Here’s to nothing and everything! Today I started intermittent fasting. When I woke up I drank two waters, then had a green tea before my shake and that was at 10:00am my food window opened. Today was my first day, so I went until 7pm. My goal is 11-7, but I’ll start here, 10-7. Tomorrow will be easier because I can sleep later. The scale hasn’t moved this week. Soo I think this change will be a good one. Maybe I’ll wake up my miracle metabolism. Hopefully I can survive no food after 7 that’s the hardest!
Diets
Why is me without coffee better?
I really don’t get it. What is in my coffee that doesn’t agree with me that other people can drink without issue? When I’m drinking coffee I slowly fall out of control. It’s the strangest thing. I don’t mean in a really obvious, like an addict, but slow change of who I am.
- I’m more irritable and aggravated
- I am always ready for sleep and can’t keep eyes open at night
- My heart rate and bp raises
- I become more impulsive and apathetic, this one really gets me. When I am on coffee, the day starts with coffee and I am focused. In my work goals, life goals, and I love the coffee. But as the days go it changes. I change. And I still have that focus but I start to become apathetic but ruminate on my original focus of things that were important to me. So the ideas still exist in me but my apathy and impulsiveness are on the forefront. I know my values are there but at the same time I don’t care; but then I circle back around constantly beating myself up. And its not after my first cup of coffee; this is something that happens over time. I lose sight and I don’t see it for what it is. It never fails, this is where it leads me.
- Even if I start the day out great by the end I’m like who cares but yet I am obsessed with my failures.
I know I cannot be alone in this. I genuinely think there is something in there just messes with my brain chemistry. And even decaf does this to me. Its not the me I want to be. And I am def not perfect without it but twice now I was able to get things in my life to a better place, and lose the negative obsessing when I stopped drinking it! I still have hot water in the morning while I go through emails and I feel good about it. I know it sounds so dull. Sorry.
This morning I am at 164.2. I am hoping to be at 163 by Monday for my weigh in! I am really excited about it. I was thinking this morning when I weighed in that I worry about how I will maintain but I think the thing is that I need to realize I don’t need to eat so much food. I don’t need to eat all the junk. And dessert doesn’t need to be what I always thought. Maybe sugar free pudding or fruit. As long as its filling my tummy and slightly sweet I feel great about it. It’s interesting in 2017, when I lost a bunch of weight. I had to promise myself ice cream once a week and I had chocolate every night after dinner. Lately chocolate tastes gross to me, and I am ok with not having ice cream once a week. When I want to have it I will and it will be very small. Because I don’t need to have the big portions. I don’t need to over indulge. It’s weird like something has clicked in me, where I just want a better life. Maybe its the insane bp I have had when I went to the doctors twice recently. I know I can get this under control. I am doing this for me.
Weight loss and menopause
Two years ago I had a hysterectomy. I didn’t go through menopause, as I still have my ovaries. So there are still hormones there but things are definitely different. I was doing some research about weight loss for women over this age and they were saying it was important to avoid flour based foods but also to avoid dessert / sugar.
And I will be honest with you all my life I have managed weight loss but also including a daily dessert. And also I just witnessed a friend who clearly suffers from hormonal issues do a strict died that included no dessert for 8 months and she didn’t lose a lot of weight. It’s odd to me. I have been dieting and exercising and the scale has only gone up. And my the band around my chest for my sports bra is actually tighter. I think the foods we have are trash. Today I will try switching it up but really, maybe I will wait, because maybe its my lack of sleep. All I know I feel hungry as heck! My body is like what are you doing! I am sticking it out and will do my best. My first goal is 165 lbs. And I have a feeling that will take a couple months based on how this is going. I am pretty excited though tomorrow is measurement day and I hope to see something there.
So anyway I feel like I am being doom and gloom. My goal is to cut out dessert to see if it helps. At the same time I am like oh gawd why. LOL. I’ll try to move things around try healthier options. I love having a shakeo for breakfast but again I am not seeing anything happen on the scale. I wonder if oatmeal is a better option with shakeo for lunch? And one meal with meat for dinner. I made an amazing chili yesterday. I will try this out today. Tomorrow may be better too because I can get better sleep. The 10 hour work days are hard for me.
Accounting 101
I decided to start walking part out of being so unfit, my blood pressure has been increasing, I am 30 pounds overweight, and I have been so depressed. I am not sure what kick started for me? I also quit drinking my daily coffee, sometimes that is the combination that helps wake me up. I have been doing 1 – 2 miles a day, just walking. I know it’s not much but after not moving much this past year due to a knee injury its enough. I am one week into this. My depression has been lifting slightly, and that is huge. You can’t do anything else while that is sitting on top of you. I have been sporadically trying to lose weight. Trying intermittent fasting, plant based diet, and not counting calories but just being restrictive. And none of it works for me. If you have read any of my older entries you will know this to be true. I love the benefits I read about the intermittent fasting, and I completely believe it. I also believe in it due to spiritual reasons. Perhaps if I focused less on the self part and more on the prayer while doing it, it’d be more useful.
But anyway, I have found the best way for me to get healthier is to focus on my accounting. I guess if you think about it, it makes sense. We live in this crazy time of being surrounded by unhealthy foods, not just in terms of being full of sugar but also the chemicals (that do who knows what?) If you don’t manage your business, (body), then your body will be running rampant. Let’s be real there are people out there that don’t need that level of management, and perhaps those people are just very disciplined to start. I am here to say I am ready for this focus in my life. Despite being busy in all other areas of my life. And despite that I hate my job and I am miserable there! It’s like I thought if I punish myself by being sad, or my moping around would justify that I need to move on from the job and to say oh this job is so unhealthy for me I am even unhappy with this.
So HELLO, I can be happy in my life and not want to stay at a job and still take care of myself. Still continue studying the things that are important to me.
So back to the original idea of my post that I need to account for my fitness, body, calories, and weight. That if I don’t watch this I will gain or get out of shape. It’s my nature and its required for me. I am not one of those who just naturally do this. So I have already started by:
- Weighing in daily (I have only gained so far!!)
- Measuring weekly
- Tracking steps and fitness
- And keep my head on with being positive about my journey
In the past when I have done this it takes me a few weeks to find a place / pattern that actually starts weight loss. That I am currently only gaining is really strange to me and I am wondering if I am having a thyroid issue. I am going to stay with his and track my information strictly to see if I can find balance before seeking medical help. I am excited about this journey and I know some do not believe but I plan to use prayer for the fasting times. That is the worst for me around 8pm at night!
up 10 pounds
About a month ago I had decided to cut out dessert and sweets. I wanted to see what a difference it would make on me. The first few days I noticed the scale went down and I had a headache. Then I started feeling more hungry. I wanted to eat more in other areas. It could have been a psychological thing but I started gaining. A girl I follow on youtube has talked about this, when she denied herself too much she’d want to eat more. So I lasted about two weeks. And I really don’t know how or why but somehow during this time frame I gained back the official ten pounds I had lost last year. I am back up at 164 lbs.
I want to start by saying, I care and I want to lose it but I am also at a better place. There are a few reasons why. I have had a few things happen in the past two weeks that have awakened my mindset. In 2003, I went through a cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) program that changed my life. I suffered from anxiety and depression and struggled to hold a job. After this program I changed my life. I have struggled through the years still with it. But after leaving a long time job I had floundered for years. The past four years have been so hard on me. And my state of mind has really diminished due to this. I have been struggling. A chatted with a friend and she noted to me that I was in such a negative self mindset. And a light came on. I have been. And I am not perfect by any stretch but she made me realize that I can pray and read the bible but how I talk to myself is damaging my whole life. It was that day I decide to refocus my efforts on cbt and finding joy. I picked up a book called Renew by Julie Winter and started working on finding joy. I don’t need to punish myself because I think I am not doing enough or not good enough. That will only give me misery.
So then I stumbled on noom again. I have written a few reviews about noom and I still feel similiarly about the program but I also believe sometimes we need help. Sometimes a guide in life can help us get on track and refocus our efforts. Noom has updated the program since when I tried it the first time back in 2019. One of the things I loved about the program initially was that it was very positive. I have decided to try this option again and work on positive psychology paired with faith. After I found this I stumbled on a video that also was enlightening. A gentleman was speaking about the importance of prayer and not being gluttonous as a christian. I am sure there are readers who are not believers I wasn’t until the past couple years but I am a believer now and it never occurred to me to pray before a meal. To slow down and be mindful of what God has given us and pray on the meal. This was a big slap in the face. So it’s interesting to me how things happen, that I was feeling so much self hate over my body and weight and God brought me the tools to help with that and my new job.
Get back on Track to Weight Loss!
I am not a doctor; I am just a normal person who is on a weight loss journey. I started July 2021 at 175 pounds, and I am currently at 157.6 pounds. I have lost a whopping 17 pounds in a year. I fell off track for a few months but after I made some life changes, I was able to regain my composure. How did I do it? You probably won’t like this answer but, in this post, I will share with you how I was able to get back on track and how I will get to my goal of 135 pounds. I cannot imagine hitting that goal, but I will aim for it!
Last year I was enthusiastically losing and being healthy. When I was hit with massive work stress. It was horrible and through me off track. I had lost 20 pounds and I just slowly fell back to eating badly and gained 10 pounds back. When I fell off track it wasn’t just off track it was depression and lack of interest in getting back on track. The major change that I made that helped me to get back on track was stopping drinking coffee. Don’t stop reading. Maybe you don’t drink coffee? Maybe you drink soda? Maybe alcohol? For me it was coffee, and it wasn’t even the good kind! I would have coffee either black or with cream. I didn’t put sugar in my coffee. In May I decided I wanted to stop drinking coffee to see if it would help with anxiety, stress, red face, increased heart rate, and the last thing I thought it would help with was weight loss.
I drank 2-4 cups of coffee each day and I loved it. I thought I needed it. It was time consuming and expensive. I quit cold turkey and I was exhausted. I immersed myself in reading about why you should detox or quit coffee while I was quitting to help stay motivated. Here is the weird part by day four I was still tired, but I was feeling motivated to do better with myself and my life! To eat healthier. I decided to do daily weigh ins, count calories, and do weekly measurements to start keeping myself accountable. And here is the part I didn’t expect at all with quitting coffee, I used to suffer from decision making fatigue. At the end of the day I didn’t care, I was more impulsive! I would say whatever and have two pieces of pizza with onion rings. Because I deserved a treat. Now I feel clear in that that is not even a treat and will do me no good. That one piece is enough. My journey is not perfect, by any stretch. But this has helped me a lot. Are you drinking or eating something that might alter your brain chemistry and cause that fatigue? If I drink alcohol, I have the same decision fatigue.
With stopping coffee my heart rate is also much less per a minute. I was 58-65bpm and now I am at 49-55bpm! That blows my mind. And I feel like its only getting better seeing these changes from no longer drinking coffee. Maybe you have a habit you can kick and it will help you launch into other small healthful changes?
161.8!
Weigh in for today, is…. 161.81 I think in about three weeks I will be at 159. This is great news am I am moving right
along in a positive direction. I was going to reduce my calorie intake but I am just going to keep at this and work out
regularly. Eventually I will get there. It took me a lot of years to gain the weight slowly and I will work to reverse this.
In other news I was looking at my resting rates because it interests me seeing this direct correlations with no coffee and my
heart. When going to sleep at night my heart rate isn’t as high. I wonder if I am snoring less. I will keep at my fitness as
well as healthier diet and see what other changes I notice. Yeah I want to look good and fit into a better size while feeling
good about myself but I also like that my body is reflecting the healthier changes. I was using tdee calculator and it
recommended a low cal number based on my sedentary life but I tend to think since I have been pushing for exercise, even if
mostly just walking that I am not sedentary. This week I did start step as well. I love Jenny Ford Fitness, and I highly
recommend her videos. She has a ton of them and I appreciate that she loves step as much as I do.
Caffeine and the hunger hormone
I recently dropped coffee after drinking it on and off for 20 or more years. At a young age my mother informed me that coffee helped with weight loss. I always thought it did and I have always drank my coffee in fear that I’d gain even more weight losing it. Well that wasn’t the only reason, it is also very addictive. But I really thought, especially while dieting that I needed that boost. That it helped to lose weight. But I am wondering if the opposite was true for me, maybe there are key elements in the coffee that make it so on paper that would be true but what if the other effects outweighed it? I am not saying that this is true for everyone, but for me I am wondering if it was true. Last June I had started with trying to lose weight and get fit. Outside stress really hit me the end of July. It was life changing and it sucked. But then I fell off the wagon. I have always consistently drank my morning coffee. And when I say morning coffee I mean 2-4 large cups with cream. I loved it. And I still do in terms of a drink but in terms of the effects I noticed issues:
- Everyday I was stressed, yes I have a new job but the level of stress and reactive I was was over the top. I would be ready to pop stressing out about stuff all day long.
- I was exhausted all day and felt like I didn’t have time to complete anything and oddly I work from home and have no commute or social life
- I was reactive to everything, like before understanding something I would freak out.
- I would drink lots of coffee and I would be starving after having a surpressed appetite; but then I’d have a crash, not necessarily tired but shake or irritable
- I was unable to recommit to my health and found myself in the loop of promising myself every single day I would do better and by the end of the day I would say tomorrow
- I felt hopeless
I don’t entirely blame coffee for all this but the anxiety and stress it helped to egg on created a lot of these issues. It amazes that I am a week without it and I notice all this. As silly as it sounds I have more free time to do things. I used to have sit and drink my coffee it was consuming, it took up at least an hour or more a day. But the time loss on the other side of that created by stress and resting was also a lot of time. I would just sit and stare at my cellphone instead. I feel like it wasted a large part of my years. I know people don’t consider it a drug; but it definitely is. My mind without it is so different. And this last time I stopped drinking it the addiction withdrawals have been worse. I am almost over it. The first 4-5 days are the worst but I am still feeling small effects from the withdrawals. I was consistently blogging for a long time and loving it and I dropped off. That was when it was really horrible and honestly I couldn’t even put together a consistent thought. It was more like freethinking than writing with one subject matter in mind.
So with all this said how does it tie into weight loss? So I always thought it improved it. In recent years when trying to lose pounds my body has stubbornly held onto every single pound and maybe it still will but at least I have my brain back to try. I have already noticed a slight drop since I started last week and I will keep at it. I am excited and happy to be back to this journey and I hope to lose 20 pounds. I would like to lose 30 but I haven’t been that weight since 2004! LOL.
Ok off I go to work.
Caffeine and your mood
I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. I am a person who is posting my experiences.
I stopped drinking coffee again. This is probably the fourth time in my life I have quit. To be clear, quitting coffee is not easy. Which is why this is the fourth time I have quit! It is easy to fall back into drinking coffee if you are not clear on why you are stopping, and your plan is moving forward. What do I mean? Well, aside from being socially acceptable it is on every single street corner. If you are like me, with your 3-4 cups of coffee each day it becomes a habit you think you need, and it also is used to waste time. It takes me 2 hours of “waking up” with my morning coffee. And please don’t forget how expensive this habit is too. I have a super addictive personality; so, I can’t have just one (and I don’t want to anymore either now that I realized what it was doing to me).
You might be surprised to realize how physically addictive it is. The first withdrawal symptom I noticed was a massive headache. This headache is tied to your brain getting more blood than it used to because caffeine restricts that. This may not be the scientific speech of this, but this is basically the gist. After that dissipates you will notice body aches, in particular for me its back pain that goes through my legs and ankles. This happens to me on days 3-6.
But here is what I am really here to tell you. The level of anxiety I was experiencing at work this past year has been intense. Stopping coffee, though it’s a challenge it has made a huge difference for me and how stressed I am. I am much calmer. It gets better too. I had been focused on weight loss last year and I have been struggling to find the will and drive to care about myself again. To want to be more healthful. I have not had it in me to consistently exercise or try to eat healthier. In the past two days my mind has woken up in a positive way. It’s bizarre to me that I feel better mentally, less stressed out and I want to take care of myself. All by stopping coffee. I am on day 6 of no coffee. I had to take a few naps a day at first, but I am actually starting to have more energy.
And another upside. Though I didn’t put sugar in my coffee, I did like cream. That is a big reduction in my calorie intake, and it lets me actually enjoy food instead when eating at a calorie deficit. So here I am weighing in at 165 pounds with the goal being 145 pounds. I am going for it, and I feel pretty dang great.
By the way, I have decided based on the research I have done about coffee that this isn’t a 30-day quit but a forever goodbye to my old friend. If you go to google and search about coffee being bad or good for you, you will find articles about why you should drink coffee and it improves your mood. Sure, it does, that first time you drink the drug but then there after you chase the high. It causes adrenal fatigue, which is basically making you more tired, it causes anxiety, it depletes your iron which causes premature graying, it damages your gut, and I really think it messes up the chemistry of your brain as well as your hormones. So, I am excited to jump back in to regain my body and mind.
Intermittent fasting
There is a name to not eating for long stretches of time, called intermittent fasting. I am sure you have heard of it. When I was younger, I practiced this because I didn’t bother with breakfast, and I hated eating lunch at school. So, I’d only eat a small amount at lunch if anything; and when I got home, I’d a snack then I would have dinner.
Yesterday I was watching a video where a woman mentioned doing this. She lost a bunch of weight, but the truth is she was fit, then had a baby. Gained some baby weight; and this was her results after losing the baby weight. I was 34 when I had my child. I lost the 40 lbs. of baby weight in the hospital in like two weeks after having my baby. I am not saying its easy, I am saying that when you have your first child losing baby weight, in my experience was easier than the fat of MOM weight. I would classify mom weight as 5 or more years of stress. Working full time, going to college part time, having you mother move in with you. Mom weight can also be classified as Stress Weight. Anyway, despite watching her video and thinking maybe some of this is due to being young and a new mom. I have decided to give it a try where I wait till 11 or later for “Breakfast / Lunch.”
I want to break my fast later instead of at 8am. I get up early so it might be a challenge. But I will try to change this up. I have been so bloated and gassy. I am so disappointed in myself. Trying to get on track is not easy that is for sure.
Calorie Hacks 