Hey y'all! Anyone and everyone is welcome to jump in and join us.

This is the Intermittent Fasting DAily Menu/Results/Accountability Thread. It's where a few of us (or many) are going to log in and encourage each other while we experiment with our own IF plans. You can list or talk about anything--not just your food. I look forward to adding in HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and core exercises to my walking plan while practicing IF. So expect to hear about that too. hehe I expect some of us will talk about the known IF side-effects like insomnia, circadian rhythm disturbance, etc. It's all good! Let's hack this IF mofo! mkay?

There is not any 1 specific IF plan--there are so many to choose from, so this is a BYOIFP (bring-your-own-IF-plan) and join the fun! This is the thread where we'll post our daily menus and maybe some piccys at times! We can discuss progress, issues we might notice, look at how we may want to refine our own personal plans. I do think you should be healed from surgery and have your doctor's and RD's blessings to try something like this and you should do a ton of research and reading about Intermittent Fasting.

IF isn't only about weight loss, it's about taking specific measures to limit either quantities, calories, macros, or sometimes only consciously altering eating windows/schedules in order to effect metabolic change and reduce inflammation and improve health markers.

Ok, let's do this thang!!!

18 hours ago, Sheribear68 said:

Congrats.
My fateful mammogram was on July 13, 2009.
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.
At the age of 40.

You’re right. That year of chemo/radiation will change you for life.

Took me longer than you to find my path to better health, but I’m on the path now and it feels GREAT

Oh wow girl! ((hugs)) It takes as long as it takes. You know? So glad you found the path!!! Six months from now and you won't recognize yourself!

So happy for your survivorship. Triple negative is scary larry stuff. Are you still on meds? The doc said I might be on an aromatase inhibitor for life? Mine was ER+/PR+/HER2- (the most common, but it was a very high grade aggressive form). You should talk to your doc about what level of fat in your diet. I think Triple Neg is the only one that is impacted by a high fat diet.

21 hours ago, GreenTealael said:

Yay!

We (politely) demand a TaTa inspired appreciation picathon lol

LOL. Oh you don't want to see the girls. The scars aren't bad but there are these little spider veins from radiation damage that travel along the scar and are so ugly. They are like "Barbie" boobs: hard, round mounds that are not "anatomically correct." I'm toying with the idea of getting temporary nerp tattoos to see what they would look like with some surgery on them.

On 4/2/2019 at 7:58 AM, FluffyChix said:

Magic always comes with a price.

https://www.worldhealth.net/news/erythritol-weight-gain-biomarker/?fbclid=IwAR2QgpgFTkJgJAwZalnrsqBFKxiUNtEPVpadW_xdLDY3CDZC-6Tw_9JtUpM

'The connection between heightened concentrations of blood erythritol and the onset of weight gain/fat mass is not yet fully understood. It is uncertain if endogenous erythritol or exposure stemming from food leads to weight gain tied to erythritol.'

Which means they see it, but don't know the actual connection, doesn't prove causation, just correlation.

3 minutes ago, Sosewsue61 said:

'The connection between heightened concentrations of blood erythritol and the onset of weight gain/fat mass is not yet fully understood. It is uncertain if endogenous erythritol or exposure stemming from food leads to weight gain tied to erythritol.'

Which means they see it, but don't know the actual connection, doesn't prove causation, just correlation.

Yes. Agreed.

Dr. Fung however, seems to see in his practice that all artificial sweeteners cause a cephalic insulin response in their patients...which may or may not be accompanied by a spike in blood glucose readings. It's possible to spike insulin without spiking bgs.

Anecdotally in an N=1 experiment for me, I'm opting to reduce a.s. as much as possible in my diet for as long an interval as possible. I can tell you that I lose better when I don't try to make low carb treats/sweets and low carb analogues to high fat, high carb items. My hunger goes down dramatically and weight loss goes up.

Guys!!! This intermittent fasting is pure magic! First week completed and I’m down 8lbs ? oh and do you know how good I feel? Still can’t reach protein goals when I push it past the 16hrs but I would love to eventually get to that point.

Just now, alioolala said:

Guys!!! This intermittent fasting is pure magic! First week completed and I’m down 8lbs ? oh and do you know how good I feel? Still can’t reach Protein goals when I push it past the 16hrs but I would love to eventually get to that point.

Congrats! What are you doing on your plan? (Pssst you should go into your profile and signature and fill out the information on yourself so we know what you are doing--surgery and date, etc. )

26 minutes ago, FluffyChix said:

Yes. Agreed.

Dr. Fung however, seems to see in his practice that all artificial sweeteners cause a cephalic insulin response in their patients...which may or may not be accompanied by a spike in blood glucose readings. It's possible to spike insulin without spiking bgs.

Anecdotally in an N=1 experiment for me, I'm opting to reduce a.s. as much as possible in my diet for as long an interval as possible. I can tell you that I lose better when I don't try to make low carb treats/sweets and low carb analogues to high fat, high carb items. My hunger goes down dramatically and weight loss goes up.

I've only tried making 'cookies' once with swerve and almond flour - eh it was okay. The hubs and grandkids thought it was good.

6 minutes ago, Sosewsue61 said:

I've only tried making 'cookies' once with swerve and almond flour - eh it was okay. The hubs and grandkids thought it was good.

We like them, but they still spike our bgs and stop our weight loss and kick us out of ketosis...

On 04/20/2019 at 09:27, FluffyChix said:

Oh wow girl! ((hugs)) It takes as long as it takes. You know? So glad you found the path!!! Six months from now and you won't recognize yourself!

So happy for your survivorship. Triple negative is scary larry stuff. Are you still on meds? The doc said I might be on an aromatase inhibitor for life? Mine was ER+/PR+/HER2- (the most common, but it was a very high grade aggressive form). You should talk to your doc about what level of fat in your diet. I think Triple Neg is the only one that is impacted by a high fat diet.

I got lucky (well none of it was luck, but you know....)
Mine was caught before it had a chance to go anywhere outside of the ducts.
TNBC has the worst prognosis in the first 5 years (50% survivor rate) but after 5 years the risk of recurrence almost bottoms out.
I’ll never forget going in for that 5 year check up and crying tears of joy when my oncologist pronounced me “free and clear” of the dread 5 year window in July 2014.
Then in February 2018 I had some really weird lymph nodes found on a breast MRI and everyone was convinced I had lymphoma.
Thankfully I did NOT, but it was the longest 4 weeks I’d had in quite awhile and after it was all over is when I started looking into bariatric surgery as a solution.
I was sick and tired of always looking over my shoulder and the fat I was carrying around was like a ticking time bomb.

Lol, my “girls” are much worse for the wear also.
After the chemo and radiation, I qualified for a reduction and I took it.
Went from a DDD to a small C cup and I haven’t regretted it for one second.
There’s so much scar tissue and the left one is rock hard compared to the right due to the radiation, but I’ll take being alive over odd-looking tatas hands down.

Lol, I do wonder what will happen to the cup size as I get closer to goal. Maybe I won’t have anything left. ????

On 04/20/2019 at 11:30, FluffyChix said:

Yes. Agreed.

Dr. Fung however, seems to see in his practice that all artificial sweeteners cause a cephalic insulin response in their patients...which may or may not be accompanied by a spike in blood glucose readings. It's possible to spike insulin without spiking bgs.

Anecdotally in an N=1 experiment for me, I'm opting to reduce a.s. as much as possible in my diet for as long an interval as possible. I can tell you that I lose better when I don't try to make low carb treats/sweets and low carb analogues to high fat, high carb items. My hunger goes down dramatically and weight loss goes up.

Make that N=2.
This what what I was meaning earlier about any kind of artificial sweetener making me feel like crap and hungry all the time.

On 04/20/2019 at 12:38, FluffyChix said:

Congrats! What are you doing on your plan? (Pssst you should go into your profile and signature and fill out the information on yourself so we know what you are doing--surgery and date, etc. )

Hey Fluffy! So I basically break my fast everyday with a premier protein. A couple hours later I have 2.5oz of chicken and then deli meat and a cheese stick around 8:30. In between those meals I TRY to squeeze in some raw veggies or a couple bites of fresh fruit but it doesn’t always happen. As you can see my restriction is still pretty amazing. Eating times are 1pm-9pm. In the last month or so My weight loss had slowed down drastically I think partly bc I’m 9mo out now and partly bc I had been grazing. Nothing crazy but maybe an extra 150-200calories. Can I update ticker from the app?

On 04/20/2019 at 11:35, alioolala said:

Guys!!! This intermittent fasting is pure magic! First week completed and I’m down 8lbs ? oh and do you know how good I feel? Still can’t reach Protein goals when I push it past the 16hrs but I would love to eventually get to that point.

Yes!
I’d love to know how far along you are and what your plan looks like.

Hi Sheri! I’m 9mo post op and follow a low carb low fat eating plan. I posted a little more detailed post up above. I look forward to getting to know you all!
HW-350 SW 318 Cw-174

I think I figured out that ticker thing!

On 4/19/2019 at 11:22 AM, FluffyChix said:

Baby steps. Pretty soon, if you use this time to MAXIMIZE your tool and kill the cravings/associations with the things that are not BENEFICIAL to us or to making our goal. We have to teach our inner person to have new behaviors. You have to train your dragon. You can do it. The decision is the beginning of the action. It's the part with all the strength.

All true---you inspired me to turn down my normal coffee at the salon. They brought it to me with sugar and I asked them to bring it back with just half & half. Go me!

Attempting my first 48 hour fast---11 hours in, Wish me luck!