Trying to lose weight is hard. I try to eat right and exercise and I'm lucky to drop .2 on the scale. And if I have one bad day, I gain. 7 years ago I gave up meat for health reasons and lost 50pounds. I try to follow a vegan diet but its more like a hardcore vegetarian diet. I've done a lot of reading on nutrition. I have even emailed researchers about their findings. (They don't like being questioned) So, long story short, I was watching an infomercial on Facebook from some bodybuilder guy who wants you to buy his program because he can make you look amazing with all the gains and I noticed something.... he was talking about things that I believe to be fact based on my research that most people don't know about (or better they've heard about but run away screaming with their hands over their ears). One of the things he talked about was intermittent fasting. I've heard about that a little bit but not very much & had not looked into it at but it caught my attention and I'll tell you why. I have been thinking about my diet in the way I eat for a while now. I lost 50 pounds and I eat pretty healthy so it doesn't seem like I should gain weight eating the same food that I ate when I lost weight. When I was younger I was very thin and I only ate dinner most of the time. Now everybody tells you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But is it? Really? I remember a girl I use to work with that was thin and she would just sit there while everybody else was eating lunch. I asked her why she wasn't eating and she said I like eating dinner. I said yeah me too and lunch and breakfast. Now here's the thing, I naturally do not have very much muscle mass. Because of this I do not burn a ton of calories. You need a calorie deficit to lose weight. Let's face it I don't have that many calories to work with in the first place! If I'm on a restricted calorie diet my meals are tiny. So I'm thinking if I only eat two meals a day and split all those calories up among those two meals that's two good size meals!
Now, from what I have read most people stop eating at a certain time in the evening and skip breakfast. I thought about it and talk to my sister about it and you know what? I think skipping dinner would be the better plan for me. There are tons of plans out there that you can read about... (16/8 method, eat stop eat, the worrier diet). I'm looking at this as a lifestyle, not a temporary diet.
For the last year I've really been trying to get my weight under control but also to get healthy. I'm 40 now and it's now or never to get my crap together!
This chart is my weight loss from the last 12 months. The big dip that happened in the early fall, I was doing a few things: I was going to the gym four days a week and because of that I wasn't eating dinner those four days. I loved the way I felt during that time. I loved waking up in the morning and having my stomach feel empty and actually be hungry for breakfast. I wasnt trying to do intermittent fasting, i was just too busy to eat after 4pm. So why not try this again? Only this time I will plan for it, make sure I'm getting everything I need during my eating time and see if I can get the same results, or better!
I started on Tuesday of this week, today, Thursday, is day 3. So far I have stopped eating at 3pm & do not plan to eat again till around 9am the next day. And so far I'm not hungry at night. I want to eat out of habit or boredom but not b/c I'm hungry. You can see by the down turn in my weight that I have corrected the little gain I had going on. I'm planning on doing this Monday-Thursday for now. Then maybe skipping breakfast on Saturday & Sunday. We will see if that changes but that's the plan for now!
Right now, in the evenings, its a mental fight! Me vs. my brain! And so far (3days in) I'm winning!