Intermittent Fasting update

I want to keep my brain from thinking about the orange man who is currently THE WORST and DOING NOTHING to stop a virus that has killed over 200,000 people in the US....so I thought that I would give a quick update on how intermittent fasting is going!

I started IF in the last week of January and wrote about it here. It's funny to look back on it now because things have changed! I was consistently doing IF until the pandemic hit in March. Even when I went on a work trip I skipped breakfast, presented all morning long, and didn't eat anything until lunch and was perfectly fine. As soon as I was stuck at home with the kids, working 24/7,  and freaking out over COVID, I started to eat all of my feelings and the 13 pounds that I had lost with IF earlier in the year went right back on my body.

After the July 4th holiday, I realized that I needed to get my sh*t together and started back up with IF. Through some googling, I found the "Delay, Don't Deny: Intermittent Fasting Support" Facebook group and joined. I also download the Delay, Don't Deny audible book and started listening to it on walks around the neighborhood. Turns out the tea that I was drinking back in January/February is on the naughty list and I wasn't truly "clean fasting." So I decided to suck it up and start to drink black coffee in the morning. It's been about two months and as I mentioned during my latest DITL post, black coffee is still gross, but I can tolerate it.

So what do I do these days for IF? Well, I close my eating window (aka stop eating by 7-7:30pm most nights) and I generally don't open my eating window until 2 or 3pm the next day. I'm not woozy, I'm not tired (in fact it is the opposite), I don't have trouble working out before I eat (in fact I prefer it since I don't have food sloshing around in my stomach), and I'm really not that hungry until about 2pm or so. The only thing that I ingest is a cup of black coffee and water until the afternoon. On the weekends I end up eating a bit earlier and only fast 16-17 hours so that I can eat lunch with the kids and CP.

Honestly, it's SO EASY. I don't have to worry about lunch most days because some times I'll have leftovers, sometimes I will just eat snacks (grapes, snap peas, etc), or sometimes I'll make scrambled eggs. Then I look forward to eating a full meal at dinner. 

CP thinks that it is weird and that I am "starving myself" but I truly am not hungry and I'm not eating diet foods...but yet I am still losing weight. So far 7 pounds and this week a friend of mine remarked that I look like I have lost weight (yay!). I can definitely tell in my face! The same author of Delay, Don't Deny has a longer, more recent book that goes into more detail about the science/various studies behind fasting and I have started to read it on walks around the neighborhood. 

I hope to come back with another update in a few months with more weight lost!

Day in the Life- Summer/Fall 2020

Day in the Life- Summer/Fall 2020

Monday, September 21, 2020

CP- 44 years old

NSC- 41.5 years old

Izzy- 6.75 years old

Wes- 4 years old

Marshmallow & Cocoa- ??

I think that I forgot to do a summer DITL so I'm doing a joint summer/fall on the first day of fall. No appearance from CP (other than on Facetime) as his company sent him out to CA on Sunday for two weeks. You know, with wildfires, earthquakes, and a pandemic. Awesome.

Without further ado, my Monday.

Sunday night, 11:04p- Turn light off and go to bed.

1:28am- I hear Izzy calling for me and she is crying because she peed in her pullup. (She recently had a few days dry and has woken up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night a few times in the past week so I think the chemical finally turned on in her brain!) We head to the bathroom and I talk to her about the fact that this is a process and it may take a little bit of time, but that I am so proud she even woke up! She sleeps like a log so this is huge. She pees, then wants me to talk to her as I get her back into bed. I tell her that it's time to go back to sleep. I head back to my bed.

7:03- Phone starts chirping from text messages. One of our friend’s kids has a fever (again). This is a reoccurring thing and has gotten COVID tested twice already- negative results both times (FYI- she got her COVID results again today- negative!). We were just at her (outdoor) birthday party on Saturday. I change my phone settings so that they don’t start going off until 7:30am and try to fall back asleep but of course it is impossible.

7:30- Alarm goes off. I hear the cats scratching so I head downstairs to feed them and hit their food button. 

Marshmallow desperately waiting for food

Bathroom stop. I get a text from a coworker to our work group that his oldest child tried acid this weekend and overdosed. YIKES. I text over my support. I weigh myself and I'm not surprised that I am up from Friday as I had pizza Friday night and leftover pizza last night for dinner. It's only two pounds so nothing too bad. I then get dressed.

7:50- Wake up the kids. I do a temperature check on Izzy for her school's self assessment (she will head in person for 40 minutes today). Encourage the kids to get dressed.

8- We all head downstairs and I make them breakfast. I tell Izzy that she may be cold with her current outfit. She tells me that these are her "inside clothes” and she will bring a jacket for "outside clothes." LOL. Encourage eating as we are (as always) running late.

No idea why Wes decided to make this face

Izzy's "inside clothes"

8:25- We get shoes on, grab masks, and leave the house. We drop Izzy off first at her "1st grade daycare" aka the daycare that is helping Izzy with her e-learning.

8:45- I then drop Wes off at his daycare. His temperature is a bit high because I had the heat on in car but I'm not worried because he was temperature checked at Izzy’s dropoff too.

8:50- I'm home and five minutes later I head downstairs for a workout. Week 2, Day 4 of 10 Rounds for a boxing/lifting Beachbody workout. Today is a leg lifting day and I can use my new 20 lbs dumbbells! I had been waiting for dumbbells from Amazon and the delivery driver delivered them to a city over an hour away two months ago. Thankfully I was able to find some local kid selling new dumbbells. I have no idea where he got them from, but he even delivered the 20 pounders to my house. I now have him looking for 25 pounders for me. :-) During my workout I hear the cats racing around upstairs. Weirdos.

The cast on a rooftop in Vegas

9:40- Workout complete, I head upstairs for a quick shower.

10- I start up my computer and jump on a team meeting.

11- Meeting over! I jump on another meeting. It ends after 20 minutes so I am able to head downstairs to make coffee which I now drink black in order to clean fast. I have been drinking black coffee for two months now and it is still disgusting. Less disgusting than it used to be....but still disgusting. I assume this will always be the case.

Blech

Cocoa hangs out on the bed in our room while I am working all day long

11:30- Next meeting. This meeting is an hour and a half, but at least one where I can hang back and just listen most of the meeting.

During the call I got a call from Wes' daycare. I guess this morning he was going to the bathroom and told his teacher that he was going to bring a gun to school and shoot everyone and then something about a bomb to make everyone scatter. WTF he is FOUR YEARS OLD. I'm flabbergasted/confused about this and slightly worried that they are going to expel Wes from preschool. I tell the director that we don't have any guns and other than Star Wars, we don't let Wes watch any violent movies/tv shows/iPad/etc. She probably doesn't believe me. I let her know that I will talk to Wes. I get back on camera and text CP.

1pm- Next meeting.

2- Meeting ends, I head downstairs for lunch after 19 hours of fasting. Scrambled eggs on a tortilla with some salsa. Green grapes on the side. I listen to part of a "Lovett or Leave It" podcast episode, then head upstairs at 2:30pm.

2:30- Review racial equity resources before my next call at 3pm. Right before my call the delivery driver calls to let me know that my Farmer's Fridge has been delivered. My mom and sister rave about these salads so I thought that I would try them out while CP was gone. So far, super yummy!

3pm- Call on racial equity work. 

4pm- Try to figure out where the recording of the call is and how I can share it.

Marshmallow usually doesn't come up here to hang out on our bed so she must be feeling lonely with CP gone.

4:15- Leave for a quick trip to the grocery store for fruit, prunes, and jelly.

4:30- Pick up Wes. In the car we have a discussion about what he said to his teacher. His version is slightly different and not as sinister, but still.

4:45- Pick up Izzy. I'm running out of gas so we stop by Costco for gas. Wes is yelling in the car while I'm outside and of course I can't hear what's going on. (*sigh*) We get home and I put groceries away while telling the kids to pee and get their shoes back on. I have Izzy try on her new snow boots that arrived today (size 3!!).

5:15pm- It's so nice out and we have time before dinner so we head out on a bike ride. I put my foot down suddenly halfway through a feel a shooting pain- UGH I have hurt my plantar fasciitis. ARGH.

5:45- We are home. The kids feed the cats.

I start to make dinner while the kids make a fort. I also text with CP about Facetiming and check email from 1st grade daycare. Easy dinner is ready so I sit down with the kids to eat. Izzy doesn't want soup, but both kids eat it anyway.

Excited faces for soup. 

7pm- I eat a mini Snickers while the kids run upstairs to get pajamas on and brush teeth. I head upstairs to help and tell them that the faster they go, the more reading time we will have.
Text with CP that he has some time to talk. We sit in Wes' room and Facetime with CP. The kids are fascinated that it is still light out while dark here. CP and I have a talk with Wes about what he said at school. Wes gets upset and makes himself cry. Izzy gets upset because at one point she also tries to parent Wes and we ask her not to do that. She eventually comes back into the room to talk to CP and we find out that because she didn't know her log in, she didn't do any of her homework during asynchronous learning today. (*sigh*)

We finish talking to CP and I read The Bucket Book and finish Notebook of Doom #5. Wes gives me lots of hugs to fill my bucket, I turn out the light and go into Izzy's room. I ask her to read me "Take Me to the Zoo" and she is able to read the entire book by herself and it was not painfully slow. Progress!

8:30- I grab my computer and head downstairs.

I partially listen to school board meeting then give up. Wes comes down at some point to tell me that he has to pee.

I do 2.5 hours of work while watching Shrill. It's nice to have something on in the background while working- generally I am unable to do that.

I stop working and while watching one last Shrill episode, I upload pictures to this post.

11:30- Head upstairs.

12- turn off light and go to bed.