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| January 11, 2016 |
Today is Day 80
Weight goal - 138.2 or lower
Actual weight - 140.6
Blood glucose goal - 78 or lower
Actual blood glucose - 83
Today is a Fast Day.
For me, that means that all I will have today is water, coffee, tea, or broth, all without caloric sweeteners or fat. Each day, I will weigh in, check my fasting blood glucose, find out if I will feast or fast that day, update my chart and post it here on the big blog. I'm posting it to motivate myself not to give up, and if I think that anyone is looking at this, it will help to keep me accountable.
Yesterday, I planned on a cup of BPC for breakfast, a bread-less Reuben sandwich for lunch and then no dinner.
I ended up eating a few little things around dinner time. I guess it is easier to start the day fasting than to eat part of the day and then fast the rest of the day.
I will probably need to fast today and tomorrow to get back on track. When I started this challenge, I remember thinking that it was going to be so hard to fast for a whole day! Now, looking ahead to fasting two days in a row is no big deal. However, I just know that if I had realized when I started that I would be fasting every other day, and sometimes two days in a row, I never would have done it.
It looks like the question is going to be: Am I willing to fast every other day for the rest of my life if that's what I have to do to maintain normal weight and FBG?
And, since my FBG is too high for my liking after the days that I eat, will I have to cut down on protein and carbs on the days that I do eat?
I just did the math, and my average FBG for these past 80 days has been 85. I have been slowly lowering my goal, and was looking forward to my FBG consistently being around 75. My lowest 7-day average since I started has been 78, but that was when I had fasted three or four out of those seven days! Obviously, eating only three days a week does not seem sustainable or healthy from a nutritional point of view.
Here is the thought that is going through my head this past week: I am considering the fact that my FBG may never get as low as I would like it to, even if I am eating every other day, which I hope I may be willing to do. If it is true that the goal for my particular body is too low, I may have to settle for an average fasting blood glucose of around 85. That would not be the end of the world, as long as I could keep it there. Of course, since that is fasting blood glucose only, it would mean that my overall average would probably be around 95 or so instead of the gold standard of 83. Also, not the end of the world if I can keep it from going any higher than that. Could I get it to go lower if I went back to eating zero carb? Probably, but I tried that and I could not sustain it, as you can read about here if you are interested.
If I end my challenge with the decision to track both weight and FBG, and keep weight at 136 or below and FBG at 75 or below, I will rarely get to eat. That is not sustainable.
If I end my challenge with the decision to track only FBG and keep it at 75 or below, I will rarely get to eat. That is not sustainable.
If I end my challenge with the decision to track both weight and FBG, and keep weight at 136 or below and FBG at 85 or below, I will probably get to eat every other day. That is sustainable.
If I end my challenge with the decision to track only FBG and keep it at 85 or below, I will probably get to eat every other day. That is sustainable, but from past experience, I know that even when my FBG is around 85, my weight can still start creeping up, so this is not a valid option.
If I end my challenge with the decision to track only weight and keep it at 136 or below, I will probably get to eat every other day, and I can safely assume that my FBG is around 85 or below, based on the readings I have been getting during this challenge, as long as I eat the way I have been eating during the challenge, which is high fat, moderate protein and very low carb.
I'm thinking that this last option is probably going to be my best one.
79 DAYS DOWN AND 12 DAYS TO GO
51 FEAST DAYS AND 29 FAST DAYS - FASTING 36% OF THE DAYS
13.4 POUNDS GONE AND 4.6 POUNDS TO GO
74% OF THE WAY TO MY GOAL AFTER 88% OF THE DAYS
7-DAY AVERAGE WEIGHT - 139.9
7-DAY AVERAGE FASTING BLOOD GLUCOSE - 84
I made a few charts to track my progress. The grey lines are my long term goals. The blue lines are my actual results. The red lines are my 7-day averages. The last chart is a little heat map to show at a glance how often I have actually had to fast to achieve the results I am after. Click on any chart or photo to enlarge it.
To find out more about this challenge - the rules and how it started - click here.
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