End of my Short Concluding Fast

Date:   3/24/2016 3:37:16 AM ( 8 y ago)

Well, I'm very pleased,
it all went very well - I put in the effort and now am back to the weight I got to before the 3 weeks of diet distraction :) It has been a good summer with a lot of fasting this 2016 and now the weather is really starting to cool off - not sure if I'll get anymore fasting in, maybe one more when I return from my retreat early April if the weathers not too cold, I've done a lot for my health and my youth and feel like I've progressed a lot in the process.

I know the thing I've been coming to these last couple of years, getting a little older and not able to shed weight so easily as I used to, not always having the bursting energy I used to - for me, its been a real journey into learning that this is a time in my life when I really have to solidly change my habits for good. That's a big thing to do, on one hand, just because you're so used to one way of being - on the other hand however, its not really that hard, and the groundwork I've been doing the last couple of years fasting and following the intermittent fast diet have given me a lot to go on. I've also been on wholefoods diets in the past so have that experience to call on.

I started eating a few days ago, just very small at first, building up to one small meal a day so I can go on my retreat in a couple days and join in with the meals and so on and the usual schedule of things. What I have been doing a lot this year is counting my calories and getting really in the habit of doing it every day now has been a real step.

On fast days, I'd do anything from about 500 calories to maybe 1000 at the really high end, normally something like 800 is probably a bit of an average - so I've kept my 'diet' under 1200 calories per day for the most part which is certainly in the quick weight loss range.

What I want to do now is just keep counting and to make wholefoods the focus - to adopt this as a lifestyle for the long term, which is not such a big change for me as I eat a lot that way anyway, but it does mean being more focused and really getting rid of more sugars and junk foods that just don't need to be there and add up to a lot of bad calories.

Again - living this way means being into it, putting the effort in and making the things that are the right choices - I don't go in for the food pyramid, I don't want to eat 3 meals a day, 2 is really fine for me, sometimes 1 is good - I really don't need to eat until around lunchtime and am quite content to have a cup of tea or some juice before that. So - I might come back and go 4 days off, 3 days on the 500 cal intermittent fast diet for awhile with these principles as my guiding light - then once I've reached the weight I want to be at, and the winter is really starting to set in, just transit to a maintenance whole foods diet of 1200-1600 cals on average - something like that and just try to live that way and really stick with it. I can see and already feel what doing that and putting the effort and focus in to that will do for me - long life, good health, not overweight which is a huge factor in health anyway, more energetic, flexible, beautiful, more nutrients nourishing me - all in all this is the direction I want to go in, making a meal out or any junk food a special occasion and just nothing like the rule - I'm sure there will still be times I'm traveling or out on a date or whatnot, and that's fine, as long as its not my lifestyle. I'm really getting more and more interested in working on subs in my cooking for sugar - I have been using ethyritol more and more as my go to spoonful of no cal sweetener in my tea and its just great, I still like the taste of a real spoonful of sugar in my coffee - I might have one a day, two some days and none on others, but even that I've cut it down from 2 teaspoons of sugar to one sugar and one ethyritol - I can't tell the difference and its much better for me. Baking is still something I need to play with - ethyritol is really expensive and baking takes a lot so I think I might try things like using fruit instead of sugar and also just cutting the sugar down to a 3rd or something and using a few drops of stevia etc instead - I'll play around and work out a ratio that doesn't taste funny - I know if I make it and my friend here eats it, its the right ration because he's much more picky than I am lol. Anyway, these are my thoughts as I wrap up this blog - the other thing I've been doing this short fast is that I started and ended it with a few psyllium drinks per day and that was wonderful - another thing I'm going to adopt into my ongoing lifestyle just for the health it brings - I've got into infused waters a bit more and the psyllium drink or two a day also fills you up and adds a couple serves of water.

I think whats best about what I've been doing is just continuing to go back to the practice. Like yoga for me, and meditation - fasting and dieting is something that can fall to the wayside when I get too busy and am in a real urban environment but the continuity I've developed by going back and returning to the practice every year, continuing to develop it is what is changing my life and health at a deep level and developing new habits. My old habits were acquired over a lifetime and so are these new ones - doing this over and over again makes it easier and easier as it becomes more familiar. I think this is the real key to long term change and I see it in my practice. Now. after many years, even when I miss a week or two of yoga or only do it a few days a week, I've become so developed in my practice of it and sensitive to that practice that I don't find it difficult anymore to just go back to it - I find I do practice more and more often during those times I'm not on a kind of retreat with it really doing it every day hardcore - and this is what the years of going back to it has developed in me, along with that, a grace and stillness within this familiarity where it becomes more and more mindfull while being more and more effortless.

& so I'll end this short fast, looking forward with a great inner glow to the series of teachings in the Blue Mountians next week.

Good luck to all you readers,
may my stories and info inspire you
and may the road rise up to meet you ;)



 

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