I have seen a lot of posts recently, understandably, from people who gained weight over the holidays after initially losing quite a bit through IF. This spoke to me.
I lost quite a bit of weight last year doing OMAD and reached Summer 2021 the lightest I'd been in probably 20 years (since high school). Since then, I have gained just over half of it back, and most of it in the last couple of months.
Happily, I now know how to lose the weight and I feel like I am well-trained to fast, so I have got started again and I am excited about losing the weight. I will do BETTER this time!
I thought it might be useful to reflect on why it is that I, and others, gain it back after being so successful. The hope is that we can share and understand this better so we can avoid it in future.
Me? I have this weird thing where, when I start getting compliments from people about looking slimmer/healthier, and start fitting into smaller clothes, I start thinking 'job done' and I get far too complacent and confident. This leads to me having a few days off fasting... "no worries just make it up later. you'll be fine'. then a couple of months passes and I've put on more weight, drinking/eating too much etc. "Ah no problem, you know how to fast, you'll be good. Just avoid sugary stuff and fast a little bit". Then I'm back on the cakes and fast food every day and I'm like "ahhh I'll be fine, I'll just fast later". Then I find myself not too far off where I started it all.
FINALLY I've managed to turn around the runaway train and get back on OMAD, but this mindset needs to change!
Curious to hear others' reflections on this. Maybe we can help each other to avoid complacency on this journey.
Answer
> I have this weird thing where, when I start getting compliments from people about looking slimmer/healthier, and start fitting into smaller clothes, I start thinking ‘job done’ and I get far too complacent and confident. This leads to me having a few days off fasting… “no worries just make it up later. you’ll be fine’. then a couple of months passes and I’ve put on more weight, drinking/eating too much etc. “Ah no problem, you know how to fast, you’ll be good. Just avoid sugary stuff and fast a little bit”. Then I’m back on the cakes and fast food every day and I’m like “ahhh I’ll be fine, I’ll just fast later”. Then I find myself not too far off where I started it all.
This describes me to a T.
This year my plan is to get into a “forever” schedule of 2 days of 20:4 and one 36 hour fast a week, which I have calculated should keep me at maintenance (I can tweak if needed once I’m at my target weight). The 36hr fast is for the other health benefits. I think if I can do this for the whole year, with no cheat weeks, it will hopefully be an ingrained habit.
I’ve got some longer periods of continuous 20:4 planned for actual weight loss (in the middle of one now) but the goal is more to get into the habit of the regular schedule than weight loss this year.