Fast Day and Stuff I've learned

Fast day is here again.  I really wanted to have a Mtn. Dew (my true weakness), so the "food" aspects of today will be a little bit light.  My weight is currently down 4.5 lbs. and I'm really excited to lose 3.5 more (hopefully within the next 3 weeks) and see a number on the scale I've not seen for about 9 years!   First though, I thought I'd share some of what I've learned in the past few weeks.

1.  I frequently eat more than I need to.  I have become more aware of my bodily needs.  Take yesterday; I was out running errands and was incredibly hungry.  I hadn't eaten since noon and since that time had put in a rigorous 30-minute workout, painted cabinets, cleaned my kitchen, made dinner and priced 3 large boxes of children't clothing for a garage sale this weekend.  8 pm. rolls around and I'm done with my grocery shopping and staring McDonald's in the face.  I ordered a small fry and a cheeseburger.  Not the worst thing you can get there (also, not the best).  As I ate, I realized I could have gone with just the cheeseburger or the fries; my body didn't "need" both.

2.  Being hungry doesn't really bother me.  This has been the biggest revelation to me thus far.  I feel freed in fasting.  I'm hungry, and that is okay because I SHOULD be hungry.

3.  I have more than sufficient energy on my fast days.  I get A LOT of work done on fast days.  One of my biggest problems is that I frequently snack because I'm bored.  Well, I don't want to be bored and feeling snacky, so I do stuff.  I sew, paint, do laundry, take walks, read- you name it!

4.  Because we eat fairly healthy as a family, it isn't too difficult to plan an evening meal that we can all eat, and we're still enjoying some family favorites! 

Well, that was easy . . .

Saturday was a crazy day for me- my husband was busy doing "house work" and I was painting rooms and it was just really busy!  Around 3pm. I felt a little bit hungry, realized I hadn't eaten since my bowl of cereal around 8 am., so I grabbed a couple slices of leftover homemade pizza and got back to work.  7 pm. rolls around and I'm a bit hungry.  I did some quick math and realized I'd had just under 500 calories for the day so far.  I decided to work through the hunger and finished my fast.  This was a GREAT fast day for me.  The whole day felt easy because I didn't decide until more than half-way through that it would be a fast day.  In essence, it only felt about 3 1/2 hours long- because I went to bed at a decent time ;)  It was a great way to squeeze in my second fast day for the week since Thursday and Friday (days I usually choose for my 2nd fast of the week), were NOT going to work out. 

I'm a few weeks into my fasting routine and down 4 pounds.  I'm encouraged and this feels like something I can continue doing.  My non-fast days haven't changed much, although I am considering skipping lunch a couple times a week to reduce my caloric intake, or just reducing lunch to an apple- something small.

If anybody is acutally reading this blog, I'd love to hear some feedback.  Thanks!

Back In the Saddle

I tried a new tactic for delaying my first meal- sleep!  I stayed up really late last night watching the NCAA championship - Go Cardinals!!!!!!  After I got the little lady off to school, I crawled back into bed, a tiny bit hungry, but I did get another hour of sleep.  Luckily the little kids didn't tear the house apart while I snoozed!  I haven't fasted for over a week, and I'm anxious to get back to it.  I'm positive I've put on a few lbs. as my jeans are a little more snug.  Here's the game plan:

Noon:  1 hard boiled egg - 78 calorie
             Gala apple- 74 calories
             slice of whole wheat toast with 2 tsp. apple butter - 93

1 pm.:  This is the hardest part of the day for me - the hour or two after I've eaten.  I just want to snack.  Sometimes I think it would be easier to forgo food altogether . . .

3:30 pm.  A little 76 calorie piece of chocolate.  It was delicious!

6:30 pm  4 oz tilapia 108 calories
                1/3 c. homemade parmesan risotto  78 calories
                1 c. broccoli  30 calories

I used THIS recipe for risotto, but did make some modifications.  I reduced the amount of butter by half and used only 1/4 c. parmesan for the entire dish.  Still REALLY delicious! 

SPRING BREAK

I've been away from home since last Thursday- no fasting on vacation for me.  Prior to my hiatus, I had lost 2 lbs.  We'll see if that stuck :)  My guess is no- Easter candy was on sale!!!!

Fast Day 3

The days leading up to the fast I've been reminding myself how easy these fasts are.  I've done it twice- I was a bit uncomfortable at times, but I didn't die or anything.  When I'm in the middle of it- it is more challenging.  Particularly 1-2 hours after I've eaten I'm really tempted to eat more.  I'll have to work on my food balance.

Up at 7 am. to get the little lady ready for school.  The last thing I ate was a handful of Cheezits last night around 10:30 - healthy, I know.  I started feeling a little hungry around 9 am., so I decided to do some cleaning.  Cleaning has become my copint mechanism for hunger.  It gets me moving and my mind is not on food.  When I'm sitting in front of the TV or computer (like now) my mind tends to wander to food, as that is usually the time when I'm snacking.  I did weigh myself yesterday, and I was 1.5 lbs. lighter.  I don't know if that is due to the fasting or just the normal fluctuation of my weight.  Time will tell.

11 am.- 1 cup Pasta e Fagioli (mentioned in yesterday's post)- 115 calories with
             1 Tbsp. Parmesan-20 calories
             1 boiled egg - 78 calories,
             1 Gala apple- 74 calories

I've been feeling hungry, a lot.  This has not been an easy day so far.  I'm getting ready to make pizza for my family and the dough I made earlier today is smelling divine.  I've stated before, I don't like the idea of making something different for my family, and we had food that needed to be used up and pizza is a great way to clean our produce out.

7 pm.- 1 slice homemade pizza- 125 calories
           1 c. Sinfully delicious oven-roasted broccoli - 85 calories 


Sinfully Delicious Oven-Roasted Broccoli -89 calories

This is an admittedly high-calorie way to eat broccoli, but it is a delicious treat and worth the extra calories.  If you have picky eaters in your family, they may just like this!

1 c. broccoli florets- 30 calories
1 tsp. olive oil - 40 calories
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced- 4 calories (I keep my garlic pieces larger and don't acutally consume them)
2 tsp. Aldi brand grated parmesan cheese- 14 calories
tiny bit of lemon zest
1 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice - 1 calorie

Preheat oven to 425.  Toss broccoli with olive oil and garlic.  Place in a baking dish in a single layer and roast for 10 minutes.  Stir and continue roasting an additional 10 minutes.  Edges of broccoli should be lightly browned.  Remove from oven and add lemon zest, juice and parmesan.  Toss to coat.  **TIP**  If your broccoli is not completely dry, it may be a little limp and not have as much snap to it.

New Recipe

I'm planning my fasts for the week again.  I'm oddly looking forward to tomorrow's fast.  My last one seemed so easy, and I'm anxious to enter my second week and see if I'm actually going to lose weight doing this.  I'm sure I need to- I spent the weekend out of town eating at A&W, P.F. Changs and a great new Thai place in town.  I made a new recipe for dinner last night that will fit well into my fast-day dinner rotation.  I don't really like the idea of eating a seperate meal from my family, so I'm in the process of finding new recipes and evaluating a lot of the recipes in my aresenal of "family favorites". 

I've never had Pasta e Fagioli, and I wasn't that excited about it, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It was tasty and filling, and as a bonus, my kids REALLY loved it!   Also, it will be a great fast-day food.  1 cup has just 115 calories!

Pasta E Fagioli from Budget Bytes-  This makes 15- 1 cup servings.  I made mine with Ditalini pasta.  The total calorie count for the recipe is 1,625.  If you did one of the variations listed at the bottom of her post (like adding bacon-YUM), you would need to adjust the calories accordingly.


http://budgetbytes.blogspot.com/2010/12/pasta-e-fagioli-812-recipe-135-serving.html

Fast Day 2

I thought I would be dreading today, but not so much.  I went to bed last night without feeling the need/desire to gorge myself in preperation of my fast.  I knew I would be hungry, but it certainly won't kill me, and I know I can do it.  Once again, I say it feels really liberating to be hungry for a purpose.  I'm not hungry because I'm on a diet that doesn't give me enough food or satisfy me (like it claims it should); I'm hungry because I am fasting.  I am hungry on purpose.  So much easier to deal with! 

A couple of "coping" tips I'm carrying over from Day 1 :  stay busy, drink lots of water, go to bed earlier on your fast day.  Sleep is not only really good for you, but you're not hungry in your sleep.  On Day 1, I was counting down the hours until bedtime; evenings are such a bad snack-time for me.

Around 9 am. I was seriously considering "faking" my fast for the day.  That has passed and I'm back on the wagon! 

11:00 am - 201 calories.  Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal (127 cal) - I only ate half of what I made.  It didn't taste wonderful.  It certainly wasn't bad, but I like my food to be delicous and this was just okay.  I wouldn't be excited to eat it again.  I think I'll do more research and get a better recipe together.  I decided to take the rest of my calories in the form of a Gala apple (74 cal).  It was tasty, although one half was considerably sweeter than the other.  Have you ever run into something crazy like that?

6:30 pm - 260 calories.  Delicous!  I eat this meal all the time, I just opted not not eat it on rice noodles this time.  Pot Sticker Burgers.  I cannot say enough wonderful things about this recipe.  It is divine.  Eat up!



Chocolate PB Oatmeal - 253 cal.

1/2 c. Old-Fashioned oats, cooked in water (150 cal.)
1 Tbsp. Peanut Butter (95 cal)
2 rounded tsp. cocoa (8 cal)
Splenda to taste (0 cal) - I suspect Splenda brown sugar would make this better

I did it!

I completed my fast.  I was REALLY tempted last night to end it at 24 hours (I'd had a small bowl of ice cream on Monday night), but then decided to just go to bed hungry instead and do a full 32 hours.  In one of my waves of hunger I was searching for information on the benefits of 32 hours with some calories vs. 24 hours with zero.  THIS was helpful.   I woke us this morning and felt normal.  I wasn't famished and I didn't eat all of my cereal either.  I don't know if I ate less because my stomach was small or if it was all mental- but I'll take it.

I am going to spend some time today preparing for tomorrow's fast.  My game plan is to eat a little something this evening before bed that is more substantial than a serving of ice cream.  Perhaps some whole wheat toast with peanut butter.  I'm also going to try and wait until 11:30 to do my morning meal.  Also, I need to research a better breakfast.  Yesterday's was filling, but not particularly tasty.   I'll tell you what IS tasty- Pot Sticker Burgers from iowagirleats.com.  Seriously delicious!  And, if you tweak the recipe and make it into six patties and serve with 2/3 c. of the asian slaw topping they come in at just 130 calories each.  This is a regular rotation on our dinner menu and I'm so pleased to have another meal that I can feed the entire family on a fast day.  This picture does not do justice to how delicous these are!

My First Fast

Yesterday, I ate like a regular person and had my favorite ice cream in the evening while watching TV with the Mr., so my last food was around 10 pm.

7 am.  Woke up to get the little lady ready for school.  We normally eat breakfast together, so it was a little bit different, but not bad, we talked instead of me eating.  I may start using this time to read scriptures with her before she heads out into the big bad world.  I busied myself with cleaning the kitchen and getting the other kids breakfast around.

8:30  Feeling a little bit hungry.  A glass of water did the trick.  I boiled my egg for my "breakfast" at 10:30.

9:30  Legitimately hungry.  A glass of water is not fixing that.  Hunger is not unbearable, and much easier to forget about if you get up and do something.  I cleaned the bathroom. 

10:30 BREAKFAST!  The egg was delicious.  If you don't like boiled eggs, it may be because they're not prepared correctly and the yolk turns a nasty green-ish/gray color.  Martha Stewart knows her stuff and gives great info on the best way to boil an egg HERE.
     My steel cut oats with applesauce was just okay (amounts in previous post).  I like the oats, but I'm used to them with more brown sugar- probably a tablespoon or so, and there was too much applesauce.  I'm going to play around with the ratios here and try something different for Thursday.  Also, it made more than I wanted to eat.

1:30  Gah, I'm realizing that I snack - a lot!  Gotta keep busy!

4:30  I am hungry, legitimately; however it is somewhat comforting that I know I'm supposed to be hungry.  Much better than some diet that says "you shouldn't feel hungry".

6:45  Dinner!  I'm still a bit hungry, so I'm thinking an early bedtime sounds fantastic.  I switched up my tilapia and salad for two Chicken Spinach Parmesan Wraps.  This is a meal I already frequently make for my family.  Recipe below.

Chicken Spinach Parmesan Wraps
adapted from picklee
Yield:  18 wraps
120 calories each

2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
1 c. marinara sauce (mine has 170 calories/cup)
18 egg roll wrappers (60 calories each)
Fresh, chopped spinach
Mozzarella Cheese

Combine chicken and marinara.  Place 2 Tbsp. chicken, 1 Tbsp. mozzarella (23 cal.) and approximately 1/4 c. spinach (12 cal.) in the center of egg roll wrapper.  Lightly brush the sides with water, fold over and pinch edges to seal.  Lightly spray with olive oil and bake at 400 degrees for 12 minutes.
 

Gearing Up

Tomorrow will be my first fast day.  I don't anticipate any real problems hunger-wise.  As a disclaimer, I have done 24-hour (spiritually motivated) fasts regularly since I was 12, usually once a month, but since I've been popp'n out babies and nursing, the last 8 years have been sporadic at best.  I've finished reading the entire book by Dr. Mosely, "The Fast Diet".  It was a quick read; I was able to finish in one sitting.  I also watched the entire documentary "Eat, Fast, and Live Longer".

I have set a schedule of fasting that I think will work with my current schedule and lifestyle.  I plan to fast on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the full day; my goal is to eat my "breakfast" around 10 or 10:30 and then do my evening meal around 8, after the children are in bed. I think I would like eating my second meal earlier; however, I am an evening snacker.  I frequently have a small bowl of cereal or ice cream while watching some TV with my husband, so taking my meal as late as possible seems like a better fit for me. In the book, some people mentioned fasting from 2 pm. one day to 2 pm. the next, but that doesn't seem like it would work well for me.  I'm doing all of my grocery shopping today, and I'm grateful that with this eating plan there is nothing "extra" I'm needing to buy.  The book offers a good variety of menu options, and even though I'm picky, most things sound good to me.  Here is the game plan for tomorrow:

Breakfast:
1/4 c. un-cooked steel cut oats, cooked in water - 140 cal.
1/2 c. un-sweetened applesauce - 50 cal.
1 tsp. brown sugar - 17 cal.
dash of cinnamon
Boiled Egg - 78 cal.

Dinner:
4 oz. Oven-baked Tilapia filet with creole seasoning - 115 cal.
2 c. romaine lettuce with 1 tsp. Brianna's Asiago Caesar, and 1 Tbsp. Parmesan Cheese - 60 cal.
1 c. steamed broccoli with fresh lemon juice - 30 cal.

TOTAL:  490 calories

I'll check back in tomorrow and let you know how it goes!

In the beginning

A few weeks ago, on a fluke, I was watching Good Morning America. I never see any grown-up programing durring the day, but the kids were sleeping late and I decided to turn on the TV. I saw a really interesting segment about the Fast Diet and started looking into it. I was intrigued, and decided to give it a go, even though I am very skeptical about "diets".

Once in my twenties I ate no sugar for 3 months.  I think I lost about 12 lbs. and gained it all back as soon as I was off the wagon.  Aside from that foray into insanity, I've never been very serious about watching what I eat.  Sure, I try to eat healthy and have veggies and fruits each day, but I also LOVE chocolate, ice cream, cookies, and of course, Mtn. Dew.  Most of our meals are completely home cooked, with just a few short-cuts and overall, well balanced.  I buy or make treats occasionally, but we're definitely not a junk-food house.  I might buy a package of cookies once a month and rarely buy chips.  Ice cream is a constant in the house though - a bad habit I learned from my dad!  I work out 2-3 times/week and try to burn a minimum of 300 calories in my workouts.  Aside from that, I'm fairly active chasing kids around and cleaning the house. 

Here's the 411:  For most of my adult life I've been a size 14.  In my early twenties I lost some weight and was a loose 12, and now after baby #4, at 33 years old, a tight 14.

I want to document my experience with the Fast Diet and offer tips, recipes and encouragement to others!  Oh, and I'd like to drop a few pounds.