Slimming Sunday - IF Only

DD's salmon with rice, mine on sauteed beet leaves.
I admit I mixed the leftover rice with my greens after DD had finished.
(btw, DD had more salmon but she copes best with it in small portions)

Last Slimming Sunday was five weeks ago because we're posting only on the first Sunday of each month. It was my first time joining this linky and it helped to know that I was going to report back in a month. A month ago I wrote about Vegan Vs Keto. Read it if you haven't already - there are strong supporters of both types of diet. Proof of this was the first comment, a lengthy explanation of why I was wrong to favour the keto method.

In fact, athough I favoured keto over vegan, I didn't stick to it religiously. I ate my salads topped with either hard boiled eggs, tuna, sardines mackerel, salmon, herring, or cheese. I made dressings with vinaigrette, low-carb mayo, evoo and lemon juice, or tehina. Each salad was definitely a meal in itself and very filling. We didn't have bread at home as DD doesn't like bread anyway so that was one temptation less for me. However, I did eat a felafel in pitta with chips one day, I finished DD's pasta, rice or wheat based vegetarian sausages on other days, I occasionally had a Danish pastry with my coffee, and yesterday I had dessert after lunch. It was apple pudding and cream, how could I not?

On the other hand. I was religious about the Intermittent Fasting (IF). After a black coffee in the morning, I drink water, lemon water, or hot lemon-cider vinegar water only until well into the afternoon. I have been IFing for at least 16 hours a day and many times longer. I aim for one meal a day but often have to eat something little a couple of hours before just to see me through. The hunger only starts after about 16 hours of no eating. And I can ride it through if I'm busy in which case it goes away after an hour or so.

I lost 10 lbs (4.5 kg). So that's 10 lbs in the first 'month' (always the easiest in which to to lose), playing at keto (meaning I reduced carbs drastically but probably didn't reach a state of ketosis), and absolutely doing IF. It seems that IF on its own is enough to lose weight in the first month. This coming month, until the linky again in four weeks time, I'm going to be stricter about not eating carbs.

I did notice that on a day when I ate even a bowl of plain rice, the scales jumped up significantly the next morning. This corroborates reports that the weight goes back on quickly after a ketogenic diet. I accept that but I also believe that the way to go is low-carb for life.

The Slimming Sunday linky is with Michelle on Mummy from the Heart and co-hosted by Emma on Life According to Mrs Shilts. You can pop over to either of these blogs for other slimming posts for inspiration and encouragement.