The City Girl Farmer

My last two posts have been about my quest for health and the latest crazy ideas I have come across in that quest.  Well, I thought you’d like to have the nitty-gritty on how it has worked for me.  So here are the details.  I began the T-Tapp More 10-Day boot camp on January 13, 2012.  On that day, I weighed 172.6 lbs according to my very high-tech scale.  Measurements were as follows:

• Bust: 41″
• Pecs (around chest above bust, under armpits): 40″
• Ribs (under bust):  36 1/2″
• Waist:  36″
• Abdomen (fattest part of belly above hips):  42 1/2″
• Hips:  45 1/2″
• Upper thighs:  28″
• Lower thighs (2″ above kneecap):  18 1/2″
• Calves:  15″
• Upper arms:  13″

Just so you know, I did not execute this plan perfectly.  Life happens and there were a couple of days where I only did the abdomen toning routine for about….uh….5 minutes.  I never made up any exercise I missed.  Early in the second week of February I caught some sort of intestinal virus that had me in bed, close to a toilet.  I did not exercise at all for the two days I was in bed and for about 3 days afterwards I took it very easy and did not finish the 20 minute workout.  After the 10 day boot camp, I followed the plan and with a few exceptions did the 20 minute workout every other day.  Five weeks later I weighed 173.8 lbs. (gasp! I gained a pound!) and here are my measurements:

• Bust:  41 1/2 (Woohoo!  Gained a half-inch!)
• Pecs:  37″  (Happy dance!  Back fat going away)
• Ribs: 36″
• Waist:  35 1/2″
• Abdomen:  40″ (Another happy dance!  Belly fat going away!)
• Hips:  44″
• Upper thighs:  27 1/2″
• Lower thighs:  17 1/2″
• Calves:  15″
• Upper arms:  12″

So while I am not yet ready to be seen in a swimsuit, I find these results amazing.  But it doesn’t end there.  While I was in bed with the flu, I was reading Matt Stone’s 180 Degree Metabolism and decided that as soon as I was ready to eat anything again, I was going to start his Rehabilitative Rest and Re-Feeding program (affectionately known as RRARF).   It took me three days to be able to really start over feeding myself, but since then I have been eating 2 to 2 1/2 times what I normally eat and drinking things like this coconut cream concoction, which is essentially a fat bomb sweetened with about a half teaspoon of honey to make it taste like a dessert.

Rachel drinking coconut cream

Now I have never had anything against fat and have always considered butter, cream, cheese and a big juicy rib eye steak proof of the existence of a loving God.  But this has been just the most fun experiment, challenging myself to eat as many of the forbidden foods as I can!   I figured I was so fat that I really didn’t have anything to lose (no, the irony of that statement was not lost on me) so I went all out.  I was absolutely convinced that I had finally found the cause of my weight problem.  It was caused by a slow metabolism as the graph below will attest.

Basal temperatures from 2/7 to 2/19

(I am realizing as I check the preview on my blog that the numbers are so small you can’t see them, so the bottom number is 95.0 F. and the top number is 98.0 F, the goal.)  So I have been eating as much as I can of proteins, carbohydrates and fat and I feel great.  As you can see, my body responded immediately and there is a steady upward trend.  Digestion is great and energy is better.  I have been resting a lot.  Naps are an almost every day occurrence.  I’m doing the T-Tapp More DVD for 20 minutes every other day and finding that it fits in very well with RRARF.  Exercising too vigorously while your metabolism is low is counter-productive.  I’m treating myself as if I were my own patient or as if my body were my child.  The challenge has been letting go other things to find the time to make LOTS of good food and to rest but I really couldn’t be happier with the results.  (Well, actually I could but this is real life.)