I did it guys. This is the first time in over 8 years that I am below a 3 digit weight. And to make things more special, I am reaching this goal in the last day of 2020, one of the worst years of recent human history for sure. Below I will tell my story, so read on if you're interested in how I did it! My initial weight was 120 kg.
After reading a book called "Why We Sleep" by Dr. Matthew Walker in late 2019, I got very interested in learning more about circadian rhythms, so I picked a up book called "The Circadian Code" by Dr. Satchin Panda, PhD.
In Dr. Panda's book there was a chapter dedicated exclusively to time-restricted eating which sometimes is referred to as intermittent fasting (although some people claim these are different concepts). Anyway, I was impressed by what I was reading and I quote the paragraphs that sold me the idea of time-restricted eating: "Our experiment with genetically identical mice focused solely on the restriction of time for eating, and it produced amazing outcomes, establishing the idea that it’s not only how much we eat and what we eat, but when we eat that matters, especially for longterm positive health outcomes. We took pairs of genetically identical mice born to the same parents and raised in the same home and gave one group access to a high fat-diet whenever they wanted. The other group had the same amount of food, but they had to eat all their food within an 8-hour window. The mice with the smaller food window quickly learned to eat the same number of calories as the mice that had access to food all the time. In other words, mice on a 24-7 schedule ate small meals spread throughout the day and night, while mice on an 8-hour schedule ate the same number of calories, just in larger meals within the 8 hours".
And he continued:
"What’s more, over the first 12 weeks of the study, when the mice ate the same number of calories following the same high-fat/high sugar diet that in 11,000 other publications had been shown to cause severe metabolic diseases, but within an 8-hour window, they were completely protected from the diseases normally seen with a poor diet. The time-restricted eating mice didn’t gain excess weight, and they had normal blood sugar and normal cholesterol levels. We believe that a shortened feeding period provides the digestive system the right amount of time to perform its function uninterrupted by a new influx of food, and enough time to repair and rejuvenate, supporting the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. This restricted feeding period is in alignment with the mice’s natural circadian code, which is why they lost weight and stayed healthier. The benefits continued week after week for an entire year (which is like several years of human life) as long as the mice stayed on the new eating schedule. In fact, the health benefits were far greater than the effect of a drug to treat the same condition. Remember, we did not change the diet and we did not reduce their calories. Timing made the magic."
This is what the mice looked like on non-time restricted eating vs. time restricted eating: static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cach..
So, I started this new way of eating in January of this year and I did not restrict what I ate, or the amount of food I ate, just the time in which I ate. I noticed that simply by restricting the time of my meals I felt less hungry and I was finally giving my body the opportunity to burn the stored fat on the fasting hours. I dropped 4 kg in a couple of weeks. Motivated by the rapid weight loss, I began correcting some awful eating habits I had, such as eating a high carbohydrate meal at 2AM when I wasn't even hungry, I just wanted to eat. Food addiction is a thing, but I digress.
In the middle of the year I had an unusual amount of stress in my life, such as the death of my cat (RIP baby) and I completely fell off the wagon. Pretty soon I regained a bunch of weight and the bad eating habits kicked again. You return to your old eating habits and most of the time you don't even notice. At the time I was just going through the motions.
This slump lasted for about 2 months, but I came with renewed resolve. I promised myself I would do anything in my power to truly learn what causes weight gain, how to lose it and to keep it off. I would not give up this time and no matter what happened I would persist.
Fast forward to late August I was weighing 112 kg, and my weight loss had slowed down quite significantly, but I was determined to keep doing what I was doing. I was also willing to test different methods to improve my results. Jim Rohn once said "The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy." So I applied this thinking to different diet strategies. I thought "what if the Keto diet is not as bad as the majority of people say it is?" (these are the people from the calories in/out channels, btw).
I kept the idea of Keto in my head but only implemented it in mid-october, kinda by accident. One day I ate just salad and chicken breast in lunch and I felt good. Later that day I ate an omelette and some veggies and then went to bed. The next day I asked myself "Can I go another day without carbs?" and I did. And then I kept asking myself this question everyday until I was 100% in ketosis.
My weight dropped like crazy in just a few weeks. So that was my new plan: intermittent fasting (time restricted eating) with the Ketogenic diet. In early november I weighed myself at 106 kg, by mid november I was at 103 and late november I was at 102kg.
I don't know what happened, but in early december I had gained 2 kg and went back to 104kg. I suspect I was eating way too much cheese xD. Anyway, I just stayed on track and kept learning more and more about the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. I didn't mention this, but I kept learning something new everyday about weight loss, weight maintenance, minerals, more advanced things like mTOR, AMPK, etc. Health in general. I think I did not miss a single day of learning something new, even when I was in a slump in the middle of the year like I previously mentioned. It is so so so SO important to keep learning. Because once you learn nobody can fool you anymore. You can spot BS when you read it or hear it. I'm not claiming that I know the "truth", but I digress.
So, back to december. Nothing new happened, aside from start walking a few times per week (exercise was non-existent before -- because of covid). I'm not doing exercise for weight loss reasons, because the truth is, it is not a very effective way to lose weight. In this weight loss journey I noticed that the Pareto Principle applies to diet. 80% of your results is due to diet (this includes changes in gut microbiome, correction of hormonal imbalances, reducing inflammation, etc.) and the other 20% is everything else like exercise.
So yesterday I ate a big OMAD meal (one meal a day) and fasted afterwards. Today I weighed myself at 99.9 kg. Feels so good to see my weight go below 1XX+ in so many years. My new goal is to start working out again as soon as this pandemic is over and continue Keto and IF. I hope to lose more weight and stay anywhere between 85-90 kg by the end of 2021. But I quickly learned weight loss is not really under my control, the best I can do is improve my chances of succeeding by doing everything "correctly". If you read till the end congrats and I hope you enjoyed it.
Happy 2021 everyone!
I did it guys. This is the first time in over 8 years that I am below a 3 digit weight. And to make things more special, I am reaching this goal in the last day of 2020, one of the worst years of recent human history for sure. Below I will tell my story, so read on if you're interested in how I did it! My initial weight was 120 kg.After reading a book called "Why We Sleep" by Dr. Matthew Walker in late 2019, I got very interested in learning more about circadian rhythms, so I picked a up book called "The Circadian Code" by Dr. Satchin Panda, PhD.In Dr. Panda's book there was a chapter dedicated exclusively to time-restricted eating which sometimes is referred to as intermittent fasting (although some people claim these are different concepts). Anyway, I was impressed by what I was reading and I quote the paragraphs that sold me the idea of time-restricted eating: "Our experiment with genetically identical mice focused solely on the restriction of time for eating, and it produced amazing outcomes, establishing the idea that it’s not only how much we eat and what we eat, but when we eat that matters, especially for longterm positive health outcomes. We took pairs of genetically identical mice born to the same parents and raised in the same home and gave one group access to a high fat-diet whenever they wanted. The other group had the same amount of food, but they had to eat all their food within an 8-hour window. The mice with the smaller food window quickly learned to eat the same number of calories as the mice that had access to food all the time. In other words, mice on a 24-7 schedule ate small meals spread throughout the day and night, while mice on an 8-hour schedule ate the same number of calories, just in larger meals within the 8 hours".And he continued:"What’s more, over the first 12 weeks of the study, when the mice ate the same number of calories following the same high-fat/high sugar diet that in 11,000 other publications had been shown to cause severe metabolic diseases, but within an 8-hour window, they were completely protected from the diseases normally seen with a poor diet. The time-restricted eating mice didn’t gain excess weight, and they had normal blood sugar and normal cholesterol levels. We believe that a shortened feeding period provides the digestive system the right amount of time to perform its function uninterrupted by a new influx of food, and enough time to repair and rejuvenate, supporting the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. This restricted feeding period is in alignment with the mice’s natural circadian code, which is why they lost weight and stayed healthier. The benefits continued week after week for an entire year (which is like several years of human life) as long as the mice stayed on the new eating schedule. In fact, the health benefits were far greater than the effect of a drug to treat the same condition. Remember, we did not change the diet and we did not reduce their calories. Timing made the magic."This is what the mice looked like on non-time restricted eating vs. time restricted eating: static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cach..So, I started this new way of eating in January of this year and I did not restrict what I ate, or the amount of food I ate, just the time in which I ate. I noticed that simply by restricting the time of my meals I felt less hungry and I was finally giving my body the opportunity to burn the stored fat on the fasting hours. I dropped 4 kg in a couple of weeks. Motivated by the rapid weight loss, I began correcting some awful eating habits I had, such as eating a high carbohydrate meal at 2AM when I wasn't even hungry, I just wanted to eat. Food addiction is a thing, but I digress.In the middle of the year I had an unusual amount of stress in my life, such as the death of my cat (RIP baby) and I completely fell off the wagon. Pretty soon I regained a bunch of weight and the bad eating habits kicked again. You return to your old eating habits and most of the time you don't even notice. At the time I was just going through the motions.This slump lasted for about 2 months, but I came with renewed resolve. I promised myself I would do anything in my power to truly learn what causes weight gain, how to lose it and to keep it off. I would not give up this time and no matter what happened I would persist.Fast forward to late August I was weighing 112 kg, and my weight loss had slowed down quite significantly, but I was determined to keep doing what I was doing. I was also willing to test different methods to improve my results. Jim Rohn once said "The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy." So I applied this thinking to different diet strategies. I thought "what if the Keto diet is not as bad as the majority of people say it is?" (these are the people from the calories in/out channels, btw).I kept the idea of Keto in my head but only implemented it in mid-october, kinda by accident. One day I ate just salad and chicken breast in lunch and I felt good. Later that day I ate an omelette and some veggies and then went to bed. The next day I asked myself "Can I go another day without carbs?" and I did. And then I kept asking myself this question everyday until I was 100% in ketosis.My weight dropped like crazy in just a few weeks. So that was my new plan: intermittent fasting (time restricted eating) with the Ketogenic diet. In early november I weighed myself at 106 kg, by mid november I was at 103 and late november I was at 102kg.I don't know what happened, but in early december I had gained 2 kg and went back to 104kg. I suspect I was eating way too much cheese xD. Anyway, I just stayed on track and kept learning more and more about the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. I didn't mention this, but I kept learning something new everyday about weight loss, weight maintenance, minerals, more advanced things like mTOR, AMPK, etc. Health in general. I think I did not miss a single day of learning something new, even when I was in a slump in the middle of the year like I previously mentioned. It is so so so SO important to keep learning. Because once you learn nobody can fool you anymore. You can spot BS when you read it or hear it. I'm not claiming that I know the "truth", but I digress.So, back to december. Nothing new happened, aside from start walking a few times per week (exercise was non-existent before -- because of covid). I'm not doing exercise for weight loss reasons, because the truth is, it is not a very effective way to lose weight. In this weight loss journey I noticed that the Pareto Principle applies to diet. 80% of your results is due to diet (this includes changes in gut microbiome, correction of hormonal imbalances, reducing inflammation, etc.) and the other 20% is everything else like exercise.So yesterday I ate a big OMAD meal (one meal a day) and fasted afterwards. Today I weighed myself at 99.9 kg. Feels so good to see my weight go below 1XX+ in so many years. My new goal is to start working out again as soon as this pandemic is over and continue Keto and IF. I hope to lose more weight and stay anywhere between 85-90 kg by the end of 2021. But I quickly learned weight loss is not really under my control, the best I can do is improve my chances of succeeding by doing everything "correctly". If you read till the end congrats and I hope you enjoyed it.Happy 2021 everyone! https://ift.tt/eA8V8J https://ift.tt/2WZX3ne
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