{"id":556,"date":"2012-06-11T19:53:04","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T00:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=556"},"modified":"2012-06-11T20:13:45","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T01:13:45","slug":"a-tiny-fragment-of-insight-this-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=556","title":{"rendered":"A tiny fragment of insight this morning…"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago I realized that just working out wasn’t helping me make any progress on my goal of getting lean. I’d been seeing quite a few people on fitocracy.com<\/a> talking about the success they were having with Intermittent Fasting<\/a> and LeanGains<\/a>. I read up on these (different but related) plans and realized that I was unlikely to be willing to put up with the careful menu planning and calculations that I feel are needed or at least implied by LeanGains, so I decided to go with IF\u2014along with a\u00a0sloppy-casual nod to LeanGains, meaning I’d try to generally estimate my macros. I knew that this approach would slow down my fat loss, but I’m fine with that. I’m not in an particular hurry, and I’ve heard for years that losing weight fast tends not to be sustainable.<\/p>\n

Anyway, before starting on IF in early March, my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to stand the fasts. I have been eating huge breakfasts all of my life, often having two full breakfasts in a single morning. I was surprised and gratified to discover that I could skip breakfast with no huge hunger pains. My biggest ‘symptom’ was a sort of antsy feeling that I should stop for breakfast on the way to work. I also miss my morning eggs, so I’ve been trying to have breakfast-type foods now and then for dinner.<\/p>\n

So, I’ve been doing 16\/8 fasts most days for three months, life is good, and I can tell by looking in the mirror that I’m gradually getting leaner. Sometimes I get frustrated by not making faster progress (despite my best intentions, I’m often not very patient), and I know that part of the problem is simply that I’m still eating a lot of food. I am eating about the same size dinners, but my lunches have grown.<\/p>\n

This weekend, more or less by accident, we ate very lightly. I had a salad for lunch on Saturday, dinner was chops and more salad. On Sunday I had leftover chops and salad for lunch, and supper was spinach salad with grilled chicken. Four meals in a row that matched my concept of “what I should be eating.” I even kept my ice cream consumption to a minimum.<\/p>\n

Today I found myself walking around at work feeling …skinny. And I realized that I was alarmed by the sensation. As I became aware of all of this, a tiny light bulb lit up in my mind.<\/p>\n

I equate being skinny with having cancer.<\/em><\/p>\n

The last time I was this lean was probably back in late 1995 into early 1996, from the time I started having symptoms related to my stomach cancer through my surgery and recovery. I went from ~195 lbs in August to 155 lbs in December of ’95. Since then, I’ve been as heavy as 198 and as light as 178, but mostly have hovered around 190. Even when I weighed 178, it was ‘skinnyfat,’ meaning I wasn’t very fat, but I had no muscle.<\/p>\n

I believe now that some (at least) of my overeating is a way for my\u00a0subconscious mind to fend off being skinny!<\/p>\n

I’ve got to work through this in my mind, because I really want to get down to about 10-12% BF!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago I realized that just working out wasn’t helping me make any progress on my goal of getting lean. I’d been seeing quite a few people on fitocracy.com talking about the success they were having with Intermittent Fasting and LeanGains. I read up on these (different but related) plans and realized that … Continue reading “A tiny fragment of insight this morning…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-8Y","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":960,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=960","url_meta":{"origin":556,"position":0},"title":"Ribbit","author":"Jorah","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I figured from context that \"frogging\" something meant tearing it out, but until Mcchase enlightened me, I'd no idea where the usage came from. Imagine my chagrin when I realized that I hadn't figured out the joke on my own. rip it, rip it, rip it!","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":963,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=963","url_meta":{"origin":556,"position":1},"title":"I-cord troubles","author":"Jorah","date":"January 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I cast on a new hat last night, but as soon as I got to the end of the i-cord, and started my increases, I realized that the wrong side of the hat was on the outside, rather than safely inside, as it should have been. I must be making\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knitting"","block_context":{"text":"Knitting","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=85"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=19","url_meta":{"origin":556,"position":2},"title":"Photos…","author":"Jorah","date":"April 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to think that I was pretty good at making pictures, but then I realized that I'm not. I stopped taking pictures, but now I understand that even if I'm not good at it, I can still enjoy it. So I'm going to start posting a few thumbnails here.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1197,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1197","url_meta":{"origin":556,"position":3},"title":"What is the hardest truth you had to accept?\ufeff","author":"Jorah","date":"December 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"That I wasn't special. I was brought up by a mom who (apparently) thought that teaching her kids that they were special would make them feel better. I don't know what effect it had on my siblings, but I spent a lot of time expecting people to like me for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophizing"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophizing","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=59"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":953,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=953","url_meta":{"origin":556,"position":4},"title":"Lion Brand Cable Hat","author":"Jorah","date":"January 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night I finally settled on a project to learn cables. It is the Lion Brand Pattern Number: 60619A and one of the first things I realized is that I needed to put the instructions into Word and reformat it so that I can see it through my new bifocals\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knitting"","block_context":{"text":"Knitting","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=85"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=982","url_meta":{"origin":556,"position":5},"title":"Stress and knitting","author":"Jorah","date":"June 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I only learned to knit nine months ago, but since then I've fallen into the pattern of stressing about unfinished projects. Last night, I knit three rows on the afghan, then set it aside to get ready for bed. I realized that I had no expectations about this particular project,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knitting"","block_context":{"text":"Knitting","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=85"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}