A STUDY OF ONE WOMAN'S JOURNEY OF RELEASING WEIGHT Follow along with me on this journey of losing over 130 lbs. and keeping it off!~ I share as an Appetite Correction Certified Guide all the benefits of intermittent fasting.
blessings, Fasting Chick
Angela’s AC power tool:Fast-5 Weight lost: 130 pounds Biggest non-scale victories
“I threw my scale away!”
“My body is in better shape.”
“My complexion has been amazing since I’ve been fasting.”
“I have peace of mind.”
“I have less turmoiled thoughts because of excess food consumption.”
“I have a more positive outlook.”
“I find fasting helps me to remain focused, more energetic and sorta like an athlete mentality!”
Angela’s Journey
Four Pieces of Toast
Four year old Angie sits at Big Nana’s wooden table, shifting in her
chair to keep her booster pillow from slipping as she sits up tall to
reach her plate. A summer breeze carries the sounds of Big Nana cooking
in the kitchen and fills the house with glorious smells of the day’s
feasts in various stages of readiness. Almost at eye level with the tall
stack of warm, buttery toast. Angie’s mouth waters as she takes the
first bite. She delights at the taste the generous layer of jam
delivers, giving no thought to the many hours Big Nana had spent
infusing that special ingredient—love—into the berry goodness during the
canning process. Two pieces of toast later, Angie feels full, but she
powers through and gobbles up the excess slices.
Forty-six years
passed before Angela revisited that childhood memory and connected the
dots to better understand how her “full button broke.” The day
four-year-old Angie sat at the table with the stack of toast unmatched
to her size and appetite marked the first anniversary of the death of
her grandfather. Sadness loomed in every space of Big Nana’s house in
remembrance of Big Nono, their adored patriarch who had spent a lifetime
showering lots and lots of love over his Italian family. At the same
time, Angie’s mother lay dying in a hospital.¹ That day, Angie tried to
“shove down the hurt and the sorrow and the pain” by shoving toast into
her mouth.
The Antidote and the Taboo
Food, the antidote to pain, sorrow and anger throughout Angie’s
childhood, brought comfort at a price: excess weight. Physical
activity—tap, ballet and jazz dancing, soccer, gymnastics, swimming, and
tennis—kept the damage in check at a steady 10-15 pounds over ideal as
she grew. By age 14, Angie weighed 140 pounds, then during her teen
years, she freed herself from food’s grip when she discovered the power
of intermittent fasting (IF). Newly healthy and physically fit at 5
feet, 7 inches and 117 pounds, Angela “was looking fine!” She lived in
the country and rode her bike to town and all over the place. Very
gradually, she developed the coping skills to responsibly manage the
social access her new physique opened.
Cultural pressure eventually intervened making Angela’s success
short-lived. The taboo against IF dissuaded Angela from adopting the way
of eating as a lifestyle. She placed the IF tool on the shelf, returned
to her struggle with food and her tendency toward binge-eating, and
once again, accumulated excess pounds. By the time she married,
she weighed in at 130-138 pounds and thereafter maintained an
arms-length relationship with IF as an occasional go-to rescue tool when
her eating spiraled out of control. She periodically fasted to break
free and to “feel like a million bucks,” but routinely acquiesced in the
response to cultural warnings that “fasting is bad, bad, bad.” Angela’s
weight bounced between 130 and 165 pounds.
Ascent to Crisis
Angela’s weight climbed:
165…170…180…190…200…210…220…230…240…250…260…270…280…284. At 284 pounds,
she looked at the scale and cried out, “What am I doing? Why am I doing
this to myself? Why? I’m literally killing myself. It’s just taking a
very long time to do it.” She labored with daily activities: sitting on
the bed to put on underwear and don socks with a struggle and descending
stairways, one slow step at a time to minimize the pain in her knees
and back. She continued eating, her default for shoving life’s pain
down, and stopped stepping on the scale to avoid confronting the
possibility that she weighed more than her husband. She felt out of
control and didn’t know how to fix it.
Chest pain awakened
Angela from sleep one winter night in 2007. Worried about a heart
attack, she asked her son to call 911. When the ambulance arrived, shame
overruled fear. Angela refused to allow the paramedics to carry her on a
stretcher, and instead, walked down the front stairs of her house to
the street. She had to consent to being lifted on a stretcher so that
the paramedics could place her inside the ambulance. Throughout the
ordeal, thoughts of her fat and appearance swirled around with notions
about how her body would be managed in the lead up to her burial. Then
two weeks later, it all happened again.
Reassured that her gallbladder caused her pain, not her heart, Angela
watched what she ate for eight months while awaiting gallbladder
surgery. Raw willpower helped her avoid the pain and the shame she had
felt during the ambulance drama and during that time, she dropped thirty
pounds, but it didn’t last. After surgery, her lifelong cycle kicked
in. She started feeling the need to eat and eat and felt out of control
again. She told herself, “I’m starting to get in bondage to food again.
It’s only a matter of time. I’m going to die, because I have no control
over the food.” Back to back ambulance rides, a dance with the grim
reaper, a surgery to treat her gallbladder and a return to
out-of-control eating added up to the need for a change, but fell short
of the trigger that would move her to action. Angela wanted to break
free from the chokehold food had on her, but she simply didn’t know how.
A year later, in a moment of quiet after the storm, she would
rediscover her answer.
Permission
Angela sat in her quiet time chair in the early morning and happened
upon a note she’d written next to a verse in a devotional book nine
years earlier. The verse read, “He said to them, ‘This kind [of unclean
spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting'” (Mark 9:29).
Her notation read, “only way to be released from the spirit of gluttony,
once and for all!!”
Three days remained
before the start of Lent, a traditional period of fasting, moderation
and self-denial observed by Catholics and some other faith groups.
Angela wrote her Lenten promise in a letter:
Dear Jesus,
On Wednesday it is the beginning of Lent. Ash Wednesday the start of our spiritual journey to Easter, Your Resurrection.
I decided to write on
this paper so I can keep it at the forefront of my day, to remind me of
my sacrifice, my fasting “Unto You” the next 40 days.
Jesus, my life has been held in bondage for far too long. You are the shackle Breaker, the Burden Remover, the Yoke Destroyer.
These 40 days of Lent, I
pray will become for me a spiritual renewal, a spiritual awakening, and
a means to experience Your divine hand upon my family’s life, setting
them free from the grasp of the evil one.
I set my face towards You, fasting and praying for:
changes within me. Jesus, I desire to be a Proverbs 31 Woman, totally devoted to You in all things.
Finding Her Fast-5 Tribe
Angela connected with Paula after reading a blog post Paula had
written that included the words, “released from weight.” The words
resonated with Angela who associated them with the ideas of breaking
free, being set free and being released from bondage. Angela responded
with a comment, which kindled a friendship that continues. Their online
discussion led to Paula’s decision to join Angela in making a Lenten
promise, so for forty days they fasted two meals per day and checked in
with each other periodically to provide support, affirmation and
spiritual community. After the Lenten season closed they both kept going
and then later that year, Paula shared a discovery she had made doing
online research. Paula introduced Angela to the work of Dr. Bert
Herring, the pioneer who wrote the first book on intermittent fasting, The Fast-5 Diet and The Fast-5 Lifestyle,
published in 2005. Paula told Angela, “other people eat the way we eat
and it’s called intermittent fasting” and invited Angela to join
a private FaceBook group she had started, The Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle.
Angela joined the group and contributed her signature humor and energy
to the uniquely positive and mutually supportive community of Fast-5ers.
On December 31, 2008, Angela began sharing her weight loss and her spiritual journey through her YouTube channel, Free Spirit Haven,
as a way of encouraging others to become whole and healthy. Community
connection provided a powerful tool for managing cultural pushback to
her appetite correction (AC)/Fast-5 lifestyle. Maintaining consistency
with her AC/Fast-5 lifestyle has eliminated Angela’s historic pattern of
yo yo emotions and weight and behavioral highs and lows. She now has
more control in life and more resilience in dealing with negative or
dysfunctional behaviors.
Living the Promise and Silencing the Naysayers
Angela fully embraced her AC/Fast-5 lifestyle and reaped the rewards
she had enjoyed during her teen years: freedom from food’s bondage on
her life and health. She lost 130 pounds over a four year period, a
gradual loss that allowed her body to resculpt naturally.
People began stopping
her in stores and asking about her transformation, “Gosh, Angela, you
look amazing! How have you done it?” Every time she told people about
her AC/Fast-5 lifestyle, as sure as the sun rises each morning, pushback
and advice about her choices followed:
“You shouldn’t be doing that. It’s too unhealthy.”
“Is that safe?”
“Eating breakfast is important.”
“If you skip meals, your body will go into starvation mode.”
And the list goes on…
Angela responded, “You mean to tell me
when I was 280 pounds and was eating out of control, I was healthy?! You
never said nothing to me and now that I finally find freedom and you’re
saying this is unhealthy?! Give me a break. I’m living proof that it is
safe. You have been so programmed to eat three meals a day, you think
breakfast is so important. Who says!?”
Exile the Scale and Embrace the Lifestyle
Hundreds of people now look to Angela for inspiration, wisdom and
practical guidance as they strive to become whole and healthy. Angela’s
followers count on her frankness and she doesn’t hold back. In her most
recent video, Tips on Intermittent Fasting, Angela
suggests something that has served her well in achieving and
maintaining success, “Get the scale out of the house. Bring it to a
close friend. Bring it to a neighbor.”
Angela doesn’t keep a scale in her house anymore. She no longer
allows the scale to dominate her “because that scale is nasty.” She
relies on the fit of her clothes as her primary barometer and on
infrequent occasions might measure herself with a tape measure or go to
her parents’ house to weigh herself. For Angela, the scale inflicts
damage to such a degree that FaceBook group posts that spotlight a
person’s intense focus on daily gains and losses triggers her. For that
reason, she paces herself and maintains a healthy balance that allows
her to provide support for others without becoming mired in their
anxiety. When Angela talks about the AC/Fast-5 lifestyle, she emphasizes the
importance of a complete D.I.E.T. (Daily Intake of Enriched Time)
package. She encourages people to make it a habit to ask themselves,
“Did I Enrich Today?” and to consider physical, emotional and spiritual
enrichment when answering their question.
Sage Advice, Angela!!
The question—to weigh or not to weigh?—sparks hot debate in some circles. Angela’s study of one provided
a clear answer for her: Weighing occasionally serves as a minor tool
among the tools she used for weight loss and now uses for weight
maintenance. Does Angela’s advice hold true for everyone? No. Does it
hold true for many people? Undoubtedly. The marketing mythology
suggesting that a one-size-fits-all weight loss and weight maintenance
regimen exists, works well to sell shakes and packaged foods and
memberships, but it doesn’t work for real people seeking sustainable
regimens for healthy living. Finding your sustainable regimen means
conducting your own study of one and here are some resources that can help you: AC: The Power of Appetite Correction The Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle FaceBook Group: request to join the private group
Some People and Some Companies Benefit From Daily Weighing
Evidence revealing that some people benefit from daily weighing is
increasing in lockstep with the growing roster of commercially available
weighing apps and services—products that either cost you money or ask
you to trade your privacy for a service (aka “free” apps). A 2016 USA Today article
features Dori Steinberg, a weight loss and behavioral change researcher
with a commercial interest in a scale-centered weight loss plan, who
points to research evidence that suggests daily weighing may be optimal.
The article also quotes David Levitsky, professor of nutrition and
psychology at Cornell University, who suggests that weighing daily is
valuable as a habit in the same way that brushing teeth is a valuable
daily habit—whoa there, buddy! Not so fast!
Saying that stepping on a scale each morning should
be like brushing teeth way overstates the universal applicability of
the studies’ findings. Studies that include daily weighing by design,
predictably drive self-selection. You’re not going to see people who
have a toxic relationship with the scale lining up to participate in a
study that requires them to face a scale every day.
Most of us would probably agree that solid evidence
justifies recommending daily teeth brushing to everyone. As for the
classic question—to weigh or not to weigh?—we’ve come full circle. Your
study of one will guide you to discover the answer that applies to you:
your body and your personality living in your environment.
¹Note: Angela’s mother didn’t die in the hospital,
although from a childhood developmental perspective, landmark events
surrounded the circumstances of the hospitalization. A priest
administered last rites, a doctor pronounced Angela’s mother to be
dead, a person called the family to announce her death, then about a
half hour later, a second person called to tell the family that Angela’s
mother did not die. Four year old Angie thought,“Oh my God, just like
Jesus, she was dead and now she’s alive!”
Years later, the same year that Angela adopted her AC/Fast-5
lifestyle, her mother again confronted death. Doctors told her mother
that she had two months to live, but she’s alive and well today. Angela
calls her mother “the energizer bunny!”