Tuesday, April 30, 2013

MY MODIFIED VERSION OF A FAT FAST


Dr Atkins used a Fat Fast to help someone who had stopped loing weight yet still had a significant way to reach their goal weight. I have never followed an Atkins Diet but now I want to get my body losong weight once more. I think the original idea was to limit calories to 1000 and eat 90% of those calories as fat. It was recommended that this type of "Fast" should be limited to 3 days.

I modified the ratio of macro-nutrients to a level I thought was safer for me and settled on 1150 calories with a ratio of  75% fats, 20% protein and 5% carbs. I decided this ratio was safe for me to follow to the letter for 10 days. That's a very long time for someone who wants to eat naturally and not be bothered with weighing and recording every mouthful. I guess that this is more like an induction into LCHF diet but I want to see if I can do it and I want to know how well it works for me.

It didn't take me long to realise that even at 75% fat I would be challenged to eat enough fats. In practice an even greater challenge was to keep my carbs at 5%. Most days I went over this. I could have continued eating this way for a longer period but it involved working out my menus everyday on a diet tracker and that becomes tedious after a while. For me it's not a sustainable lifestyle.

It really was not too difficult and I was never truly hungry although in the beginning I often felt as though I wanted to eat a larger dinner. We arrived home from Hawaii on April 13th and I began my 10 days on April 18th. Looking back I'm glad I didn't let the grass grow under my feet.

My first weigh in after returning from Hawii was a couple of kg higher than before we left. This was all due to my feet and legs swelling in the heat and humidity of Honolulu. I began My Fat Fast weighing 85 kg and at the end of 10 days I weigh 82 kg. Success! The main purpose of doing this 'Fat Fast' was to break through a plateau situation which was frustrating me.

My main concern as I write this and move to a more reasonable diet is the fear of stalling my weight loss again. I am going to continue to be careful for the next several weeks. My main goal will be to stay in ketosis as I increase calories, carbs and protein. I am choosing a macro-nutrient ratio of 10% carbs, 25% protein and 65% fats. This will be changed as necessary to stay in nutritional ketosis. I really need to lose somewhere between 18 and 24 kg. I will know when I have lost enough weight and I have no intention of getting caught up in an eating disorder at my age. I know some people think measuring food is a sign of an eating disorder. My take on this is that I have tried many things and I want this to end. I know maintenance has it's own challenges but at my age I have, maybe, done permanent damage to my body and how it works. It is safer for me to keep a close track on what I am doing. There is no-one that I know of who is working as hard as I am to be as healthy as possible, after being out of shape for so long. Most of the stuff I read seems to be for under 50 year olds and those who are older need to remember their bodies are a lot different. Those who are closer to my age seem to be more conservative and not be aiming to lose as much weight.

I welcome support from anyone and if you are closer to 75 years old than 65 I would be even more delighted to have your support.

This Blog is really just to make my experience available to the public and to fulfill a promise to make my daily menus during my recent Fat Fast available. You will not find anything exciting here. You will find a few recipes and my macro-nutritional data for each day. I have no idea whether or not I will add to this in the future but I intend to stay in Nutritional Ketosis for the rest of my life if possible.

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