The Aging Games

I know it's been a while since I've done an update. So here we are at the beginning of September already. Things are progressing really nicely. So much better than I ever imagined. I've slowly transitioned to a mostly Carnivore diet , consisting or meat, eggs and dairy with very little veggies and no fruit. I've continued fasting on a regular basis. Basically having just one meal a day on most days (OMAD) and then still doing regular water fasts as I feel the need. My weight continued to decrease slowly but very steadily. I wasn't expecting this at all. I would have been very happy just maintaining my weight under 70kg and here I am at 62kg. How cool is that? Yeah, I'm sure excited.  Here's my latest before and after pic. Hopefully you guys can see the difference. I can tell you that I feel so amazing! I've had to buy a whole new wardrobe. I know, the horror, eh? I've stopped taking all my supplements. My eczema is a thing of the past. My Has...

Throughout my life I have spent so many years doing all kinds of different diets; Vegan, Paleo, Keto, LCHF, Atkin's, intermittent fasting, etc. One thing they all had in common was that they all failed eventually. First the weight would stall and then slowly start creeping back up again where I'd eventually just give up and start eating the "forbidden" foods once again. What I've learned since completing my first-ever 10 day Water Fast is that whatever you do, the body will adapt so in order to experience change, you need to mix things up a little. I've been doing intermittent fasting for many years, eating within a 6-8 hour window and even though everyone is boasting about the weight loss benefits of IF, I never personally experienced it. So what am I doing differently now? I'm still following a strict Keto diet as I just feel so much better, lighter and healthier, I now know that this is not enough to bring on continued weight loss. So I've dec...

It's been 3 weeks since I've completed my first-ever 10 day water fast , with great success and my weight has been holding pretty much steady since then. I'm sticking to a strict Keto diet to maintain the benefits of the fast and I am a little too obsessively weighing myself every morning. Even though the scale hasn't really moved much in either direction, I did noticed my waist was looking particularly trim this morning. I whipped out the measuring tape and realized that I have lost almost 2 more inches around my belly. Wooohooo! Yes! Happy days! So how does this not show up on the scale? This was a good reminder of how the scale is not always a good indicator of what's actually happening in your body. The pic below is a perfect example of what happened to me a few years back when I embarked on a low-carb journey with weight training, instead of lots of cardio and grazing on "healthy" carbs throughout the day. My weight shot up but my body composition...

Who can relate to this? Waking up thinking about food. What should I have for breakfast? Oh I need to do some grocery shopping. Hmmm that Sunday roast at my Mom's was amazing. I'm salivating just thinking about it. What about lunch? Should I cook something or should we try that new bistro down by the sea? I have friends coming for dinner, I wonder what they'd like to eat? Is Jill still a vegetarian?  Oh the 3 pm blues are hitting me hard. Definitely time for a quick snack. Two minutes after the snack. Why did you eat that? Do you have no self control at all? Seriously, who eats 3 doughnuts and 2 kitKats before dinner? But my blood sugar was so low. It was either that or a siesta and I have so much to do. Yum, something smells good. I wonder what the neighbors are barbecuing. I better get started with dinner then. I'll have to make something different for the kids though. Last night, to my shock, horror and surprise, hubby agreed to do a 48 hour fast with me this wee...

During my 10-day water fast I learned something interesting. Those pesky little skin tags, you know the ones appearing out of nowhere under the arms and other funky grooves in the body, can actually be caused by insulin resistance . Although experts don't yet understand exactly why skin tags develop, they do know that there's a definite correlation between tags and insulin resistance  and diabetes. So what happens during a water fast to make these little soft fibromas disappear? Well, longer duration fasts can dramatically reduce insulin levels in the body and after a few days even I noticed my skin tags disappearing and shrinking. How cool is that? Truly, the benefits of water fasting are endless. Bonus info : Skin tags often appear on women suffering from PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome). Insulin resistance and PCOS usually go hand in hand .

During my research I read about all these people needing little to no sleep while water fasting. Some reported waking up totally refreshed and ready to take on the world after only 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Now this got me pretty excited! What will I do with all that extra time on my hands? I know! I'm going to learn Mandarin. I'm going to write a book. I'm going reorganize my closet and throw away all my fat clothes. But then reality set in. Yup, sure enough I'd wake up around 4 am every morning, but definitely not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I felt more like a dump truck just drove over me. I'd spend the next couple of hours listening to the Complete Guide to Fasting on audiobook, until I'd finally drift off to sleep for another couple of hours. This persisted for a whole week after I broke my fast. But why? Why not sleep like a baby when fasting? Why not sleep like a baby after? I just didn't get it. Then I listened to Matthew Walker (I highly recommen...

Listening to Dr. Fung and Jimmy Moore's podcast yesterday I learned something new. During my 10-day water fast I was quite confident that other than pure water, you can also enjoy some tea, coffee and even bone broth as needed. I would say my fast was a success as I lost more weight than I could have ever imagined, a long-standing shoulder pain disappeared and I feel energized and very confident in this new tool I have at my disposal whenever I need it. However, what I learned from Dr. Fung  is that this flexibility in a water fast is great for metabolic issues and also very helpful in maintaining a longer fast, however, if your goal is autophagy  then you need to fast strictly on water. In what cases would autophagy be important and the ultimate goal in water fasting? I would say for anyone with more serious health issues, which they are looking to resolve. Please keep in mind that longer water fasts should always be done under the supervision of a doctor.