7-Day Water Fast - Day #5

Day #5 for my second Water Fast, this is my first short one of just 7 days, but still good for my body to take a rest from food and heal itself in some way. Fortunately today I don't feel all those cravings I had in the past few days, I still look forward on completing this Fast but overall I'm good, I think I'll be even better in a couple of days.

During my lunch break, here at the office, I went downstairs to go for a walk and check out the Black Friday Week deals. I ended up buying a package of Organic Unsweetened Shredded Coconut, a fairly large container of Nutritional Yeast and a big jar of Powdered Peanut Butter the one with no sugar added. I know I'm a shopaholic and I can't help myself, but in my defense I have to say that not having lunch and work to do is not helping my shopping habits.

This morning my ketosis was between moderate and large amount, I would say around 60mg/dL, which is still pretty good plus I believe the amount of water I had yesterday might have changed the real results. I don't feel hungry at all know, I guess also due to the ketosis, but I had difficulties with my BM this morning; I guess not eating anything is not helping me, so I decided to take a probiotic, hopefully will not compromise my fast and will just help me on being regular during this fast, I really don't want to do again a Shank Pashlanka, it takes too much time and effort.

My back still hurt me a bit today, better than yesterday for sure but I have still difficulties on getting ready in the morning, not sure if the heels could be a reason why this pain. I usually don't walk this much during lunch time so maybe walking around with high heels is not good for my back, but today I have just my boots and not high heels.

I wanted to have hot water to drink today because in the past Water Fast I noticed that as soon as I was drinking it, I was going to the washroom! But too much to wait for in the kitchen so I gave up, if the probiotic don't give me any relief, I'll try with the hot water at home this evening.

Raw Vegan Diet and my alarming food cravings

It's Monday today and doing nothing here in the office makes my day feeling longer than actually is, just looking at the watch every 5 minutes or so to see when it's time for me to leave. If my co-worker is working from home tomorrow I will do too for sure. I have a slight back pain today, not sure if it's due to my shoes, the posture or anything else, it's a lower back pain and I can barely bend or staying sit, I'm usually pretty resistant to pain, never complained much, unless is really killing me, but it's uncomfortable definitely – just wondering if it could be part of my detox process in my Water Fast.

Without eating I have of course more time, since I'm cutting the cooking part, the eating and organizing dishes in the kitchen. The good parts are: saving money, keeping kitchen clean, losing weight, detoxing and less trips to the grocery stores. I like shopping in general but not grocery stores, I would rather go to a mall or healthy food stores but supermarkets don't excite me so much; sometime I think I would go back on receiving the organic basket that I use to receive from MamaEarth once a week, the choices though are limited for me so not sure it will be convenient, especially eating so many tropical fruits as I like to do.

So far I can say that being Raw Vegan it is expensive, I cannot eat everything organic or I'll be broke, but fruits in general are expensive, if I combine different types of fruits is a lot of money. I tried to shop in Chinatown to save on my grocery, and I did save some for sure, but my tomatoes tasted like water and the cantaloupe was terrible, I did not enjoy one bite of it. So saving on the pocket to lose on the taste? I need to find a better compromise for it, plus I definitely don't trust fruits and vegetables bought in Chinatown.

I'm doing better today with my water intake, I bought another bottle of my vapour distilled smartwater  but still thinking on buying the pure distilled water at Shopper - I think it might be more convenient for me, even going forward. So far I drank 1.3L only though but I'm usually less than that so I will say is an improvement for the day, plus it's 3:00pm now so I have time to reach at least 2L for the day. One thing I noticed this morning though was the colour of my urine, not dark yellow as it should be, that's why I also think the Ketostix on moderate Ketosis could be inaccurate; the ketosis might be diluted and not precise in terms of measurements.

This time around I have lots of cravings for food, I didn't have it during my first Water Fast, I guess is true when they say that each fast is different from the other one. I'm resisting on the cravings but just looking forward to the day that I'm done with this fast and going back on eating whatever I like, still Raw Vegan of course, I'm really happy with this choice. I hope this is not a sign that my binges are coming back as soon as I complete the Water Fast….or I might need to start a new one again! I thought many times on going back on counting calories, it's the only way on keeping me accountable on the food, instead of loading my salad bowl of 2Kg of vegetables and dressing sauces, not to mention my desserts indulgences. Another thing that I want to do is staying away from doing too many gourmet recipes, it increases my cravings, watching all those videos or posts on Pinterest, and they just make me crave more and more food. I hope this Water Fast will help me to get rid of my cravings so I can go back to a normal and healthy Diet routine without being obsessed by food.

HCG Diet - VLCD #12 - Protein Powder for P2

Today is my VLCD  #12, the Diet is proceeding well, this morning the scale reported a promising loss and I'm now officially into the 61 Kg mark. Being over the 62Kg-s is motivating for me, although I know slowdowns and brief stalls are part of the Diet, nobody likes seeing unchanging-weight when having such a small amount of Calories.

I've to admit, today for lunch I might had way too much chicken, I had hard time to portion exactly gr on Sunday when I cooked in advance all my meat. I bought 3 packages of organic chicken breast at the supermarket and I wanted to grill and portion so I'd have ready for my salads for the whole week and more. I tried to give estimation on how many portions I will have with the amount bought, but then – since I removed lots of fat from it – I estimated a slightly smaller amount of portions. I don't think I was over that much, I'd say rather than 100gr of chicken breast I had maybe 120gr or 130gr. Cooked chicken has an extremely lower weight than the raw one, I have the proofs!

So now it's just after lunch and my stomach feels full, due to the large amount of spinach I had with the chicken too I guess, I should remind myself to be careful with my portions if I don't want to waste a week worth of HCG and hard work. I don't believe in the typical suggestion that lots of people give when dieting: "don't be hard on yourself if you cheat, it's ok", no it's not ok, I need to be disciplined, I was a compulsive eater for this reason, allowing myself to binge and thinking that would be better tomorrow….which never happened. That's the similar reason why people go to those boot-camp gym classes, to be yelled in their ears to push hard on exercise and never stop. We need strong directions on our weaknesses; well at least this is for me and might not apply to everyone.

I'm researching to buy some protein powder for my P2 Phase, I know it's not in Dr. Simeons protocol but I believe that if I find a non-fat protein blend I'd be ok with that. The reason why I want to buy Protein powder is because I know the importance for my body to have my Protein intake every day. Sometimes I find myself skipping a meal and that means skipping a Protein serving. The body gets in alarm-mode, hunting for food and it's not healthy for my metabolism and a healthy food-relationship.

I checked online which could be the best Protein Powder I could buy, and I found a brand name called Jay Robb, apparently it's a guy that makes some good tasting Protein powder with 0 Fat and very low in basically everything. I want to find it today after work, I might use it just once in a while but I thought it could be a very good habit even for my HCG P4-life Phase, learning on how to properly nourish your body is fundamental at the end.

Talking about protein I read a very interesting article about it, so true that when the body has the right amount of protein is content, that's why sometime is good having protein before bed, so you can sleep better, rather than being on alerting hunting-mode (explained the strong nap-desire after meals!).

Another thing I noticed affecting a lot my weight loss is the amount of water I have daily. If I don't drink more than 2L of water, I don't lose weight, I don't feel right either. When we lose weight we release lots of toxins that are stored in our fat cells, those toxins need to be eliminated from our system, or they will make us sick or with uncomfortable feelings. One proved way to help this elimination is drinking water, it helps a good kidney functioning so the liver (which is the main organ for the detoxification) is not busy doing double job! 

Dr. Bernstein Diet - Day 1

Starts officially today my Dr. Bernstein Diet! So far I got lots of food from the Allowed-Food-List; I bought all the Vitamins/Supplements mandatory for the program and a new pitcher to filter my water.

I heard that the first 3 days are the worst, I've a mild headache and some sort of dizziness on and off, it's definitely not due to my lack of food since I just started, but I believe all these discomforts are caused by my vitamins/supplements. I've 14 pills to take every day! That's a lot considering that I'm a healthy person. Maybe my body just needs to adjust to all those supplements intake, I'm sure I will feel better in few days.

This morning I stopped to Starbucks - as I usually do before going to the office – but I had to change my Vanilla Latte for a Grande decaf coffee, it does taste awful but I hope I'll get used to it. Apparently I can use as much cinnamon as I want, so tomorrow I might try to sprinkle some in my coffee, hoping it helps the taste.

I got an apple for breakfast this morning and I'm starving now, but it's almost lunch time so I'm sure that's the reason why. I had 5 GoldFish to break down the hunger till noon; it works….but for about 10 minutes.  

I had already 1L of water so far and last night I learnt not to drink too much during the evening, so I won't wake up in the middle of the night to use the washroom…which happened at 2am this morning.

Drinking water is by far for me the biggest challenge, the trips to the washroom are annoying and it becomes difficult when I'm in a long meeting. I may have to learn on how to drink based on Dr. Bernstein instructions:

• Morning: 1 litre consumed over 30 minute period
• Noon: 1 litre consumed over 30 minute period
• Evening: 1 litre consumed over 60 minute period (around food)

I don't think I would be able to drink 3L of water every day, especially since I want to try to avoid drinking at night but I have to follow the instructions, water is an essential part of the diet and I believe will help me mitigate the side effects of all those pills.

One thing of this diet is that you always have to keep your diary-sheet with you and update it every time you eat/drink something. There are numbers even to track your glasses of water – I found it very useful because refilling my half litre bottle multiple times can be hard to remember.