Day 15 - Morning Measurements!

Old numbers first, new numbers second!

* Some of Mike's numbers have been changed. I found a better body fat calculator. When I put in Mike's old numbers, I received some different, more accurate results than we had previously.

Mike:

• Neck - 18 inches --> 17.5
• Abdomen - 44 inches --> 44
• Body fat % - 26.73% (obese) --> 28% (obese)
• body fat - 66* lbs  --> 67 lbs.
• lean body weight  - 180* lbs. --> 171 lbs.
• Weight - 246 lbs. --> 238.6 lbs.

Mike's numbers are weird! I tried a few different calculators and all relate the same information. Despite the fact that Mike has lost weight, somehow, his body fat has increased. He's lost lean mass instead. I think this is because he hasn't lost any inches on his abdomen. He's lost weight in other places, like his hips. He's now wearing his belt a notch or two under where he used to, but unfortunately, that progress is not a number used as part of the body fat measurement.

Lori:

• Neck - 12 inches --> 12
• Waist - 27.5 inches --> 27.5
• Hips -  40.5 inches --> 39
• Body fat % - 32.53% (obese) --> 31% (acceptable)
• body fat - 43 lbs. --> 38 lbs
• lean body weight - 87 lbs. --> 85 lbs.
• Weight  - 130 lbs. --> 123 lbs.

I, too, have not made progress with my actual body measurement numbers. My waist and hips are virtually the same and yet, I've moved into the acceptable range (a smidge below the obese line!).

Nonetheless, Mike and I have lost weight - no doubt about it - and we feel better about ourselves. The fact that we haven't lost or barely lost a lot of body fat is not what we expected, particularly after the results Dr. Mosley had. He lost a lot of body fat. Maybe we have to couple this with some exercise. Other than taking longer walks with the dog, I haven't jumped on my elliptical in over a week. Though maybe I should try Mosley's other suggestion about exercise - 20 seconds high impact exercise for 3 days a week :-D Hey, that's supposed to work, too!

Day 13 & 14 - Feelin' Light!

Day 13 - Our 4th fast went smoothly. Fasting on a Wednesday is apparently easier than fasting on a Sunday. Also, perhaps we're getting mildly better at figuring out what to eat and how to divide our calories between our two meals. We decided to split our calories pretty evenly between the two meals and that made the 12 hour fast feel more tolerable. Yogurt and strawberries makes quite a nice, filling breakfast! For dinner, we had orange soy glazed tofu with pan roasted carrots and sugar snap peas. We ate well for 500/600 calories!

Another interesting fact occurred to me. Mike told me he played basketball yesterday...on a fasting day...and he said he felt great afterwards. Last Wednesday, I, too, exercised and felt quite good even though it was a fasting day. I'm curious if there is a link between fasting and exercise (other than it burns extra fat). By the end of the 12 hour fast, I definitely feel like doing NOTHING, but those first few hours of fasting, I feel rather normal and okay to do things that require exertion.

Day 14 - Wow, we've come two full circles now. Our first 2 weeks on the Fast Diet have seemingly flown by. I suppose this means I should give you an update on our numbers to see just how well we've done in this short timespan. I'll update this post later with those numbers!

Day 10 - What'd We Do Wrong?

Day 10 - Our third fast day did not go well. Fasting on the weekend seems harder than on the weekdays. So, it was Sunday and by sleeping in, we didn't eat breakfast until 9:30am...which meant we couldn't have dinner until 9:30pm. Even though the stretch between the two meals was 12 hours, like always, it felt like an enormously long time.

Breakfast consisted of cottage cheese and fruit, a recommendation in The Fast Diet book. However, I quickly discovered that I do not like cottage cheese. The texture, the taste - ugh, it was awful. I didn't even finish the 1/2 cup I put on my plate.

Then the day dragged on. I (stupidly) decided to make vegetable broth from scratch as opposed to paying the usual $3.50 for a quart of store-bough vege broth. So, the house smelled luxuriously of food for hours, which certainly didn't make our stomachs feel very happy.

Mike tried to busy himself with a project, but the combination of hunger and staring at the computer screen were a terrible combination. He ended up getting a huge migraine around 5pm. Once again, The Fast Diet book seems to lie about the true nature of fasting. Our brains are clearly not compensating for our lack of food by creating additional neurons to "help us remember where we found food last in this period of famine." No, Mike and I are quite dysfunctional on our fasts. I am worse at doing crossword puzzles. Mike cannot concentrate and think deeply about things. Yep, no joyful fasting here.

My only good feeling during fasting is seeing my weight on the scale (125!) and noticing how my jeans can now be pulled off my hips with the zipper and button still fastened. I feel thinner. But unlike the book, I do not feel happier. My brain does not produce endorphins to help me survive through famine.

Dinner finally came at 9:30pm. Japanese curry tasted delicious though I found it hard to eat my serving. It was a strange phenomenon. Here I was, RAVENOUS, READY TO EAT, and then...I had a few spoonfuls and was sort of...full. I did in fact eat my whole bowl, but my stomach wasn't quite prepared for "that much" food. But after I ate dinner, I felt normal again. And Mike's migraine went away and he was feeling better, though he declared, "I am not waiting until 9:30 to eat breakfast!"

So what did we do wrong? Why was Sunday's fast so much worse than Wednesday's fast? Was it the time? The meals itself? Perhaps we should be splitting our calories evenly between our two meals, as opposed to saving an extra 100 or so for "dinner." I'm so confused. I just hope that when Wednesday rolls around, Mike doesn't get a migraine again (so sad!) and I don't feel so run down.

Day 8 & 9 - No Guilt/Meal Planning

Day 8 - The great thing about the 5:2 diet is it's guilt free. Well, I suppose there'd be some guilt if you skipped or messed up a fast day, but it's not that difficult to stick with the fast day. So I stick with my statement - it is guilt free! Pizza for dinner - no problem! Wine with dinner - no problem! A piece of pie for dessert - no problem! It's nice to just eat what you want on the regular days. And eating out is not a guilt trip. It's an enjoyable break from cooking.

Now the question remains - are we actually eating "normally?" Or are we eating bad things? Since Mike and I eat in around 5-6 days out of the week, I'd say we're eating pretty normally and I haven't really changed what I've been making. In fact, the new recipes I've been trying out have been from Vegetarian Times and Skinnytaste, which are generally low-cal, low-fat recipes. So, for those thinking, "Wow, you must binge your head off on your 'eating' days"...you would be wrong.

Day 9 - Grocery shopping this week has been excellent. The fast days are definitely saving us some money at the store. I was able to schedule in 8 days of food. Mike and I are basically eating for less than $10 a day combined! Most of the food I purchased was vegetables and fruit, too. No hugely processed foods in this house!

This fast week will be interesting for us. On our last fast day, we discovered just how many vegetables you can eat for under 400 calories...too many! I didn't even have enough vegetables in the house to cover the amount of calories we technically needed to eat to meet our calorie goal. So this time, I'll be cooking low GI, low carb meals. First up, Japanese curry. I've made this many times before and it's one of our favorite meals. We're really lucky that it's only 180 calories per 1 cup serving. It's filling, hearty, and delicious. However, I am substituting the potato for sweet potato since potatoes aren't considered great on a fasting day.

On the next fasting day, I'll be making orange and soy glazed tofu. I have also made this recipe before and it was delicious. Again, 132 calories per serving. It'll go nicely with some roasted carrots, perhaps.

Week 2 is going to be fun and exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing how much healthier we're getting by the end of this next week!

Day 7 - First Week Check-In

First, I must regress and return back to Day 6. Our second fasting day was more comfortable (at least for me) and dinner was a shocker. We had a late dinner - 7:45pm. And we decided to have fresh veggies and hummus. But then we realized a problem...you can eat a SH*TLOAD of veggies since there are so few calories in vegetables. This was my 277 calorie plate:

It took me 30 minutes to whiddle this thing down! It was like Thanksgiving! Seriously! And since we ate later at night, I wasn't hungry when I went to sleep. Which meant I could sleep! Hallelujah!

Okay, Day 7: Mike and I weighed ourselves this morning. The results?

Lori: Previously 126.8 lbs. on 4/14. This morning I weighed: 126.0! WOO!!! Almost a full pound actually removed. TOTALWEIGHT LOST SO FAR: 4 Pounds in 7 days!

Michael: Previously 240.4 on 4/14. This morning, he weighed: 238.?...Mike forgot what the exact number was (lame!). TOTAL WEIGHT LOST SO FAR: 8 Pounds in 7 days!

Our Second Day After The Fast went much better, too, thanks to having an easier fasting day. At least for one of us. Guess who?

ME (Lori)! I didn't have three breakfasts and two lunches like last time. Nope - I ate a normal breakfast and normal lunch AND even a normal dinner. I wasn't even all that interested in eating breakfast this morning. I was going to eat at 8:30am to make sure I fasted for the full 12 hours, but I got caught up setting up a 5:2 Vegetarian/Vegan group on MyFitnessPal that I didn't eat until 9:00am. 

Mike, on the other hand, seemed to have cracked a bit. He had two breakfasts and two lunch portions. Yikes! Well, so much for shrinking your stomach and wanting to eat less...

So now I feel like we're coasting until Sunday, our 3rd fast day. It's really exciting to see the scale drop and drop...all while eating what you like for most of the week!

Day 6 - The Second Fast

Day 6 - Fasting Day #2 is going much better than the first time around. Lacking the heavy carbs has really helped and so has drinking water throughout the day. The morning was a little rough. I was hungry about an hour after breakfast. But then the afternoon came around and I forgot about it. Yes, I actually FORGOT I was hungry! Lunch time was spent watching an episode of Wife Swap I missed. I don't know about you, but I'd say that was a lunch break well spent!

Some interesting things happened to me later on, though. First, I had a doctor's appointment. Nothing serious, just a check-up. I told my doctor I was on the 5:2 diet. She had  never heard of it, but had no qualms about any aspect of it either. Instead, she said, "Fasting for 24 hours? I couldn't do it." I see doing 5:2 like a badge of honor. Like being vegetarian :-) **SMUG**

So, my doctor took my blood pressure (all good) and then she listened to my heart. She looked back at me and asked, "Have you ever had an echocardiogram? You seem to have a heart murmur. I wonder if we could hear it this time because you're fasting." Hmm...that was interesting. I know I had a heart murmur when I was a child, but no doctor, not even this one (who I have visited once a  year for the past 5 years) has said anything about it since. Could fasting lead to better detection of possible health issues?

After the doctor's, I had to head off to Trader Joe's. It's not considered very good to go into a f***ing grocery store while you're fasting, but what choice did I have? I needed some things for our small, sensible dinner tonight. Believe it or not, my stomach didn't rumble. My eyes weren't bulging out of their sockets at all of the food. I made a concerted effort just to pick up things I needed and GTFO. I didn't buy anything extraneous, didn't sneak a cheese sample, nothing. I actually felt detached from food, like, "Oh, yes, there's food there and over there. No thanks." No willpower needed. I simply didn't want it.

Dinner is in 2.5 hours. Now that I think about it, I'm ready :-) And it'll be the most delicious dinner ever!

Day 5 - Back to Normal

Day 5 - Well, I'm doing a lot better today. I've slept pretty well and my eating is back to normal --no 3 meals before noon. Thank goodness! Mike remarked he felt the same way. All in all, I actually feel ready to embark on our second fasting day. I feel like we've learned our mistakes from the first one. Our next fasting day will mean less carbs, more fruit and vegetables. However, tomorrow will be an unusual fasting day for Mike since he will have to do it at work. Somehow, I think this might benefit him since he'll be busy and the kitchen isn't always open nor 3 steps away like it is for me.

Place your bets now - Who will come out on top?! Find out tomorrow!

Day 4 - All Mixed Up

Day 4 Update:

Well, Mike and I certainly had different experiences on "The Day After The Fast." Mike recovered nicely. Although being tired, he only ate breakfast (with me), a big lunch, and a normal dinner. He was feeling good about the experience as a whole.

I, on the other hand, was hungry every 2 hours. At 9:30am, only a meager hour and a half after my cream of wheat breakfast, my brain would not shut up...nor would my stomach. "EAT! YOU'RE HUNGRY! EAT!" So I had a bowl of Lucky Charms. Then at 11am, I was hungry again. So I ate some leftover macaroni and cheese. At 3pm, I ate a half serving of leftover risotto. I just couldn't stop eating today! I even had a larger than normal dinner serving. Clearly, my body's reaction to fasting is, "Okay, there's food around. NOW EAT!! EAT IT ALL!!!" According to Dr. Michael Mosley, this is totally normal because that's what our ancestors went through. Feast then famine then feast then famine. And this is all programmed into our genes. I'm just doing what my body has been programmed to do. Maybe Mike's genes are just better than mine, better programmed to feast and famine events. LOL!

Interesting Facts:

IGF-1 is a hormone that tells your body to produce new cells. Sounds good, right? Sure, you need new cells when you're young and growing. Yet as you age, you really don't need as much IGF-1. Then you're like a car. You can't keep driving it forever. It needs oil changes, parts need to be replaced, etc.

Now consider: When IGF-1 levels are high, your body does not repair existing cells. High IGF-1 levels are also associated with many different cancers! The western diet really encourages people to eat lots of protein and protein keeps IGF-1 levels high. You need protein, but you don't need half as much as people have you believe. According to The Fast Diet, it is recommended that you eat 0.8g of protein for every kilogram you weigh. Yes, you're going to have to convert pounds to kilograms.

Why do I mention this? Because during fasting, IGF-1 levels decrease and therefore, your  body realizes, "Oh, I don't need new cells. I need to repair what I've got so that I can survive through this period with a lack of calories." And THAT'S a big reason why Mike and I are doing the 5:2 diet. Lower IGF-1 levels means we're less prone to cancers, we're letting our bodies repair themselves as they were genetically designed to do during feast-famine conditions, and we may very well live healthier longer because of it.

Day 4 - Whew!

TGI Day 4: Eating Normally Day!

Last night was rough! It turns out it may not be in your best interest to eat high carb foods (like risotto) because they'll fill you up in the short term, but make you ravenous in the long term. That fact could not be more true.

We went to bed hungry. My brain would not shut the hell up about FOOD. I couldn't think about anything else. Even worse, I couldn't get comfortable in bed with an empty stomach. And when I did finally fall asleep, in perfect color and definition, I dreamed of the morning when I would go downstairs and make cream of wheat with raspberry jam and chocolate chips for breakfast. Scratch the first part. My dream might have well been IMAX 3D quality. Seriously!

Needless to say, when Mike's alarm went off this morning, I was tired, but ready to get out of bed. My brain was still signalling, "Eat something! EAT SOMETHING!" And just like in my dream, I wandered downstairs and began preparing cream of wheat (deja vu, no?). Mmmm. It was delicious! However, Mike and I both felt like our stomachs were a little confused about finally being given food. Mentally and physically, though, we're definitely feeling a lot better than last night.

The results so far?

Weigh in (7:45am, pre-food):

Lori: 126.8 lbs. ( -2.2 lbs)

Mike: 240.4 lbs. ( -0.6 lbs if we consider that last night, Mike weighed himself in at  241.0 lbs).

So now the question remains: Will we binge today and eat more than we should? And what food choices will we make - good ones or bad ones? Find out later today!

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Day 3 - The Fasting is the Hardest Part

Day 3 Update:

Around 3pm, Mike and I started going downhill. Mike was guzzling tea like there was no tomorrow. I was feeling a bit light-headed. And we were BOTH feeling irritable. Mike said he couldn't concentrate at all. So, by 5pm, we were ready for some f***ing dinner! And that was exciting, because I had just the recipe to make us feel full, pampered, and oh yes, it's delicious.

Butternut Squash Risotto!

Yep, believe it or not, that nice portion of butternut squash risotto is an astounding 282 calories per cup. I don't think Mike and I have ever savored food moreso than we did tonight. I thought about some of the unseen side effects of fasting - that we might actually be helping the environment by not eating as much food (requiring less energy, buying less food, producing less methane :-D ). We thought about many people who fast and not by choice - that they cannot afford food and therefore cannot eat. There were a whole host of emotions.

Physically, I felt light-headed still, probably because my blood sugar spiked. Mike still felt hungry. After doing some calculations, we discovered he had 16 calories remaining for the day. So he licked the risotto pot clean since what else could he do? Even a marshmallow was 25 calories! Or he could have had 1/10th of a teaspoon of peanut butter (this reality made him cry). Poor guy!

I still have 58 calories remaining. I'm not sure what to do with them. 2 marshmallows perhaps? :-D

Day 3 - Life on the Fast Day (Sure to make you lose your mind...)

Day 3: Our first fasting day!

It's 2:15pm and I've only eaten 161 calories. I ate that (an excellent low fat peanut butter banana muffin) at 10:15am...and at 11am, Mike and I declared, "F***, we just ate and now we're hungry again!" It just goes to show how 30 years of eating whenever we were hungry has messed with our brains. Our stomachs have been quite rumbly. Mike has been drinking green tea and says that's helping keep his feeling of hunger at bay. I've been trying to keep busy so as not to think about my stomach. In particular, I've been avoiding our kitchen like the plague. You know I'm desperate when I run over to Home Depot, buy some bush trimmers, and go to town on the bushes in our front yard.

Strangely, I feel more energetic on this day of fasting. I don't feel weak. I feel like keeping myself busy to avoid thinking about food. And since I have extra time that I would otherwise be eating, I have time to do things that I've been putting off (like trimming the bushes in the front yard!). I'm even walking the dog a little longer, though to be fair, it is a nice day and it's important to take advantage of the nice weather.

I think the worst side effect is that I am irritable. Mike used *my* electric tea kettle and used it improperly in two different ways. The lid must be closed tightly AND you have to use a specific amount of water as the minimum. Otherwise, you can break the kettle. Normally, I wouldn't fly off the handle about this sort of thing (really??...) but today, the issue has exasperated me. It's *my* kettle. The least you can do is use it properly!

We still have no plan on dinner. I need to figure that out. Mike has 100 more calories to eat than me. Lucky bastard. But in the meanwhile, I have almost 4 hours to burn before dinner. In the Michael Mosley documentary, it said that when you fast (or starve), your brain makes additional neurons...mainly to make you smarter to find food. I wonder if I can use my new neurons to be better at playing video games. Hmm...

Day 2 - Are we SPLURGING yet? - Initial Stats

Last night, Mike and I went out for mexican food. Read: High calorie foods! It was so good to eat tortilla chips and cheesy enchiladas and potato burritos! And then I couldn't finish my plate...I was definitely full. Mike treated himself to a big bowl of tableside guacamole. Bring on the calories!

So, it's Saturday, also known as "The Day before the Fast." We indulged again, going out to brunch and getting "our usual" - two types of french toast and french fries. Coffee for Mike, hot chocolate for me. Though we balanced this out with a reasonable dinner. We made some wonderful veggie curry burgers with a curry mayo.

Tomorrow is our first fasting day. We have no idea how we're going to manage our 500/600 calories. We have barely discussed it. You'll just have to find out tomorrow how we fare.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to throw some numbers at you to track our progress as we go through this process. What we learned is that though we don't look terrible and don't have any health problems, we are still considered unhealthy and in some cases, we're considered obese. Yikes!

Mike:

• Neck - 18 inches (circumference, of course)
• Abdomen - 44 inches
• Body fat % - 26.73% (obese)
• 64 lbs of body fat
• lean body weight  - 175 lbs.
• Weight (as of 7pm): 246 lbs.

Lori:

• Neck - 12 inches
• Waist - 27.5 inches
• Hips -  40.5 inches
• Body fat % - 32.53% (obese)
• 42 lbs of body fat
• lean body weight - 87 lbs.
• Weight (as of 7pm) - 130 lbs.

I can't wait until fasting day!! I want these numbers to go down...I don't want to be obese!

Day 1 - This Should Be Easy, But...

Day 1 (Friday) : Mike and I decided to do our fasting days on Sundays and Wednesdays. So since today is Friday, we should just eat like normal, right?

But what I discovered is that there are varied opinions on how many calories you should eat on your 5 days of "feasting." I don't like this term -- feasting. We're just eating normally. But what is NORMAL?

I've been on a 1200 calorie diet for the past month and have lost 5 pounds...and gained 2 pounds...then lost it...then gained it back again. Whatever. So, I wondered if I should still maintain the 1200 calorie diet in addition to the 2 fasting days.

After some extensive research on message boards, articles from The Guardian and Mirror among others - I determined that NO, I should NOT stick to the 1200 calorie diet during the normal eating days. Why? Calories are crucial to keeping your body working. My personal basal metabolic rate (BMR...the amount of calories I'd burn if I did absolutely nothing all day) is about 1350 calories. But let's be serious - I move around during the day, even if it is from couch to kitchen. So, then we need to consider TDEE, the amount of calories I burn daily based on my level of activity. My TDEE is about 1850 calories. In other words, I need calories to function and if I ate 1200 calories 5 days per week and 500 calories 2 days per week, my body will have very adverse reactions (one article I read said if you eat too few calories, your heart may not pump your blood through your body regularly. YIKES!).

So, what is NORMAL? How many calories will I eat on regular eating days? Well, I'm going to eat somewhere between my BMR and TDEE. I've read all sorts of crazy things like "Oh, you should eat your TDEE minus 20%." Whatever. I'm going to eat what I like until I'm satisfied. If one day I eat 1500 calories and another day I eat 2000 calories, FINE. That's NORMAL. But 1200 calories...that's not normal and  I know it's not because I'm constantly measuring portions.

It's Friday. I'm not eating 1200 calories anymore. And I'm excited because it's lunch time :-)

Day 0

Welcome to Lori and Mike's 5:2 diet blog! Tomorrow is Day 1, but it's important to know who we are and why we are doing this before we begin the real "work."

WHO WE ARE:
Lori (me) works from home. I'm generally sedentary if not for my dog. Some people take coffee breaks. I take dog walk breaks. Generally, I walk about 2-3 miles per day on those walks. I've been trying to lose a little weight for a while now (sometimes, I'm actually serious about it).I've been dieting, doing the whole 1200 calorie diet for the last month and spending 30 minutes 3 times per week on my cheap-o elliptical trainer ($120 on Amazon!). I'm 5'1 and I'd like to be 115 pounds. Right now my weight is fluctuating between 133 and 127 pounds. I'm considered healthy, but there's borderline healthy/overweight and then there's just plain healthy. That's where I want to be.

Mike is a data scientist. In other words, he sits at a computer all day long. Sometimes, he plays basketball for half an hour at least once per week. Then he comes home at sits on the couch to watch TV or play video games. The weekends aren't much better. He is 6'4 and weighs 240 pounds. Back in the day, his goal weight was 190 pounds.

We are both vegetarians and have been for the past 7 years. You'd think being vegetarians would help regulate our weight, but that hasn't exactly happened. Some days we even eat wholly vegan meals. However, I love dessert. Love it. And cheese. And Mike likes beer. So that contributes to some of our weight gain over the years.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS TO OURSELVES?!
We want to be healthier. We want to get older without worrying about cancer, alzheimers, heart disease, diabetes...things that have plagued our relatives in the past. Genes certainly play a part in our health, but we can still do something to change things for the better. Yadayadayada.

We watched this documentary on PBS (BBC2) about fasting and were really impressed by the results. Watch it and see if you become as inspired as we were!

WHAT QUESTIONS DO WE HOPE TO ANSWER IN 5 WEEKS?
1. Is the 5:2 diet really feasible? Are we going to be starving on our "fasting" days?
2. Will we lose weight on this diet? You always hear that if you eat less than 1200 calories, your body will go into "starvation mode," you won't get the nutrients you really need, and your weight loss will plateau. It's important to note that since Mike and I are doing this together, you'll get an interesting view of a male and female going through this process.
3. Will we feel healthier? We're not going to a doctor to monitor us on this adventure, but will we be able to have a sense that our bodies are at their best?
4. Will the freedom to eat what we please on normal days prompt us to eat unhealthy foods?
5. Will there be any unintended benefits, like less allergies?
6. TBD - I'm sure as we go through the process, more questions will pop up.

I'm ready for Day 1...(It's not a fasting day!)