So today is a slightly tricky fast day. I’ve just looked at
the inspirational message on my cup of herbal tea (Yogi Tahitian vanilla
hazelnut, delicious and normally I love the little messages) and read:
‘Open up to infinity and bacon infinity’… which quite
frankly sounds freaking delicious.
If you are both au fait with these new age type messages
and not sub-consciously obsessing over a bacon buttie (on white bread,
with ketchup – mmmm) then you have probably gathered that it reads ‘open up to
infinity and become infinity’, but right now I’d probably take the bacon :-).
So why is today so tricky?
Well first up I did the Wadi Bih race yesterday. This is a team
relay race going 31km up and then 31 km down a mountain in Mussandam. All the
legs are quite short, the longest is 4.2km and team members who aren’t running
drive from checkpoint to checkpoint. At the start you’re running in the dark (we
started at 0600 yesterday), at the top one has the altitude to deal with (you’re
at 1,000 metres having started at sea level) and at the bottom you’re in the
blazing sun. In addition the time you spend in the car between legs allows all
your muscles to seize up, my team lost a member and ran as a four rather than
the normal five and I hadn’t really trained for it, not at all in fact. It was
a wonderful weekend, we’d camped and barbequed the night before and the race
was really good fun with gorgeous scenery but I ran 19km and am extremely stiff
today* which makes me feel like indulging myself rather than fasting.
The second reason is that my body fat percentage went up
last week, which I find terribly dispiriting, and I’m starting to realise that
although you may not have to diet on the non-fast days, you do have to keep your
calories within your daily limit. Mine is 1,700, slightly reduced (on the basis
that I’m a bit older and not exercising as much) from the 1,800 that my Aeroscan
testing from a few years ago recommended. Although you’re not going to go
hungry on 1,700, you can’t scarf down a pizza (even a small one)and then eat chocolate
either. I had a few days last week where I did take on too many calories and I
saw the results on the scales this morning.
Having said all that, the diet is working overall and today
I’ll share the results:
05/01/2016 07/02/2016
Weight: 58.2 55.9
Body fat %: 32.1 30.4
BMI: 22.7 21.8
Having done the maths** this means I’ve lost 1.69 kg of fat;
that’s more than a large bag of flour, that’s amazing! With a bit of renewed
dedication to controlling my non-fast days I’m pretty sure that operation
skinny-in-a-bridesmaid’s-dress is a go and I’m sure I can convince myself that
that’s better than a bacon buttie.
So on this week’s fast days I will be having:
Today: Breakfast is two medium eggs scrambled with 2 tbsp of
cottage cheese and some garlic salt (200). Dinner, in honour of Chinese New Year, is Asian (I think it's Japanese but I'm trying okay?) spaghetti squash(153) with steamed beef dumplings (182). Recipies taken from here: http://sybaritica.me/2012/03/20/experiment-steamed-beef-ball-dim-sum/
and here: http://www.pickledplum.com/yakisoba-spaghetti-squash-recipe/
my mum’s staying so I’ll also be making some mushroom and water chestnut
dumplings to accommodate her vegetarianism. (I’ll be slightly over today as I
made and ate breakfast before working out that I wasn’t going to be able to go
to personal training tonight (too stiff) so I should probably make the more
complex of the fast night suppers).
Tomorrow: Breakfast is two medium eggs scrambled with 2 tbsp
of cottage cheese and some garlic salt (200); I really like this way of doing
my eggs, so much so that I’m having them like this on non-fast days too. Dinner
is the spaghetti squash with goats cheese and pesto that I wrote about a few
weeks ago (300).
*This is insanely understated. I can’t walk is less of an
overstatement than ‘I am extremely stiff' is an understatement. I can walk, it’s
just more like the rolling gait of a sailor on shore leave particularly when I
first stand up and every step is painful. If being on the flat is painful then
changes of gradients are ridiculous, it took me maybe five minutes to get down
the stairs in the metro today and if there is a fire alarm I’m quite seriously
going to have to be carried (we’re on the 26th floor). Oh, and in addition
to my legs, my hips, back and upper arms also ache.
**((58.2/100)*32.1)-((55.9/100)*30.4)
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