-bite diet plan is actually a “controlled fast”.  In many ways it is similar to the way I ate for the first 7 months after my weight loss surgery 24 years ago.

I first experimented briefly with the 5-bite diet in the spring of 2009, and found it interesting, but was not fond of it.  In March, 2014, I again experimented with that diet for a six month period, and continued to find it interesting, but, for various reasons, found it unsustainable for me at that time.

So,  after having made the decision to resume my 5-bite diet experiment, I began following that diet plan. I also rejoined, and paid for, a monthly membership at Dr. Lewis’ website, and am currently participating there.  

This is actually my 3rd experiment with this particular diet, and my goal this time is to do better at suspending my negative judgments while working to follow that plan exactly; while paying attention to how my body feels.  I am interested in learning what kind of weight-loss I will receive at this current time, as a result of following that eating behavior.

The 5-bite diet is  based on Dr. Alwin Lewis’ book, “Why Weight Around”. 

My own up-front reason for my lifetime diet struggle to lose weight and maintain weight loss is ... 
to avoid spending more time as an object of the abuse that happens due to our culture’s stigmatization of fat people.

I’ve called this “vanity”, but vanity is defined as the quality of people who have too much pride in their own appearance.  Is vanity really the word that describes avoiding abuse and seeking the comfort and protection of a positive status in our current culture?

It is currently popular to say we are working to lose or maintain weight “for our health” or “to be healthy”.  The opposite of “healthy” is “sickly” or “diseased”, and of course nobody wants to be that, but MOST dieters aren’t “sickly” or “diseased” and aren’t even in much danger of becoming that.  Of course, there’s also no guarantee that losing weight will make or keep anyone “healthy”.

I don’t believe “health” is REALLY the reason that most people diet.  I think saying that we diet to be “healthy” is often just another way to sell-ourselves-out and buy-in to our culture’s diet marketing industry … and make no mistake, the medical profession is a very active participant in this billion dollar marketing industry.

All fat people know that the article below is true, and yet strangely… (or not so strangely),  a great many fat people ..and formerly fat people… pretend that their struggle to be and stay thin has little to do with their desire to avoid being a member of this stigmatized group.

Drive-by Fat Shaming

            by Ragen Chastain, danceswithfat

Today I’m not talking about the kind of drive-by fat shaming where people moo at us from their cars (though they do, sometimes they even throw eggs, and it’s super messed up.) Today I’m talking about the small incidents of fat shaming that happen daily, often as casual asides.

This post was inspired by my attempt to watch the show Jessica Jones. Roughly a million people have recommended this show to me as being  amazingly feminist and all girl power-y. With the first few minutes there is an incident of fat shaming. It is apropos of absolutely nothing, it doesn’t “advance the plot”  she is surveilling someone in her job as a private inves...

          

The longer I do this, the harder it is to find any type of eating or non-eating low-calorie concept that I feel motivated to experiment with.

However, somehow, I always seem to find some type of diet or non-diet that gets my interest long enough for me to try it out.

Of course, I continue to consistently record all of my food intake every day in a computer food journal.  I have now done this every day for 11 years, and this is my most valuable dieting tool.

This past couple of months I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting again. 

I started by personalizing a 24 hr alternate day fast, similar to Eat Stop Eat, but designed for my own personal preferences.  I followed that for about 3 weeks, then I did one 36 hr fast, from dinner one day, skipped all food one day, ate breakfast the following day.  That seemed to work well for me, and the following week I did a 72 hr fast, where for 3 days I had water only with up to one cup of bouillon per day.  I had hoped to have a 5 to 7 day fast, but my body decided otherwise.  Day 1 was as I expected, Day 2 was far easier than I expected and on Day 3 I felt quite weak and nauseated. I woke up on Day 4 feeling ill, and ended the fast.

Although, I do like the concept of Fasting and want to run some more experiments, for a few weeks after the 72 hr fast, I was simply unwilling to fast any more, and followed my "normal" eating plan of trying to eat an average of under 1000 calories per day - eating whatever, whenever.

On Monday, Sept 14, I began another water fast, aiming for the goal of 7 days, with the understanding that I would stop when, and if, my body gave me the symptoms it did during the 3 day fast.  My fast went as expected, and this time the symptoms didn't show up until the evening of the 6th day.  My night was uncomfortable and I ended my fast at breakfast time the following day. Sunday, Sept 20. 

Today is the morning of the 3rd post-fast day.  The 1st day I broke my fast with a 6 oz can of tomato juice, then an hour or so later, 1/4 of an avocado. Several hours later my lunch was a saucer plate containing 1 1/2 oz roasted chicken, 1/2 cup green beans, and 1/4 of an avocado. Several hours later I ate 1/2 raw apple with 1 oz cheddar cheese.  I finished up the day with another 6 oz tomato juice. About a 1/2 hr after first taking food, my nausea receded and stomach cramps lessened, but all day I felt weak, tired, and crampy. I felt better the 2nd day, yesterday, but still very weak. This morning, the 3rd day, I feel normal.