The story so far: I’m trying to shift the last few stubborn pounds at the end of a long diet.

Good evening, readers. Yesterday’s spinach and vigorous exercise paid off and I weighed in this morning at 142.4 pounds, a loss of about half a pound since the day before.

I ate 1234 calories today, which makes 5 consecutive days of staying within my calorie limit. This is not easily achieved as I regularly fall off my diet and eat chocolate and cake, this happens every few days or at least every few weeks and it sets back my weight loss.

Today I was quite hungry in the early part of the day, or maybe I just mean greedy. I found I had eaten 1234 calories by 3.30pm and I could feel myself looking around for high-carb, sugary foods to graze on. It could have easily got out of control. So I put my foot down. I just said no to any more food until tomorrow, using the logic that 1234 is perfectly adequate for a day, for someone on a diet who has a desk job. I also remembered that I have the Life app on my phone, which is for people who do intermittent fasting.

I have previously done a bit of IF in earlier stages of this weight loss journey and I found a 16:8 schedule to be achievable and really effective for controlling over-eating so I am going to return to it for a while. I think it will help.

I started the app at about 3.30pm as you see below and resolved to fast until about 12.30 tomorrow, when I will have a late breakfast. So that’s what the app is tracking for me. It tells me how many hours I have left before mealtime and as I get into the later hours it will start sending me encouraging messages about much fat I’m burning.

I’ve just been shopping for sugar-free treats on Amazon and have ordered two bottles of Monin flavoured coffee syrup, which I cannot wait to review, and a bag of mixed, sugar-free sweets which I will also review. I used to think I would never eat foods with artificial sweeteners in them but I have climbed down from that high horse now. I need to stay within my calorie limit for more than just a handful of days at a time and I will take all the help I can get.

And that’s all today’s news.