I finished! On fifth day I discovered I'd been eating 90 calories too few for my weight. The FMD's patent has a chart with recommended calories & weight. If you are using a recipe set from the internet, make sure you do something to adjust for weight. I added 1/2 oz of walnuts to my day. I figured the magic of this diet comes from being low protein & high fat, so walnuts are least likely to mess with the ratios.
Also on 3rd round, I now firmly understand that if you buy anything in grocery store sizes for a recipe set, you will have enough for five days of cooking. So, say if you buy cabbage for a single cabbage recipe, you will have enough cabbage to eat cabbage recipes for all 5 days of a FMD. So when you pick recipes, pick recipes from 2 "families", say carrot recipes and bok choy recipes. Or eggplant recipes & spinach recipes.
I lost between 8 and 10lbs, about double what I should have. I don't know why, possibly because I was 90 calories short for 4 days. My blood pressure cuff said I went from green back to yellow (systolic went up 10) during the fast, possibly because I'd stopped my usually morning muesli, which contains unsweetened cocoa, sesame seed, flax, walnut - of which one or more may have an impact on my blood pressure. I suspect it is the cocoa powder.
I broke the rules and ate a lot on day 6. My stomach did complain, but I figured if I had the self control to eat half rations for five days, I had the self control to not puke. As it turns out, I didn't puke, never felt nauseous or anything, but mild "upset stomach" But the other end of the digestive track was all out of whack. I don't go into details, but the colon doesn't like it when poop volume suddenly goes up.
On day six I did 20 minutes of weight lifting. I haven't been weight training for a few years now, so I've probably lost muscle mass and these FMDs are almost certainly taxing my volume of muscle. A recent medical test said I'm putting out, like zero creatinine. This is indicative of not having a lot of muscle mass. It most likely is due to me being a desk jockey.
I will resume running on day 7, 30 minutes. I'll probably alternate weight training & running & have 2 days for rest until next FMD.
I think the optimal gap is 2 to 3 months in between FMDs. Monthly would be really disruptive & I don't have any health issues that the FMD is fixing. This is a pure prevention exercise. I say 2-3 month gap because each FMD takes planning- it can't coincide with a business trip, a holiday, a running race or a time when I'm unable to do lots of cooking or if there are too many left over in the fridge. I'm not doing a once a year FMD because I'm thinking of the risk of doing this protocol and not getting a payoff because I did the FMD to infrequently. That would be awful.
Also, next time, I'm going to substitute more flax seed & cocoa for oats in my breakfast cereal. As a vegan, I eat a really high fiber diet. Fasting means my fiber intake drops a lot & like I said earlier, the large intestine doesn't like it when the volume of fiber you eat surges and drops rapidly.
Also on 3rd round, I now firmly understand that if you buy anything in grocery store sizes for a recipe set, you will have enough for five days of cooking. So, say if you buy cabbage for a single cabbage recipe, you will have enough cabbage to eat cabbage recipes for all 5 days of a FMD. So when you pick recipes, pick recipes from 2 "families", say carrot recipes and bok choy recipes. Or eggplant recipes & spinach recipes.
I lost between 8 and 10lbs, about double what I should have. I don't know why, possibly because I was 90 calories short for 4 days. My blood pressure cuff said I went from green back to yellow (systolic went up 10) during the fast, possibly because I'd stopped my usually morning muesli, which contains unsweetened cocoa, sesame seed, flax, walnut - of which one or more may have an impact on my blood pressure. I suspect it is the cocoa powder.
I broke the rules and ate a lot on day 6. My stomach did complain, but I figured if I had the self control to eat half rations for five days, I had the self control to not puke. As it turns out, I didn't puke, never felt nauseous or anything, but mild "upset stomach" But the other end of the digestive track was all out of whack. I don't go into details, but the colon doesn't like it when poop volume suddenly goes up.
On day six I did 20 minutes of weight lifting. I haven't been weight training for a few years now, so I've probably lost muscle mass and these FMDs are almost certainly taxing my volume of muscle. A recent medical test said I'm putting out, like zero creatinine. This is indicative of not having a lot of muscle mass. It most likely is due to me being a desk jockey.
I will resume running on day 7, 30 minutes. I'll probably alternate weight training & running & have 2 days for rest until next FMD.
I think the optimal gap is 2 to 3 months in between FMDs. Monthly would be really disruptive & I don't have any health issues that the FMD is fixing. This is a pure prevention exercise. I say 2-3 month gap because each FMD takes planning- it can't coincide with a business trip, a holiday, a running race or a time when I'm unable to do lots of cooking or if there are too many left over in the fridge. I'm not doing a once a year FMD because I'm thinking of the risk of doing this protocol and not getting a payoff because I did the FMD to infrequently. That would be awful.
Also, next time, I'm going to substitute more flax seed & cocoa for oats in my breakfast cereal. As a vegan, I eat a really high fiber diet. Fasting means my fiber intake drops a lot & like I said earlier, the large intestine doesn't like it when the volume of fiber you eat surges and drops rapidly.
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