Day 18 Post-Fast

Well, I feel like I got hit by a MAC truck. Ugh...I’m sore as hell. My muscles throb just getting off the pot! Isn’t that awful? Like I mentioned before, I ALWAYS overdo exercise!! It wasn’t my fault this time though! Haha. I did Cathe’s Body Fusion DVD, which happens to be about 45 minutes of up and down on the bench step coupled with a few torturous minutes of weight training. I’m paying for it today, that's for sure. I’ve stretched, but the pain remains. I think I’ll take tomorrow off from exercise and come Thursday, I’ll stick to her Basic Step DVD. Obviously I’ve lost more muscle endurance than previously suspected. I’ll keep on trucking though, and get back to where I was in no time (I hope). Click HERE for my entry dedicated to Cathe.

Now that I’ve gotten back into my blog, I feel more aware of what I’m eating again. I’m paying more attention to what food choices I make and feel the need to be more responsible. This morning I weighed 153, and I’m hoping to reduce that number to 150 before too long.

I’m going on holiday in about 7 weeks, where I’ll get to see my husband, his family and my friends and family after an 8 month separation. It will be so rewarding and self-esteem building to see their raised eyebrows and hear their praise for all my hard work. Of course the fasting and losing weight and learning to eat better was for my own health and happiness, but the compliments NEVER hurt! Hehe.

When I first left the company of friends and family, I was a whopping 195 lbs. Yes, I was a big girl. Changing jobs, doing more walking, eating slightly better, having a better attitude, and consciously avoiding sweets allowed me to drop from 195 to 175 in about 3 months. It took another 2 months to drop to 165 and then I started my fast.

Speaking of food...haha, was I speaking about food? HAHA. I recently purchased the Eat-Clean Diet book by Tosca Reno (it was on sale). It’s a pretty good read! A lot of the information is similar to You Are What You Eat by Jillian McKeith, but Jillian is slightly more strict and encourages what I call “unusual” and “not everyday foods” be encorporated into one’s diet (some of these things, I’ve never even heard of), like amaranth, kamut, millet, quinoa, spelt, teff (grains), aduki, mung, anasazi (beans), rocket, swiss chard, mache, sorrel (leafy green veggies), agar, arame, dulse, kombu, wakame (sea vegetables – seaweeds), chervil, fenugreek, umeboshi plums (herbs). The list goes on and on. Dispite these funky foods and her medical approach to eating, the book is well organized, fun to read, has great pictures, and I’ve learned so much from it. This book is probably my favorite to date. Click HERE for another entry discussing this book.

In the Eat-Clean Diet book, Tosca Reno emphasizes weight loss through multiple meals a day and restricting eating to, well, clean foods.


Those who eat clean aim to avoid unprocessed, unrefined, overcooked, sugary, non-organic (which I have yet to completely agree with – or afford), red meat (sometimes even cow’s milk), white floured, simple carbed, nutrient deficient, fiber and vitamin depleted, microwave-mealed foods. HAHA, these are all the goodies, aren’t they? But I’m prepared to start making a real change, to get myself and my family in good health and spirits. This is a great book too, and I highly recommend both of these to accompany your cookbook arsenal. I plan on purchasing Tosca's Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook as well.


Back to my vacation – which I’m thrilled about and never strays too far from the front of my mind; it begins on about March 25th and ends in the middle of April. My husband and I have so many ideas and plans scheduled for my time home – some of which we’re hoping will further my mission of health, happiness and weight loss. We want to see a nutritionist (to finally get me on the right meal plans) and a psychologist (to get off the Paxil safely and get my head fully in the game). I’m thrilled to get back on track and give my all to this experience, and I certainly don’t want to fall off the wagon when I’m on holiday.

One last note for the evening. Ahhh, the evening. This is the time when I truly start to go downhill. My hunger spikes around 6-9pm and is completely independent of how much I eat the rest of the day. Breakfast, coffee, water, exercise, they all seem to have no correlation with or affect on my insatiable evening appetite. The only thing that seems to help is hitting the sack at a decent time. Should I stay up to 11pm or later – forget it!!! I’m just starving. Bizarre, I know, but at least I’ve identified it and can really concentrate on getting to bed at an earlier time. I ate about 40% of all my calories after 5:30pm today!!! Unreal.

Well, have a wonderful day and try not to eat as much as I did! Haha. Until tomorrow…