1 wk,,wow!

[Rachel421]

         I am a warrior!!   Benefits so far: sleeping pills in the trash, daily walks are a recreation instead of a chore, mental clarity is booming, fat is falling off, breathing is improving, sinuses are clearing up,,,feeling of general well being. I finally feel like I'm in control. I used to be an avid faster in my younger days, three weeks on juice being the longest, but it never did anything for the energy crash and food compulsions Id get as soon as I started back to my three squares a day plan,,,then I tried the six half squares a day and it felt like utter insulin bedlam.   I'm telling every one I know about this, but preparing myself for a cool response. People have been so brainwashed by the mainstream banter. While the naysayers say nay,,I'll continue to drop the pounds and transform my life and let the results speak for themselves,,,no scientific study needed here. Feeling and seeing is beleiving!

[fotakou]

Way to go Rachel!Its good to see that wd still works  It inspires me even more with my log  Be sure to ask whatever you want in case you hit a plateau  Now a request:since i am interested in how others follow the diet,can you give me a sample of your overeating and undereating meals?

[Rachel421]

Way to go Rachel!Its good to see that wd still works  It inspires me even more with my log  Be sure to ask whatever you want in case you hit a plateau  Now a request:since i am interested in how others follow the diet,can you give me a sample of your overeating and undereating meals?

  For now I'm going by the web and blogsites, but I need to read the book soon. Two apples during my 20 hr fasting period, a bananna if I get particularly hungry, coffee, water, tea. I walk about 45 minutes a day, and have been playfully tossing around a few weights for my chest, back and sholders.  My eating window is typically 2 to 6 hrs at night. I seem to be shifting day to day. One day I'll have some hunger pangs to deal with and Ill have to watch my food intake at night, other nights I seem to have a very distant emptiness and no real desire to eat. Its an amazing experience to go all day without even eating the fresh fruit, and not really want any dinner that night.    I start dinner with veggies, (no salad yet, not sure why) lean meats, and complex carbs. On my hungry nights I tend to eat dinner, a small snack a couple hours later, then a small snack before bed. I always feel that the next morning however and am going to try to drop that third small meal.   On my third night I had a rather attension grabbing cleansing experience in the bathroom. (about an hours worth) The next day I felt 10 years younger.   I don't think the cleansing reactions can be over looked. Especially when our bodies are telling us to eat a bit more, or like how I seem to not want a salad,,(I usually love salads) If the cleansing or healing crisis is too severe doing too much too soon, we can become sick and discouraged. Ill keep  posting and studying. I do need to work on pyramiding my meals into a proper food combining. Thanks a million!

[KeepMoving]

Isn't feeling healthy are great??? seems the whole world is beautiful... Good job Rachel..

[Rachel421]

Isn't feeling healthy are great??? 

  seems the whole world is beautiful... Good job Rachel..

  baby stepping to better compliance:  2nd week - 1) eating window down to solid 4hrs, don't want to eat into muscle stores. 2) incorporated small spinach salad before big meal 3) eating meats and veggies then carbohydrates later 4) short upper body workout right before dinner/short set of hops on the trampoline if its a lower body day 5) added 15 minutes to daily walk

going to get progressively more serious in training and healthy eating (need to cut out last minute chocolate and peanut butter before bed)   after some research I have realized that I have been insulin resistant for many years now and that wd and training the muscles can bring back insulin sensitivity.  Just three short weeks ago, I was barely making it through the last 10 minutes of a 30 minute daily walk,,,,just now I easily walked 45 minutes and feel I should even do some resistance on my gluts and hams. That is miraculous for a fat old lady like myself!       Back in 20's I fasted a lot. 20 days of juice fasting was my longest stretch, and I NEVER lost body fat like I am now. I always poo poo'd the idea of the one meal a day plan, thinking it would always be either the comfort of not eating for weeks on end,,,or terrific food cravings all day.      I have some skinny friends who have come out of the diet closet and admitted that the way they stay thin is through daily fasts,,,or very small day time snacks only.   I've decided that my insulin problem will not allow even a small lunch/breakfast without a spike and the subsequent hunger and exhaustion.   

[racer]

Rachel,

You are doing great.  I found that I continued to feel better and stronger every week that I stayed with it.  I have really only gone off of WD like four times in the past 12 weeks.  When I did, I could feel my body react to the types of foods that I had eaten during the day that I should not have.  That helps so much to feel the impact and know that I shouldn't eat certain foods.

Keep it up.

[Rachel421]

3rd week is going really well. I was taking my walk day before yesterday,,,and feeling nothing but net in my leg muscles, so without even thinking about it, I jumped into a little jog. My dog was like "what??"  No great marathon, just about 50strides on, caught my breath, then again about 4 times. In context you have to realize I havent ran of my own free will since I was in grade school, so I believe that counts as one of those stellar moments in diet and exercise history.       Today my legs are sore and it makes them feel alive and active. Ill be jogging again today!  Taking into consideration about the intensity factor Ori talks about.

One side effect this month is, my menstral cycle is very different. About three times as long as usual, but symptom free (ill spare you the details).   A doctor that specializes in fasting says its most likely that since Im eating properly, and losing an encredible amount of body fat very fast, then the built up estrogen in my fat cells are being released and effecting my cycle. Not to worry, since its good riddance on the excess estrogen!   It does drive home in a very real way, that what Ori says about estrogen imbalances is a real problem that is corrected through this lifestyle.  No kettlebell yet, but I'm getting there!  Thanks for the support. This forum is a wealth of information!

[Silverback]

Good job, Rachel. 

Logs like yours are what inspired me to start.

I just started my own log.  Lets roll!

[Rachel421]

  runway cleared for take off       

[Rachel421]

wk 4: things are falling into a nice pattern. it's comforting once your  new routine becomes a comfortable habit. i fast during the day since even fruit seems get me drowsy, plus i need to lose weight most of all. for the first ten days or so, i had no appetite. it was actually a great relief not to eat all day , and not to want to eat. over the last week, as i exercise more than ever, i feel hunger in the 3p to 9p range. im learning hunger is not our enemy. our ancestors saw dealing with a small amount of daily hunger as a normal part of adulthood and childhood.  im seeing those hours as my postabsorptive to true fasting hours that are a blessing to my body where it does its housecleaning and it preps itself for real food that is natural and nourishing.   saturday i slipped and ate a piece of desert and the next morning i woke up craving, ignored it, and later that night had to force myself to eat around 11p (night owl).  eating sugar really does create a false craving.

i break my fast with 2-3 pieces of fresh fruit anywhere between 7 and 11 pm depending on the presense or absence of appetite.  wait,,,eat a raw spinach salad with rotating complimenting veggies.   wait...eat a cooked veggie with protein,,,sometimes lean protein, sometimes not depending on if im craving fat.   i end the night with a big peanut butter sandwich with sugar free preserves and milk. sometimes i take in a handful of dark chocolate chips (well usually).    as i wait for the inevitable platue of fat loss, im reading posts and taking notes on ways ill be able to refine my diet later. i have many things i could tweek to get more disciplined. i still end the night feeling like ive splurged and eaten far too much to loss fat, but im still losing so , so far so good.

i used to see walking as an exersize, now im starting to see it as just a way to rest between sprints. i feel a sense of freedom since if i forget my mp3 for music, its no longer a tragedy, since sprinting keeps the 30-40 minute walk/jog interesting and boredom isnt a factor anylonger.  my sprints have double in frequency over the last week, and now im working lengthening each one.   tried kbs and had a religious experience, so am putting that off for a little while. had harsh tingling in my extremities and lips and tongue,,,not painful but unsettling.. it was very exilharating though, and i have something to look forward to as i progess and get more strong and cardiovascularly fit.  just playing with lit taps on chest/back/sholders for now.     its been an amazing month.

[Ró-fhéinní]

just a tip: ori warns against combining fuel sources (fats and starchy carbs) like in your peanut butter sandwich. Doing so can lead to storage of the energy as fat if it is not burned and since your eating late at night, it probably wont all be used.

also i recommend trying almond butter. health food stores sell it or you can make some yourself by throwing almonds in a food processor for about 10 minutes. it is much healthier than peanut butter and in my opinion much tastier.

[Rachel421]

good deal, no pbj sandwich tonight..

[Rachel421]

week five: last week turned into a nice learning experience. what started as a cheat night where i ate pleasure foods in my window, blossomed into two more days of random, daytime junkfood eating. decided to take an end of month break.  the only thing good i can say about it was, it only took me two days to  hit the tireness, cravings, foggy depressive thinking i had pre wd.     got back on the program and it took another two days of regular wd to get that "runners high" energy back. wow, it was great to get it back! i found it interesting that losing and then regaining that wd spark happened in a mirror window of time.    in the work out area:  no workouts for four days,,,then back to starting position of light upper body and 40 minutes of walking.   after resistance training i feel only a light tingling on the bottoms of my feet as opposed to the intense all over experience of kbs.    i had a bit of knee pain from a very bad knee injury 8 months ago. i have the energy to really enjoy my jogging sprints, but alas, for now, my joints and tendons are still vulnerable to the laws of physics.   i have lost about 11 to 15 pounds (not sure what i weighed when i started) but this is the most drastic change in body composition from losing that amount of weight. i have gained and lost hundreds of pound throughout my life, 11 lbs of fat sure does feel different than 11 pds of water, muscle and fat!!

i am going to keep losing weight and will kick back in the intensity after another ten lbs or so is lost. im afraid of injury at this point, i am still a very heavy person, and being shy cant devulge how much i weight at this point.    i am so grateful that i got to enjoy the sprinting and the kb intensity and when i get an urge to splurge, i remember how much i want to get back to these disciplines, and how eating wrong foods, or out my window will only set me back from this goal.

my fast is broken with two fruits with cinnamon, later a spinach salad with a rainbow of veggies, later proteins fats, then carbs

still not properly combining after the salad, but intend to get more serious soon.  eliminating mayo,,(inflammation) , have started on almond butter in place of peanut butter,  no quinoa yet but open minded still.    does anyone ever eat and enjoy such a big raw veggie salad that they find eating a cooked veggie a challenge?  i eat a really large spinach salad. i love the stuff, but after lose my appetite many times for any more veggies. is the cooked veggie important?   expecting much joy and progress in my second month!

[Rachel421]

wk six:  is going very good. the last few days have had some new challenges that seem to be working themselves out. my knee is not aching any longer. the PWO tingles are isolated to the bottoms of my feet ( even after upping my exercises and intensity), i have a strong desire to sprint after about 15 minutes of walking, but im holding back until i get a bit lighter in the loafers.    one profound thing happened as soon as i stopped sprinting, my body kicked into cleansing over drive. im not sure how much my liver is cleansing, but my gi tract has definitely been getting a crash course in CFT.  for about four nights, i slept deeply for three or four hours and then woke up, drank 40 oz of h2o, then took a period of elimination. it had the quality of the salt water flushes i used to do when going on longer fasts.  as soon as this ended, my pms cramps started up. very strong at first and faded away in the span of about 36 hours. thats another reason to put the sprinting off just for now, the estrogen that is obviously being dumped in my bloodstream is causing some symptoms i think id rather not intensify as this point (wimp)

my water intake has reached the 100+ oz mark. my thirst is remarkable, and a sign, i believe of intense cleansing. i now eat a fresh fruit/cinnamon salad after my workout. it really helps the low blood sugar. before starting my PWO, i would get extremely cold, hungry, and tingly. diabetes runs in my family. im wondering if i havent been on the cusp of this disease since my reactions to exercise is so pronounced. if anyone else starts up and experiences this, dont panic like i did, knowing just whats happening helps a lot.   i pulled out a beautiful crystal bowel i had purchased at a garage sale years ago and i use it to eat my salads every night. the veggies are ambrosia and the crystal gives them the dignity they deserve,,ha!    plastics are gone from the kitchen for the first time in my life.   oh, one last thing, i attempted the high/carb high/fat rotations, but the days after carbs were just too exhausting. dont think my body is healed enough at this point to handle high carb nights.  i do know, however, that this honeymoon period will end, and the exercise and proper food combining will become essential to further progress.     oh,,i need new pants...EXCELLENT.

[ELLA]

Well done Rachel ~!!!!

I am just about to start week three tomorrow on the AE diet. I have been getting some promising results too. I decided not to weigh myself during this process but have noticed my watch is  now loose on my wrist!! My jeans feel roomier on me infact they are falling down a couple of inches!!
I am hoping that this way of eating will balance my hormones .....i have a problem with this at the moment and have all the signs to point to estrogen dominance!! fibroids etc.
I am feeling so much better and ready to hit week three with a vengence. I had a regular Sunday dinner with my husband today. We were both in need of day off . My husband has been great and has been eating the same meals with me.
I went to the gym today and had the best work out. My energy levels have improved so much over the past couple of weeks. On Thursday I had a bad morning. I woke with dizzyness and nausea. I dont know why as a ate relatively well the night before!!
Anyway I am following your progress and wish you every success!!

Ella