Intermittent Fasting, Month Five 📍

Welcome to my fifth month of intermittent fasting! If you’ve been interested in the fasting lifestyle I hope that my experience here is useful to you. This post is part of a series, so if you want to start at the very beginning, click on over to Month Zero – I’ll wait.

I recorded each dinner all month so you all can see what I really do eat in my one meal a day. It sounds restrictive -but trust me- I am getting plenty of food, I just don’t eat all day.

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No particular lessons learned this month. Well, nothing beyond the clear evidence that I have successfully removed emotion from food; I really really do not eat my emotions, or eat to feel emotionally better. So I have been fasting just fine this month.

I’ve generally been an “eat to live” person, usually evidenced by my small size and ability to decline free food. This proclivity combined with my learning about the French approach to food has easily kept me fasting and happy while sheltering-in-place at home while COVID-19 is causing the “quarantine fifteen” in many people.

I’ve read, and re-read several books about French culture that explain how they can eat what they like and still be a healthy size. The short version is that they see food as a fun social medium, quality matters, and variety breeds pleasure. Americans see food as a form of comfort or guilt, quantity matters, and mono-diets are okay. I strive to eat like the French, and I especially want Kid Jupiter to always see dinner as a fun flavorful adventure. I do not want him to eat like the typical American child, so I’ve made the shift to non-emotional eating first so I can set the example for him that we DO NOT eat emotions, we do not snack, and we will eat our vegetables. So far so good; he gets equally excited over melties (dehydrated yogurt drops) as with broccoli soup.

Here are the French culture books I like:
❊ Bringing Up Bébé ❊ French Kids Eat Everything ❊ French Women Don’t Get Fat ❊

Month five was April for me, I’ve had a few longer eating windows than I would like only because Mister Jupiter is home a lot and I like having the occasional lunch with him.

Still eating OMAD, it really works for me. It’s usually not hard to fast until dinner time, and I see no reason to change it.

5:30 p.m. – Open window with dinner, then have dessert (or seconds) after Kid Jupiter goes to bed. I always eat until satisfied, and never count calories.

Here’s a month of unique meals for those who are curious about what I eat as I lose size. I didn’t record leftovers, and not all of the vegetables. Oh, and most nights include wine or beer with chocolate chips for dessert.

Early April – I finished my Liquid Beauty supplement, so I got a bottle of Tropical Oasis’ Women’s Multivitamin, and their Calcium & Magnesium supplement. I might remember to take them two or three times a week…so they’ll last a while.

Late April – Late night carb attacks! I’ve had a few longer eating windows lately because I just crave tortillas and queso…so I have them. Besides that I suppose that I have been interested in animal proteins more than usual. I’m not avoiding veggies of course, but when I start thinking about what to cook for dinner – I’m looking forward to the animal on the plate.

For what it’s worth I follow my cravings and just go with it. The first time that I had the money to buy what I wanted and to truly eat freely – I was raw vegan for a month because that’s what I wanted. Right now I just don’t want the same animal two days in a row, so that’s the variety that I’m focusing on.

The struggle in month five – Getting more veggies on my plate. I just want an entire honey ham.

The success in month five – Despite the tortillas & queso, I’m still shrinking.

➤ ➤ Goal Pants – I have two pairs now.

➤ ALLSAINTS, 30″ waist. I can fasten the entire button fly easily…but I can’t comfortably sit in them. It seems that they were made for ladies with flat butts. I do not have a flat butt, so the waist is slightly loose while the seat is still too tight. Maybe I can sit in them next month with a belt?

➤ Community, 29″ waist. So I accidentally bought super low-rise jeans, haha! I will probably never wear these in public because I am not 2001 Britney Spears. I’ll totally wear them once each month for photos, then later resell them on Poshmark.
As you can see in the photo above that in one short month I can already zip the tiny zipper and button the waist – that’s amazing. But these jeans obviously are too small, I just don’t mind sharing photos of me spilling out of them. Next month will be better!

I set Zero to track a 16:8 fasting protocol, just to see green progress bars each day – even when I break my fast early for a mimosa with Mister Jupiter.

And I wanted to show how little I weigh myself. I’ve never owned a scale, and don’t care to. I prefer to have a few drastic weigh-ins than to torture myself over water weight. When will I weigh in next? I don’t know, but I am curious.