I didn’t eat at all yesterday. While I didn’t get terribly hungry, I REALLY wanted to eat something. I missed food, I guess. Physiologically, my body was doing just fine, but I was struggling a bit psychologically. My brain just kept trying to point me toward eating.

I get a lot of pleasure from eating. It’s something I look forward to. I suppose it’s almost a way of self-medicating at times. When I’m anxious or depressed, I’m drawn to sugar and carbohydrates. After I consume a pint of ice cream or an entire pizza, I feel better.

For me, the psychological struggle to lose weight is just as hard as the physiological struggle. My body doesn’t like feeling hungry, and my brain doesn’t like feeling unsatiated. So weight loss is a battle fought on two fronts. To deal with the hunger pangs during a fasting day, I just keep in mind that I’ll eat the next morning, and that helps me stave off the urge to eat. It’s more difficult to dismiss the psychological longing to eat, so I have to think about the long-term goal to keep that craving at bay.

I’m gaining confidence that I can sustain fasting three days per week. Doing this will obviously accelerate my weight loss, and I’m hoping that my goal of losing 80 pounds will require less than four months of deprivation. So far, in just three days, I’ve lost ten pounds. There will likely come a time when the weight stops coming off so easily (due to a shift in metabolism and having less fat to burn), but it feels good to be lighter today than I was yesterday and the day before.

My brain is a bit sluggish this morning and I have a touch of a headache. Whether this is due to not eating yesterday or something else (like my ongoing sleep issues or the various allergens in the air here) I don’t know, but I think it’s time for (more) coffee.