Marc's Diary 2.0

[Kohinoor]

Hi Marc,
Good for you in remaining sensible while travelling. Though you may not always be able to remain "strictly Cohens", at least you have enough knowledge to make sensible choices - as your latest scale reading showed.


Someone some years back said words like this:-
"Choosing to eat the best Cohen-type foods you can when travelling, even if not measured, is like 'easing your foot off the Cohens accelerator' - but eating stupidly (e.g. McDonalds) is like jamming your foot on the brake and throwing your car's gears into reverse!"


I rather liked the imagery of that comment. You chose to eat "as best you can", and it worked pretty good, eh?


Koh

[Imfef]

Nice one Koh! Perfect analogy
Slow times for me last couple of days, hope the body is catching up or something. Have also been burning the midnight oil - working til late at home quite a lot lately, which has drained me. Feeling quite tired, lack of energy hasn’t helped so feeling more hungry that usual. I’m off to bed little earlier tonight in hope of making a difference
Ciao for now

[Imfef]

I achieved a 'Big Goal' this morning - 'Into the 80's'!!

I put a lot of that down to having a very early night on Friday (bed before 8pm) and waking up 1kg lighter! If I can I have to try that more often!

Out last night at a restaurant with friends who were visiting from UK, en route back from a skiing holiday. I did well, chose griller calamari which came with a small rocket and tomato (albeit cherry tomato) salad. Was the best choice I could have made from the menu, not ideal but not disastrous. Lost 0.1kg this morning, which finally took me into the 80's! 89.9 to be exact.

Next Big goal for me is 86kg, which will be 3 stone lost.

Good luck to all.

[findingme]

Excellent work Mark!

It seems like you’re making great choices for yourself and it is ehowing. I reckon that because you’re now in the 80 range you’ll use this wonderful excitement to your full advantage and they could potentially just fly by! You’ll be at 86 before you know it, so keep it up.

Take care
Jen

[Imfef]

Just over seven weeks - 16kg gone!

I must confess, I'm not sure I could have done this DF! I tried a few times and ended up thinking there must be an easier way and was swayed to experiment.

However, if you ask my wife, she would say I'm compliant (as a Cohen graduate that did it 100% DF the first time, I'm being more strict).

There may be a reason that I felt the need to deviate, I'll get on to later...

I do have (sometimes) one or even two extra fruits per day, I do have bad fruits (berries) but I never understood why these were banned from phase 1 in the first place. I have had bad veg (only Broccoli) - again for same reasons as strawberries. I sometimes go with slightly extra grams of protein and/or veg - but I also may go with less (I'm not wasting food this time). I've switched crackers for a slice of WG bread (same calories), and sometime then also had my crackers. Finally, I have counted calories while travelling or out for dinner (rather than being 100% Cohens).
So yes, to me, I'm bad! My wife thinks I'm doing amazingly.

Here's the weird thing. I'm losing weight on average quicker than the first time (when I was DF). I looked at my chart today and not only that, I'm losing more regularly: At the 7 week mark this time around my weight has stayed flat 5 days and gained slightly on 3 days. Last time my weight stayed flat on 13 days and gained slightly on 5 days.

My conclusion is that: I started this journey heavier than my first (hence the extra losses) and I would assume I've changed and my program/meal plan could be different (perhaps allowing for more food/portions?). I did consider my learnings on refeed back in the day, when I knew WG bread was okay for me and extra fruit helped me get through the day, whilst still losing.

I'm relaxed, I think I'm pretty much following Cohen's 99.5%, I've just adapted, naturally, because being where I am, I'm unable to get myself a new program and trying to do my original program 100% and true to the letter would only lead to failure again.

[Kohinoor]

Hi Marc,
Sounds all good, mate !! There are a few things that could explain why things seem to be moving quicker. One would be that "new fat moves more quickly - old fat can take a bit longer to shift".

Another might be that you sound a lot more relaxed this time, which helps with the seratonin, etc to have you "feeling your best" even when you may not manage to be totally DF.

And one other thought that I have held for some time comes back to the amounts of food. And that is I believe it is important to eat "enough" food at all times.

My reason for thinking that is from what I understand from Asy and others - that the food amounts are the basic amounts required for your core body to keep functioning correctly. This is why Asy said (in her "triage" post - http://newyouforum.com/forum/showthr...771#post250771 )

1. Eat ALL of your food as prescribed.


To be certain, when not eating at home, I would think it better to err on the side of caution and actually eat "a little more" than you think would be on your plate if weighed. Mainly because it is better to "ease your foot off the fat-burning accelerator" (by eating a tad too much) than to "jam your foot on the brake, and the gears into reverse" (by starving yourself and getting your blood sugars out of whack).

Anyway, like your good lady, I think you are doing GREAT, Marc.

Koh

[AZ1908]

Hi Marc,

Good to see you are doing so well!

Hope I can stick with it again.

[mesmer_eyes]

Hi Mark!
I just had a read through your diary and bravo on the losses! And keeping on plan (or almost) whilst travelling. Travelling was my downfall the first time, I just didn’t fully got on the bus after that. And your last post, I don’t think a lot has braved through deviation and experienced more losses and still be control (again I tried that, and well.. failed).

Here’s to your progress--->

M_E