Eat Woot Eat!

I said in this post that particular fast felt "a bit like a pivot point—like this is the moment where I decide, 'I can do this, even if I don't always want to.'"

I've pivoted. I get it. I'm finally making it work for me. My fasts are now longer than 24 hours; I eat my last at dinner one evening, fast through the next day, and eat breakfast the following morning. Three meals, about 36 hours. Lots of water. The change is like night and day; the fasts are manageable, I don't bargain with myself that I can eat this much earlier or go this much longer, it just is what it is. And it's having an effect. Oh, yes, it's having an effect, which I'll document after my Saturday morning weigh in.

I said in this post that I can't eat "whatever I want" on non-fast days and still have success. But now I get it. I can! I can eat whatever I want. I just have to eat less of it. Monday was an eating day, and I had a little bit of chocolate, a little cup of Silk Nog (non-dairy soy nog), a bit of candy cane, a couple of pretzels; my meals were controlled portions of all of my favorite foods—curry rice, avocados... The trick was that my daily intake was still overwhelmingly made of whole, healthy foods, and I stayed in control with the little bits of other things. I don't have to go through the Christmas season without Silk Nog or christmas cookies; I can eat whatever I want, as long as I don't go nuts. (Why didn't I see that before?) And fasting really boosts the willpower: if I can go without everything but water, I can certainly limit myself to one small candy cane or one square of chocolate.

Anyway—very optimistic today. It's working, people. Don't be afraid to try Eat Stop Eat, and to try different variations of it, until you make it work for you.

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