THE KINDER, GENTLER CHALLENGE - WEEK 17 RESULTS

Today is the end of Week 17.

It hasn't been quite a week yet since I started my kinder, gentler challenge, but I need to catch up so that my charts line up with a week ending on a Thursday.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have taken a month off and am now engaged in my next challenge, which is to reach a weight goal of 130 pounds and a body fat goal of 25%.

I'm not sure I am going to be able to accomplish this, but I am giving it my best effort!



 Here are my rules:

Rule #1. I will lower my weight goal by 0.12 pounds per day, which comes out to less than a pound per week.  Each morning, I will weigh on my bathroom scale, and if I do not exceed my goal for the day, I will feast.  If I exceed my goal for the day, I will fast until the next morning.  This time, I will not be using my fasting blood glucose as a rule.  As long as I eat right, my blood glucose is stable, so I am only going to check my BG occasionally.

Rule #2.  Stay active, as outlined below.

I will have two ways of eating, and they will look like this:

FEASTING

Eating ketogenic diet, which means high fat, moderate protein and very low carb.  What does that mean for me?

First of all, I have come to agree with those that believe it is a mistake to eat high fat when there is already excess fat on your body.  In my case, High Fat Low Carb means that I will be "eating" high fat from my body and low carb from my plate.  Dr. Stephen Phinney explains this concept quite nicely in this video, where he shows the following graphic:

 
As you can see, even in the first phase, when a person has excess body fat, it is still a high fat diet, with 25% of the needed daily fat coming from what you eat, and an additional 50% coming from your own body.  This body fat needs to be taken into account when determining if a diet is "high fat" or "low fat."  According to what you are eating alone, it appears to be low fat, when, in actuality, it is still a high fat diet.  As body fat is "eaten", the percentages change until all of the fat needed is being eaten off the plate because there is no more excess body fat to "eat."

So, for the time being, I am eating the majority of my needed daily fat from my own body fat stores.  Research has shown that the body needs at least 30g of fat per day to supply the body's needs, for brain activity, vitamin absorption and gallbladder function, to name a few.  I will be attempting to keep my fat intake between 68g and around 80g.

For protein, I will be following the advice of Jonathan Bailor, who I mentioned here, to keep nutrient-dense protein at 1 gram per pound of body weight.  For me, that would mean around 136g of protein per day for my current weight, and 125g of protein when I get down to my goal weight of 125 pounds.  Pretty simple, huh?  This also is in line with the recommendations of the Optimal Ketogenic Living Facebook Group (also mentioned in that same blog post) that is between 91g and 136g for a woman my height.

Carbs will probably always be very low, because I find that I can manage my blood glucose quite easily when I stay low carb.  Jonathan Bailor says to eat 10 servings of vegetables per day, but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea for me, so I will probably stick with the OKL recommendation of 23g of net carbs per day, which is total carbs minus fiber.  If I am eating that all in green vegetables, that is still quite a lot of vegetables, so I think I'm doing good in that department.

I am still sort of tracking my food.  I am getting used to how many grams of protein, fat and carbs I need to make a nice meal, so I am doing the math until I have a better handle on it.

FASTING

On the days that I don't meet my weight goal, I will be fasting.  Although some fasting gurus say that a fast is only water, others say that incorporating very low caloric liquids is okay.  I have decided that fasting for me will include water, coffee, tea and broth, all without added caloric sweeteners or fat.  I do allow myself to have a few drops of liquid Stevia extract in my coffee and tea.  It does not affect my BG, and I like it.  And you can't stop me.  I did it this way in the first three months of this year, and I suffered no ill effects.

My weight loss goal is now at a slower pace (about 50% slower), which should translate into more feasting and less fasting.  In this past few days, I ate two days in a row, which was not that frequent as time went on in the last challenge.  Since starting this, I have not fasted more than one day in a row, although that could certainly start to change again as I get closer and closer to my new goal.

I made a few charts to track my progress.  On the first chart, the grey line is my long term goal. The blue line is my actual weight.  The red line is my 7-day average. The second 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 to enlarge it.

As for Rule #2,  part of this challenge is that I have also made some commitments to build muscle and increase insulin sensitivity.  I have committed to one day per week of heavy, slow motion weight lifting, using Body By Science as my guide.  I have committed to HIIT twice per week on the treadmill at the gym.  I have committed to taking 3-mile walks as often as I can, maybe twice or three times per week.  The weight lifting should take care of the "gaining muscle" portion of my new challenge, and the HIIT and walking should continue to help with my insulin sensitivity.  Notice that I am not trying to "burn calories" with my exercise.  I'm done with that nonsense.  It's not a problem of too many calories that need to be "burned off".  It is a problem with hormonal imbalance that keeps body fat trapped and unable to be used for energy.  The solution for that is to balance hormones, not to eat less and move more!

Below is my chart for The Big Five.  It shows the exercises I am doing, along with the weight, reps and TUL, which stands for Time Under Load.  The system is to lift weight very slowly up and down, and to attempt to exceed one minute and thirty seconds on each exercise.  Each time that goal is reached, you increase the weight by at least another 5% for the next session.  As you can see, I did not exceed 1:30 this past week, so there was no increase in weight.  One of the great things about lifting this way is that the whole thing takes about 15 minutes and you only do one set on each machine.  No more being in the gym for hours and doing multiple sets on each of twenty different machines!  In and out fast, with the same or better results.  My kind of workout!

Twice per week, once on the same day as weight lifting, and once a half week later, I do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) on the treadmill at the gym.  I begin by walking at 1.5 mph with 0 incline for about 2.5 minutes, then ramp up to a run for 30 seconds at over 6 mph (I keep increasing it each time) with an incline of 3.  After the run, I go back to the walk for 2.5 minutes, then back to the run for 30 seconds.  I do three of these intervals, ending with a walk, then a 5 minute cool down.  I am on the treadmill for a total of 17 minutes, including the cool down.

The last activity I am doing is walking, at a leisurely pace, around my neighborhood or other beautiful places, or, if it is yucky outside, I will get on the treadmill at the gym.  I would like to do this at least twice per week.  I found a cool app for my phone that tracks my route, along with miles per hour and total distance.  When I walk, I aim for around three miles in one hour.  Here is what a normal walk looks like, and below that is my walking log:

 

There are nine weeks remaining for this kindler, gentler challenge.  If I achieve my goal, I'm not sure where I will go from there.  Technically, my doctor wants me to weight 122 pounds with around 22% body fat.  At my age, I'm not sure that is possible, or even desirable.  It's fun to think about, but not if it means I have to live a life of deprivation.  I will be more than happy to reach my current goal.  Heck, if I stay where I am now, it will be a big health improvement from where I started, which, in case you forget, was here. 

This is a personal challenge just for me, but if anyone reading would like to join me, please talk to your doctor and make sure that it will not conflict with your current medical condition or medications.  If you are taking the challenge, please be sure to let me know how you are doing!  Thanks for reading!

BREAK TIME IS OVER - ON TO THE NEXT CHALLENGE!

My weight loss and blood glucose challenge came to an official end on April 1, 2016.  You can read the final results here if you haven't already.  Even though I came in a couple of pounds over my goal, it was so close that I consider the three-month challenge a rousing success!  I was able to lose a bunch of weight and, more importantly, I normalized my fasting blood glucose.

In case you are curious, for these past few weeks, I did some more fasting, lost some more weight, went on a mini vacation, gained some weight and saw one post-meal blood glucose reading get very high indeed, convincing me, once again, that I cannot eat sugar without damaging myself.

One of the things that I have been doing has been trying to follow the Optimal Ketogenic Living guidelines for the amount of protein, fat and carbs to eat each day.  If you join the Facebook group for OKL, you can learn more about how this way of eating works.

According to the OKL chart, shown here, a 5'3" woman like me should be eating between 91 and 136 grams of protein per day, no more than 23 grams of net carbs per day, and between 68 and 159 grams of fat per day.  This last guideline - for fat grams - is a sliding scale based on your weight goals.  If you want to lose weight, stay at or near the lower amount of fat grams.  If you want to maintain your current weight, stay around the middle.  If you want to gain weight, stay at or near the highest amount of fat grams.

Fasting, in many different forms, is encouraged in this group, and reading the many threads and research articles will give you a real education on nutrition.  The works of Drs. Phinney and Volek are highlighted and followed, and I highly recommend the folks at OKL!

I have also been spending a lot of time watching youtube videos on nutrition, fasting, protein needs and kittens.  (It would not be a good day if I did not watch at least one youtube video featuring kittens!)

One of the people I have been listening to is Jonathan Bailor.  I got his book from the library, but it may just end up being one that I need for my personal library.  I heard about Jonathan and his thoughts concerning the ridiculousness of counting calories last year.

I seriously considered trying his weight loss method, but when I found out that he is against counting calories, I was discouraged.  Each time I have tried a weight loss method that does not involve tracking every blankety-blank-blank bite of food I eat, I have always gained weight.

But, after listening to someone that I respect interviewing Jonathan, I decided to read his new book and see what I could glean from it.  I have to admit that I was impressed with what I read, which I did with a newly opened mind, and found that the vast majority of what he was suggesting was right in line with the OKL chart I have been following!

Jonathan's recommendations include eating plenty of nutrient-dense protein (about 1 gram per pound of body weight, which is at the high end of the OKL recommendation), LOTS of green vegetables, and other colors, too, and what he calls 'whole food fats'.  He is not a proponent of adding a lot of oils or butter to food, but rather, eating foods that have natural fats contained within them, such as avocados, olives, eggs, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc.

My fear was that, if I ate the amount of veggies he suggests, my blood glucose would spike up.  But, for the past few days, I have been stuffing myself with green veggies, mostly raw, and my blood glucose was only 95 mg/dl at the highest, which was two hours after eating.  So far, so good, so I am continuing on.

The basic premise of the nutrition portion of the book is to eat SANE food and avoid inSANE food.  Jonathan explains the difference quite clearly in the book, and on his website, and maintains that if you fill yourself up with (almost) unlimited amounts of SANE food, you will not have room for the inSANE food.   

I love Jonathan's take on exercise, too, possibly because he agrees with what I have already decided is the right way to exercise - lifting heavy weights very slowly, doing a little bit of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) now and then, and taking part in other activities that you enjoy, for stress relief, if for no other reason.  Waking, riding a bike, yoga, etc.

I have a new appreciation for the concepts outlined in "The Calorie Myth," so I have to give it a pretty sweeping recommendation.

Of course, Dr. Jason Fung is a particular favorite of mine as of late, and I am rather impatiently waiting for Amazon to deliver my copy of his long-awaited book, "The Obesity Code."  Dr. Fung has written extensively on diabetes treatment and prevention on his website, Intensive Dietary Management, and his videos, both on his website and on youtube, are thought-provoking, eye-opening and life-changing to thousands of people around the world.

Dr. Fung uses fasting, both short- and long-term, to manage blood glucose, insulin resistance and Metabolic Syndrome.  It was his factual reporting about the benefits of fasting that really pushed me over the edge into fasting to manage my Type 2 Diabetes.  Again, I highly recommend that all my readers look into what Dr. Jason Fung is uncovering.  His methods are really game-changing!

So, back to me and what I am doing next...

Encouraged by my recent challenge, and seeing that it is possible for me to lose weight and manage my blood glucose, I have decided that, after this past few weeks 'break' that I am going to jump back in and try to lose a few more pounds of body fat and gain a pound or so of lean mass.

Seeing a recent low weight of 133.4 pounds a couple of weeks ago, and a body fat percentage of 29.5, I have set my new goal at 130 pounds with body fat of 25%.  That translates to an additional loss of 11.1 pounds of body fat and an additional gain of 1.3 pounds of muscle.  Can I do it?  There is only one way to find out...

I have committed to one day per week of heavy, slow motion weight lifting, using Body By Science as my guide.  I have committed to HIIT twice per week on the treadmill at the gym.  I have committed to taking 3-mile walks as often as I can, maybe twice or three times per week, weather permitting.  The weight lifting should take care of the "gaining muscle" portion of my new challenge, and the HIIT and walking should continue to help with my insulin sensitivity.  Notice that I am not trying to "burn calories" with my exercise.  I'm done with that nonsense.  It's not a problem of too many calories that need to be "burned off".  It is a problem with hormonal imbalance that keeps body fat trapped and unable to be used for energy.  The solution for that is to balance hormones, not to eat less and move more!

 The chart to the left shows what my daily goals will be for my scale weight.  As you can see, the slope of the grey goal line is a little shallower now than it was for the first three months of this year.  My previous goal was to lose 0.2 pounds per day (on average), and, starting tomorrow, the new goal will be to lose only 0.12 pounds per day.  I am doing this to take a gentler approach to weight loss, to give my body a little break, and to give some loose skin a chance to firm up, which opportunity I certainly hope it will take advantage of!

From now until the end of June 2016, I will again be utilizing my Feast/Fast model, with one slight change - I will not be using fasting blood glucose as a determining factor of whether or not I fast on a particular day.  I really feel that I have increased my insulin sensitivity to the point where my blood glucose is stable, and although I will check it now and then, I will not routinely check it every morning to see whether or not I'm going to eat.

This time around, I will simply weigh first thing in the morning before I eat, and if my weight is equal to or less than my goal for that day, I will feast freely.  Even though I have been tracking my food intake for the past couple of weeks, just to get the hang of how much more protein and veggies to eat, and how much less fat to eat, I will stop tracking now and just eat in the amounts that I have become accustomed to.

And, speaking of fat, I do want to mention that I was eating a lot more fat in January, February and March than I have been eating lately.  (I am also eating a lot more protein, which has been shown in studies to aid in weight loss.)  I finally got it through my head that there is enough fat on my body to "eat" and I don't need Bullet Proof Coffee and Fat Bombs at this stage of my weight loss.  As I have heard said, all I need is Low Carb; I'm already High Fat!  The fat on my body will be utilized for energy until there is not an excess amount of it.  Each time I eat a bunch of fat, my body will burn that rather than the stores of fat already "on hand."  Eating less fat does not make this a low fat diet.  I am just eating the fat on my body instead of the fat on my plate.  And, even with the whole food fats that I am eating, around 50% or more of my calories are coming from fat, so even that is still considered a high fat diet.

When I get to the point were there is not a lot of excess fat on my body, I will get to increase fat to supply the energy I need to live.  I'm looking forward to that!  I do miss my BPC!

One more chart.  This is an extended Feast/Fast Heat Map, so that you can see at a glance how often I am fasting.  This chart starts on January 1, 2016 and ends on June 30, 2016.  One red block represents a 36-hour fast.  Two red blocks in a row represent a 60-hour fast.

As you can see, I have feasted for the past seven days in a row.  What a luxury!

All that will come to an end as I start my fasting again.  So I better get used to seeing a little more red and a little less green.

When I did my last challenge, I posted every day.  This time, I will probably post only once per week.  Even I get bored with mundane details every day!

My next post will be a week from now, and I will tell you how I am doing, and show you my charts.  I will be adding in an activity log that will show how my weight lifting is going and how many times I have done HIIT and how many walks I have gone on.

Oh, and I just want to give a personal thank you to my friend Lynn Weiler, who has been a real inspiration to me and gave me the little nudge I needed to start back up again.  And she is joining me in this challenge, so, with her permission, I may be sharing some of her results as well!  Thanks, Lynn!

This is a personal challenge just for me, but if anyone reading would like to join me, please talk to your doctor and make sure that it will not conflict with your current medical condition or medications.  If you are taking the challenge, please be sure to let me know how you are doing!  Thanks for reading!