Although my first week was interrupted by being away from home for a family wedding where nothing was served but finger food, I've finessed the ADF plan to best fit my life. I've enjoyed the energy boost and litheness gifted by fasting, although I am still struggling with adequately digesting reincorporated carbs, despite upping pro-biotic supplementation. I won't be weighing in until I can tell that I'm not bloated or retaining water.
So, the schedule that I'm current experimenting with is designed to fit the stressful, longer days I work (Tuesdays & Thursdays), leaving the fasting days at Monday, Wednesday & Friday. I thought about fasting during one day of the weekend, but that would result in two fasted days in a row, and that isn't encouraged in the literature. Therefore, weekends will be normal eating days.
Although I will carry emergency supplies with me to work on fasting days, I plan to only eat a small dinner on those days, after fasting through breakfast and lunch. Ultimately, I will be incorporating three 24hr fasts into my week, consuming around 2500kcal in between, since that seems to match what my body requires, as suggested by hunger.
Thursday - Feasting
Breakfast - Salmon sashimi, sans lemon juice
Lunch - Smoked salmon, brought from home, mixed with a sad pile of garden salad: the only edible item served at a work conference...
Dinner - More salmon sashimi, with sautéed cabbage and bacon
Friday - Fasting
Fast until dinner - Pork roast (mainly crackling) with sautéed cabbage & fennel, plus some steamed zucchini.
Saturday - Feasting
On Friday night, the beau & I travelled back to my childhood home as we were to attend a cousin's wedding the next day. After a sleep-in, we lunched pre-wedding on lamb chops, smoked salmon, tomatoes and double brie.
The wedding ceremony was at 5pm, and afterwards we headed back to the local Surf Club for the reception. Platters of junky finger-food circulated, and I managed to score a couple of unadulterated prawns that were served amongst bowls of fried substances, pita bread, and questionable dips.
After watching everyone feast on garbage, I asked our hosts what the main meal would be.
"It's just finger food tonight, it's easier."
Oh, great.
We then contacted the kitchen staff to enquire whether actual food was likely to be prepared in there...
Thankfully, the chef said that there was some squid salad that I could have (from where it appeared, I did not ask), and she gave me the tiniest bowl of sad-looking salad, with a couple of measly strips of squid plopped on top. A satisfying meal, it was not.
So the beau and I had to LEAVE the wedding, to go back to our rented unit, so that I could cook up some dinner! I fried up some eggs and bacon, and grabbed out a bit of herbed cream cheese and some organic tomato pesto I brought from home.
We returned to the party and had a great time - I even had some celebratory bubbly.
The day of eats did go a little awry when we finally plodded home to our unit for the night, and a member of our party was keen to stay up and vent and snack on nuts, cheese and apples. Depressing revelations and bottomless walnuts do not mix well...
Sunday - Feasting
The hosts threw a post-wedding BBQ at their place on the Sunday, and I scored a delicious serving of barbecued lamb and beef, with fresh green salad and cheddar as a side.
Then it was time to get back in the car and return to Melbourne. Unfortunately, the late-night snacking threw my leptin levels out of whack (or something) and I found myself gagging for food all evening. No meat was defrosted, so I reached for nuts, nuts, nuts, cheese, nuts, and even some fruit leftover from the beau's family visit. Stomach = not happy.
Monday - Fasting
It was a joy to fast! I wasn't hungry in the slightest for the whole day, and only ate a little in the evening as I tested my Dip recipes for flavour levels. My digestive system certainly needed the break! I made the most of the fast by being active in the afternoon: walking up to the local shopping strip to pick up the veggie box and other dip ingredients, and boy were my feet, legs and biceps tired afterward!
Tuesday - Feasting
A normal, albeit somewhat light, day of eats:
Breakfast - The Usual (cheddar omelette), and salmon sashimi
Lunch - forgot to pack anything, so I dipped into my emergency stash of tuna. Yuck, so drying...
Dinner - Pork chops served with a spoonful of each of my veggie dips. Turns out that pork is absolutely brilliant served with a side of my Chunky Beetroot & Herb Chutney!
Finally, some inspired info by that champion of the health blogosphere, Stephan - Changing Your Body Fat Set-Point. That's my goal with ADF, since counting calories does allow me to lose weight, but doesn't teach my body to reset my fat balances. As Stephan points out, IF has been anecdotally reported to achieve this, and I hope I can add a successful anecdote to the growing body of evidence.
What's the salmon sashimi recipe? Is that the one with just some lemon juice to "cook" it a bit?
ReplyDeleteDid you really HAVE TO LEAVE to go eat bacon and eggs? I could understand if you had been fasting earlier and just needed to be satisfied with something real and filling ( been there, done that), or if you needed an excuse to go home and down some shots/get changed whatever (I've slipped away from the party for awhile before), but if you left the party just because they didn't have exactly what you wanted...well hopefully eventually you'll be able to be more relaxed (I couldnt figure out how to say that without being too seemingly ignorant and authorative).
ReplyDeleteYep Jeepifer, a bit of lemon juice of just plain, sliced up raw salmon.
ReplyDeleteAnon Jerk - I had been fasting. Friday was a fasted day until 7pm, so I needed to eat a decent amount of calories on Saturday to protect my metabolism. We ate a decent meal before leaving for the wedding (the lamb chops at around 11am), and then I was left without food for 8 hours, during which time we were standing out in the sun for four solid hours. At 7pm I was feeling my system start to slow down, and I was suffering fatigue. I needed food.
To say that I left because they didn't have "exactly what I wanted" is truly ignorant of the point of this experiment, the ramifications of eating low-calorie for a number of sequential days, and also my personal hunger level & other symptoms. You would leave to down shots?
If I wasn't feeling cruddy and wasn't dieting, I would have of course made do with the sad little squid salad. But if you've been reading my blog, you should realise that there's more to it at the moment.