Day 5 - Fast Forward Almost Over!

Today, I was down 4.5 pounds from Saturday. Can’t wait to see my final weigh-in tomorrow!

At times, this Fast Forward phase has been both very hard and quite easy. Almost as much as the weight loss, I appreciated the energy burst and confidence that I felt each day. Because the FF phase has been preparing my body for regular meal intervals, I didn’t feel “all-day” hunger as I expected to. Sure, there were times when my stomach was rumbling, but I finally discovered the power of my brain against eating at times when I knew that I shouldn’t. One of my biggest shortcomings before beginning this plan was the constant need that I felt to snack or munch all day long. It became easier to tell myself: “It’s not time to eat yet.”

Also surprisingly, throughout these 5 days, I began to crave some of the foods I would be eating before I ate them -- even though I only ate the same 5 foods (especially almond butter and cloves – but not together of course!)

Meals were exactly the same again today at the same times. But all day long, I was so excited about the upcoming meals that I would be having after this day was over. I also thought about my family a lot today. I continued to cook “their meals” for a few days during this phase, but today my feelings were about wanting them to experience the same type of energy I had through the meals with balanced food groups & portion sizes that I knew I would be eating after this phase. Even though this book is viewed somewhat as a “diet that aids in weight loss”, the author also advocates it as a “lifestyle change” about how we are supposed to eat.

Through some Internet surfing today, I stumbled upon 2 other women’s blogs about their experience with Cinch! They are MUCH more detailed than mine including pictures of their food, what they ate, and exact quantities of their meals during the 25-day phase. I also found this super cool spreadsheet that someone else put together including all the meals in the book, which meals they had already tried and their thoughts about them, and store grocery lists! How super cool is that? Maybe I will start posting pictures too! I wish I could just “follow” them from this blog, so the bookmark would be super easy, but their blogs are in WordPress, and I’m using BlogSpot. Not sure how or whether I can do that???

So excited about that Banana Ricotta Hazelnut Toast in the morning! :-)