Week 2 Update

The running trail on Saturday - the sunny days have continued!

I'm into the second week of 10k training and intermittent fasting, and I think overall it's going well. Today has been a fasting day, and I've got to admit, I'm struggling...all I want to do is eat a sandwich, but that's out of the question now as I've consumed all 500 calories and have none to spare! I think I maybe wouldn't be feeling quite so hungry if I hadn't run this morning as well, but it just happened that the fasting day coincided with a running day, so essentially today has been calorie-neutral!

I took my measurements and weight this morning (I only do this once a week because I don't want it to be my main focus, I just want to be able to track progress) and I have lost centimetres! 6 cm, to be precise, from my waist; 2 cm from my upper arms; 2.5 cm from my hips! So I am calling last week a success - I can tell the running is helping things significantly in terms of the measurements, and I'm really pleased. The weight is another issue entirely - I didn't lose anything since last week, and I know exactly why. Firstly, I eat normally on non-fasting days, and don't track a thing, which means that I probably eat enough to cancel out any positive effects of the fasting; secondly, I ate two pizzas last night, which I know contributed fully to the sad outcome of weighing time this morning :P

But this is a huge part of my problem - I often eat just because food is there, and I really need to learn self control and to recognise when I'm actually hungry. I knew, as I was finishing off the pizza, that I wasn't actually hungry, so that's progress, but I couldn't seem to stop myself from actually eating it. Hopefully after a few more successful fasting days I'll be better at the self control aspect of things...

So there we are! After last week I've changed my approach slightly, and I brought lunch in today so that I wouldn't get all moody and hungry today between the two bigger meals. I planned exactly what I was going to eat yesterday so that I wouldn't be wondering and searching for snacks throughout the day, and I've tried to keep myself busy so that I don't have the chance to get bored and start snacking. I also planned ahead and made tomato soup yesterday, which I knew would be low calorie but tasty for the end of the day (and also would require no prep, and therefore no chance for snacking on ingredients!!). The soup is essentially my vegetable soup recipe, and I've calculated it out to be about 112 calories for a 1.5 cup portion, which is plenty, even if you're fasting!!

The beginnings of my beekeepers quilt - aka, how I'm keeping myself busy :)

So that's the update for this week! I've got a really nice recipe for super tasty low-fat blueberry muffins coming up soon, but I'm just trying to sort out the calories in there so I can post that too (I'm getting disagreements based on which website I use, and the scientist side of me won't let me post anything until I know the right answer with confidence!!).