I've been doing intermittent fasting for over a year now and just wanted to give an update for other people thinking about trying it.
Initial post from July 2013:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1moreTRich
I'm a major lurker for this thread and just wanted to give my results after 13 weeks of intermittent fasting. Wasn't really getting into it to lose weight per say, but wanted to see if it would be sustainable program for me instead of daily calorie counting. Also, I am a chick.
My process:
24 hour fast from Sunday night approx 7pm to Monday night approx 7pm.
24 hour fast from Tuesday night approx 7pm to Wednesday night approx 7pm.
I work out approx three to four days a week with around 500 calories a day burned from that activity (running, elliptical, and/or swimming depending on my mood).
Only drank tea, water, diet soda, and diet sweet tea on my fast days.
Non fasting days I have no limits as far as overall and type of calories.
Personal Stats: I am about 5'5'' and started out around 142lbs. I have maintained my weight (142lb is 6lbs heavier than my strong high school weight when I was playing sports and in fantastic shape) throughout my adult life by working out and watching my calories.
Results: I am now at 134lbs with a noticeable difference around my waist. I have no trouble not eating on my fast days and enjoy working out on those days, right before I eat, the most. I don't feel as strong as I did previously, but I'm not sure if it a noticeable difference or if I just have a mindset that going below 136 makes me weaker. Since I do very little weight training and am not focused on strength at this time, I can't stipulate more on how it affects that. On my non-fast days I drink more soda and eat more sweets than I ever would have before fasting, but as far as weight gain goes, it does not seem to be negatively affecting me. (I would approximate I drank regular soda once a month and ate sweets twice a week before fasting, now I probably have regular soda once a week and sweets 4 times a week). I would approximate on my non fast days I am probably eating around 1.5K-2.5K calories, but that is a huge guess as I am not paying that close of attention. I do think my overall appetite has decreased from when I started and even on some of my non-fast days I find myself not really being that hungry.
This is the lowest I have weighed since I was in high school (I am 31) and I feel the overall effort has been lower than what I had to do in the past to maintain my weight. There have been weeks where I only work out 2 days and do not see huge issues or large weight gains. I feel good overall and feel that this program is a fairly simple one to maintain. I'm going to continue on with my current plan and see when my weight will start to stabilize as its been a pretty consistent .5-1lb per week loss right now.
Just thought I would share my results with those thinking about trying it and get anybody's opinion on my current plan. Again, my goal is just about maintaining a healthy weight in a relatively easy way.
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Update: Right now I am back to 142 after ballooning a bit during tax season due to having to chose sleep or exercise (sleep won a lot) and not having the best eating habits. There have probably been around 4 weeks in the year+ that I did not do two days of fasting. There have also been a handful of weeks where I did 3 days of fasting. I have found that as the year went on that I couldn't just eat anything on my non-fast days without gaining back weight. I still don't necessarily count calories, but I'm not able to go completely crazy and eat anything and everything on my non-fast days. On my fast days, I have to be careful to drink water and fluids or I get a headache by 3pm. This started happening around 6 months ago and I'm not sure if there is a better way to counter act it. My exercise routine right now is two days of 1hr cycle class+a couple miles of running and two days running and lifting; some swimming will soon replace one of the lifting running days. My fast day is usually closer to 22hrs instead of 24hrs and I sometimes will switch days depending on my schedule.
My expectations are to be back in the 130s in the next couple weeks. I'm not sure I want to be back all the way to 134, but hopefully now that I am back on a good routine, both diet and exercise, I am able to get back down close within a couple months.
Anyway, just thought I would throw an update up if anyone was thinking about doing something similar.