Black, Woman and Winning!: October 2014

Self improvement blog alert!

Before I tell you how to do this stomach shrinking thingy, lets talk about why the FASTING Diet (or FAST Diet or 5:2 Diet) might be good for you.

I have just met a friend who has lost so much weight it's unbelievable. She was into aerobics and water weights and all that before and she had a measure of success but she has been on the fast Diet for maybe 2 months and she is looking like a new person.

She is for me another testament to the success of the Fast Diet. If you haven't heard about this diet then, where have you been? I posted about it a while back and now I am back to it so you know it really is a good 'un. I am not one to post before and after pictures (maybe because I forgot to take the 'before' ones and also I am still on this journey of slow and steady race winning) but I am giving this one a thumbs up because of all the benefits -not just weight loss- that come with doing the Fast (5:2) diet.

The name might sound scary but it is not a scary diet.

As the name implies you do two days of low calorie eating on about 550 calories and then eat normally for the rest (5 days) of the week. It is good to do a block of two days though you can split it and do the second day after a couple of days between (there are certain physiological advantages of two consecutive days). Even if you eat excess on the five days you will be in a better place than if you ate to excess every day of the week. I have also found that your eating on the rest of the days (none-fast days), gradually falls off over the months until you are not eating as much generally as before.

What I like about it is that it reintroduces discipline into your eating gradually, and unlike replacement diets, the short cycles of the Fast diet means that you are always optimistic because the period of low intake comes to an end very quickly and you can restart eating normally. Gradually though from my personal experience, the diet breaks down the hold of overeating over months until you cant even imagine binging on the excess of food that you would ordinarily have been comfortable with eating in the past. This is indeed where the stomach stapling action comes in but more on that later...

I think I have unravelled the core principle of success inherent in this diet at least for me and a few other people out there. This principle is that for many of us, we need to know how little we can exist on, in order to know how little we should eat. Before I started this diet which has become a lifestyle (almost 2 years), I couldn't quite conceptualize how the human body could survive on the little amount of food (or so I saw it) that gave 2000 calories (using my images of modern food dishes etc). I used to really get shocked to see and hear people talk about or design menus for lunch or dinner for meal portions containing 450 - 550 calories. It was just too small in my eyes. I just didn't know how one could possibly exist on such small portions or so I thought.

Fast Diet, is a slow and steady worker no doubt but I believe it beats out so many other 'faster' and more popular regimes because of a few facts which I will detail.

Let me state this plainly, controlling your eating is the MAIN way to loose weight. Exercise helps but trashing about in the gym will go just so far (look around, some folk never exercise but are lean, but on the other hand it is rare to do the level of exercise needed to burn off binge eating weight unless you are a professional athlete or body builder. Intense exercise on a very overweight body can also damage joints and ligaments etc trust me I have been there and done it!).

No method is easy, loosing weight and overcoming the bad habits that took you to the 18 stone will be hard, or put in other words will take some effort and sacrifice, never believe anyone or any method that promises a walk in the park, often what happens for those who claim it was easy, was that they found a method for themselves that just gelled with their ways of life and rhythms and other psychological makeup so much so it seemed like a breeze to them. So you will have to do something different, sacrifice and even feel deprived (Often my fast day falls on my cinema days and there is a lot of self-pity when I notice the folk around me with large portions of ice creams, snacks, popcorns etc etc). So my advice is, embrace the sacrifice, the self-denial aspect of any dieting and weight loss option you choose because there will definitely be that aspect in fact go ahead and turn it into a spiritual exercises if you need to!

Never say, 'I am now 50, 40 etc, I should have sorted my weigh out ages ago' and start regreting what you might have missed by being overweight. Put self pity and regret aside and don't let it rob you of one more day of possibility.

The benefits I found:

After the fist hunger pangs (have your main meal or drink loads of water at this point) have settled, your body goes into a natural high so you are in a very positive and happy state of mind, often with loads of energy (I know it's kind of unbelievable but true!). It is thought that the depletion of your insulin stores as the body burns these for energy is the reason (ketosis) for the heightened state you experience
Your body soon gets into a rhythm and naturally anticipates your days of fasting, in other words your body starts to cooperate with your fast dieting and you start not to feel so hungry on the fast days or you don't wake up thinking about food or breakfast etc etc little ways the body helps you go through the days of low eating. It helps if you do your fast days at the same times in the week e.g on Saturday and Sunday (or better still when you are so busy in the week so you don't really have space to think about food) for instance
The heightened state and energy can lead to a spiritual like perspective on the fast day (no wonder yogis and other spiritual folk incorporate a lot of fasting and restrictive diets into their lifestyles).
It might seem drastic and you may fear for your life but, I have done more extreme weight loss systems that restrict calories for longer periods and know that you don't just starve or collapse after a day or two of low calorie eating as long as you remain hydrated (the body can go without food for weeks as long as you have water), and the ability to live life in a heightened state for a couple of hours or days (smell, taste, sight and sound), is something to be experienced.
Knowing that you can eat after two-three days of rationing teaches you the appreciation of what you put in your mouth after
It might take 6 months or more but you learn discipline in food eating (I think because gradually the process of eating and stopping, eating and stopping, gradually wears down your the hold of the binge eating habits formed in the past). Once you know how little you can eat and convince yourself you dont need all that food, you can easily retrain yourself to eat well because you know intimately that humans don't need that much food, despite feeding habits in the society in general
Your stomach shrinks- trust me on this one! Once you have done this regime for a couple of months, you will not need a third party to remind you not to not cram food down the day after the fast...
Your food bill drops significantly and those food treats you bought will hang around in your fridge for weeks before you find the space on your daily eating pattern to eat them. Cutting two days out from your normal eating block is really significant. I like chicken and fries but have not had the 'space' to insert them in the last month (and no I don't crave it uncontrollably, I just would like to eat it, and know that one of these days I will go into the KFC store down the road and ask for a big meal!)
Write things down that you crave when you are fasting, and see how few of them you actually do get round to eatting when you are not on fast days

and etc etc etc I could write pages.

I strongly suggest: try this diet for yourself for a week or two and see how it goes, what have you got to lose. Remember nothing worth having is ever easy to achieve, this might be the easiest one in the bunch for you. Don't be indolent!

How to get a stapled stomach naturally

Folks pay loads of money to control food intake through stomach bypass or stomach band surgery and it is on the whole very successful in curbing overeating because you feel full pretty easily and of course binging is discouraged due to discomfort you get when you binge eat on a 'stapled' stomach. I have recommended the bariatric procedure to family members myself because I know it can be a life saver for those who cannot control/lose their weight. The Fast Diet naturally reduces your stomach size and you do get a good deal of discomfort a few days after if you dare overdo it! However nothing beats three day in a row fast in shrinking your stomach to almost half its capacity. I did three days fasting in august for about three weeks in a row and I can tell you that I honestly cannot overeat (even a bit) without a whole lot of discomfort and regretting having that extra helping. It is training my food eating habits like nothing in the past could!

Know however that self sabotage is possible also with this diet as with all others and as with a stomach bypass etc alcohol and calorie dense liquid food taken to excess can nullify the effects of a shrunk stomach.

Next post available 1st Nov 2014

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