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IF Series, Part 6: Lessons Learned from Intermittent Fasting

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

Before I can start this post, you have to know I have been dreading this topic. In short: I am conflicted. I am questioning my decision to even talk about our lessons learned. I wonder who am I to talk about intermittent fasting (IF) when I haven’t lost weight? UGH. Who am I to talk about IF when most days I am just praying I am doing it “right.” UGH. Who cares what I have learned when I haven’t lost any weight. It’s taken me three weeks to write this post. It led to some bad eating days over the topic. Yet here I am persisting and that reflects the essence of who I am. I persist at everything. It doesn’t matter what the topic or activity, I persist. Ultimately through IF, I have learned a lot about myself, what makes me happy, and I have done significant healing. It may not have been what I wanted to learn two years ago when I started IF but I believe the lessons I’ve learned will stay with me forever. With that, let’s persist.

I’ve met a lot of diets I loathed within weeks of starting them, sometimes less. The thought of the cabbage soup diet still gives me nightmares. Counting points, counting calories, never eating carbs again, putting food in pre-portioned boxes, 3-day detox diets, and meal prepping, honestly, all give me a massive headache. I am not judging anyone else’s journey, this is about my journey and mine alone. Simply stated, I want to not eat and then eat without gaining weight. Guess what? That can happen with intermittent fasting (IF). There is magic in allowing your body time to rest between meals. If there was a magic pill for healthy living, one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, intermittent fasting is that magic pill. Our bodies used to get a lot of rest when we only ate 2 or 3 meals a day, before the creation of the “snack” lifestyle. Thank you, Nabisco, and all the rest of you delicious snack companies (insert sarcasm). To give your body time to process, digest, and let go of food before you eat again, is one of the best gifts you can give your body. Most of the major religions practice fasting and it has been around since the beginning of time (for reasons we don’t need to worry about today). Brian and I have been practicing IF for two years and it has created the most freeing, most rewarding relationship we have ever had with food. We have learned a lot about IF and that’s what I am going to talk about today.

During our two years practicing IF, we did not start losing weight until we made more changes to our practice. I am confident that is in part because our bodies were healing from the inside out. It’s exciting to see how the outside is now changing. I will talk about what we are currently doing in my next and last blog post for this series. However, this series hasn’t been about weight loss but rather freedom from food and improving our overall health. We have learned a lot about our bodies over the last two years. Most importantly I needed to know if I could practice intermittent fasting forever before I depended on it for weight loss. But let’s get into what I have learned so far.

Lesson 1: Hormone Balance and Healing can Happen with IF I had a hysterectomy at 40 and though they didn’t take my ovaries, I was kicked into peri-menopause within the first year. First I developed hot flashes. I remember giving an important presentation while practically undressing because of my hot flashes. Teaching was another challenge, I was always either undressing or adding extra layers, quite inappropriate and ridiculous either way. 😂 I developed night sweats that would leave sweat stains on my sheets, horrible brain fog that made me think I was losing my mind, and then there were my mood swings. Holy cow was I moody, just ask Brian! I was taking progesterone and all that did was help me gain weight. Before I started IF, I was a hormonal mess. It took about 6 months on IF before I realized that my hot flashes were gone and my night sweats were over, never to be seen again! 🙌🏼 I didn’t stop taking my progesterone until late last year and I should have stopped earlier because my mood is a million times better without taking anything. I turn 50 this year and my hormones are more under control than they ever have been in my entire life. I don’t know if menopause will get worse before I am through it but I am symptom-free and feel amazing. I know it is because of practicing IF because that is the only change I made two years ago.

Not only have my hormones become better balanced, but my inflammation and arthritis pain are gone. My inflammation flairs up when I am consuming too much wine, but overall, since I started IF, I have seen a lot less inflammation. I had terrible arthritis in my hands from too much computer work but the pain has been gone for about a year. Brian’s back and joint pain have also been greatly reduced and we have both lowered our prescription medication doses with our doctors’ guidance. If you decide to start practicing IF, see your doctor. My doctor has been along with me throughout this entire journey and she can tell you just how much healing my body has since over the last two years.

Since the start of 2021, as I said, we have made more changes and improved the consistency in our IF practice. We also took a break from alcohol. We are currently on week 7 of 12 weeks without alcohol (though we did indulge on Valentine’s Day with a nice bottle of red wine). With the addition of our changes the one health issue that persisted has healed – my blood pressure. I have struggled with high blood pressure for about four years and as of this week, I have stopped taking my blood pressure medication. It will continue to be monitored for a long while but I am thrilled to see my blood pressure self-regulate. That single “fix” is all the motivation I needed to write this blog post.

Lesson 2: Release from Food Addiction & Improved Food Digestion This is an interesting lesson because I think I will always be a food addict but I definitely have a better handle on what I eat, when I eat, and determining what foods are “window worthy,” which means determining if a food is worth eating in the smaller window I have open for feasting. I decide what I want to eat and I don’t feel guilty because my food choice isn’t on “the diet” because there is no “diet.” When guilt is gone, food tastes better and decisions about what to eat become easier. This is still not a perfect practice but I am not striving for a perfect “diet” but rather a healthy relationship with food. I’m getting there.

The changes I needed to make were bigger than just what I ate, I needed to stop eating so often because my digestive system was a wreck. I stopped eating gluten in January 2013 and that helped my digestion quite a bit but I still had struggles. I was in the emergency room three times between 2015-2018 because of digestive problems. The only thing that worked to eliminate the problems was to have a clear liquid diet for 24-48 hours. When I did that, my digestive system settled down. When I found IF, I knew the thought of not eating for a small time period would be perfect for me. And it was! I haven’t been to the ER for digestive issues since I started IF in late January 2019. My digestive system is still sensitive but I don’t have near the problems I used to have with it and it only gets better with time. ❤️

Lesson 3: Control over Weight Fluctuations & Hunger Signals I am thrilled that yo-yo dieting is gone forever. I still can’t believe we haven’t had any significant weight fluctuations since we started IF. We have gained some weight during a vacation or a week of too much wine, too long of an eating window, etc. but it comes off so easy once we pull back on the food/wine and tighten up our eating window. If you’re a skinny person or don’t have a food addiction, you understand the ebb and flow of small weight changes. I never understood this phenomenon. I have always been either losing a significant amount of weight because of a diet I was on or gaining weight because of hormones and overeating. I have never experienced the middle without huge ups and downs until I started practicing IF. A lot of people lose significant weight practicing IF. I have not lost a lot of weight yet but I know that my body needed to heal on the inside first and I needed to be ok with living at my current weight. Honestly, I needed to trust IF wouldn’t fail me if I ate burgers, pizza, and drank wine which are the normal “forbidden foods” on a diet that cause people to gain weight when they go off the diet.

After I read Bert Herring’s, The Power of Appetite Correction, I realized how wrong the myths we believed about being hangry were and how hunger comes in waves. Did you know that you don’t have to eat when your stomach rumbles? Before IF, I thought I always had to eat when my stomach rumbled or I’d get hangry. Hunger isn’t constant but rather a wave that will dissipate if you ignore it. My stomach rumbles and now I understand I don’t need to react to it. Sometimes our bodies make noises but it doesn’t mean they need immediate attention. I highly recommend reading Herring’s book to gain control over hunger signals.

Lesson 4: Learning to Love Exercise Again You don’t lose weight in the gym but you can love taking care of your body – this took me several years to understand. I want my body to move and move well for a long time to come. I want to hike the Camino and climb big mountains for the rest of my life and that means I have to keep my body moving throughout the entire year. I don’t consider exercise to be riding my bike around a town, walking the Camino, or hiking outdoors, those are just part of what I enjoy doing for fun. I spent a long time loathing the gym and going anyway to finally creating an exercise/meditation space at home that makes me smile and welcomes me in without judgment. This space has helped me learn to love exercising and taking care of myself again. My home gym is my private space. I can go when I want, for how long I want, or I don’t have to go. Now, I love hopping on my treadmill to break up my day, getting in a workout to clear my mind, and I even occasionally enjoy lifting weights. Nobody cares how loud and off-key I sing or what show I am watching on TV, and that helped me learn to love exercising again. When I can’t climb a mountain or bike under the warm sun, I can still keep moving because I want to do it.

Lesson 5: Trusting the Process This is a tough one and a lesson I am still learning. I am still trying to stop punishing myself for weight problems. I know that food is no longer the enemy and neither is wine. I don’t know why my weight loss is so much harder than what it is for others except I am a life-long diet and metabolism abuser. From everything I read, those are the people that have it the worst when it comes to losing weight. Also, I am going through menopause and my body needs my patience. For those reasons, I have faith in the process. If I am at this weight for the rest of my life, I will be ok. As long as I can remain active, I am ok. If I lose weight, I am ok with that too! Gin Stephens, the author of several books including her most recent, Fast, Feast, Repeat, always says that people come to IF for the weight loss but stay for the health benefits. I came for the weight loss, didn’t lose much but regained my health and now I am staying for the weight loss. I always have to do things the more complicated way. 😂

Lesson 6: Change is Good What is the definition of crazy? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I have been dieting my entire life. It has never worked for a lifetime. It was time for a big change. It wasn’t time to lose weight but rather to stop making the same decisions over and over again expecting different results. It was time to heal. IF has allowed for change, healing, and self-discovery but only because two years ago I was all in for the unknown process, the unknown journey of intermittent fasting. I was more than ready for change and I was over dieting forever. In 2021, I am still ready for change but to say I am still practicing the same “diet” for more than two years is a miracle. I have never stuck around for the same diet for this long. I know why too – because it’s not about what I eat but rather when I eat. Hallelujah!

In the final blog post of this series, I am going to talk about what our eating/fasting regimen has looked like for the last two years and the changes we have made for 2021. I am not going to say that those changes are the reason we are losing weight but they sure have motivated us! Here are a few pictures that keep us going! The photo on the far left is January 6, 2021, the next is February 6, 2021. For Brian, the left photo is February 21, 2021, and the right is July 30, 2020. It’s time this weight loss train moved into high gear and we are loving it! Come back for the next blog and I will tell you all about it!

Just look at the changes in our face since we made changes to our IF practice in 2021!

To go back and re-read post #5 in this series, click here. To go back and re-read this series from the start, click here. To read the final post in this series, come back! Subscribe to our blog to get an email when the blog is posted.

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IF Series, Part 5: The World Loves Wine

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

There are a plethora of great quotes about wine and I love them as much as I love deep, old, rich, luxurious red wine. I like my wine to smell good, have long legs, and stay in my mouth longer than my throat. Is it getting hot in here or is it me? I haven’t had any wine in five weeks and it shows in my writing. 🤣 If you don’t know anything about red wine you are probably lost but stick with me and will get through this post together. Wine is a metaphor for life and today I have quite a tasting flight for you.

Just like I had in post #3 in this series, I have a disclaimer: We don’t have an addiction to alcohol. We have traveled the world, and unlike in the US, most of the world takes a different view on alcohol. It’s ok to have a glass or two of alcohol with dinner, maybe have an occasional night with more. It probably is not ok when your body craves it, can’t get enough of it, and you can’t stop drinking when you start. I am not an expert in any of the subjects I discuss, they are merely my life experiences and insights. As I have said previously, I lived with an alcoholic many years ago. The destruction was devastating and I never wish that addiction on anyone. Brian and I know our limits. We consciously take time off from alcohol. For example, we typically take 4 weeks off at the start of the year for a good cleanse during “Dry January” and we are currently on week 5 of no alcohol. What wait? 5 weeks! Crazy Americans! I know, tell me about it or should I say let me tell you about it. Haha!

“[Her] lips drink water but [her] heart drinks wine,”
~ EE Cummings

Did you know there are 463 quotes with the word “wine” in them on GoodReads? 70 countries produce wine. There are over 100 bible verses about wine. Why does the world love wine so much? Maybe it is the fond memories, new experiences, a conversation starter with new people, the diversity of wine, the connection to Earth in the grapes, or that the process of making wine is fascinating. There are many reasons but this blog post is about how it adds to our life and how it doesn’t always help us reach our health goals.

“Beer is made by men, wine by God,”
~ Martin Luther

For me, the bottom is line is alcohol is only a problem when my goal is weight loss. During our two years practicing intermittent fasting (IF), I have learned I can maintain my weight while enjoying life with alcohol in it. Hallelujah! I could never make that statement while on Weight Watchers, following the Biggest Loser plan, or using the MyFitnessPal app. When we lost weight the first time, we were told to eat all of the time, count points, and if I had a glass of wine I gained weight quickly and couldn’t lose it. Besides having to eat tiny, unsatisfying meals 6-7 times a time, not being able to enjoy the finer things like a good bottle of red wine was something I couldn’t live with forever.

Just like with food, I don’t want to feel guilty every time I say “yes” to wine. See part 3 in this series to understand my relationship with guilt and eating. I am trying to rid myself of everything that makes me feel guilty. I don’t want to have to say, “No, I can’t, I’m dieting.” UGH – Dieting STINKS! To me, I don’t want to be remembered as the girl who was always on a diet. Honestly, if I died today, that could easily be the quote on my tombstone, “Michelle: The girl who was never happy with her weight and was always on a diet.” Yuck, yuck, yuck! I want my tombstone to say, “Michelle: She lived life to the fullest and always said yes to new experiences.” As a disclaimer, I will be cremated with my ashes spread on top of a mountain with an amazing view and there won’t actually be a tombstone, so there’s that detail. 😊

2017 – Walking the Camino Frances, living our best life with good food & wine

I believe wine is a metaphor for life. First, wine needs patience. Shouldn’t we all be a bit more patient with ourselves, our shortcomings, and definitely with others? Everyone walking this Earth is on their own journey, doing the best they can, and we cannot rush change. Though I wish we could rush change when it comes to racism and sexism, that’s a topic for another day. We don’t know the burdens other people carry around. If I believed in rushing change, I would have had gastric bypass surgery years ago when the scale read well over 300 pounds. That was a choice I couldn’t make back then, though I am not judging anyone else’s choices. I knew if I would have had the surgery, I would find a way around that tiny stomach and would have gained all of the weight back and more. That’s just me. I don’t do well with “cannot,” rather I need, “yes you can.” I can have wine, pizza, and burgers without someone else or a surgically induced tiny stomach creating limitations. I need to find the patience to create my own limitations. For example, I have decided to break up with wine for 3 months (and all alcohol) not because I need to or someone told me I need to, I want the change to achieve my goals. 2020 was rough, and like most of the world, I consumed more than my fair share of alcohol. So I decided to take a break so I can clear my head, my soul, and my liver. 😊 It’s always better when it’s our choice to make a change. I need to clarify one thing in case you see a post on social media, we will have wine on Valentine’s Day along with a romantic dinner for two. We aren’t monsters. 😂 We enjoy celebrations with wine and I don’t see that changing… ever. The glasses of wine in the photo at the top of this post are from 2019 when we celebrated walking to the end of the Earth together on the Camino de Santiago. You will often see us celebrating accomplishments with a nice dinner and wine.

Moving on, wine is complex and multi-layered. Just like with life, there are so many complexities it can be near impossible to stick with a diet 100% of the time. Which is OK!! Sometimes we need a vacation, a break, a burger, and a beautiful glass of wine. It is why I am no longer dieting – IF is my lifestyle. Sometimes it will be low in carbs and other times high in carbs. I am not changing what I eat rather when I eat and, I believe, that makes all the difference. Before IF, my hormones were so messed up that one week on vacation or even one weekend of amazing eating would throw everything off, and I would not be able to lose the weight I gained. I was in a complex spiral of weight problems and hormone nightmares. Once I decided to never diet again but rather understand the journey I was on more clearly (with the help of a fantastic doctor), change was real. I needed patience, I needed to understand the complexity of hormones, and I needed to work through the layers of misinformation I have put my body through. I have been dieting since I knew what the word meant and my body needed time to believe I would never put it through a diet again! Ever, never. I don’t know if my metabolism will ever be “normal” again but I sure am trying to love myself, my hormones, and my metabolism again. IF is not a diet to me. Like wine, IF can be complex to achieve your goals but it doesn’t have to be complicated forever. The simple side of fasting is: you eat, you fast. The layers that can make it complicated include what your goals are for fasting, how long you fast, what you eat when you feast. That is all personal, is always changing to meet your needs, and most importantly you need to reach to the experts for help. I am not an expert.

Third, a wine needs to be paired well to be at its best. I’m quite lucky to have a partner who jumped on the IF journey with me from the start. I pray you are able to surround yourself with people who lift you up, support you, and encourage your decisions. We all need more cheerleaders and fewer critics. A good marriage is made up of two people who can be completely different but pair well together. Brian and I aren’t always on the same page, aren’t always looking for the same outcome, and sometimes we do more harm than good when trying to achieve a goal. We have a saying that when we are good together, we are unstoppable but when we are in the mood to sabotage, we can be very bad together. 😂 For example, if we are fasting on a random Saturday and I said to Brian (or he said to me), “I really want pizza tonight and some wine,” it would be extremely challenging for either of us to continue to fast. When we are “flexing our fasting muscles,” we are unstoppable but we can just as easily push the other person into the deep end of a deep-dish pizza. 😂 How do we focus on achieving our goals? Boundaries, topics that are off-limits, and forgiveness is a must. Food is an off-limits topic on fasting days. Further, we recognize though we are individuals, we share a home that needs boundaries so what’s in the pantry, the fridge, or the liquor cabinet needs to support both of our goals. It also means we have created a schedule based on how we pair together. Those are just a few of the things that we found have worked. Every couple is different. The ultimate goal is to determine how you pair with the people around you to bring out the best in each other.

Finally, wine has many varieties. Yes, it does and just like with people we come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities. 🙌🏼 You don’t have to like every wine but you can appreciate the differences they bring to a meal. Did you know that wine tastes different based on what food it is or is not served with? It’s shocking how different the same glass of wine can taste with fish, steak filets, or nothing at all. Sometimes it’s amazing and sometimes it’s downright skunky. Wine not only needs to be paired well but everyone has a different palate so the varieties are important for enjoyment. We don’t have to like every person that comes into our lives but we should be kind, fair, and non-judgmental. It is not our job to judge where someone is on their journey, what they look like, or what choices they make. Our job is to support other people and to be an example of kindness and forgiveness. We should appreciate that variety is the spice of life and we all need a bit of spice! 🌶

Do I miss wine when I am cleansing? Sure, when I see it on TV or when I am enjoying a good meal and know what wine would be amazing with it. However, my goals are more important. I can’t always say that because sometimes wine is more important. 😂 It’s a bit easier to take a break from wine right now because of COVID. We are not going out like we normally do and our social life is null and void. For better or worse, this time of COVID has created a space in my life to be more like wine. Instead of drinking wine, I am learning to be patient, I appreciate who I am paired with, and I am keeping my life full of variety with other things I enjoy. Sometimes it is OK to hang out in the wine cellar and wait until it is your time to pop the cork.

Next week will mark 6 weeks on our new IF regimen. I will show you some photos of our journey because we can already see a difference in our bodies! Hint: We both have already lost more than 13 pounds each! I will talk about the lessons we have learned throughout our 2 years of practicing intermittent fasting. Thank you for coming along. Thank you for supporting our journey with your kindness. Subscribe to our blog for notifications each time a new blog comes out.

Be kind to one another. Love yourself. You have one person and one person alone to look at in the mirror for the rest of your life. It’s important to love what you see in the reflection. For better or worse, love yourself more than you love wine. ❤️

To go back and re-read this series from the start, click here. To read post #6 in this series, click here. Want to know more about IF? Something you want to be explained further? Leave a comment! I always welcome topic inspiration.

IF Series, Part 3: The Prison of Guilty Eating

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

Food is not in a pill. It’s not in a juice, a bar, a powder, a diet label, and it definitely is not in a pill. Food is real. It is crunchy, flavorful, chewy, colorful, and can bring people great joy. We need food to live and it is meant to be enjoyed. If you eat something because a diet plan tells you to eat it and it doesn’t bring you joy, I get it. I have been eating foods that I don’t enjoy for too long. Guilt and food describe my life in short. Until January 2019 when I decided to try eating without guilt.

Food is meant to be enjoyed.

I wish I could remove all guilt. Unlike other life experiences, guilt doesn’t do us any good. It makes some of us eat more. It can make us crave unhealthy food and drink. We think food/drinks will make us feel better, remove the guilt, but it does nothing but make us feel worse. This is the story of my entire life – eat, feel guilty, eat more, drink something to ignore the guilt, continue this never-ending cycle.

Disclaimer: We talk openly about food addiction and are well aware of our keenness for food. We continually work to redefine our food relationship. We don’t have an addiction to alcohol. We have traveled the world, and unlike in the US, most of the world takes a different view on alcohol. It’s ok to have a glass or two of alcohol with dinner, maybe have an occasional night with more. It’s not ok when your body craves it, can’t get enough of it, and you can’t stop drinking when you start. I lived with an alcoholic. It was painful to watch the destruction. I never wish that addiction on anyone. Brian and I love to enjoy good wine, creative cocktails, and we know our limits. We consciously take time off from alcohol. For example, we typically take 4-6 weeks off at the start of the year for a good cleanse. As of this post, we are on week 4 of “dry January,” we haven’t decided when we will start drinking again, and I promise, we will be talking more about alcohol in another post. For now, back to food!

When I found intermittent fasting (IF), the prison walls of guilt eating started to crumble. They still stand but there are huge cracks in my prison cell. To read about how my IF journey started, click here and read post one in this series. I don’t know if I will ever be paroled from guilt. I feel guilty for what comes out of my mouth, what goes into my mouth, and much more. If you don’t struggle with guilt, I wholeheartedly commend you. I am not here to talk to you about where my guilt comes from, my therapist holds the key to that web, but I do want to tell you about how the prison walls started cracking and the bars began to open. Though I haven’t always practiced IF “correctly,” I have seen I can eat one or two meals a day without my warden, guilt.

I vividly remember when I started IF in mid-January 2019 because I gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted as long as I only ate one meal a day. I was in love with my new regimen. For the first time in my life, I ate whatever I wanted without guilt. It was like the warden let me have a taste of the great outdoors. Mind you, Brian had not started IF but he was thrilled when I would text him and ask him to bring home pizza. He was curious as to how I was eating our favorite foods for dinner and losing weight. I am confident it is why he so quickly jumped into practicing IF himself. Who wouldn’t? Since we were already denying ourselves wine because it was “dry January,” then pizza, tacos, and burgers were the perfect substitutes. Another Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor, rather I am just sharing our journey. If you read the first two blogs in this series, you know that we haven’t practice IF “correctly,” and ultimately, we didn’t lose any long-term weight but we did maintain our weight which was, at the time, a major victory.

Something was working with this practice of intermittent fasting. I lost weight in the beginning, Brian did too. What we now understand is that it wasn’t our time for weight loss. First, we had much to learn about eating without guilt. We had to in essence give ourselves permission to just eat because we had been dieting since our marriage started. But let’s get back to 2019. February came too fast, we started to add wine back in with many evening meals. March and April came even faster and we got busy with Brian’s musical (something we produce together for Brian’s high school students). We loosened up the one meal a day and started having a snack and a meal. Then summer came. If you don’t know, we spend our summers adventuring either in our RV or on the Camino. In 2019 we walked the Camino which you can read about here. We planned to walk 10-15 miles a day so we worried that we needed to eat more. We still practiced IF but we only skipped breakfast. Further, we drank way too much of that beautiful Spanish wine and indulged in too many plates of mouthwatering Portuguese pastries. We were on a two-month holiday and it was wonderful.

However, once those habits changed to a wider eating window it was excruciating to go back to one meal a day. In fall 2019 we stuck with eating two meals a day and have been practicing that ever since. In 2020 we continued to fast for about 18 hours a day, eating lunch, snacks, and dinner in a 6-hour window. You would think it would lead to weight loss if you have read about intermittent fasting but you don’t yet know what we ate in that window. 🤣 I’m getting there.

For the most part, our previous weight loss success was by following Weight Watchers. We learned we should eat 6 or 7 times a day to “keep our metabolism up.” That’s a truckload of crap, people! A truckload of full-on crap! All that eating plan did was make me feel deprived, tired, and upset that I would only ever eat tiny, unsatisfying meals. The worst of it: Not only did we believe we needed 6-7 meals a day but we told others they did too. We told people breakfast is the most important meal of the day. More crap! I want to genuinely apologize to each person we fed that information to in the past. I am deeply sorry. Breakfast means to “break your fast.” It is not the most important meal of the day, that is just what cereal makers want us to believe. Read this blog on Dr. Jason Fung’s website, or this one on the calorie debacle, and then read his books (linked below).

Why do we still practice intermittent fasting if we haven’t lost weight? Because we both feel a thousand times better than we did on weight watchers or not following any eating plan at all. We eat real food. We eat food that feeds the soul. We eat food without guilt. In 2020 we tried eating Keto. It’s ok but I love bread. I already have to eat gluten-free for my gut health. I have been gluten-free since 2013 and my gut is much happier. Managing my PCOS and Hashimoto’s well means being gluten-free but that’s another story, for now, back to bread… mmmm! We lowered our carbs and were feeling good but we both refuse to ever go back to counting anything. We are not now, nor ever, going to count calories, carbs, fat, or anything. We want to eat (feasting), we want to not eat (fasting). That’s it. We never again want to agonize over anything or any number again. We did that for too long and we weren’t happy. But yes, we started settling into a decent low carb life, we were feeling good, and then COVID happened in late March 2020.

COVID cocktail hour while our Governor provided daily briefings

Here’s how the rest of 2020 eating looked: Open our eating window with a cocktail hour, eat lunch, continue the evening with more cocktails or wine, eat a hearty dinner, and maybe have a dessert. In our six-hour eating window, we enjoyed delicious food and mouth-watering drinks. We managed our feelings and isolation the only way we knew how – to eat and drink. But that’s ok. Our world was experiencing a major crisis, we were all coping. Ultimately our clothes got a bit tighter, we were putting a band-aid on our feelings, and the happy train left the station without us. Something was different though. We weren’t gaining weight as fast as we would have in the past. Every time we pulled back on the cocktails, cut out the snacks and dessert, tighten up our feasting window, our bodies said thank you and we dropped a couple of pounds back off. We didn’t miss the lesson here but summertime was upon us. We spent the summer in our RV traveling out West avoiding people as much as possible while still adventuring in our national parks. We continued our somewhat ridiculous eating and drinking in a six-hour window but because we were doing a lot of walking and hiking, our clothes loosened up a bit more. YAY! We finished our summer trip at pretty much the same weight that we had started it, how often can you say that after vacation? Especially one that is two months long. Not us.

Intermittent fasting was working, there is no doubt about it. However, both of our doctors reminded us that we needed to give our livers a break and be a bit more thoughtful about what we ate. My blood pressure was high, Brian was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. It was time to put on the brakes and rethink our priorities just in time for Christmas indulgences. It was time to start with the basics about IF again so we turned to audiobooks and podcasts while driving to Tennessee to spend a quiet holiday in the RV. We listened to Eve Mayer’s book, Life in the Fasting Lane. We listened to Dr. Fung’s podcast. We worked on setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, focused on reminding ourselves why we love IF, and figured out how to do it better.

I am learning to walk out of my guilt prison. I am learning to lose while winning!

The prison walls of guilt have been crumbling since we started IF in 2019. In order for them to be gone forever, I have to learn how to balance between eating what I want, eating what is good for me, and figuring out what I can live with forever. I have learned to eat without guilt but learning to eat well and lose weight is a process. I have learned how to maintain weight and that is our biggest win thus far on our two-year IF journey. A win I am proud of because I never maintained my weight before on any diet plan. I was never happy on any diet plan – period! Losing weight is easy when you are on a diet but maintaining that loss when you are living the rest of your life is an entirely different challenge. If you have followed our journey from the very beginning, you understand we intimately know the weight maintenance challenge. Learning to lose weight again, well that is our 2021 plan and we are set up for success. We’re not getting into the details of what’s happening yet because I need to see how much “sticks” before I can speak on it intelligently. However, I will tease you by saying something is working. As of this post, Brian and I are already down quite a bit of weight, our blood glucose numbers are better, my blood pressure is already normalizing, and our waists are smaller. I like looking in the mirror again – the biggest win of all so far. One day at a time. I am on the happy train and I have no intention of getting off again.

If you are thinking about starting intermittent fasting, or maybe you are already practicing if but not getting anywhere, I challenge you to read about it. Get the facts from those who have been there or are the experts. Do not just listen to me. Others have so much more to teach you. Do not follow my eating habits! Start with Dr. Fung’s book, The Ultimate Guide to Intermittent Fasting. It is life-changing. I am reading it again and I can’t believe how much I forgot or skipped over because I wasn’t ready for this change in 2019. He also wrote the books, The Obesity Code and The Diabetes Code. They are outstanding! I am also re-reading Gin Stephen’s books, Delay, Don’t Deny and Feast Without Fear. Gin put a new book out in 2020 that I can’t wait to dive into Fast. Feast. Repeat.

Come back next week when I talk about how this gym rat got fat again. 🤣 Last week I talked about out-running the yo-yo diet phenomenon with over-exercising. Next week I will talk about how I balance good exercise habits without guilt warden showing up when I don’t exercise “enough.” I promise I will talk about IF and our relationship with alcohol after that post; I am going to explore how wine is a metaphor for living well. Then we will reflect on what we have learned during our first two years practicing IF. Finally, at that point, I think I will be ready to talk about where we are in 2021. If you want me to talk about something specific related to our journey of living well and in good health, leave a comment or email me.

Thank you for coming along on this journey of self-reflection. Subscribe to our website to get notified when we post new blogs. I pray these blog posts help you on your own journey to good health and even better living. Ultimately we have one life to live. The goal should be to live it well.

To go back and re-read post #2 in this series, click here. To read post #4 in this series, click here.

*We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Intermittent Fasting Series, Part 2: The Yo-Yo Diet Run for My Life

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

Thank you for your kind words after our first post in this series. It is tough to open up about a weight loss journey that isn’t what most people would call a success. But never the less, it has been our success, and that is why I am here to tell you about it in this blog series. I appreciate you coming along on this journey of self-reflection.

We have not been featured in any magazines since we were in Woman’s Day magazine in 2014 and I am completely OK with the lack of public attention to our journey. I am sure people whisper and wonder about us. Heck, that may be why you are still reading part 2 in this series because you want to know what happened. I’m OK with that, it’s an interesting story. You may look at what we eat, drink, and think, “How could they?!” I get it.

I have no idea how people live a happy, food-fulfilled life on only 1,200 calories, eating salads and diet coke, endlessly exercising, and counting calories every single day to make sure they don’t go over. I don’t get it. I tried to live that life and I certainly cannot live that way for a lifetime. I love food and wine, oh how I love deep, luscious, red wine. I love cake, delicious and rich chocolate cake. For those couple of years from 2011-2015, I was miserable as a “skinny girl.” Sure, I loved looking in the mirror! But living was a problem. It was things like only being able to eat one unsatisfying slice of pizza, one mini cupcake when I wanted to eat the big one, and one guilty glass of wine that led to finishing the entire bottle because I just wanted to say, “screw the limitations, I need to live!” I was working out to burn more calories to eat even more food. That is what the “experts” say, right? Eat less and move more! Rubbish! I wanted to go on vacation without spending a year losing those pounds I picked up as souvenirs. I wanted to eat without getting fat – period. It’s every person’s dream. But alas there I was, a skinny girl who struggled to live while my hormones continued to rage out of control because the weight started to fluctuate…a lot. Alas, the yo-yo diet run for my life begins again.

Indulging in the mini-cupcake when I really wanted the big one!

I had just turned 40 when this weight loss journey was at its peak. My son was in the United States Marine Corps and I was mad about it. I wasn’t mad at him, he was made for the Corps. He is a warrior in every sense of the word. I hated him being so far away especially when he was deployed overseas. I took out all of my anger at the gym, a temporary motivator. I cannot live well in that constant state of anger. Fortunately, my son came back home safe and life is a bit quieter.

If you don’t already know, you can’t outrun a bad diet. You can move as much as you want but if your diet is a horrible mess, you will be too. I know this all too well. I tried my best to outrun the yo-yo phenomenon. I ran half marathons. I completed several triathlons. I hiked 500 miles across Spain. I worked out 2, even 3 times a day. I wasn’t living. I was trying to outrun the food demon inside of me and I was ticked off it didn’t work. I knew it wouldn’t work but it wasn’t until intermittent fasting (IF) that I learned why it wouldn’t work. We’ll talk about that in another blog post. I promise it’s coming. I have a lot to say about what we have learned on IF.

Here’s what I learned from our “weight loss success” – (1) I hate counting calories. (2) I hate thinking about food unless I am eating or menu planning. (3) I hate thinking about all the foods that are “restricted” because the experts at some diet company deemed them forbidden. (4) I hate tracking my food and therefore having to think about food more often. (5) I unequivocally cannot stand food prep. I hate it more than I hate dieting. (6) In the future, I only want to outrun a bear.

In the future, I only want to outrun a bear.

Also at the age of 40, I had a hysterectomy though I should have had it long before. Unfortunately, the insurance company had too many opinions on what I should do to my body and when I should do it. A rant for another day. My hormones have been a struggle since I was 15 years old, probably even younger. I remember vividly when the OB/GYN told me I had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) followed by, “you will never get pregnant.” Yep, you heard that one right. This teenager was just given the license to have sex while dealing with the emotion and devastation at the thought of not becoming a mom. Obviously, that doctor was wrong because I have a handsome adult son. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get pregnant but rather it would be difficult to get pregnant. My son was unexpected at age 20 but he remains to be my greatest blessing in life. In 2020 he and his wife made us grandparents. 🙌🏼

Hormones are the greatest blessing and challenge of being a woman. I am not a nutrition expert, as if you didn’t know that already. I am certainly not a medical professional, again no big surprise. Therefore, I don’t know if I had PCOS because I was fat, I was fat because I had PCOS or something else entirely nor do I care at this point. I have read a lot about PCOS but that is not the point of this blog. What I know is my hormonal challenges only seemed to get more complicated as the years went on and I became more overweight and unhealthy. The yo-yo run continues.

PCOS is just another symptom of a bigger problem. I have struggled with being pre-diabetic, excess hair growth, terrible acne, overall saggy skin, high blood pressure, anxiety, and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2016. Hashimoto’s is an umbrella diagnosis for an autoimmune condition related to the thyroid. I knew my thyroid was a problem because I got that diagnosis in 2006 but it took me a while to find a doctor who could help me put all of these hormone pieces together. Oh, and did I mention I am also going through menopause? Yep, that too!

Are you thinking yet, she is a mess and I am glad I am not her! I wouldn’t blame you. Finding a doctor who could understand my diagnosis and help me take action was amazing. It also meant trying a new medication, finding the right dosage, which meant more weight gain. I remember our anniversary weekend getaway in 2017 when I was trying yet another new medication. I gained 12 pounds in one weekend! Yep, thank you underactive thyroid. We even hiked about 15 miles that weekend. You can’t outrun a bad thyroid either.

Grasping what was happening on the inside behind what everyone could see on the outside is important to appreciate the journey. I think we all have “stuff” to deal with in our progression towards good health. Whether it’s food addiction, hormones, some other health challenge, or emotional baggage. Life is a roller coaster, a yo-yo, or maybe it’s like dodgeball and we are all just trying to not get hit too hard by what’s thrown at us next. If we can just control how we react to it, we’re winning. Right? Sounds so easy (sarcasm). Intermittent fasting is kind of like that, controlling when we eat so we can enjoy more of what we eat. I wish we would have found it much sooner. Sadly, between 2015-2019, Brian and I gained back about 100 pounds of the 254 pounds we lost while rebelling against the restrictive diet we had known all too well. 😔

But I haven’t even begun to tell you what we gained when we found IF on that day in mid-January 2019. We gained enough to make an entire blog series about our journey. We cut the string on the yo-yo all together. Let me make sure you don’t miss this point – Because of intermittent fasting, we threw the yo-yo away forever. In the first blog post, I had a picture of all of our favorite foods. Can we eat all of those foods? Yes and no. We spent two years trying to see how much food we could eat when we were feasting between our fasts. Guess what? In two years we loved life, we lived well, we ate well, we drank well, we fasted, and we didn’t gain any more weight. Do we want to lose weight? Of course, we do! But for two years, this hormonally-challenged woman and her easy-going husband didn’t gain any weight. I could never have said that when we were “skinny.” The story isn’t over yet. Come back next week when we talk about learning to eat again. Subscribe to our blog to get notifications when the next blog post is up.

To go back and re-read post #1 in this series, click here. To read post #3 in this series, click here.

Intermittent Fasting Series, Part 1: How To Not Lose Weight with Intermittent Fasting

Posted on January 12, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

I readily admit this is a new subject for us. After the year 2020 why not open up other areas of our life and introduce new topics? For us, 2020 was chugging along peacefully when it came to a screeching halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Maybe some of you had already given up on your all too familiar 2020 New Years Resolutions but we still had hope for weight loss success. COVID changed all of that motivation. All of a sudden we were both working from home, getting in each other’s way, planning out ways to leave town only to be thwarted by stay-at-home restrictions, and interrupting our days for a 2:00 p.m. governor’s press conference about the pandemic which quickly turned into “Wine with DeWine.” Mike DeWine is our Ohio Governor and he has the perfect name for pandemic self-care. Google it, a lot of swag came out of this moment. But before I talk about 2020 too much, I should tell you how our intermittent fasting (IF) journey started.

Fortunately, we started our IF journey in mid-January 2019. It was not a New Years Resolution. It was not something we had ever heard of before that day in mid-January. It was a typical Wednesday and I (Michelle) was driving to work listening to a podcast about the Camino de Santiago. The woman was telling her Camino story to our favorite Camino friend, Dan Mullins. She was establishing the “why” she started walking the Camino which included a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She explored many non-traditional ways of managing this diagnosis including intermittent and extended day fasting (ADF). She told Dan that she didn’t eat for 30 days (it may have been longer but all I know it was a long time). He interrupted her, “excuse me? You didn’t eat for how long?” I echoed the same question out loud. How does this happen without dying of starvation? She went on to explain and I swear I listened to that podcast at least three times. Disclaimer: She explained how she worked with her physician along with several others including Dr. Jason Fung. I had to Google these doctors and I found books by Dr. Jason Fung and Gin Stephens.

At this point, I told Brian nothing! I knew he would roll his eyes out loud and would never go along with my interest in this subject area. He is a foodie and we are both food addicts. Mind you, I was not fasting yet rather just exploring this strange idea of not eating. I had a work trip scheduled a day or two later so I ordered Delay, Don’t Deny by Gin Stephens on Audible, skipped my first breakfast ever, and got on the road for my 5-hour drive. STOP: I skipped my first breakfast ever. Ever, in my entire life ever. I still can’t believe that I took step one so fast. I normally think about a diet long before I start one. I listened to her book for the entire drive. I didn’t eat for the entire drive. Fortunately, it’s only a 4-hour book so I was able to repeat several sections. By the time I arrived at my destination I decided to not eat the rest of my day and to “open my eating window” the next day for lunch.

You read that right, this food addict started her fasting journey with a 36-hour fast: Mistake 1. Dr. Jason Fung and Gin Stephens would have slapped my hands. But oh my dear goodness I felt amazing! I opened my eating window guilt-free with my favorite Culver’s gluten-free bacon cheeseburger and fries: Mistake 2. Just a side note, when practicing IF correctly, you should not open your eating window with greasy, processed, carb-heavy foods. That being said, I was hooked on this new path. More importantly, I ate something guilt-free for the first time in my entire life. Living with guilt is a series for another day.

Hold on. I have to go back even further before I can tell you how badly we failed at intermittent fasting. I am a lifetime dieter, we both are, but I have been dieting since my hormones kicked in around age 13. I have always been fat. I’ve tried a million diet pills, failed miserably as a 20-something at Weight Watchers. If there was a quick or easy fix, I prayed it worked but it never did. When Brian and I met, we tried countless more diets. Miraculously, one diet finally worked for us. Between the two of us, we lost about 250 pounds! Yes, we were living our best life! Our weight loss success was even featured in Woman’s Day magazine. We were counting our points, found a love of hiking, and were both happier than ever. But we weren’t. In order to sustain my weight loss, I could only eat about 1,200-1,300 calories a day. We love food. We hate counting every calorie. We hate thinking about what we can’t eat every day. We love wine and indulging in foods from all over the world. We were ticked off! Skinny people don’t count every calorie and don’t feel guilty for every bite they take. We were skinny – why do we have to think about all of this crap!

But we weren’t skinny, rather we are former fat people. We believed we would always have a weight “problem,” even if the scale said we were perfect. So we rebelled. Slowly and unknowingly we started to gain weight. We were frustrated. We wanted to live like skinny people (though I actually have no idea what that means). We ate what we thought were reasonable portions and only indulged occasionally. But the weight kept creeping up. We didn’t talk about it. My hormones continued to get out of whack. Our clothes started getting tighter. Brian would loosen his belt and I would run to Kohl’s to get more comfortable clothes. I discovered leggings. 🙌🏼

In this series about intermittent fasting, I will tell you about the hormonal challenges I am faced with, how I introduced IF to Brian, how we continued to fail at losing weight with intermittent fasting, what turns our IF journey took in 2019 and 2020, and why we both still practice IF today. Wait, what? Yep, two years later and not a single pound lost, we are still practicing IF. It’s a crazy story very few people know about it. We have been judged since the first day someone realized we were on a diet that was working back in 2010. I can’t believe I am talking about something that didn’t work but there is a lot we can learn from this intermittent fasting journey. Subscribe to our blog for notifications when the post comes out.

To read the next post in this series, click here.

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