Heading for a slimmer Christmas than last year.

Well I tried the 1 day fast but felt out of control around food the following morning.

So not an experiment I will be repeating soon. I had to plan the fasting day for an afternoon where I was out of the house and had a lot to do.

I have found that skipping breakfast suits me best. Then bone broth for lunch with some chilli and veg.

Mid afternoon I now have a couple of boiled eggs with mayo.

Then my dinner will be some sort of meat with low carb veggies. Just the one dishful. No seconds.

I am looking forward to losing the next 16kg over 2020.

Looking forward to next Christmas where I will be a normal weight but I will never have a 'normal' metabolism.

I will always have to look to the fats in my diet rather than the sugar and grains to keep slim.

Trying Fasting this week

For the past 6mths I have been doing a morning fast.

I have coffee and cream at 6am but dont have any food till around 12. This has been working well for me.

This week I decided to see if I could extend the fast. On Sunday we went to a braai and I had bone broth in the evening. Monday I did not eat all day till the evening. I coped well with coffee and cream, bone broth and rooibos tea.

What I did not expect was to find myself eating more on the following day. I probably had about 5 feedings but they were all low carb.

I know now that the fasting experiment was a success but on the following day I need to make sure I have a substantial breakfast. Maybe a cheese omelette with butter. Then bone broth for lunch and my normal dinner.

I think this will make the fasting easier to manage on the day after.

My weight is still dropping slowly and I am in a lower size of trousers. 16 down from a 24.

I am enjoying my courses in LCHF and coaching courses.

Where I have been going wrong

By the end of next week I will be 20kg down from my start weight.

Thats 44lbs lost since Feb 19.

Its not been a steady weight loss. Sometimes I have stayed the same weight for weeks due to holidays etc.

However when I am home I can usually see the scale going slowly down.

That is a much better way to do it rather than the crash diets of before with rebound weight gain after.

I am down 4 dress sizes.

I have been finding that keto with banting is what works for me. I have to have fat and good oils in my diet to stop the cravings and overeating associated with carb consumption.

I keep to 20gms of carbs a day from above the ground vegetables.

I have never been that hungry in the morning but always believed that if I ate a good breakfast it would stop me eating to much later in the day. Thats not true. Eating in the morning increases my insulin output and I am more hungry later in the day when I eat breakfast.

Thinking that milk in my coffees all morning was not an issue, low fat and not so many calories was also a mistake. Since switching to black rooibos tea after my first coffee and cream of the day has made me much more aware of what I am consuming. Milk is very insulemic. Why babies get fat on it.

I try to only eat twice a day. Lunch of bone broth with added fat and  veg for lunch around 12. Then dinner at 6 with meat and veg cooked in oil or butter.

Am happy to see that scale drop 300 to 500gms a week on that regime.

My fasting insulin has reduced from 25 to 10.5.

So this is the way I was always supposed to be eating.

I will be setting up a facebook page and will put a link to it on a later blog.

No weight gain

Despite spending so much time away over the last 3 mths I have managed to maintain my weight loss.

On some trips I would find my weight up 2 or 3kg on my return but would soon find that back at home in my own kitchen I would lose the travel weight and return to my present base weight.

That has been really good news as I have been used to putting 6 to 10kg on while on holidays in the past and then finding no motivation to try and take it off again.

I have three people coaching me for Real Meal Revolution RMR and also have signed up to study to be a coach myself. Also am on the second course with Nutrition Network.

Am finding all the studying very interesting and its good to be able to forget about food and concentrate on something else.

Now I am no longer on the glucose roller coaster with endless highs and lows I can concentrate much better.

Looking forward to losing another 20kg in addition to the 15 kg I have already lost. Hopefully at about 500gms per week. So 40 + weeks. Doing this day by day. No hurry as my eating will not change a lot when the fat has gone.

I feel comfortable with the way I am eating now with adding fat to my food and no longer have afternoon binges when all I want to eat are sugar and starches.

Will have to hand on lots of clothes as will be dropping another 3 dress sizes in the next year.

But good news is I will have to buy more smaller sizes and I really dont have clothes for the size I am going to be.

Eat more good fat

Having recently had 2 back to back trips away I am pleased to find that my weight has increased only slightly over the 2 mths and I am already getting back to my pre trip weight.

Then I can continue to see that scale move on downward and feel even better than I do now.

The focus on calories at the expense of  mono oils and good fats ( saturated fats) has been a total mistake for those of us with insulin issues.

To get this right you have to forget everything you were ever told about eating fewer calories.

Yes fewer calories can help but is only part of the story.

The other part is to stay away from sugar in all its forms. And that includes starch, grains etc.

Those are just long chains of glucose molecules, so sugar in another format and the body digests it as glucose.

To lose the excess weight and keep it off ( which for us yoyo dieters is just as important) normal, 'eat everything in moderation' just does not work.

We have to make sure we are fat burners, not sugar burners. That means consuming a higher ratio of fats and oils protein and low starch vegetables.

Not just to lose weight but to increase a sense of well being and to finally understand what the cause is of obesity and to control it. If you are obese the tendancy to put on weight will never go away. But can be controlled by following a low carb diet.

I have an Insulin problem, the obesity is a side effect.

God under the 90kg just before my trip to UK.

So very happy to have made that goal in time.

Will now have the issue of holding on to the weight loss and maybe seeing another drop when I am outside of my kitchen and eating lots of meals out.

Hope I can still arrange my fasting mimicking meals and then just eat out once a day.

Problem when we are at a hotel and will be eating 3 meals a day out.

Going to try and stick to yoghurt berries and a few nuts for breakfasts. Cottage or cream cheese if I can find it.

Last month I lost 2.8kg and the month before 2.7kg.

Will be happy if I can lose around the 2kg during the next month.

If I dont I know where I have been going wrong all my life and can get back on track in August.

The gift that keeps on giving

This really seems to be working for me.

It takes me about 10 days to lose 1kg. So not a crash diet. Just seeing the scale drift through the numbers is very satisfying and rewarding after all the trouble I have had in the past with the numbers on the scales relentlessly going up and not understanding how to stop them.

My sleep is better now that I am having my main meal in the evening.

I have about 4 types of tea for the afternoon. Regular celyon, rooibos, earl grey and chamomile for the evening. I only put milk in the celyon tea and only 1 mug a day.

I put a pair of jeans in the bin bag this week. They were just too loose and baggy and it was not worth adjusting them as I have others I can now wear and more on stand by as my body gets smaller.

I have lost 2 inches off chest and waist and 4" off my hips since the start of this 5 mths ago.

Need to repeat that and then take of half that amount to get to where I want to be.

But it feels doable at last.

Hope to make my short term goal

I have a long term goal which is to finally understand why my weight has been such a problem for me all my life and to finally get down to an acceptable size when I can buy normal size clothes in normal shops that look good on my normal body.

My short term goal is to get under 90kg by the time I go to UK next month. That means I need to lose 05kg per week for the next three weeks which I feel is quite achievable.

I have a stop and start relationship with weight loss. I can stay around the same weight for 4 days to a week and then my body decides to drop the weight. This is what it has done over the last 2 days and I have found 800gms gone on the scale.

I have a theory that my fat cells reduce in fat but gain in water for a few days. Then the body cant hold onto the extra water and the water is released resulting in a weight loss.

I know that I have been doing things right. I am fasting and consuming my bone broth and yoghurt cheese, not eating any grain or high carb veg. So theoretically the weight must go down. But its very nice when it does.

One pair of jeans which I could not get into 5 mths ago are now getting too big. So they will join the elasticated trousers in the bin bag. Got 2 more smaller jeans I am trying on to see when they are comfortable enough to wear.

Great something is finally working for me.

Metabolism Change

I did not think it was possible to change your metabolism.

After 67 yrs living in this body I was used to it demands for carbs and sugar in the afternoons and evenings and accepted that as it has always been this way it would always continue and I would always accept that I would struggle with my appetite.

I was used to counting calories and cutting fat and being in a permanent state of low blood sugar, high insulin and being hungry every afternoon and evening.

Now I am consuming fat in my diet and cutting way down on my carbs, on a keto diet I find the hunger has gone.

I might feel like having some cheese maybe in the afternoon. But I eat without guilt and enjoy what I am eating.

I have high fat fromage frais made from yoghurt for breakfast. My bone broth with either marmite or bovril and oil or butter for lunch.

Evening is meat and vegetables.

I am getting into jeans I have not worn in years.

I have an expectation now that as long as I do not go back to my high carb diet I will continue to lose the weight and then be able to maintain a new slim figure. Something I have never been able to claim before.

Getting into a routine

Finding this less of a struggle now I have been doing it for a few months.

I always got in a panic about the idea of skipping meals as I thought it would make me climb the walls with hunger.

But in fact skipping breakfast makes me less hungry and has stopped the continual need to eat in the afternoons.

I get up and have a few cups of coffee with cream. I hardly think about food in the morning and not even any tummy grumbles till about 11.30.

I try and do my exercise in the morning, got a new glide machine with arms so looking forward to trying that.

Yesterday I ate 2 cold chicken wings while I was heating up my bone broth with cauliflower lunch. I follow that with a mainly lettuce salad plus the fromage frais which I make from hanging greek yoghurt. I might also have a spoon of that in the morning as it is a pro biotic.

After lunch I might have a siesta till 14 hrs.

Cup of tea with milk at 3.30 and start preparing supper for 6pm when the children arrive home from school.

I have one bowl of food for supper. Yesterday was fillet steak with pepper cream sauce. The radishes I planted are ready so I made radish 'chips', cauliflower, cabbage and courgetti noodles.

Then a cup of chamomille tea in the evening.

Scale has moved down 400gms in last 2 days.

The freedom from the endless need to eat is something I have never experienced before.

Turning Dieting on its Head

All the things I thought to be true about dieting are wrong.

So its no wonder I have battled with this for so long to try and get my weight under control.


Eat low calorie

wrong you need to consume good fats and oils which are high calorie.


Eat 3 meals and 2 snacks to prevent hunger.

Wrong food causes you to be more hungry especially high carb low calorie food.

Wrong on eating 5 or 6 times a day. Better results if you eat twice. Lunch and dinner.

Feeling hungry means you are losing weight.

Not necessarily you could have just run out of quick energy, glucose from high carb foods, you may not be able to access your fat stores, because your insulin is too high.

Insulin locks the fat away and does not allow the body to use it up for energy if there is glucose available.

You need to suffer and be punished to lose weight and only eat small meals with uninteresting food!


Wrong if you embrace good fats and oils and protein and green veg and only eat twice a day you will enjoy your meals and not have to go to bed hungry as you do on a low cal diet.


check out

www.realmealrevolution.com

Banting diet made simple and Delicious.

Into Jeans again

Since about Jan 18 I have not been able to do up my size 16 jeans.

But yesterday I wore one pair and today the other. I have had them hanging up outside my wardrobe so I saw them every day.

The wonderful thing about this eating plan is that I know I will never not be able to do them up again and that I better get as much wear out of them as possible as soon they will be too big and I will have to throw them out.

I have jeans in all different sizes from 12 to large 18's with stretch.

So from not being able to get any on 3 mths ago I now have 3 pairs I can wear with comfort.

So that is major progress even though I have not seen much progress with the measure tape.

My body seems to use up its fat from the outer extremities first. So wrists are much thinner!!

I know eventually the body fat will have to be targeted as well and I just have to hang in there and wait for it to happen.

Reading Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting. She lost 82lbs but went on to one meal a day or OMAD.

I dont feel ready for that not sure if I ever well be.

While I can comfortably go without food in the mornings now and dont even feel hungry till about 11. Its wonderful not to be thinking about food all the time.

My afternoons are continuing to be untroubled with thoughts of food or binging.

My metabolism has changed and I did not think it was possible for me to feel this way.

I am now totally trust worthy around food. I trust myself so much more which is a big break through.

Down into the next Kg number

Finally dropped 400gms and now in the kg lower and nearer to awesome weight.

Had over 11 days at the same weight which disturbed me a bit.

Wondering if the flax bread I am making is enough to push me off losing.

So stuck the ready made flax bread in the old freezer and will try and bring it out later. Maybe a slice at the weekend as I do enjoy a slice of bread.

Will monitor how I feel without the bread and hope to go back to losing steadily the way I was before I started making it.

Downloaded Gary Taubes Case against Sugar which I have not read before.

I definitely had an issue with bread and sugar but not so much fructose although when I was younger I did drink a lot of sugarary fizzy drinks when I got the chance.

Personally I think that the sweetners and diet drinks contribute to the cravings for carbs in the afternoons and evenings. They set the body up to prepare for incoming sugar and none arrives. So the insulin stays high and removes what little glucose is already in the blood stream. Leading to low blood glucose and subsequent hunger and binging on carbs.

Now I have nothing sweet at all and my appetite is much calmer and more manageable.

Hope to get to 10kg lost within next week or so.

Finding clothes in my wardrobe I can now get into. Size 18 faux leather navy jacket I bought 2 years ago and hardly ever worn.

Better start wearing the stuff now before it is too big!!

Feeling Better Every Day

Disappointed that I am not seeing a lower weight on the scale. Maybe faulty scale!!

However I am finding I have far more energy and am getting into clothes I have not tried on for years.

I am getting things done instead of putting them off endlessly.

I am having my bone broth at breakfast time when my DH has his breakfast so even though I am fasting I can still sit and consume the bone broth.

Trying to get some more bones to boil up another lot and will put chicken wings in the next one for a while to get some jelly into it when its cold. Will spice up the chicken wings and grill them for a meal.

Hopefully I wont spill half of the next batch on the floor as I did with the first lot. However it has done me 9 days. I froze 2 thirds and have the last batch defrosting now.

Finding my shoulder blades are freer to move together. So must have lost some of the fat there!!

Weird how your body decides where to use up the fat first.

I am not cheating at all on this eating plan. I know I can have 2 nice meals a day and my system is now content to wait until meal times instead of demanding starch and sugar during the afternoons and before bed.

Dusted off the DVD exercise boxes and will have a run through and see what I fancy having a go at.

Watched the Pilates for over 50's this morning which looks a nice gentle introduction to exercise.

Onwards and hopefully downwards next week.

Obesity ATM v bank vault model

I thought I would develop this further to try and explain obesity.

Every day we eat food. The food goes to our liver and is partitioned into the various needs of the body for that day. Anything over goes to glycogen and fat storage.

So every day money is acquired and you go to the ATM to make a deposit.

We are assuming here it is a smart ATM that accepts deposits and gives out cash.

The current account is linked to a deposit account. So anything over in the current account is automatically transferred by the ATM computer to the deposit account in the bank vault. Note not the depositor.

All the funds are deposited in the ATM so nothing is held back for emergencies or general running of the business.

When you are young this system works seemlessly. Funds transfer backwards and forwards between the 2 accounts and energy ( money) is always available on demand.

As you get older and lets say deposit more coins rather than big notes ( carbs v fat) the ATM gets clogged up, and the ATM controller decides to place more of the deposits in storage so there is less available for the day to day needs.

The bank vault ( fat stores) soon get full and overflow but the connection between the 2 accounts is lost. Funds only go into the vault and never come out and the ATM says no available funds.

The ATM continues to accept deposits which all now are going into storage and nothing ever reducing the storage amounts.

Then the Governments decides that notes are unhealthy ( fat causes heart disease and obesity) and tells everyone to only accept coins ( carbs) and the ATM controller has to do more work and so hires some more helpers ( more insulin from the pancreas).

If this carries on the controllers all go on strike and the ATM overflows and diabetes results.


So to bypass the clogged system the following has to happen.

Stop using the ATM and stop accepting coins. Eat fewer carbs 25 to 30gms per day and more fat.

So go to the teller desk and do the deposits and with withdrawals and use mostly notes ( fat) to deposit and to withdraw. Withdraw more than you deposit.

This is the low carb highish fat diet. If you eat too much fat you will feel better but your weight will stay the same. To reduce weight the body must be allowed to access the fat in storage.

Skipped Birthday Cake

Yesterday was invited to a birthday. Bring a plate. So I took three.

First had cooked cocktail sausages, second avo guacamole and third yogurt cheese with black pepper mustard and worcester sauce. Made some flax biscuits and cut cucumber to go with those.

So I had something I could eat. I also cut back on the carbs for supper and did not have my usual french beans.

So dinner was only 4gms carbs. Total for day 20.

Quite confused on my flax biscuit recipe. I made them from a recipe and it said makes 12 biscuits at 1 gm carb each. I made about 15 as I cut them smaller. However when I put them in the food tracker said they were 4gms carbs each. I know that the food tracker is now including fibre in the carb count which I do find confusing. If fibre is not digested and does not influence insulin then I dont understand why the old system does not apply and carbs, starch and sugars are listed separately to fibre. Made more sense to me that way.

 Not finding the scale moving at all for the past week. I did start eating avocados which I love but does not seem to suit me.

However I am still feeling slimmer than before. Got some nice comments yesterday about my flowery frock we had to wear for the party.

In the past I have fantasized about being put into an induced coma to lose the weight!!

I have even thought about stomach stapling and read about inflatable balls being inserted in the stomach.

Neither of the above are necessary. The over eating stems from a chemical hormone imbalance when the body cannot access the stored fat, it's locked away in a vault and the body is using the glucose stores like an ATM, deposits and withdrawals as necessary.

When the ATM runs out of money instead of switching to use the vault fat the body demands robbery and binging!!

Being now on fat burning metabolism I no longer have any need for afternoon eating even though I am eating less calories than I have eaten on past diets.

I no longer feel hungry after my lunch meal.

Made Bone Broth Yesterday

RMR is recommending bone broth so got some chopped beef bones yesterday to make my first pot.

Roasted bones first and put in pot with onion carrot and water. Maybe I did not simmer it long enough. Had about 5hrs.

Disaster as I went to strain it from one pot to another. Second pot ended up on the floor with a third of my bone broth!! Managed to save the rest. It has not gelled in the fridge which I expected it to. I read a recipe which said add chicken feet to the water. I have found that boiling up chicken wings the liquid will set to a jelly. So maybe next batch will add some chicken wings and can then remove them to make spicy grilled chicken wings for a meal. We dont get chicken feet inside the chickens anymore. So not sure where to buy them.

My afternoons are still a breeze. 12 lunch to 6 dinner with only a cup of tea. DH left his unfinished bowl of potato crisps in the lounge yesterday and I must have walked past them 30 times and never picked at one. That is progress. Previously I could not have resisted and would have probably finished off the bowl.

Am looking into my cupboard of smaller clothes and getting some of the things out.

Have put all the big elasticated trousers in a binbag and hope never to see them again.

I am looking forward with hope to each day now. Time seems to have contracted when it comes to needing food. I remember trying to only eat to the clock and go the afternoon without food but it seemed impossible. Now I can do it every day with no desire for an extra snack in the afternoon as I am not eating breakfast. Two meals a day is what will see me finally at an acceptable size.

Wish I had known this 60 yrs ago.

Woman's body attacked by own Insulin

That would be a good newspaper headline.

Its not sensational, its true.

So many of us have no idea what is going on in our own bodies.

As children we arrive at the table and eat what is put in front of us. I was a post war baby and somewhere is my ration book.

Food was not to be wasted. We learnt to clear everything on our plate.

At school we had puddings every day and loved my mashed potatoes. Always went up for seconds.

My obesity started in childhood. I had cravings for sugar and chocolate. I would buy a packet of sweets with my pocket money and finish them. I could never save some for later and also had a great problem with sharing my food.

Like many long term obese people I can remember my weight at significant points in my life.

I trained in Home Economics so was always surrounded by food and was nearly always well above any normal weight.

Sizes 18, 20 ,22 came and went and at my heaviest I was a size 24.

My life contracted to things I felt comfortable doing and taking part in.

The first time my insulin was measured was 2 yrs ago and it was 24 fasting.

Over the course of the 2 yrs I have reduced it to 14, keen to see what is the number at the next medical next month.

I know that the high insulin caused my cravings and binging and lack of will power.

I failed to even get through one day without a struggle.

Since starting this eating plan I have reduced my weight by 9kg in 3 mths. I no longer have any inappropriate cravings in the afternoons. I hardly snack at all.

For me it is a 2 phase approach.

One give up breakfast. I was never hungry that early in the morning, I ate because I thought it would stop me feeling hungry later in the day, but in fact the opposite is true for me.

Second keep carbs to under 25grms a day.

Then sit back and watch the scale scroll down.

Can Trust Myself Around Food

All my life I have had a problem with finding myself eating the wrong food at the wrong times and trying to justify it or trying to make up by not eating later.

It was an endless destructive battle with myself I could never win. I failed time and time again and had got to the point when I felt there was no point. Trying to diet and lose weight was just making me so miserable I might as well except the fact I was obese and stop trying to do anything about it.

That experiment when they put the marshmallow in front of the child and offer to double the amount if they can wait, was it 15 mins or 30 mins? That's not so much a test of willpower, but is an indicator of the amount of insulin level in the blood.

Low insulin and normal blood sugar and its easy to wait. High insulin and low blood sugar and the brain is demanding that glucose hit now!!

I have always enjoyed cooking but it was something I tried to limit because of the constant snacking while I cooked. Now I am free to cook again because I know that as long as I am within my 6.5hr eating window, 12 to 6pm and its not carbs I am free to have a small taste without any guilt at all.

Free at last.

I tried on 2 of my size 16 jeans yesterday and while I can get the zip up, something impossible 3 mths ago. They are too tight to wear comfortably now. So more work to be done.

But it's something that is doable and I now look forward to every day instead of dreading it in case I end up binging.

Yesterday I made another loaf of flax bread and cut into 10 slices and froze. Today I have made the 3 cheese omelette from Tom Kerridges book and that will be for my lunch. It makes 4 portions and often DH will have a slice as well. This morning I put in feta cheese, my home made yogurt hung cheese and some wensleydale cheese.

I got out 4 of my winter jackets yesterday and decided to soak them in the bath as they had got very dusty hanging in the cupboard since last year. I had to swill the bath out afterwards which just showed how dirty they were. They hung on the line most of yesterday and will go out again today.

A few months ago I would never of dreamt about tackling something like that. let alone washing them myself and getting the job done.

Insulin was just in control of my life, controlling what I thought about, constantly food, controlling what activities I could do, mornings only for mental work and controlling what exercise I did. As little as possible.
Insulin is a bully and I am so relieved I am now in control and not insulin.

Eat more Fat

This is something I have struggled with for most of my life.

I have no addiction to fats but I do have an addiction to carbs.

From my first diet 60 yrs ago I have been told that I eat too many calories and that is the reason why I am obese and have been most of my life.

So the answer is the cut back on the fat, skim milk, bread with no butter, trim all fat off meat, no chicken skin etc etc.

Eat more carbs that are low calorie and weight loss will result.

For some of us the above has worked for a short time but its a terrible way to live if like me you are insulin resistant.

My body produces too much insulin when I eat carbs. The carbs are inserted into the cells by insulin in the form of triglcerides or glucose and then the high levels of insulin holds the cells shut.

If this goes on every day the brain is starving and then it is highly likely than a binge will set in sometime in the afternoon or evening and the insulin levels stay high and the glucose in the blood is dropping.

The brain sends out a panic message for energy and sweet carbs are the brains goto food for quick energy.

The problem is that eating less fat is counter productive. Fat can slow the release of glucose from food eaten. So less fat in the meal, quicker glucose release and higher glucose in the blood stream and higher insulin response.

I now have a very rich diet. Much richer in good fats than I have ever had in my life before.

Thick cream in my morning coffees. Full fat mayo with lunch. Meat with fat and veg with butter in the evening. Only eating twice a day. No breakfast.

I can now go comfortably between 12 lunch to dinner at 6 without any need for a snack. I have far more energy than I have ever had in my life. I get tasks finished and am no longer procrastinating because I am so tired and lethargic.

My body is switching between energy from fat in my food and fat in my body for all its energy needs.

The result is a weight loss of around 1kg every 11 days.

This is not just a diet its an eating plan for the rest of my life. I am now looking at a non obese future, something that I thought I would never achieve.

www.realmealrevolution,com