This is how I broke my fast on Day 8! The eating days are great. The fasting days are getting much easier. I am finding that I only get hunger pangs about 45 minutes before I normally eat my meal on fasting days and then again when I wake up the morning after fasting. I made one change to my regime to that is really helping with getting through fasting days - I started using a meal replacement shake on Day 9 (fasting Day 5). I did this for 2 reasons a) to help control my hunger and b) to make sure I am getting enough vitamins and minerals. I also decided to pick up a multivitamin and a magnesium supplement to alleviate the muscle cramps I was experiencing.
The meal replacement shake I have is Almased. I had some leftover from when I thought I could do the Almased diet. This diet is like most other meal replacement diets - 2 shakes a day plus a meal consisting of broth for the reset phase. I did if for 3 days then I said screw it. I didn't even make it to phase two where you get 2 shakes plus a meal. I like to eat and I found it was really hard not eating when I was living in a house with 9 people and there was always a kid with food in their hand. Like most other meal replacement shakes its tastes chalky and it seemed expensive to buy. You get 500 g in a container, there are 50 g in a serving and it costs between $34.48 and $42.63 (including tax) depending on where you purchase it. I just picked up a new can of it from Walmart for $29.99 plus tax ($34.48). This makes it $3.45 per serving. Definitely steeper in price than some of the other supplements.
So why I am choosing Almased as my meal replacement if its the most expensive one? Simple - The Ingredients. Soy protein, honey, skim milk yogurt powder, and a host of vitamins and minerals. There are a few other things in it like maltodextrin and corn starch but compared to some of the other supplements I looked at its by far the healthiest. Importantly to me its gluten free. Don't worry Almased is not paying me to write about their product. I blog only gets about 10 views per post.
The reason I tried Almased in the first place is because it is made in Germany. Almased been around since the 80's and I remembered seeing ads for it when I lived in Munich. I have a strong love of Germany and all things German. It was there I found out about my thyroid disorder and lost weight for the first time in my life. I have nothing but praise for the medical system there. Silly reason to decide to try something but hey.
I have been tracking my calories with Calorie Count at the end of each fast and feast day just to make sure they are in line with protocol. My fasting days I range between 750 and 800 calories. This is about 200 calories higher than recommended for my body weight on the Every Other Day Diet. I should be shooting for 625 calories. This will come down as I lose more weight with alternate-day fasting to 500 calories once I am closer to my goal weight of 175 lbs.
My hope is that by using a meal replacement during my fast day that I can get the calories down from 750 or 800 to between 500 and 625. If I have a shake and a small meal of fish and vegetable I should be able to do this. The Almased keeps me really full for hours when I drink it and should work better with that Alternate-Day fasting regime than just drinking shakes all day with no food for a week.
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