IF

I was down a bit today... that is from the night before. I did gain from the morning thanks to the massive dinner last night but today was good.

IF is intermittent fasting. It is used mostly by body builders to lose fat and gain muscle but it has to be done in a certain way to work. You have to have protein coming in, and do more than just cardio otherwise it isn't as effective. My trainer did it all last month and you can totally see the difference. I'm trying it for two reasons... first I can still eat , but fast at the same time (therefore not starving as I"m paranoid about binging and gaining agian) , and second, I need to lose fat but at this point keep as much muscle as possible to burn more fat going forward.

The idea is that you fast for 16-18 hours, then have a 'feeding' period of 8-6 hours. Workouts are supposed to be timed so that the feeding period starts at the end of the fast. Workout should never be at the end of the feeding period as you won't burn as much fat, instead lose muscle mass and run a risk of binging after trying to fast.

I'm on day 2. Yesterday I fasted for 16hrs, and had an eating period of 8. Today same thing. Fasting ended around 3pm but I wasn't able to eat until 3:30pm. I've had yogurt, leftover stew and pitas, homemade oatmeal cookies and too much chocolate (but not as much as I've had recently.....) At 10pm today (1015... I had to wait for the last batch of cookies) I stopped eating so I don't get to eat until 2:15 tomorrow.

For exercise I went out and ran. Actually ran outside. It was GLORIOUS. Well, the weather wasn't great. Howling wind but at least it was over freezing. Many puddles in the river valley and plenty of mud for me to slog through. Yuck. Ran up the hill on the footpath and back down too so that slowed me down (especially as the wind really slowed me down going DOWN the hill. Yeah, bad wind day) but overall not too bad. Did 4.05 miles in 51:12 with an average pace of 12:09 mph. Not too bad... not as good as I wanted, but not as bad as it could have been. I'm hoping to do about 40min on the night of the race.

Headed up to the gym right after and did chest, shoulders (I think? I was aiming for lats) and back. Tossed in 3 sets of 30 crunches and 3 sets of 16 for the obliques. I was adequatly tired after but feel ok now.

Overall I ate more than I usually do, at least that's how it felt. I didn't track calories as well as I ate stuff that I've made from scratch, but I didn't have enough veggies. I did end up having a bit of a protein powder and water mix (seriously gross but I don't gag anymore) before hitting the trails.

Tomorrow.... training at noon so be there for 11am. If I'm up by 9am I can have tea and then if I need it protein before I hit the gym. Done by 1pm so at least a half hour of cardio post, home and shower. Should put me close to 2:15 for feeding. Again, have a yogurt to break the fast, with juice (aka vitamin water for 10cals) and water. Probably have a salad after then a friend is coming over for 530ish for coffee. There'll be some cookies eaten and after she leaves I'll steam up some veggies. Maybe some soup if I'm still hungry. Aim for 9 or 10pm to end the 'feeding' (earlier the better.... Means less calories coming in).

Cooking at home is definatly healthier, no processed shit, but it means leftovers. Leftovers mean I eat larger portions and don't have the nutritional information readily available to me.

This IF thing works for others, I just need it to work for me, despite trying to keep a lower caloric intake and being very focused on that magical number. If I could drop the 10lbs I put on last month and take at least another 5lbs of fat off this month I will be happy.

I'm not doing the IF plan completely. I will take 'off' days as it won't work with schedules, plans etc. I would like to try for 4-5 days a week of IF. It should work fine until I go back north and then I'll have to rotate the hours so I can eat after the classes at 10pm. But that's next month so I can deal with that then.

I wanted to go through all the blog updates I've missed latetly. I'll try but I'm pretty tired right now. If not tonight I'll do it while I'm having my morning tea.

I'm excited for tomorrow :)