What's on your Thursday Menu, RNY crew?

Good morning, Happy Friday Eve!

QOTD - I can't think of anything I didn't like pre-op, I liked all foods! LOL

Breakfast - fasting until noon, so black coffee/water

Snack - fruit smoothie, frozen fruit, chia seeds, water and oat milk

Lunch - NO idea. I'm hoping to get something from a local vegan place, it's my favorite

Snack - rice roller, peanut butter

Dinner - I made a Mississippi pot roast for hubs and kids, I will probably pick at the veggies and have some bread with avocado butter

I hope you all have a great day!

You are so disciplined with your IF, now that you've been doing it awhile is it hard or easy? Especially, I know there are some days when you have a huge not-eating window.

I haven't hit the "this is so easy, I have so much energy now..." phase that I have been reading about, and that so many people rave about. That being said, I've tried and failed at every diet. This is something I can sustain.

I clean fast, which means during my fasting, only water or black coffee, unsweetened unflavored tea. This helps my body remain in the autophagy phase as long as possible ****il I eat). This is the biggest reason I am doing the IF.

It was hard at first, now I am pretty steadfast and resigned that this is how I am going to eat. I do think it's helped me become super focused on feeding myself well, within my window that it's helped me weed a lot of junk out. Going to a completely plant based diet, in conjunction with IF has resulted in a 30lb loss in the past 4 months, so I feel good continuing!

I currently do the 18:6, so I fast from 6pm until 12pm the next day. I eat lunch, a snack, another lunch, a snack, lol until 6pm. And then, it's back to water, coffee and tea.

Occasionally I pu**** to 20:4 and even 22:2, and I always feel really good on those days. I'm just not ready to do the OMAD (one meal a day) plan, and I don't think I ever will. I don't think I can eat enough calories in one meal to sustain my body.

I think I'm going to try IF. I can handle not eating until 12 - do you think I can put SF carb-free syrup into my coffee or tea without slipping out of the autophagy phase? I can live without using cream, cashew milk, or SF creamer, but mornings and late evenings would be more difficult for me without using syrup. Forgive me newbie questions - clearly, I'm going to have to do some reading on this topic.

I don't really want to lose weight as I am steady this far at my final goal, but I would view IF as another tool to promote maintaining my weight for the long term.

If you have an evening event like a dinner which occurs after 6, do you wait a few hours more before eating at, say, 2 or 3? Does this throw things off?

All questions are great! Unfortunately, with fasting to truly take advantage of the autophagy, you have to clean fast. This entails black coffee, hot black tea/green tea, cold tea, and water (including mineral water). Any flavors, even unsweetened or sugar free break the fast. They trigger an insulin response and autophagy stops.

If I have an evening dinner, and it's after 6, I just extend my window as necessary. Also, if one day I hit only 16 hours of fasting, etc., I just adjust as necessary when I can. This isn't a diet, there's no starting over, or messing up. It's just a way of life, and the more fasting I can do within reason, the better for my body.

I think it's really important to note that I am trying very hard to feed myself well, and ensure I take in enough calories to sustain myself. Thankfully, at almost 11 years out, my pouch allows me about a cup of food sometimes so I am able to feed myself adequately.

Hey Team! OMG. I have 3 entire hours off between meetings! My first meeting ended early and this is the only day in a 2 week stretch that we have more than a 30 minute scheduled break between them. I should be reading and replying to the 1000000000 emails I haven't responded to...but I liked the idea of checking in here, better :)

Accountability: Still doing great on staying low low low on carbs, but I keep going higher on calories than I should, so my weight is staying the same. I have been up and down with the same pound for 2 weeks. I am not going to stress about it at all though. I am really proud of myself for staying below 20 carbs with all of the temptation around me. I am sitting at a long conference table that is literally covered down the center with: chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate chip cookies, jelly beans, dark chocolate nuggets, ginger candies, and a variety of granola bars... I have only had about 5 ginger candies all week.

QOTD: I'm going to go with Cauliflower. I never disliked it, but I certainly never expected it to be a food that brings me ***joy*** like it does now, haha. I love it in every form possible. Another things I thought was just "meh" were nuts of all kinds. Again, almonds are such a yummy treat, now!

Eats:

• Protein Coffee & Egg bites
• Florentine stuffed chicken breast
• Pork rinds
• Dinner?? No clue. Will depend on when I get home again...

I'm pretty sure I would gobble up all the sweets in the room,JB! You are amazing!

You have a will of iron, JB!!

I think I need to give cauliflower another go, maybe in one of the real good food breakfast sandwiches. It's never been on of my favorites (ok, it's really only been one of this things I ate under duress/to be polite)

Love those breakfast sandwiches!

I like me a Cauliflower hash brown. I think I would have loved them pre surgery as well.