"Hey, Honey! Why don't we head out to the movies. We've got 200 calories each left today. Maybe we can split a small bag of popcorn for our dinner. I'll check the calories on the Internet." Yikes! That's when I discovered that a medium bag of movie popcorn, even without the extra "buttery-flavoured topping", could supply both of us with our entire daily allowance!
Five hundred calories is not a lot! About 80% of a quarter-pounder with cheese, or about half a medium bag of movie popcorn with no extra butter, or about two pounds of raw carrots, or about two hundred sugar-free chiclets, or a little more than half a litre of red wine. (I'm not recommending any one of these as the best way to meet the fasting-day totals.) I continue to look for more filling ways to construct a 125-calorie meal.
For now, I have another challenge. I row regularly on a Concept2 rowing machine, but my rowing times have been increasing all week. I'm going to have to try and reverse that trend this week. Our new schedule avoids my wife's exercise days altogether. Mine tends to be daily but less intensive. I may try to do less on the fast days and more on the others, but I really miss it if I don't do some every day. Fortunately, I usually exercise first thing, so I can power off the calories from the day before, with a top-up of small glass of fruit smoothie -- 152 calories. Additionally, we tend to do more exercise on weekends, so having the down days during the week will be good. Still I'm going to have to push myself more to see if I can get my exercise intensity back to the pre-fasting level.
I'm beginning to feel less deprived on the fast days as I build up my repertoire of 100-calorie "meals". Foods with a low glycemic index seem to be good choices: a meal consisting of a tablespoon of my homemade hummus and a medium apple -- total calories 97 -- becomes one of my fast-day staples. Another good choice is my mostly-vegetable-and-legume slow-cooker stews, with just a little meat flavouring -- about 75 to 125 calories per small ladle, depending upon the recipe. If only the kids didn't like them so much! Cleaned out again!
The week was punctuated with my wife's birthday -- fortunately it was an Up day. The boys made us a five-course Thai dinner -- they're accomplished cooks -- topped off with ganache torte. Afterwards, my wife said she was looking forward to her fast day!
Five-course meals and all, at the end of Week Two, I'm 28% of the way towards my goal. That definitely provides motivation. And as our friend who went first says: "You can do anything for one day." That's sort of true, and we hope it's enough.
Resources:
Calorie Restriction (Wikipedia)
Why I want to live longer and stay healthy. (Yes, that's me too.)
The series:
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