I fasted all day yesterday, and it was good to get back on track, but I only lost a couple of pounds. However, I refrained from eating despite having gone to Whole Foods and picking up some tempting stuff (cheese and fruit), which exercised my will power. And I utilized some significant self-restraint to avoid buying something that would have wrecked my attempts to limit my carbohydrate intake: sweet Hawaiian dinner rolls. I have no idea why these things got in my head last night (I wasn’t primed to think about them like the tortilla chips I wrote about yesterday), but their fluffy goodness was on my mind for some reason. I was just dead-set on getting them. I went to the bread aisle, looked around and finally found them, and had a package in my hand. And then I looked at the nutrition information. Each small roll has 19 grams of carbohydrates, including five grams of added sugars.

The combination of sugar and flour is deadly for me. I LOVE baked goods. The problem is that refined flour is easily broken down by the body and, like sugar, results in elevated glucose in the blood, which in turn provokes an insulin response. So anything consisting of primarily refined flour and sugar is a double whammy for the body. This combination will inevitably result in weight gain, especially if its intake is significant and sustained. I’m quite certain that many of the pounds that I’m trying to shed were gained from consuming pumpkin muffins from Whole Foods. If you’ve ever had muffins from Whole Foods, you know how heavy (and delicious) they are. Each one must weigh close to a pound, and it feels like you’re putting a small barbell weight in your basket when you pick up a four-pack.

Anyway, I was quite proud of myself for putting those sweet Hawaiian rolls back on the shelf. I knew that I could never limit myself to just one or two—those things are just too irresistible, and it’s entirely possible that I would have eaten the entire dozen. Disaster avoided. I did get some fruit, and all fruit has carbohydrates and fructose, but fruit also has a lot of fiber (not to mention a ton of phytonutrients), so consuming a bunch of grapes is not remotely like consuming a pack of sweet Hawaiian rolls.

On another note, I was reading a new book on intermittent fasting yesterday and was horrified to be reminded of why a three-day fast would be a bad idea. After fasting for 36 hours, the body stops breaking down fat for fuel and begins breaking down muscle because it goes into starvation mode. Sure, you’ll continue to lose weight as you march on to that 72 hours of misery, but the latter part of the weight loss will be due to muscle loss rather than fat loss. Oof. I’ve successfully completed a handful of three-day fasts before, but I won’t be going without food that long again (at least not for weight loss—there are other benefits to extended fasts, but I’m not interested in those right now).

I am disappointed that I didn’t lose more weight after my day-long fast, but I did drink a lot of water yesterday, so perhaps that accounts for the meager two-pound loss (I was expecting a loss of three or four pounds). Still, I did have a not-so-insignificant victory in resisting the sweet Hawaiian rolls, and I was reminded of why I shouldn’t fast for more than 36 hours during this journey, so I can’t be too hard on myself.