My Monthly Fatloss Report.....

Today's post:  Monday, 2-20-2017

A.  Here's the key news:

1.  Since last month I gained 7 pounds exactly

I gained a half inch on my chest; I lost a quarter inch off my waist; & I gained a half inch on my hips.

Since I was sick but had a fever and a LOT of nose blowing and coughing up junk so much each day I may have lost fat to be at 157.4 last month.  (The fever, the nose blowing so often, and the coughing up vigorously to clear the gunk out of my chest both likely burned extra calories.)

And, since I had to cut way back on strength training and vigorous cardio too, I also may have lost muscle to be at 157.4 last month.

Whichever one it was -- or if it was both last time, this time it was good news indeed to gain on the scale and lose a bit on my waist measurement!!

2.  I was able to lose weight and lose inches not once but twice with a 5 day fast.  But both times the weight and inches came back when I began my normal eating again.

In my case, there were three likely reasons for this:

*Stress

*Lack of muscle mass

*A few too little calories burned per week from my current set of exercises.

*Stress.  I have that triple because without having a reliable increased income, I owe more money than is wise and don’t yet have a way to turn off that threat.  Second, I have some help but not yet enough to relieve this stress.  Third, my body tends to over-react to threat and not recover after it’s been stopped. (This over-reaction does get better when I have enough money to relieve the financial threat.  It does get better when I have help.  So the first step is to do the first two things.  Once I have those, there are some ways now that I can use to turn off this third problem for future temporary stress.)

Long ago I found a study on Medical News Today that found that stress tends to lock down fat and resist its removal.  Fasting may remove the lock but only if the stress is gone.  This may mean in my case that when I fast, it removes less fat.

I just found out that stress ALSO tends to add as much as 11 pounds a year by reducing the calories you burn if you are always under stress.

Stress directly reduces the calories y 213ou burn even if you avoid comfort foods!!

Somehow I saw this from a study written up by Women's Health initially:

"....new research sheds some light on how exactly anxiety may lead to weight gain: Women burn fewer calories in the 24 hours following stressful events, according to a new study from the journal Biological Psychiatry.  

For the study, researchers from Ohio State University interviewed 58 healthy women about the stressors they'd experienced in the previous 24 hours, then served them a high-fat meal that included eggs, turkey sausage, biscuits, and gravy (the meal came to 930 calories and 60 grams of fat). 

Afterward, researchers tested the women's metabolic responses -- how quickly they burned calories and fat -- for the next seven hours.

Although all of the women simply rested after eating, those who struggled with stressors the previous day expended significantly less metabolic energy than those who reported no stress; on average, they burned 104 fewer calories. 

At this rate, they could gain 11 extra pounds per year without changing any other diet and exercise habits.

Why? In addition to slower post-meal energy expenditure, women who reported more stressors also experienced lower fat oxidation and higher insulin production. The less fat your body oxidizes, the more fat you store and the higher your risk is for obesity; high insulin levels also enhance fat storage."

This suggests that, in my case, fasting may remove fat but will do so only if I turn down my stress levels.  And, it may do so better than now once I can add a way to turn off temporary stress faster once it’s gone.

*Lack of muscle mass.  When I was doing heavy weight lifting with barbells once a week at the gym AND running a total of 7 fast miles in four parts, I weighed 161 pounds – 3.4 pounds LESS than now; and my waist was about 5 inches smaller.

Once I get back to a gym with the heavy barbells even once a week I will have enough calories burned by regaining at least some of the muscle I had then that I believe I’ll regain less of any weight and fat I remove when fasting.

*It’s likely that adding that hour a week of heavy strength training will increase my calories burned by 400 calories a week.  By training hard during that hour my body may burn as much as another 200 calories a week to power the recovery of my muscles from the work.

Conclusion:

For now, focusing on adding the income and the team of people to help create it will be my focus because it will reduce my excess stress and enable me to resume working out in the gym.

So, these reports will be focused on a summary of that and my work to add muscle until it looks likely that fasting will remove fat for me that stays off afterwards.