FINALLY!

Ok, so I made a switch because I was not losing any weight over the course of three weeks. I began eating only dinner every day with the exeption of one weekend day. I have finally arrived at 335 and I'm starting to see my weight loss pick up a little momentum. I think part of my problem is that I eat too much at dinner and the other part is that I need to add more exercise. I work as an administrative law judge and due to the high rate of unemployment several of us have been asked to take on more hearings and work longer hours. I don't mind the extra pay with a kid on the way but it puts some restrictions on my time as far as exercise. I do not intend to stop eating this way since I can at least say that I'm not gaining weight and I am losing slowly. The real bottom line is that I enjoy this type of eating lifestyle and I find I feel better giving myself approximately 24 hours between meals. So, I'm definitely sticking with intermittent fasting, just need to make some adjustments = particularly adding some cardio exercise like walking.

Slow

Well, I finally broke down and bought a scale. The verdict - 340 lbs. Basically 10 or so pounds lost for the first month. I was concerned about eating too much on my off days so, except for the weekends, I'm basically fasting every day and eating supper at night = anyone familiar with the fast five, well this is more like a fast 2. I fast from approximately 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. and then eat during a two hour window. I lost a lot of weight in the past by just eating whatever I wanted from 7 a.m. in the morning until around 10:00 a.m. Unfortunatley, it is far more difficult to go through the rest of the day without eating after eating early, particulary from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at night. So here's my one month assessment of IF in general -

The good:
Easy to follow (well it is for me - certainly compared to most diets).
Because it's easier to follow, it's easier to stick with
Allows for a lot of leniency regarding what you eat that one meal
In my case, it allows me to eat dinner every night
I generally feel better following the IF lifestyle

The not as good:
Weight loss is slow- I'm seeing about 1.5 pounds a week but compared to gaining weight, it's nice to be going the other direction.

I'm sticking with IF just because I like it far better than what I was doing before which was just eating haphazardly without a plan and usually feeling guitly about eating. With IF I now just eat once a day in the evening and I eat because I need to eat, not just because I want to eat. Still a fan - I'm thinking I should incorporate some light to moderate exercise and see how that effects my results every week.

The good and the bad

I've been using IF for about two weeks now and I have to say, it's far easier than any other diet I've been on. I could see doing this the rest of my life just because I think I prefer eating this way to eating three meals a day every day. I have lost some weight, still not sure how much because my scale still says "EE" which means I'm still over 335. I noticed that I can now button a pair of pants that I couldn't button when I first started IF and my shirts fit better. That being said, I received a reality check when I went to Texas Roadhouse to eat last night. I normally get a table because, at most restaurants, I have difficulty getting into the booths due to my size. Well, they were really packed last night so we had to settle for a booth and I could not sit comfortably in the booth so I had to use a chair at a booth table. I have not always been this large - I weighed about 280 up to a couple of years ago which still made very overweight since I'm 6 foot 2. I divorced in 2007 and lost about 50 pounds - down to around 230 (I just basically did not eat for about 5 months). I stayed around 230-250 until 2008 when I met my current wife. After about a year of marriage, I ballooned up to around 350 lbs. Unless you've every been approximately 150 punds overweight, you can't imagine what it's like. You have no energy!! I'm going to start incorporating a little exercise every week into my routine and see how that goes. What I've really been curious about is why IF and alternative day fasting seemed to be really popular about two years ago and then the excitement around this eating style just died down. I fast 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. every other day and it really has been easy to do. I've only seen a couple of people stick with IF long term, one of whom is Dave Ward who has been doing IF for a little over a year now and has had great results (you can see Dave's blog at www.retireddieter.com). Anyway, I'm still waiting to hit my first major milestone which is the scale showing me an actual weight. With some luck, hopefully I'll see a weight instead of "EE" on the scale this time next week. Weight loss to date??? I'm guessing around 8-12 lbs.

Round one - getting started

I’m excited! This is hard to believe since I just turned 41 and weigh approximately 350 lbs but I believe I have found the solution to my weight problem and, for someone who has struggled with his weight his whole life, that’s something to really be excited about. I started off the first of this year like the most of Americans, with the foolish notion that this will be the year that I actually lose weight and start getting healthy. And like most Americans, I knew this to be a completely delusional pipe dream since it’s something I haven’t been able to do for 12 years now. In the course of perusing various diets, I found one that floored me. Not because it was necessarily easy or particularly innovative but because it was a diet I felt I could do consistently. It’s called intermittent fasting (referred to as IF) and if you’re like me and love to eat, it allows you to eat all the foods you like and, hopefully, still lose weight. What particularly attracted me to this diet is that, in theory, it looks like something I could do the rest of my life. I have fasted previously (I did an 11 day fast, a 7 day fast, and a 3 day fast) and I can tell you that sustained fasting for extended periods will absolutely NOT help you lose weight in the long term unless you stay on the fast in which case you’ll eventually die. I do, however, kind of enjoy that hungry feeling you get when you go several hours without eating (it’s also known as hunger) – particularly when I know that I am going to get rid of that feeling by eating something I really enjoy like Shrimp Ducky at Copelands!! Eating when you are truly hungry is…..satisfying.

The difference between intermittent fasting and sustained long term fasting is that with intermittent fasting you only fast for a period of 16 to 24 hours. One of the major benefits of IF is that it allows you to eat every day. I had never thought that not eating from 6 p.m. on one night to 6 p.m. the following night was actually a 24 hour fast but that is exactly what it is – time spent sleeping counts!! It doesn’t have to be rigidly structured – there are people who fast 16 hours and others that fast 18 or so hours and give themselves a 4 to 6 hour window to eat everyday. I have chosen to basically fast 24 hours every other day, doing the fast from 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the fast days so that I get to eat supper every day. I absolutely know I can stick with this, as a lifetime dieter I have done several diets involving one meal a day (usually at breakfast) and to be able to eat what I want 3 meals 3 to 4 days a week and eat supper every night seems almost decadent to me. I have to truly, truly thank Dave Ward for giving me the motivation to do this. I heard about the IF concept in late December of 2009 but I was concerned that it might not work in terms of weight loss. I found Dave’s blog right after New Year’s and it was a wonderful revelation. Dave is a Brit who has been utilizing IF for over a year has lost several stones doing IF - but I was more concerned with the weight that he lost than the stones………..ha, ha –I kid, although I wouldn’t mind losing my gallstones!! Dave lost approximately 56 pounds doing IF and has kept it off. Dave was not a particularly huge guy to begin with and he reached his goal weight about eight months into his IF regime. Having seen that he had successfully utilized IF and was still able to eat what he wanted, well that was it for me. Like I mentioned above, I love food but any fat person knows that it’s impossible to really enjoy food when your fat and have little hope of actually losing the weight. Well, with IF I eat what I want (I don’t add more food to my diet than I would normally eat when I’m not on a diet –thought I should clarify that) and I don’t feel guilty because I know I have just fasted for 24 hours and that I’m getting ready to fast 24 hours again. I am only one week into IF and I feel great and really enjoy the food freedom IF gives me. I’m very curious and hopeful to see what the rest of the year brings utilizing IF. My goal is to get down to 250 lbs by the end of 2010. My wife is pregnant (AND WHEN I FIND THE GUY WHO DID IT- TO THE MOON!!) our first child is due around mid July and it would be nice to be below 300 pounds by then. Right now I guesstimate that I weigh about 350 lbs – I say this because my scale stops at 335 and when I try to weigh now it says “EE” which basically means that I’m a fat ass who weighs too much for the scale. So, my first goal is to get to the point where I can step on the scale and it will give me a weight besides the dreaded “EE” readout. I did want to mention that I am definitely NOT he first or second person to utilize IF and there are several fitness experts who condone this way of eating for it’s health benefits. I am a lay person when it comes to the health benefits offered by IF, I just know that it’s a lifestyle that I can adopt and that there are other people (Dave Ward) who have done IF long term and have had amazing results. I’ll check back within two weeks time and hope that the scale has decided to become less cruel by that time.