Twenty-Nine weeks.

It's been a while since I've blogged, but not because I had nothing new to say. There just comes a time when you have to sit back and participate, rather than blog. So I participated. My stepdaughter got married, we all went to Vegas, I helped some friends through some tough times, I am still waiting for others to get through theirs. Life happens.

I am continuing to diet using Johnson's Alternate-Day Diet. This method lets me lose weight. Since I am not really measuring body composition, I can't tell you to this day how much muscle versus fat has been retained or lost. However, I am strong, I feel good, and even if I have a bit of extra skin where there wasn't before, I am happier with sags and wrinkles rather than plumpness.

And it is with a grim satisfaction I can report that I zipped up a well-loved (but never worn) orange silk suit skirt today which has sat in my closet for two decades. It does not fit well. Yet. But it does not scream for mercy; the seams are not bulging, and I can sit in it for a short period of time if needs be. But needs will not be, so I can wait to unveil this outfit when it looks stunning, and not just barely fitting.

So the weight report is this: 174.2  today, after an UP day. Yesterday I was a pound lighter. And so it goes. I have noticed I have one really good week in each month where I lose weight like it's being stolen right off my body. It's the way it works for me, and even if I don't lose one more pound for the rest of the month, that one week's "whoosh" makes it all worth it.

At least two people have told me in no uncertain terms that intermittent fasting will "ruin my metabolism" if I continue with it, long term. I tell them politely that eating 5-6 small meals a day packs weight onto my body with gusto. Using that method is like a smorgasbord for my fat cells. If intermittent fasting is ruining my metabolism, you are assuming it was working correctly to begin with.

Which it wasn't. Which is why I couldn't lose weight. Clue here, for all those who say I will ruin my metabolism. IT WAS ALREADY RUINED. This is fixing things.

Let me be. I'm doing really, really well, and I'm healthy, and I'm happy. Be happy with me.

Seventeen Weeks.

I am getting tired of reporting on Mondays how little weight loss I can report. 188.6 this morning, after doing another week with two "down" days in a row.

I am starting to get annoyed and resentful of dieting, and I am still on track. Why?

Is it another hormone my body is throwing into the mix in order to derail my efforts? Does becoming irritable and impatient lead back to another mechanism for preservation of my fat?

Or maybe I'm just crabby because the loss is simply not fast enough for me.

Dunno, but I'm too stressed to blog about it today.

Sixteen Weeks.

Today I weighed in at 191. I'm a smidge higher than three days ago, when I saw 189.4 briefly. It was exhilarating.

Then Mother Nature intervened, and last night was the beginning of this month's cycle. It explains two things I had noticed two days earlier: a ravenous appetite, and a slowdown of weight loss... once again, the diabolical bloat.

The reason I'm annoyed at the bloat, was because mid-week finally saw the last of February's water retention episode go away, and I started to see the scale really move again. Now the brakes are back on because of those pesky female hormones. Rats!

And soon will come the migraines. Double rats! Well, them's the breaks. On the upside, at least now my appetite will normalize, in a few days the bloat will reduce, and I will look forward to at least a week of steady progress. Unless of course, my body decides something else for me.

Today I am doing a second "down" day in a row to shift around my eating cycle, because on this upcoming Saturday, I will be expected to have meals. I had previously posted that I was considering doing two "down" days in a row for the same reason, and I can now report it is a no-brainer. Easy as pie, do-able, etc. No ill effects, no huge energy crash, no shakes, no headaches, no jitteriness. Nothing to indicate anything but smooth sailing. That was back around Valentine's Day, and I was concerned about the blowback from doing the dreaded two "down" days in a row we had been advised against. Of course, if someone has health issues, this may not be as easy.

It's funny what the hormone dance will do to me. When that time of month comes around, my appetite is turbo-boosted, but not my hunger. I'm not hungry, per se, but simply want to eat everything in sight. Until I'm overfull. And then regretful. This is called a binge in some circles, but these binges are controlled, and counted. Being accountable makes me less likely to overeat. I track the calories immediately, and am less likely to grab the next handy item until I read the label and decide how far I'm willing to go.

The really nice thing about this diet is it's forgiveness. If you have a good cycle for the next few days, it all is forgiven, and gains go away. The mistakes are erased, and all you've lost is half a week, if that. Sometimes the scale even surprises you with a loss you didn't expect. Not often, I'll grant, but often enough that people remark on it with glee. It happens rarely with me, but I do love when it happens!

I need to go food shopping now. I'm out of cod.

Fifteen Weeks.

Seems like last week I was at 192.8. Wait, that's because I was. Another week of no progress, and I am blaming water again. I have two more days to meet February's goal of 192. I think it will happen, either on or around that date. I believe I can claim 8 pounds of weight loss since January 31, since I weighed in at 200 on that date.

The problem overall is finding the correct formula for consistent weight loss without throwing a monkeywrench into the mix. I seem to have a large collection of monkeywrenches, and really don't know enough about my own body chemistry to keep weight loss at any sort of reliable pace.

Another side effect to this diet that can mess with your head is the natural "bounce" of numbers on the scale. The caloric cycle of up/down/up/down reflects each day as fluctuations on the scale. Whereas a day after a "down" day may be a new low weight, the very next day will "bounce" the scale up, sometimes two pounds.

Even if this is followed again by a strict "down" day (where the scale still hasn't recovered from the upward "bounce") water retention may still be in play, due to several possible factors.

• Carbohydrate-regulated retention, caused by molecules of water binding to residual carbs in the body. 
• Muscle-repair regulated retention, because exercise will stress muscles, which causes water to flood the injured areas
• Bowel-regulated retention, due to irregularities in elimination (a nice way to say water is flooding the intestines in order to get you to poop)
• Hormone bloat (for women, who retain water during certain times of the month)
• Medication gain, where some meds will cause a ridiculous bloatfest.
• And dehydration, which makes you retain water if you don't drink enough. 

I won't bother to mention the weight of waste in your system due to the food ingested the day before. I think enough poop talk has been mentioned already.

So, is there any way around the water retention effect? Nope. It will happen. It will happen a lot.

Dealing with scale "bounce" is not a fiery sign that something has gone wrong. It means the diet is just reflecting one of the scenarios listed above, if not more than one. I find there is no reason to freak out, it's just incredibly annoying that waiting for your body to get over itself can fritter away so much time better spent shopping for smaller clothing sizes.

I have stoically endured two weeks of normal "bounce" before the scale started to move downward again. I endured a whole month of it due to meds.

Now I need to go and drink some water, in order to make water weight go away. Counter-intuitive? You bet!

Fourteen Weeks.

Today my weight is 192.8. I am still continuing to lose weight, and have incorporated a modicum of exercise into my habits. It's time, I suppose, to stop treating this as a lark, and get serious about my shape.

As I get smaller, I find two things happening: One: I am getting more impatient for the numbers to reduce to suit my mood. This is not a good thing, and can lead to all sorts of mind games later on. I try not to succumb to the unrealistic desire for the pace to accelerate, after all, my skin won't keep up, and I'll end up with baggy and saggy extra skin. I have no idea if this will happen to me, but hey, I'm creeping up on 51, and there's only so much stretching a balloon can do before it gets that awful look to it.

The second thing I find happening is that I'm starting to care about my appearance again. I have opened the two ear holes in my lobes that I pretty much allowed to close up, in anticipation of wearing the earring collection I used to value. I have purchased some skin items to "tone" my skin, and help with age-related problems. Dunno if any of this will benefit me; I've never used anything more than soap and water, and maybe some zit pads. I have been refreshing my makeup, and using it occasionally. I'm going to the salon soon for a haircut. I haven't had a style in over 14 months. Probably more. I keep my roots covered, but that's about it. My rings are starting to fit again.

It's a long way yet to my goal weight, but I'm starting to adapt to the slightly smaller me. I still don't feel thin yet, maybe it's because I'm not. 193 is still significantly overweight. It's just much better than 229.

Today is a down day, and as an ongoing observation I see very little true hunger on my down days. If I feel a twinge, I usually drink some water, or decaf coffee, and wait it out. It really does go away and leave me alone. Sometime around 1pm I'll start looking at the clock, waiting for the window I allow myself to eat. I like to wait until 2:30, because once I do start to eat on a down day, it seems it wakes my appetite up. So I make sure I eat protein. Turkey and some almonds usually do the trick.

Eventually I'm going to get very tired of these meager portions every other day, but maintenance will be more lax regarding caloric intake.

But now I'm back to Number One: I want the weight off already...

Thirteen Weeks.

This has been a better week overall. My vertigo is gone. My drug-induced stall is gone. I am happy (once again) to announce weight loss, and the scale today read 193.4. I am fitting into my not-quite-as-big-as-a-house pants, I look forward to the week's tally on the scale, and am starting to take my couch potato body in hand with small increments of exercise.

I re-purchased a Wii (I had the Fit board, but my daughter took the Wii when she moved), and am going to take some time reacquainting myself with Wii Fit. I am also waiting for EA Sports 2 to come in the mail, so I can, in the words of Emeril, kick it up a notch.

One thing I've noticed overall is when women lose weight, their girls shrink. On this diet, so far, mine have not. This is relatively unheard of with a 35 pound loss. I literally am still the same bra size as I was when I weighed 229, as in, my bras are still fitting roughly the same even though the rest of me is smaller.

I suppose it's because I'm one of those women who gain over all her body, top to bottom, so I lose it the same way. Maybe the boobs are last. I have no clue, but will definitely keep the blog up to date. I'm looking forward to the day I can actually buy a cute bra. They don't make cute in 40D.

So today is the day before Valentine's Day. It has been a tradition with my husband that we don't go out, we don't gift, and we don't do flowers or candy. We do however, make a splurge meal for ourselves at home. We have cooked bacon-wrapped scallops, lobster, bacon-wrapped filet mignon, and occasionally got ourselves some cheap caviar.

Unfortunately, this meal splurge falls on one of my "down" days, where I only allocate myself roughly 500 calories. Since January showed absolutely no weight loss, I don't want to slow things down again by having two "up" days in a row, yet Dr. Johnson clearly states in his book not to have two "down" days in a row.

He doesn't explain why. Is he concerned about energy levels crashing? Is he concerned about low blood sugar affecting brain function and/or triggering headaches? Is he concerned about birthing an eating disorder more severe than overeating, such as anorexia? Is he concerned about kicking the body into starvation mode and thus interrupting the cycle of up/down/up/down, or is he just assuming that a fat person couldn't possibly restrict calories for two days in a row without going on an eating binge? Does he think a dieter's willpower is in such short supply that two days of relative "hardship" is going to cause a meltdown?

Because of this lack of information (and shame on you Dr. Johnson, for having such a skimpy web site with no forum), I can only conclude quack science and go ahead with two "down" days in a row in order to shift my body over to an "up" day for tomorrow.

On leangains.com, the author says bluntly that starvation mode is not achieved until fasting is done for at least 72 hours. (See #4). He is one of the bloggers who have gone to the trouble read many relevant studies and scientific papers, and put it out there on his blog so the rest of us can benefit from his knowledge.

To recap, not only is the Johnson method NOT true fasting, two days is 48 hours, well under the limit for starvation mode to be activated. So in conclusion, I'm going to ignore the weak admonition of Dr. Johnson, because frankly, he gives no reason at all not to do two "down" days in a row.

The only limitation I can logically see is whether my appetite level will get uncomfortable. I tend to think not, as I've read other comments, responses and forums where people plainly state two days is easily doable with little to no discomfort. Ramadan is mentioned repeatedly, but I'm certainly not doing this for religious or cleansing reasons.

It seems a little ironic that I've doubled my "down" day so I can eat more later. That's not entirely true, since I'm doing it for my husband, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious about it and had been considering it already.

So I'll comment next week on how effective (or ineffective) two days of "down" days were, and whether this can become a new tool, or if it's just another day of denial for no good reason.

I just wish I could stop thinking about raspberry pie.

Twelve Weeks.

Since figuring out that my vertigo was not going to go away by itself and making several doctor appointments, I finally got the treatment designed to put things right. Unfortunately, it gave me a migraine. I've long since learned everything has a cost.

During the last few weeks in order to control my vertigo symptoms I used an antihistamine, but it had an unintended consequence: I gained weight. It wasn't supposed to do that, but it did. Seems antihistamines are unoffficial weight gain culprits. It's not a well-known side effect, and I don't believe the makers of any antihistamine are going to admit your efforts at weight loss will slow down and reverse, but that's exactly what happened. I wasn't the only one affected. I scoured the internet (a research tool I may overuse at times), and looked at comments that people made. Many have confirmed the suspicion I had that antihistamines do in fact, have this unintended consequence. Unfortunately I still needed it, as it was suppressing my vertigo symptoms, so I didn't want to stop using it until I could have the Epley Maneuver done to get rid of the spins for good.

The first doc I saw regarding the vertigo gave me a nasal spray. Fine. I'll use the nasal spray to combat the spins. But I saw within days my weight really started creeping upwards. I did more research: the spray is a corticosteroid. And what do steroids do? They make you gain weight!!

I had to make a decision once I undid an entire month's worth of potential weight loss. I stopped both drugs. Enough was enough. On Tuesday, Jan 31, I was 200, the same as New Year's Eve. I understand it was water weight, but it was not only masking the weight I had already shed, it literally stopped my diet from working. Not acceptable. I have since dropped four pounds in less than a week, and weighed in today at 196.

Now I have to undo the gluttony from Superbowl day. Hmmm... maybe I'll go to the gym...

Eleven Weeks.

Well, the water weight game is continuing. It has brought me back up today to 197.8, and it's annoying as hell, because once again, the wondering starts, whether the diet needs tweaking or not.

I tend to believe not (yet), only because I have been taking an antihistamine for the the entire time the bloat has been hanging around, almost three weeks now. It's called Bonine, and I've been using it for the vertigo attack I got on January 12. Today is the 30th, and by Jan 22 the weight loss had not only stopped fluctuating, it started reversing. On the 26th I added Flonase, a corticosteroid, and that has also been associated with water retention.

I am not a happy girl. The obvious solution would be to stop taking Bonine (it's also messing with my thinking processes, big time), but then the room starts to jitter and jog. Wedesday I see an audiologist who will be performing the Epley Maneuver, designed to put things back where they belong so the vertigo can subside. The Flonase stops after today.

I literally can't wait to see this doctor. I will stop using the Bonine tonight so the effects wear off and I can tell better if the maneuver is working. If it does work, I can then gauge what the diet is doing under five pounds of water weight.

This is ridiculous.

Ten Weeks.

Weight loss has fallen to the wayside this past week, due to four obvious factors. I am loathe to admit I have gone up almost an entire pound, but there are lessons to be learned from this, and new obligations to be met. It was no surprise therefore, that the week's results are a stern 197. You reap what you sow, so to speak. On to the lesson! To recap the factors involved in this weight gain:

One: I have grown too comfortable. I've taken the diet for granted, and pushed the caloric intake too far, by several hundred calories each "up" day. This was ignored for some time by my body, but it has now caught up. I have learned where my limit is, and will now stick closer to it. (2300 calories on an "up" day is about 400 -500 too many).

Two: Any sort of exercise that causes DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) from exercise WILL cause water retention, for at least 4 days. I am still waiting for the water to release from shoveling snow for three days in a row.

Three: Cyclic hormones have an impact, and until I hit menopause, always will.

Four: Using an "up" day as a free eating day will not work, and I have taken steps so my husband will not overfeed me again on those days. He is an excellent cook, but steadfastly refuses to use lower-fat ingredients, and seems hurt when I demand small portions. Last night was stuffed pork chops and mashed potatoes, with ice cream for dessert. Yesterday's breakfast was a full plate of hash browns with four slices of bacon mixed in, and one egg. This is no excuse for my indulgence; but again, it is nothing I would have picked for myself if given an alternative beforehand. As a small caveat, it was a rare "football" day in my home, and a beer, along with two glasses of wine also made it into the day's menu. I won't mention the tortilla chips with salsa. No, I said I won't, and I won't...

Today is a "down" day, and I am grateful for it, although it may be hard, considering all the carbs I've been eating, which usually stimulate hunger.

I am confident a large loss will follow this week's overindulgence.

Nine Weeks.

Calculated at bmi-club.com

I am so stoked! This last week, I have reached a long-awaited milestone, all thanks to the Alternate-Day Diet. By the way, I am in no way a representative of the doctor or his plan. I have not been contacted by them, I am not paid, I have nothing monetary to gain by telling you how well this is working. And it is! Today's weigh-in has me at 196.2, and that places my body mass index (BMI) under 30! I am officially no longer obese!

Ask anyone who has ever dieted long term, and they will tell you the same thing: all diets work until they don't. This stoppage mostly happens to women, but sometimes guys too. This is how it plays out: you're going merrily along, doing the diet, losing weight, (hopefully just fat) and not cheating. You're working out, and making healthy choices. Maybe you feel better, maybe not. But then the scale stops.

All your effort continues, but the scale won't budge. It starts to seem your efforts don't matter at all once the scale stops moving. So you ask around to find out how to make the weight come off again. Folks will tell you to look to see if your clothes are fitting differently (looser), which indicates body recomposition. You can be assured it is very likely muscle gain (hardly ever). You can be told you've got to be patient, as stalls happen, and is not a problem until two weeks have passed (which are agonizing and feel like forever). And for the record, I never noticed my clothes fitting differently once a diet stopped moving the scale. If you're large-ish and no longer just 20 or 30 pounds overweight, it takes a proportionally larger amount of weight loss to change sizes. I won't even discuss the folks who just tell you you're doing the diet "wrong".

So using the comfort that I was losing slowly but steadily was taken away when my diets failed. Atkins was the worst, because I had done reasonably well with it for over a year. What did I eventually do wrong to make it stop? Nothing measurable. I have concluded in the years since it happened that it was completely and unfortunately out of my control. Others who have gone down this road have to deal with discouraging results and the echoing emptiness of spirit called failure. Nobody who doesn't diet understands – it is the nature of the body to vehemently counteract attempts to lose fat. All diets will fail in the end, because of the actions your body has taken to shut it down.

So what are you truly left with after diet failure? You're worse off than before. Because you've been dieting, you now have a body that has changed how it handles energy expenditure (has slowed down), and is working hard to regain lost fat reserves, even as you're still trying figure out a new way to lose. Usually that's when people go completely off the rails and eat whatever they want, because why the hell not if the diet isn't working? At that point, weight seemingly goes on twice as fast than before you dieted. It's just not fair.

And what if you have not been on the diet long enough for it to fail? If you have reached your goal weight, your body still thinks it's in dieting mode, does not realize you have effectively stopped trying to lose more, and continues to try and force the fat cells to refill. I have heard it takes years for a goal weight to become the new norm, if ever. I have no idea how hard maintenance is going to be, but I've heard it's actually harder than dieting because of the confusion dieters face as to "what's next".

Back to diets not working... When the leptin/ghrelin dance gets together with metabolic slowdown and decides to mess with your goals, no diet in the world can match it. Scales stop recording losses. Stalls happen. The gamut of well-meaning advice usually covers mixing things up with less caloric intake, different macro or micro nutrients, using a different workout method, refeed, etc, ad nauseum. There are more "fixes" to a diet than actual diets, it seems.

Again, what I have noticed by using the JUDDD method is there are no stalls that last over a week, even with hormonal changes. Even if you're a woman. Even if you're 50. Even if you (still) don't go to the gym and have a sedentary lifestyle. Yes, I said it. I'm still sedentary, and still losing weight. To reiterate, I do not lose weight easily. Yet now I am.

Regarding the methodology of the diet, I can't even call it true fasting, since I eat anywhere from 400-600 calories (usually around 500) on my "down" days. I figure if you're eating, it's not a true fast, so it's only the piston effect of calorie shifting that is doing the heavy lifting. I can only come to the conclusion that JUDDD really IS confusing my body so the leptin/ghrelin effect does not bother me for more than a day. It does not allow metabolic slowdown. It does keep the appetite low so willpower can work. My energy levels are good now, as it takes the body a few "down" days to adjust to much lower calories.

Working out while fasting is not a problem either, (from what I've heard). I actually may go to the gym today, since I really don't have to. (I have a rebellious nature, see previous post) And I've lost 17 pounds since November 14, the start of the JUDDD Experiment.

So after nine weeks, I have concluded this diet is no longer an experiment. I am confident this method is going to take me all the way to goal. It would be perfect if I could completely not focus on food until it's time to have a meal. That would be bliss.

Eight Weeks.

On January 6,  I measured 198.6 on my scale. I think that's a great thing, because I haven't been below 200 pounds since 2006, six years ago.

I am 201.5 today, because ghrelin (the hunger hormone) made an appearance yesterday by shouting "I'm fucking starving!" So instead of fighting the issue, I had a big refeed day. Over 2,500 calories, and if my body wanted that for one day in order to continue with the diet sanely, then it's gonna get that refeed. And no, I don't feel guilty. I wish it hadn't had to happen, but like I've mentioned before, the body plays nasty tricks with hormones once it starts giving up its fat stores. And it is. So nyah, nyah, ghrelin. I'm going to wait this out, because one day of hunger is  not going to derail me. Give it your best shot!

200 has also been a set-point for me in the past. It's a struggle to get below it, because somehow my body has also decided it's a comfy place to hang out, come-on, why-not-stay-awhile, and what's-the-big-rush? The scale has been bouncing around it since Dec. 27. Sooner or later it'll go, and good riddance.

This past week I've also noticed a weird sensation. When I put my pants on, I am no longer feeling quite so much belly when I zip up. I have been so fat for so long that my disappearing flesh is frankly, disturbing. It SHOULD be there, yet it's not. It's what I've been working towards, but at the same time, it is starting to make my body feel a bit alien to me. I can live with that, but it is a little freaky that I've been fat for so long that having a smaller body feels odd. I wonder how I'm going to feel when my legs aren't the size of fair-pig-sized ham hocks.

Going below 200 is also giving me access to a new milestone I will likely hit this week: I will officially be below 30BMI when the scale says 196. I will be out of the obese category and into the overweight category. This is not just another number on the scale, it's an entire category. I don't know when I bought into the whole "I am obese" mentality, but coming out of it is like emerging from a dark hole into a sunny place. I literally can't wait.

I recently bought a Tanita InnerScan scale to replace my old Tanita. It was not as accurate as the new one, and doesn't give me all the cool readouts. The new one does however, do one thing I don't really like. Double plus marks on the weight readout, indicating obesity. As if I didn't know. Really, Tanita? A flashing ++ on my scale when I check my weight is just a reminder of how much further I have to go, rather than a reminder that I've reached a significant amount of weight loss.

And yes, hitting 199 has also been significant, it is a total of 30 pounds lost since early July, when I started tracking with the bodybugg and started trying to bring my weight back into a semblance of normality.

I have a lot to be happy about this week. And it's all because of the JUDDD Experiment. Why give JUDDD all the credit? I was dieting for five months and lost 15 lbs. The other half of it has taken eight weeks, less than two months. I call that phenomenal.

Seven Weeks.

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve were days I never intended to diet, so is it any surprise this week's weight loss total is a big zero?

Even so, the weight may have started and ended at 203, I saw 200 on the morning of the 31st. So Happy New Year to me!

Fast forward a couple of days later, and it looks like water weight is also showing up for the party, and the causes of this are confusing.

In my experience, any time water weight shows up on the scale, it begins the insidious process of derailing my diet, due to the upward trend of numbers on the scale, or even a standstill for a period of time.

Why the slowdown or uptick? After some looking around for valid solutions, I see different reasons listed, but no real proof. Some blame cortisol. Some blame hormones. Some blame tired adrenals. Some accusations include food allergies, sodium intake, dehydration, exercise level, and overall systemic health. Some just plain say it's your body taking a break. I see it more as a panic move, designed to keep the fat just where you deposited it. So it throws a few curves in there, one of them being bloat.

What to do about it? There is a bunch of information on the interwebs about how to shed water weight. Diuretics, more water, more exercise, less salt, no salt, no carbs, no wheat, more exercise, and the old standby: see your doctor.

The thing is, it'll probably go away by itself, unless it really is health related. Then by all means, the solution is to go see a doctor. Personally, I just need to wait it out, but over 3 pounds of water weight is annoying. It's hiding my efforts, and over time, will sabotage my commitment to the diet.

So... I'll drink more water, eat less salt, cut out some carbs, and sit down to wait it out. Damn.