Success

It worked! I lost another kilo yesterday morning and it's still gone today. So that seems to be proof that the odd cheat day works.

Such a relief to see some movement on the scales and also might relax me a bit about feast days.

Yesterday was a feast day. I had a bowl of melon for breakfast - 300g was 106 calories.

For lunch I had a toastie - ham, cheese, bit of mayonnaise and mustard, and tomatoes. With a dessert of mandarin pieces and a quarter of a banana that all came to 340 calories.

In the afternoon, John bought a roast chicken as part of his "bulk up" regime and I picked at that a bit. I counted 100g worth which is 190 calories.

For dinner I had made a Bolognese sauce - I had it with wholegrain noodles instead of pasta but I allowed myself 50g of grated cheese. It came to 650 calories.

With milk for coffee added in, the whole day was 1481 calories. Pretty reasonable. We had planned to go to the cinema and I was looking forward to having some popcorn but in the end we couldn't be bothered. So we're going on Friday night instead. Which luckily, happens to be another feast day so I'll definitely have some then!

Fast today - it's half three and I'm getting hungry. I've had two cups of coffee which is 80 calories of milk. Bit of a waste really - I was allowing myself one cup a day but it smelled so good... Making a proper roast chicken dinner tonight - I'll have some of the meat and the vegetables but no roast potatoes. I'll save that for tomorrow.

I must say, we're saving a fortune on our weekly shopping. I did a shop this morning and it was the first time in a month! I was away for a week in between but still.

I also have noticed that for the first time in my life, I'm being tempted by fruit. I normally avoid fruit - love vegetables but fruit bores me. However, today in the supermarket, I bought strawberries, a melon and apricots and I'm looking forward to them. I've read blogs where people on ADF find that they appreciate the taste of fruit and enjoy them more than before and I always scoffed at them a bit, thinking, "that'll never happen to me". But it kind of is. I think I'm enjoying having a bit of sweetness whilst knowing that it's actually good for me, and not a waste of calories. Having said that, I did buy some 70% dark chocolate today. Going to have one piece on my feast days with a cup of coffee after dinner. Mmmm.....

Looking at the "My FitnessPal" app - my nutrient intake is slowly getting better. My vitamin C intake is high, and my vitamin A and calcium intake is getting better. My iron is consistently low though, I really need to work on that. I was full of confidence last night eating my minced beef Bolognese, thinking, "At last, I'll be stuffed with iron" but no... it's not that high at all. Only 8%.

I may have to start taking supplements. Not ideal but I'm not going to eat red meat or shellfish every day and I am eating a good variety of vegetables already.

Sigh.

Am I? Aren't I?

So, woke up and weighed myself - down a kilo after all. Kind of. The bar was kind of hovering depending on how my feet were placed. But I'm saying it is a kilo to keep myself happy.
I know you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, but it's the most exciting part of my day! (Though John wants me to mention that it comes second to spending time with him... :) ) I've lost another inch from my hips too which is nice but I haven't noticed it in my clothes yet. Everything else has been the same for the last two weeks. Which makes sense as I haven't lost much weight...

Today was a feast day. I was saying yesterday how James B. Johnson, who wrote "The Alternate-Day Diet" warns against counting calories on feast days, in case "diet fatigue" sets in. I was thinking about this, as I've mentioned before that I'm really careful on feast days and count everything, trying not to go above 2000 calories, at most. I've decided not to worry about my way of doing it. If I do really want something, I do feel free to eat it on feast days. The only difference is that I count it and try to take only a bit so that I don't go over my calories. And if that teaches me portion control, it can only be a good thing!

So today I had A LOT of coffee - I'm going to allow myself to do that on feast days and try to abstain or have one cup only on fast days. That was 240 calories.
I didn't feel like breakfast as I got up late. For lunch I finished my vegetable soup and had a bread roll with it. 285 calories.

Dinner was a feast! I had chicken and wholegrain noodles with peanuts, raisins, green peppers and mushrooms, all in a Thai red curry sauce. 597 calories.

I also picked a little throughout the day but counted it. I had half a shortbread biscuit, a TINY bit of chocolate, and as a snack just now I had 33g of wenslydale and cranberry cheese, 4 multigrain crackers and 30g of a fruit tart I made for John. 360 calories in all. So that comes to 1452 calories for the day which I'm very happy about.

I checked my RMR, and it's 1908 calories. I'm going to try to stay below that on feast days if I can. That doesn't allow for any movement at all - even for a sedentary lifestyle - with no exercise and a desk job, it would go up to just over 2000 calories. However, as I'm the laziest person ever, I'm not even going to allow for that much movement. For example, I literally moved from chair to chair today and that was the extent of my exercise.

As I said in a previous post, I had very bad eczema when I was about 12 or 13. My arms, knees and chest were so itchy that I would scratch till they bled, and I ended up with huge scabs everywhere. Sexy. Anyway, at that time my mother took me to get an allergy test done, to see if we could help it. I was allergic to lots of things but the two main ones were sugar and yeast. Sugar is the one that actually caused me to itch everywhere, but I found that, as I got older, it generally didn't cause me any problem as long as I drank a decent amount of water every day. (Perhaps a pity, in terms of weight...) Yeast causes me to get very bloated and have awful stomach cramps, which sometimes double me over. However, as with sugar, as long as I don't eat bread all day long, and drink water, it rarely troubles me. I usually would have about two slices of bread a day, or else a small roll, and that was fine.
All that to say, however, that since starting my diet, nearly four weeks ago, my intake of bread has lessened considerably since it's so calorific. I think that possibly, as a result, I've become more intolerant to it. I had a roll for lunch and I'm really crampy now.
So I'm going to not eat bread for a few days, and then try again in about five or six days maybe. If I get cramps again, I'll know and it'll be bye bye to yeast. I'm crossing my fingers that this is just a fluke cramp because I love my bread!!!

I have also found that I've become much more intolerant to rich food. I get heartburn now much more easily on a feast day. Whilst what I'm eating now is SO much healthier than before I started this diet, I'm still having cheese and pate on feast days and I think my body is not appreciating it as it used to. It doesn't really bother me though. Anything that discourages me from eating fatty foods can only be good!

The Perils of Pigging

My diet has been a bit all over the place recently.
Some friends of the family came to dinner on Tuesday night - we had sushi, a lot of wine, and salad. It came to 1641 calories. Not too bad really. But I may have miscalculated the wine as I wasn't exactly measuring my glasses.

Yesterday was the funeral. Although it was supposed to be a fast day, I felt sick and weak before going to the church so I had a bit of bread with some camembert cheese.
We then had people back to the house for the lunch and I didn't eat much but I did have about 5 mini slices of quiche. However, once we were on our own again last night, we all threw ourselves on the leftovers and devoured everything. I ate a LOT of bread and cheese, pate, and I even had Nutella! So much for the fast.

Today is a fast day so, but we've to go for dinner at a friend's house tonight. I'm going to not drink though and whatever she serves, I'll try to avoid the carbohydrates.

Tomorrow I return to Ireland. As I said before, I'll be travelling alone which always leads to me eating but I'm going much earlier than I thought so I'll resist and eat normally once I get home.

It's funny but I've noticed now that every day where I've eaten a lot in the last week - Sunday and yesterday - has been followed by a day of feeling sick and hungry the next day.

I mean, as I type now, my stomach is rumbling and I feel like I'm starving. Even though I've had lots of water. When I do a fast day, I normally extend it to lunchtime of the next day, so I am able to go quite a while without food now and feel fine. However, I wonder if eating heavily is the reason I feel so hungry now. My insides working overtime to get rid of the food. If there's any truth in that, it just shows how over-eating every day becomes a vicious cycle. I'd devour some bread now if I could - whereas normally I really don't feel a need for anything.
It's also slightly worrying me how I slipped so easily back into eating rubbish yesterday. For the last three weeks I've been careful on feast days but yesterday... I had about four slices of bread with pate alone. That's not counting the other three slices with cheese or the roll I had with Nutella...

I'm not going to beat myself up over it though. It was exceptional circumstances and I'll get back into the swing of things tomorrow. Going out for a friend's 30th on Saturday - I'll have to consume any alcohol before midnight. Or do I count a day as ending when I go to bed? Because that could easily be halfway through Sunday...