Fifteen and fasting?

Yup, my dose of warfarin was raised to 15mg per day today. Wow!  My INR result in the last month has been around 2.6 but today it was 2.2. 

I have been playing around with my diet a bit recently. Sometimes, I struggle with the 5:2 fasting diet because it’s difficult to get the right vegetables to go with my meals.  I now have two set meals containing similar vegetables, which I know are lower in vitamin K, which I have at dinner time on my fast days.

On my non fast days I am careful about what I eat most of the time. However, on a Sunday I have my family over and I like to make a two or three course meal.  But I tend to not worry about one day a week.

I have decided not to weigh myself for a few weeks and only judge my weight loss by how my clothes fit. Think my clothes have shrunk, must have been a boil wash!  Haha no, it’s fine, I am slowly starting to feel less bloated.

I am also trying to stick to clean eating on my non fast days (apart from Sundays) so I am keeping away from processed foods where I can.

The only processed food I tend to have, as a little treat on occasions, is a piece of dark chocolate.  I have set a limit – nothing under 70% cocoa.

Actually I have done a lot of work around trying to make this eating plan really work for me. Let me share:

I trade currencies and, in general, find the majority of my successful trades are when I follow a strict plan with strict rules. No deviation.  So I decided to set myself some rules for my Fasting Plan.  So here it is:

1. On fast days, the only carbs I have are my porridge in the morning and veg in the evening.
2. If I am going to have chocolate it must be no lower than 70% cocoa content
3. I am only allowed refined carbs on a Sunday (but I try not to)
4. I do not eat raw sugar. If I want to sweeten something I use honey or maple syrup
5. No sweeteners in drinks
6. No fizzy drinks or sodas, especially diet drinks
7. Keep portion sizes to around the size of my hand (my stomach is only the size of my hand so I don’t need more)
8. Only eat off small plates
9. Meditate a minimum of three times a day
10. Work with my subconscious in relation to food (I did a lot of subconscious work in setting up the benefits of being on an eating plan and how my subconscious can help me. It can help me connect more to my body to let me know when I am having foods that my body does not like)
11. Only have positive thoughts about food and diet. Think about how much this new plan is benefitting me and making me more and more healthy each day.
12. Prepare my fast day meals in bulk in advance and freeze so that I am organised
13. Eat two meals containing oily fish each week
14. Eat a maximum of one meal containing red meat a week
15. Use only ionised water for drinking water, tea and herbal tea
16. The only oils I permit myself are olive oil for eating and coconut butter for cooking
17. Use organic ingredients where possible
18. When I fall off the wagon? And I do… I don’t sabotage my efforts so far by saying ‘who cares, let’s go for it’ or by giving up. I enjoy the fact that I can have a day off and go back on my plan very easily. I also recognise that my stomach has a dislike for many of the processed foods now.

It may sound like a lot of rules to stick to but most of these have just developed as my eating plan has evolved. I had already cut out sweeteners and fizzy drinks after I stopped smoking as they began to taste too much of chemicals.

If you are on a diet, or are looking at starting an eating plan, then why not set out a list of rules, or better still a code, that you want to follow. If you are like me then sometimes using the word rules doesn’t help – rules are there to be broken! You want this to work so calling it a code is easier to follow (it’s a subconscious thing!).