h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It would be so much simpler if just had myself to feed--I'm perfectly happy making a huge pot of soup and eating that for dinner every night until it's gone. As it is now, I can get 2 dinners, maybe 3 if I change tweak the soup each night, and then eat it for lunch myself until I need the pot for something else. I rarely use the huge pot for soup anymore (at least not all the way full) unless we have company--then again, Tom doesn't think soup and bread is a proper company dinner--there need to be more solids

I decided to just do JUDDDD for now, until my soups I'd bought are gone--every single one has grains, noodles, or beans I'd gained 11.9 pounds since my lowest weight, and 10 since I realized that I was the jeans size I wanted to be. Since that was February, I think, that doesn't sound too bad--until one realizes that over half of that was in the last 6 weeks. At a pound a week, that would wipe out all my progress by New Year's! Anyway, I started last week, and I lost 4.9 pounds Same weight I was on July 10. I probably won't be bothering with measurements this time 'round--at least not until I find my measuring tape (it's still packed somewhere).

As of this morning, I'm back on JUDDDD/CAD after a disastrous few months where I lost no weight and gained instead. I never did do CAD properly, so I still don't know how successful it is on it's own. But I'm heavier right now than I've been since 2006. I have to do something.

Here's the plan. I will use JUDDDD with MWF down days of one evening meal of under 500 calories. I will use the CAD principle of very low carb meals and snacks except for the one 1-hour reward meal on my up days. My up days and reward meals are not going to be anything goes. I can't have gluten and will not eat sugar or other sweeteners except in tiny amounts. My carbs at the reward meals will be healthy ones. This is the meal where I'll allow myself some fruit, all the veg I want and the occasional starch.

The other decision I've made concerns the scale. I want to focus on doing my program correctly, not a weekly weight-loss goal. So I've decided to only weigh myself once a month, on the first Saturday. There are so many reasons why weight fluctuates that using just a number on the scale as a measure of success or failure makes me crazy. I know that daily weighing keeps lots of dieters on track. It makes me keep changing programs. Weight goes up and I panic and decide to do something different. So fewer weigh-ins is better for me.

I keep searching for gluten free substitutions for things like bread, cookies, etc. But they will still need to be eaten sparingly and only at a reward meal.

Could you ditch weighing altogether and try a different method of recording, like waist measurement? It doesn't fluctuate as much as weight and might help you focus on other things.

That was supposed to be a , not a ! Silly phone.

I've thought about that, Vip. Maybe taking measurements every month and weighing only once every every 3 months. Or just waiting for my clothes to get looser. I could even judge things by how I feel and my energy level. But I really need to focus on staying on track with one program and stop changing things around constantly. I think that not weighing all the time will help with that.

Also, I need to make it about my health, not just about losing pounds. So when the measure of success is pounds lost or gained, that automatically becomes the focus.

JUDDDD reduces inflammation. That's what's important. That needs to be my focus.

Intermittent fasting has become very popular among some of the LCHF crowd here in Sweden. It does sound a bit similar to JUDDDD.

What you do is you limit your eating to a 'time window' of 8-10 hours, the rest of the time you don't eat, only drink water, tea, coffe, preferrably with no mil or cream.

Having dinner and then not eating anything until lunch time next day seems to w*rk for many.

I'm thinking of trying an 'eating window' of noon to 8 pm, that way it'd be the same time each day. Of course, the last meal would have to be something that fills you up for a long time - mmmmm... cheese....

*milk

I think I could handle an eating window without any problems. When I'm doing a down day I never eat until evening. I'm actually less hungry by skipping breakfast and lunch than if I eat just a little bit, and a lot less hungry than if I eat carbs in the morning. If I eat a carby breakfast, I'm hungry all day. I know that sounds weird.

I tried doing the carb addicts thing for a few weeks, but, frankly, we don't have enough money for me to actually be able to eat anything filling until I'm allowed the carbs So I did lose a good amount the first week, but stalled after that, because I wasn't eating enough. I did return to JUDDD about a month ago, and was doing well, but stopped for Christmas vacation (jeans got looser, though I skipped weighing). I'm back on starting today.

One of the really great things about JUDDDD is that it is so affordable. No special foods, no foods just for the dieter because you can eat whatever everyone else is eating, and you can buy whatever is on special each week.

I keep saying that I'm going to do CAD, but I never actually do it and probably won't do it this time either. And when I was doing the best on JUDDDD, I was eating foods I really liked on up days and down days both. That's why it worked so well for me. I was allowed foods I genuinely liked and didn't have to eat any funky diet foods. Nothing was forbidden in moderation. Then I stopped JUDDDD, started having all those allergic reactions, got totally derailed and have never been able to motivate myself enough to just go back to what I was doing when I was losing good on JUDDDD.

I've been looking back through a lot of my old diet journals and have made an interesting discovery. I didn't start having the allergic reactions until after I got sloppy with the JUDDDD rules. It has to be because JUDDDD itself, the fasting days, reduce inflammation. This offset whatever reactions I would have had (and did have later) from foods I'm sensitive to.

It's so obvious that I don't know why I didn't figure it out before. The intermittent fasting was keeping my allergic reactions under control. Wow. This is important information.

That *is* an important discovery!

I've found that, if I try to eat the same thing as the rest of the family on down days

Argh, help from the

Anyway, as I was saying, if I serve myself the same thing the family's having, I have trouble restricting myself, so I either have something earlier, or, like tonight, make myself some soup and eat at the same time. The down-day mealtime thing is why I'd fallen off last year--I was tired of cooking separate meals. Then, this summer, I started gaining a pound a week...

I can see where that would be a problem. Since I live alone, I don't have to worry about feeding anyone else most of the time. I fix for my mom, but she seldom actually comes over anymore so I take stuff to her. I cook supper for Tom one evening a week, usually Saturday, so that's an up day anyway. And when we go out to a restaurant, we usually go on a Thursday, another up day. There is no reason for me not to do JUDDDD.

I have a theory about CAD and why Rachael Heller was so successful on her initial diet. She didn't lose weight the way she tells others to in her books. She basically fasted all day then ate one meal of whatever she wanted in the evening. I think that the weight loss and the improvement in her health markers was a result of the 23 hour fasts she did every day. She was doing a fairly strict IF window. Then when it came time to create a diet for other people, she realized that telling people to eat for only one hour a day every day wasn't going to win her many converts. So she added in the complimentary low carb meals to make it more appealing to the general public. And those people who eat only tiny low carb CMs lose weight. Those who eat larger CMs and snack a lot don't lose nearly as well because by eating several times every day they are eliminating their fasts altogether. Even though it does control insulin release better, I don't think that timing your carb consumption is what causes the weight loss. I think it is timing your eating in general. jmho

I've talked myself out of trying to combine JUDDDD and CAD. I'm going to just do plain old JUDDDD. Fewer rules and a lot more freedom on up days. I have enough restrictions with my allergies. I hesitate to add even more.

That seems to me to be much more likely to be followable...

With me, simple is definitely better. I did a good down day yesterday. I'm hoping to be back in the groove of it soon.

I got an "entry level" smartphone recently (cost the same as the replacement phone I needed and the service is only $5 more a month). As I was looking for zpps, imagine my surprise when I saw this one:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d4y9p9m

Not exactly JUDDDD, since it is for a 5 day eating, and 2 day 500 cal fasting cycle, but thought you'd be interested.

I'm back on track with no more unwanted losses (19 lbs in a little over 2 months, without a reason ), but thanks to getting a microwave and getting my legs fixed, NOW I'll have to keep from gaining everything back! OY!

Hmm, on closer examination (and I should have done this first!) all it does is give you a shading of the screen on your smartphone to tell you when you can eat...not earth-shattering, or even as good as I could do for myself...