Tag: headaches

Fat Fridays: Week 27 Esther Tries out Intermittent Fasting

Hello Internet Friends, hope you all are doing well! I have had an interesting week. This past weekend I finally came to that realization that my life was not going to get “normal” any time soon, the stress was not going to back off and if I was serious about my health, I needed to do something despite circumstances being crazy. I’ve been seeing all kinds of articles about Intermittent Fasting, and so I thought, Hey, that sounds like a good idea! Why not? It seemed to fit with my desire to hit the restart button on my diet plan, so I set a day and went for it. I ate supper and snacked a bit till about 8pm on Sunday night and then I didn’t eat again till Tuesday morning. A thirty-six hour fast. Aside from when I had morning sickness, I have never done that before.

I kept a diary throughout the day. It was kind of a way to keep myself from going crazy. An outlet of sorts. I’m not going to share it with you because basically, it was the same theme throughout the whole day. I’m hungry. I have a headache. This is totally not fair that I still have to grocery shop and cook for 16 other people while I am fasting. And then hit repeat. That was the sum of my diary. Except that by Monday night I was feeling so sick that I couldn’t journal any more. I went to bed around 8pm and every time I woke up in the night, I still felt bad. But, when I woke up Tuesday morning, it had passed. I really didn’t feel very hungry. I was up at 6:30 am and I sat and ate a bowl of blueberries. Then around 9am I started feeling really hungry and so I heated up a plate of leftovers from the amazing supper I had made the night before that I wasn’t able to eat. I thought that the day after fasting I would probably be gorging myself, but really, I didn’t eat. I think I ate less on Tuesday than I usually do. I didn’t feel like snacking and I was feeling full a lot faster.

I’ve been trying to do more research on fasting this week. I was really surprised that I had the discipline to fast. I didn’t think I could do it. And actually, it did get easier as the day went by. I would like to know more about this whole Intermittent Fasting thing. As I research though, I am running into the problem of everyone wanting to charge me money so I can read their “specialized” version of how to lose lots of weight while doing Intermittent Fasting. Uggh. I don’t have any extra money to be spending on this right now. That said, I was really excited today to find an email in my inbox today from a health site that I trust, sharing a link to a session with Dr. Jocker as he explained the “Top 7 Things that Sabotage a Fast”. I clicked on the link to watch this “free webinar”. Free! Yay! I watched about fifteen minutes, it was very fascinating and helpful. And then all my kids ran into the room where I was and there was no way it was going to get quiet enough to watch anything so I hit pause and figured I’d come back to it this evening when I actually had some time alone to watch it. Alas. When I tried to open the site again, my time had run out. I now was supposed to pay money to access the same information. But, hurray for YouTube. I found it over there and watched it, or at least skimmed through it, for free.

Apparently my big mistake in fasting was that I tried to do too much too soon. You’re supposed to work your way up to a longer fast. Start with twelve hours, then fourteen, then sixteen, etc.  I’m learning. I’m glad that I did a longer fast right away though, because I proved to myself that I could actually do it, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

For whatever reason, trying to stick to a separate diet as I take care of my family, and another family that is with us, is just too hard for me. But simply not eating for periods of time seems doable. I’ve dropped two pounds this week. It’s worth trying it out for a while.

So, that’s what I’m going to be doing this week. I’ll let you know how it goes next time.

See you later!

Fat Fridays: Week 16 Finding the New Normal

Here we are again, another week has zoomed past and I’m stopping to take some time to reflect on what theme stands out from this week. This week has been one of those weeks where I really questioned whether my diet is actually doing me any good. My weight loss seems to have slowed down. I have had a couple days where I’ve been really tired, two mornings where I’ve woken up with a really bad headache. My blood sugar has been dropping really low at unexpected times, where I find myself shaking and needing to eat immediately. And of course I blame it on my diet. I’m not getting enough protein, I’m missing out on some key nutrition, I’m doing this wrong somehow…

I was starting to feel really discouraged  two days ago and then I thought about it and got some perspective. First of all, not only do I have a giant diet-change going on, I also stopped nursing my toddler. Cold-turkey. He’s over 2 years old. I never meant to nurse him this long, it just kind of dragged out. He’s our last baby and I wasn’t in a hurry for him to grow up. But then the nursing was starting to get really annoying. He was getting up every night and then wanting to nurse and being whiny all day about it. I was complaining about it to my husband last Thurs and he said, You need to wean him! And I agreed. And we just stopped. One week later, he is sleeping through the night, has stopped pestering me all day and seems a lot happier. It was definitely the right time. But, as I have blamed my diet for making me feel weird this week, I conveniently forgot about the fact that my body is going through the shock of not nursing anymore. And it’s an even bigger shock because, aside from about 3 months back in 2010, I have been nursing or pregnant for 19 years straight. I think I need to have a little grace for this poor body as it tries to figure out what is going on and get adjusted.

The other thing to take into consideration is all the toxins in our environment. Toxins that get inside of us and then get stored in our fat cells. And then, when you lose weight, those toxins get released into your body. That might account for some of my headache days I’ve been having. I woke up with a headache this morning so I took some chlorella which helps flush your system of toxins, and drank a bunch of water and the headache eased off after about an hour.

I wish that I knew exactly what was going on inside my body since I’ve changed my diet. If some of you readers have articles to share that teach you exactly what is happening hormonally and on the cell-level when you change over to a vegan diet, I’d love to read them. Share a link in the comments. I have always been one of those people that need to know Why? Why do I have a headache? Why am I sick? What is going on exactly in my body? What is this medicine actually going to do inside of me to make me feel better? My mother is Physician Assistant, and I remember as a child, when I was sick, I always wanted in-depth explanations of what was going on in my body, and she was always willing to take the time to explain it to me. I still want that in-depth explanation.

In the end, I think this week has been about my body trying to find the new normal. My hormones trying to adjust to no longer supporting another life, me trying to figure out exactly what I need to eat, and how much in order to keep my blood sugar steady, my body trying to drop weight and having to deal with some negative side-effects from that. I think it’s going to take a while to find this new normal. But, knowing that I’m going through an adjustment period, instead of the diet failing me, helps me to not be discouraged. I’m not giving up! Onwards, towards the new normal!

Goals for this week: EXERCISE!! Since I’m using this blog as a sort of accountability, I will make myself confess that I, once again, did not exercise much this week. Aside from a walk to the park with a bunch of kids that involved me pushing a very heavy stroller up a very long, steep, hill…I have not exercised.  THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE!!! Cause it’s getting embarrassing to keep having to tell you guys that I didn’t exercise. That’s it. This is my only goal besides sticking to the diet. See you all next week!

Fat Fridays: Week 14 Shakes, Headaches, and Scales

Here we are, three weeks completed on the vegan, grain-free diet. Happy reports: I have been feeling pretty good this week. I’ve had more energy, and I don’t feel like I’m in a fog. In fact, I feel a lot like I’m waking up from a semi-comatose state. I’m getting used to eating differently too. This week my go-to easy meal has been to grab a can of bean or lentil soup,dump it in a pot, throw in a package of frozen veggies and heat it up. Fast, fairly inexpensive, easy, filling. I’ve also resorted back to the food of my youth, growing up in Haiti, and I’m eating plantain again, almost every day. It’s a filling starch and healthier than white potatoes. And they’re yummy. My other diet addition has been to start drinking a vegan shake for breakfast every day. It’s 24 grams of protein and has lots of other nutritious stuff in it. It’s become a good way to start the day.

Not so happy reports: I’m still dealing with a lot of headaches which I think are part of the detoxing process. Also I am prediabetic and this week I’ve been waking up around 5 am with really low blood sugar. It wakes me up and I either stay awake till my normal waking time of 6:45am or I have to get up and eat a small piece of fruit. Last night I ate a big snack right before bedtime and that seemed to help, but it’s hard because I haven’t really been hungry at bedtime. It feels counter-productive to eat when you’re not hungry.

One other happy report is that my clothes are definitely getting loose on me. I’m in that awkward place where my current clothes are getting too big and I have to wear a belt now, but I’m not quite ready for the next size down. You’ll notice that I haven’t posted about numbers of pounds lost. I’m trying to stay away from numbers. I have found that my relationship with scales is not good and the obsessive habit of constantly weighing myself when I’m on a diet is not a habit I want to pick up again. I’m trying really hard to not weigh myself often and try to keep track of my progress by the size clothing I’m wearing. We’ll see. Unfortunately I own a scale. (I haven’t for years, but one of my kids needed one.) When you feel like you’re losing weight, it’s really hard to not get on the scale. Seeing those numbers go down is a real rush. But then, if the numbers go up or stay the same, it causes a lot of discouragement and sometimes you even just feel like giving up. So, I remind myself that this diet is not just about weight loss. It’s about achieving good mental health. Losing the brain fog. Having energy. Perhaps lessening the episodes of depression significantly. And losing weight would be great too. 🙂

Plans for this week: Continue the diet. I’m also looking at a supplement that helps your body with the detox process. Maybe it will help with the headaches? I haven’t exercised this week as my back has been giving me a lot of problems, but the last two days have been better so hopefully I can start exercising again! (Yeah, I said that last week too, but this week will be different!) (Promise!) I’m also just trying to be proactive about getting in the sunshine and soaking in the vitamin D and feel-goodness of the sun. I tell my four year old it’s “Sun Medicine”.

So, go enjoy some sun medicine if you can, and have a good week everyone!