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Feeling so PUMPED!!--and revealing why

The "I-feel-so-happy" chants are getting louder and louder.  I can't believe how free I feel to be out of that awful rut.  Day by day I'm feeling better and better. 

I guess I will reveal what's happened:  Intermittent Fasting.  I know a lot of people don't like the idea of fasts, and I've heard and believed all the "you'll screw up your metabolism", "never skip a meal", "eat 5-6 small meals per day"-stuff.  No more. 

When I initially lost a substantial amount of kilos a few years ago, I was fasting 1-2 days a week and my only exercise was daily walking.  I was able to keep it off for a while by only fasting once a week and adding a lot more activity per week, ie Thump, Body Pump, running, circuits....  Things were really good.

But then I started to believe that I may be hurting myself by fasting, and that a normal healthy diet for someone so active should be 5-6 small meals a day..."grazing".  I'd been doing that for about 9 months now, and it's the worse thing I could've done.  I gained weight, felt tired all the time, obsessed over food ("What am I going to eat for my next small meal?")....  I then started pouring over useless diet books again looking for that "miracle diet" that would help shed those last few stubborn kilos...only to become frustrated by gaining more kilos.

And I did know better...I was feeling just so desparate, though! 

"Well, you are so active, it's gotta be muscle you're gaining," a few of my workout buddies would assure me.  Balderbash.  I knew I wasn't just gaining muscle...the waistline of my favourite pair of jeans revealed that to me.

Then this recent health-scare came up and I had to decrease my activity!  Ugh!  I was so depressed!!  Everything seemed to fall down on top of me!  Every problem or concern seemed so overwhelming and unsurmountable.  And with winter here?  Ugh...the cold and wet and dismal weather didn't help.

Last week I thought long and hard about when I felt the best.  What was I doing then?  What changed?  

And that's when it all occurred to me.  I know exactly what I was doing when I felt my best, and I know exactly what changed.

I did some reading on I.F. over the weekend and decided to give it a go this week to see how I'd feel.  Instead of going one or two full days (more than 30 hours) without food like I did back then, though, I would have a few 24-hour fasts during the week.  Like this:  Sunday I had brekky & lunch, Monday I had dinner.  Tuesday I had brekky and lunch and today (Wednesday) I'll have dinner.  Thursday I'll have brekky and lunch, Friday I'll have dinner.  Saturday I'll just eat when/if I'm hungry.  I can adjust this schedule around, too, if I need to--as long as there are a couple 24-hour periods without food per week.

A handful of days into I.F. and I can tell you that I already feel so much better.  Increased energy, clearer thinking, more positive thoughts....  I really do see an end to this gloom I'd been under in the last few months.

I know it's not a popular topic, and I would never tell anyone that fasting is the be-all, end-all.  It's just that it has worked for me in the past, and I reckon it'll continue to work for me.

I'll keep SW posted on my progress.

Looking so forward to--and feeling so PUMPED! for--the next SW challenge!