It’s over.

Beautiful Readers,

…my fast, that is. Over before it really began (see previous post about fasting).

• 8am    Whipped up a batch of lemonade with maple syrupy goodness and a dash of cayenne. Drank some.
• 8:15-9:15   Felt virtuously ’cleansed’ .
• 9:15-9-45  Felt quite hungry and obsessed with things I was not eating.
• 9:45 – 10:15  Caught myself  thinking thoughts like, ‘cool, even though I am feeling famished and exhausted I still have enough energy to walk up the stairs to the second floor of my apartment!’
• 10:15 – 10:30Realized this was assinine. Quickly microwaved a small plate of  Organic Blue Corn Chips with colby cheese. Ate a little chocolate. And some pudding. And, just now, cooked up a nice steaming cup of Chai. Totalling, maybe 1100 calories.

Fasting is for someone else I think. I was turned on to it because it was so gratifying to fast when we were in Egypt this past Ramadan. It felt like the polite thing to do and was also thrilling as a culturally significant communal show of strength and discipline, but fasting for no other reason than wanting to fit into even tighter jeans–I’m just not into. If I had medical reasons to lose weight I’d feel completely differently. So that’s all folks. I’m unlinkely to try that particular experiment again.

Overall, my favorite diet secret is very French really (or at least how the French women I have known deal with these things). If I eat a lot one day, I eat less the next, and maybe exerise a little more. I keep track of the numbers on the scale and measure my fat percentage from time to time. If I gain some weight. I lose some weight at my soonest convenience. Some days I allow myself to feel hungry. Most days I eat only the amount of food I need to not feel hungry-rarely more. My family does not have institutionalized dessert. I can count the times I have baked with white flour (kid’s stuff sometimes). My family eats only whole wheat bread and pasta. We eat out infrequently. We order in even less. I cook daily. And Voila! A functional, non self-punishing, approach to normal weight management!

Though my strategy would be very different if I were eager to lose larger amounts of weight.  Having seen clients that were both successful and unsuccessful at doing this–I would first have to admit to myself that significant (anything over 15 lbs) weight loss is very very difficult and would likely have to become the focus of my life for awhile (underestimating ((or just begrudging)) the difficulty of major weight loss is the number one reason I have seen clients fail to lose weight).

I would spend money in advance to line up all the professional support and tools I think might help me, recruit the assistance of any friends and family I could trust not to sabotage my efforts, lay out a whole course of non-eating treats and indulgences to get me through the intense feelings of deprivation that merely not eating can bring. Overall, it is not the physical reality of weight loss that causes most people to fail–it is the psychological burden and the frequent surprise at how terrible merely not-eating can feel. It takes real fortitude to lose a lot of weight, but the health risks associated with obesity certainly can make a full campaign worthwhile.

Thanks for reading,

Alix Florio;     President

Beautiful Fitness