Welcome to my 40th month of intermittent fasting! If youāve been interested in fasting for overall wellness, I hope that my experience is useful to you. This post is part of a series, so if you want to start at the very beginning, click on over toĀ Intermittent Fasting for Autophagy and Designer Denim, Month ZeroĀ ā Iāll wait.
I update every ten months now, so my last update was in May 2022.
Monthly updates were too myopic; I couldn’t see trends, but now I can see trends.
Since May 2022 I have continued supplementing with berberine (not daily though), and I have remained under the radar of an official diabetes type two diagnosis -yay!
I have continued shrinking, but elevated glucose remains an issue.
I am fasting (a.k.a. not eating all day) to improve my metabolic health. Fitting into smaller pants is just a happy side effect. “The health plan with the side effect of weight loss” as Gin Stephens says!
Welcome back!
The past ten months have been plenty busy – let’s see what we’re working with now.
Month forty was March 2023Ā for me.
I still prefer one meal a day (OMAD), but will eat a low-carb lunch if I want to. Evening munchies are my Achilles Heel. I’m a night owl who is happy to make a bowl of Momofuku ramen for a midnight snack.
Despite identifying stress as a big deal, and despite medicating my ADHD – I still think that cortisol is an issue. Unfortunately I still haven’t had any cortisol tests, so I can’t support that hypothesis beyond my hunch.
For the past ten months I have continued to
- supplement berberine (I like to have 500mg for “lunch” because I’m not hungry that early), but not daily because it’s not always convenient. I prefer Thorne’s berberine.
- medicate my ADHD, but…not always the full dosage because of medication shortages. I regularly under-dose just to have some handy when my refills can’t be refilled.
- cook majority of our meals because I am very picky about oils and sugars we ingest.
- eat, drink, and be merry (especially with friends & family)!
The past ten months have changed
- my clothing sizes (I’m smaller!) so close to my pre-baby body.
- my ring sizes. Ten months ago I mentioned my Oura Ring. It’s too big for my ring finger (that it used to fit on), but it’s too small for my other fingers for now.
- how often I eat ANY sugars or starches. Wearing a CGM has taught me that avoiding all sugars and all starches really is the healthiest for my body. (So I Boughtā¦Several CGMs (Part One))
Between months 30 and 40
I’ve started wearing more small pants than medium, and XS shirts are fitting better than regular small. **Reminder – most of my adult life I have been a small size four, so “small” bottoms and “extra small” tops are normal sizes for me.**
I’ve rented two gowns – one in month 31 (size six) and another in month 34 (size four).
Both form-fitting styles…and BOTH FIT. Eeeee!
I’m starting to run into my old sizing problem of women’s tops being too big (specifically in the bust). So I order women’s XS to fit my bust, but then the length is shorter than I prefer. Boo!
Then, insult to injury, I can only donate or consign any old clothes. Normally I hand clothes down to my friend’s kids…but they are are all larger than me now. Dang teenagers getting tall.
ā WEIGHTĀ ā
You’re lucky. I wrote a nice long explanation about why I don’t have a recent weigh in.
(Long story short is that I don’t own a scale, I never have, and I probably never will.)
Well, I found a scale and was able to weigh in during my 40th month, so I can share it with you.
According to my sparse weigh-ins, I’ve been the same weight for several months.
But I’m much more interested in body composition, and I know for a fact that I am smaller now in April than at my check up in November. A few months ago I was squeezing into some size fours…but now I have more confidence that a fours fit. So I treated myself to some second-hand Club Monaco bottoms with zero stretch – and they fit perfectly.
You’ll see those in my Outfits of the Day posts š
ā¤ Chronological Timeline
Guess what?! I took MANY little notes for you over the past ten months, and here they are:
^ For what it’s worth, I like Lumen, but I don’t love it. More hereĀ ā«ø So I Bought…a Lumen
^ Note – The app I used to track and share my fasts is Zero.
But! This particular view is no longer an option as of April 2023. Good thing I took that screen cap when I did.
I’ll miss this bird’s eye view, but I actually don’t count my fastingĀ hours. Instead, I loosely watch my eating window, because that inverse number is easier to count on one hand. I feel best with a zero to five-hour window. It’s so easy to look at the clock when I start eating, and think to myself “It’s 5 o’clock now, so I’ll try to wrap up my eating and drinking around 9 tonight!”
^ So many starches, refined grains, and sugars! Wearing a CGM has taught me how I respond to food and I’m happy that I have this pre-CGM snapshot. More on CGMs later.
^ Fasted travel is my favorite. It’s so easy to save time and money while my clothes get loose.
^ Traveling to the same place was a fun eye-opener. The actual travel was easy both times, but everything else was happier because my smaller, healthier body is so much easier to move.
^ My index fingers used to be size seven…and I still hope to wear this thick Oura Ring on an index finger one day. I might buy a smaller Oura Ring…maybe. I do enjoy it as a right-hand ring.
ā¤Ā Goal Pants? I have two pairs!
ā¤ ALLSAINTS, 30″ waist ā
ā¤ Denizen by Levi’s, size 3Ā ā
If you want to see me shrink (or not!), check out my Outfits of the Day.
I take a dozen full body photos every month!
Q. Any new plans for the immediate future?
A.Ā I’m going to stay the course.
These habits are so sustainable that I don’t have to think about it.
I will continue to wear one continuous glucose monitor each menstrual cycle (approximately once a month.Ā But I don’t have enough CGMs for all of 2023 Ā <insert sad trombone> ).
I will continue to take berberine mid-day when convenient.
I will continue to fast cleanĀ each day.
Duration is variable, but my coffee is always black, and my water is always plain – no flavors, no sweeteners, no exceptions.
I would like to implement some ADFĀ (alternate daily fasting) this upcoming summer. CGM data has taught me that each day with low glucose gives me a healthier start the next day. More details in So I Boughtā¦Several CGMs (Part One). The short story is that fasting all day is the absolute easiest way to lower insulin and it’s only inconvenient; not difficult.
^ Speaking of CGM data, I only record my daily average glucose into Zero. But I’m only collecting 14 days of data each calendar month.Ā This graph will look more impressive when I have all of my own CGM data later in 2023. Better than random snapshots of fasting glucose once a year.
Good thing we’re moving to another country soon…surely that will make everything easier (Ha! I jest. We are moving, and very excited. I will still collect data, with full knowledge that my data will be more chaotic than usual).Ā ā«ø PCS Number Five
Before you go – I already have a leather skirt follow up for you!
- February 2023 (left). My hand is at the bottom of the zipper to save your virgin eyes from my underwear…because I couldn’t move the zipper. Just getting the skirt over my hips was already a huge success.
- March 2023 (right). Exactly one month later I felt smaller and I really was! I easily moved the zipper and it closed half way. AMAZING.
All of the bread, rice, potatoes, and sweets can go to hell. If casual abstinence (read: I’m only avoiding those things; it’s very easy) makes my leather skirts fit…then I am happy to avoid bread, rice, and potatoes for a very long time. If my glucose treats them all like chocolate, then you should know that I’ll save my glucose spikes for chocolate. Yum. Goodbye french fries.
But don’t worry, I’m not dogmatic about my food. I still eat cake at weddings, and fabricate all sorts of little exceptions. I just don’t eat those things every day.
- My daily starch AND carbohydrate has now become my weekly starch OR carbohydrate.
- I happily fill up on veggies and proteins.
- It’s hard to eat a cookie after two pork chops.
- Even harder if you eat a steamed head of broccoli first.
Anyhoo, I’ll collect a new list of real meals to share next time. It’s insightful for me too.
Documenting and sharing my fasting life from months 31 through 40 has been a blast. I’ll be back in ten months to share my fasting months 41 through 50.Ā Month 50 will be January 2024, so I’ll share everything in February 2024, when the 50th month is complete.
If you can’t wait that long, check out Lady Jupiter Podcast – I talk about all sorts of little things including fasting. Here’s the internet player if you want to dive right in (opens new tab).
āĀ Ready for more? Here you go!Ā šIntermittent Fasting, Month Fifty
Ā Ā 
Ā Ā 
Ā .
.
Lady Jupiter 