Intermittent Fasting Update: 11 Weeks

I’m down another 3 lbs this week (36.5 lbs total).   I even got into some old jeans I haven’t worn in years.  Some of my shirts (2XLT) are starting to look ridiculously large on me.  Soon I will convert them to “lounge wear” (as I like to wear oversize clothes around the house) and break out my “skinny” wardrobe for work.  In one respect, it’s nice to have so many different sizes to choose from.  In another, it’s pathetic.  I hope never to see 2XLT again.

This has been a fascinating week of fasting and exercise.  Let me share with you what I’ve learned:

• It’s nice not being on a diet and being able to eat whatever I want (within reason). I’ve said all along, that I would not restrict the things I eat.  I want to be able to enjoy my favorite foods and learn to eat them in moderation – something I’ve seldom done in the past.  This week was a great test.  On Sunday, we celebrated my oldest grandson’s birthday.  He’s nine and planned the whole day.  The first thing we did was eat breakfast at Bob Evans (his choice).  I ordered a three egg omelet with cheese, spinach, ham and bacon.  It came with banana bread, home fries and hollandaise sauce.  I ate till I was satisfied and then pushed the rest away (about 1/3 of the meal).

After that, we went bowling and then home for the good stuff:  homemade apple pie and ice cream.  Scattered around the table like confetti were M&Ms.  I helped myself to the chocolate and ate a big wedge of pie and scoop of ice cream.  Both were delicious.  We opened presents and played games and had a great time.  Later that evening, I simply cut back on my calories by eating a big spinach salad with chicken.  I figure I ate more than my normal limit of calories for the day (I never really count calories – that’s no fun) and then simply cut back a bit the next day (Monday).  By Tuesday I was right back on track.

Here’s something you may find interesting.  I eat a whole potato every night at my evening meal.  And it’s always a big one.  Sometimes it’s nuked.  Sometimes it’s boiled.  Sometimes it’s cut up like home-fries, seasoned and baked in the oven.  I’ve thought about giving up my potato if I stall out on my weight loss, but so far so good.  I do love it and would miss it if I didn’t have it.  But isn’t it remarkable that I can eat a potato every night smothered in butter or sour cream and still lose weight.  I love Intermittent Fasting.

• It’s important to set a short-term weight loss goal each week and record your weight on the same day. I record my weight first thing Saturday morning.  That is not to say I don’t check my weight throughout the week, I do.  But since weight can fluctuate so much depending on water retention, salt intake, how large or small was your last few meals, whether you’ve had a recent BM, when you last exercised – I think it’s important to have at least one control factor – something you do consistently week after week.  For me, it’s Saturday morning weigh-ins.  I’ve chosen Saturday for several reasons.

(1) If forces me to eat right through Friday night.  It’s so easy to blow your entire week of hard work by letting your guard down at the beginning of the weekend.  Knowing that I have to weigh-in on Saturday morning motivates me to eat clean through Friday evening.

(2)  Weekends are generally less structured (when and what we eat) and more oriented to family-time (we spend a lot of time with the grand-kids).  If I choose to eat freely throughout the weekend, I like having the structure of M-F to get back on track for my next weigh-in.  I find it very easy to restrict my calories throughout the week, because I am generally very busy at work and thus preoccupied and because I have a strict fasting and exercise routine built into my day.  If I’ve eaten a few too many calories over the weekend, I still have a solid 5 days to reach my goal.

(3)  Having reached my goal on Saturday (I’ve hit the mark every time for the past 11 weeks), I feel somewhat motivated to maintain my weight loss throughout the weekend.  This helps control any urge I might have to binge.  Knowing I am the lowest weight I’ve been in years, motivates me to watch what and how much I eat on those days when I have little or no structure to my days.  It’s a nice safeguard.

Let me say one thing about goal setting.  It’s important to set both short and long term goals and to make sure they are reasonable.  Losing 2-3 lbs a week is a very reasonable goal.  Anything beyond that is (a) wishful thinking and (b) unhealthy.  My long term goal is to get down to 225 lbs by the end of the year (a loss of 75 lbs in 28 weeks), see how I look and feel at that point and then set a new goal based on my needs at that time.  To do this, I need to average a weight loss of around 2.6 lbs per week.  That then becomes my short term goal.  Here is what my weight loss looks like thus far:

6/16 – 300

6/26 – 297

7/6 – 289.25

7/10 – 287

7/17 – 283

7/24 – 278

7/31 – 275

8/7 –  273

8/14 – 271

8/21 – 269

8/28 – 266.50

9/4 – 263.50

As you can see, I didn’t get my Saturday weigh-in on track till several weeks into the diet when I realized I needed a control.  And secondly, more importantly, I have sought to keep my weight loss in the 2-3 lbs per week range throughout my diet.  I could have lost more each week (all you need to do is add lots of cardio), but I chose to go at it slowly, focusing on losing just the FAT and retain as much MUSCLE as possible.

Here’s the takeaway this week: Intermittent Fasting is the easiest way I’ve ever used to lose weight.  You can still eat most, if not all, your favorite foods within moderation.  There is no calorie counting and no long, boring, muscle-wasting cardio.  Make sure you set reasonable long and short term goals.  And record your weight loss just one time per week.  Beyond that:  Work hard (resistance training), be patient (it’s not fast), and think Apple Pie and Ice Cream.  Best wishes on your weight loss.

Intermittent Fasting Update: 10 Weeks

I’m down another 2.5 lbs this week (33.5 lbs in all).  This is starting to add up to some serious weight loss.  Three more weeks and I’ll be halfway to my first goal.  I’m getting excited.  I’ve always felt that if I can reach the halfway mark (regardless if it’s miles hiked/ran, number of reps lifted, or weight loss), I can reach the finish line.  I can’t quite see it yet, but I know it’s somewhere just over the next hill and that makes me want to push even harder.  Time will tell if I succeed.  Anyhow, this is what I learned this week about fasting and exercise:

• I like sweeteners and I don’t care who knows it. I know you’re not supposed to use artificial sweeteners.  “Just drink water.”  But I hate water.  No, that’s not altogether true.  I enjoy a good cold bottle of water when I’m exercising or after a hot sticky hour of yard work, but who wants to sip on water while watching your favorite movie or sports team.  It ain’t happening.  So, I drink diet soda, Crystal Light, and caffeine-free tea with sweetener.  I don’t drink coffee or alcohol – at least that’s something – and I don’t use sugar but I refuse to give up my sweetener.  Life is too short to give up sweets altogether.  I’ve read everything there is to read on the use of artificial sweeteners and to be honest I find it all contradictory.  Common sense dictates that you’re probably better off not putting added chemicals in your body.  So, I grant critics the fact that “pure water” (whatever that means) is probably healthier than drinking stuff with sweeteners, but I’ll take the chance that they may cause cancer.  As long as I am losing weight and feeling good and can still enjoy sweet things, life is good.  Heck, I’ll probably get hit by a bus long before the evils of artificial sweeteners get me.

• Staying Busy is one key to success. I notice when I’m home alone with nothing to do, I tend to obsess a bit over my diet/exercise.  I am constantly reading or writing about exercise/weight loss.  I analyze how I feel, dream about what I want to look like when I hit my target weight, exercise when I should be resting, think about what/when I should eat.  On days when I’m really busy, meal times and exercise times just kind of sneak up on me.  I hardly give them a conscious thought.  I can’t say I’m more hungry at one time or another, it’s just that I think about my diet/exercise more when I have down time.  That’s not all bad as it keeps me tremendously motivated.  But I like the busy days best.  With little or no effort (or so it seems), the fat just kind of disappears.  Now, that’s my kind of diet.

• I started a new weight lifting regimen last week which I think is going to pay significant dividends.  Instead of doing 3 or 4 different exercises to work one muscle, I’ve decided to adopt a mass building routine that focuses on one exercise per muscle per workout.  Here is the protocol:

1. Do one set of 5 reps with a heavy weight that you can do 6 times to failure
2. Reduce the weight to 80% of what you used for the first set and do it for 5 reps
3. Do as many sets as possible using the same weight with only 30-60 seconds rest in between
4. Stop when you can’t do 5 reps in good form. This may be 5 sets or it could be 20…every person is different

It was developed by a strength coach to the Russian Special Forces named Pavel Tsatsouline.  The strategy is to lift many many low rep sets, so you can still lift heavy to a certain extent, but have enough volume of lifting for a size increase.

Here is a sample of my bench press workout this week:

135 x 5 x 1 (warm up)

185 x 5 x 1 (warm up)

200 x 5 x 1 (working set)

160 x 11 x 10 (working sets)

135 x 11 x 10 (working sets)

100 x 30 x 1 (cool down)

To be honest, I was fried when it was all over.  I calculated the total weight lifted during these 24 sets and it totaled an astounding 38,050 lbs.  I actually did this protocol twice this week (as my chest workout is on a six day rotation) and this weight was up from 35,100 lbs the first time I did it.  I’m committed to giving it a full 10 weeks to see what the results are.  If my muscle fatigue is any indication, it should work wonders.

It’s been a good week.  I feel good.  I feel like I’m starting to look good as well.  That’s a killer combination.  “Feelin’ Good and Lookin’ Good.”  See you next week.

 

 

 

A Great New Exercise for All Round Fitness

Some time ago, I read a Fitness Blog which suggested adding the simple act of getting up off the floor to your workouts.  I was intrigued by this seemingly easy exercise for two reasons:

• My inability to get up off the floor was the very reason I started this whole diet/exercise thing.  I discovered while wrestling with the grandchildren I could barely get up off the floor.  I felt like that old lady in the Life Alert commercial, “Help!  I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”  It was humiliating.

• In all the years of studying various exercise/fitness books, blogs and videos, I had never heard of such a thing.  It’s not something any trainer or strength coach teaches.  It’s way too easy.  But it made perfect sense to me.

So, I decided to try this simple exercise (let’s call them Up ‘n Downs) and that very night I set as a goal for myself to do 100.  Sounds easy, right?  No way.  I made it to 50 and crapped out.

A couple nights later, I did twenty-five 4 times for 100, but I struggled.  It took me a good 20 minutes or so just to complete them.

After a few more times, I got psyched and decided to make it a bit more challenging.  I added weights.  I started with two 15 lb dumbbells which I held in my hands.  I lowered myself to the floor and rolled over on my back.  Then I pressed the weights to the ceiling like a bench press, rolled over on my stomach, got up, curled both weights to my shoulder and pressed them over my head.  That was one repetition.  It felt pretty good – kind of like a Turkish Getup but with more moving parts.  It worked a lot of different joints and muscles: core, legs, hips, chest, shoulders, biceps and triceps.  And if done for speed, it gave a great cardio workout.

As the weeks went by, I continued adding more weight moving from 15’s, to 20’s, to 25’s, to 30’s, to 35’s, and 45’s.  I find the heavier weights leave my whole body screaming.  It’s extremely fatiguing and I fight to get every one of my 100 reps.

Of course, I can’t quite do it as one continuous exercise.  At least not yet.  I generally do 10 reps at a time, break, and repeat till I’ve completed all 100.  That might take me 45 to 50 minutes.  It’s hard, but it’s a great workout.

Best of all, I feel a lot stronger.  It’s different from my normal weight lifting routine where I tend to isolate and work one or two muscles at a time.  It’s much more functional and it works the whole body as a unit.

In fact, I got a chance to use it the other day when at work I had to get down on my back and touch up a grand piano we were using as a prop.  Without even thinking about it, I preformed the Up ‘n Down like the spry 59+ year old I am.  Even my co-workers commented on it.  It felt good.

Now, I can’t wait for those little “rug rats” to come over and challenge me to a wrestling match.  They have no idea who they’re messing with.  I may be old and fat, but I am lightning quick when it comes to getting Up ‘n Down, Baby.

Intermittent Fasting Update: 9 Weeks

Well, I would not have believed it, but I lost another 2 lbs this week (31 lbs total).  This has been the most difficult week thus far.  Barb was traveling most of the time so I had to fend for myself (she did leave lots of food in the refrigerator but eating alone is always dangerous).  I also had to attend two parties with co-workers and families where I ate Olive Garden lasagna, bread sticks, chicken parmigiana, and two kinds of cheese cakes.  And finally, last Saturday when the grandchildren were visiting, I had two large slices of Dominoes’ stuff crust pizza.  Talk about a potential disaster.  I should have gained 5 lbs not lost 2 lbs.  But all I did was adjust my eating schedule (ate my big meal at noon rather than supper on two days), cut back on my calorie intake both the day before and the day after my social engagements, and ate clean the rest of the time.   I never went hungry.  And I ate exactly what I wanted.  I love this Intermittent Fasting.  It couldn’t be easier.  Here’s what I learned this week:

• I like the light/lean feeling I get from Intermittent Fasting. I’m not going to lie to you.  If you fast for any length of time, your stomach will be empty for long stretches of time and occasionally you will feel hunger pangs.  But after 9 weeks of daily fasting (remember I fast every day for 16 hours and eat during an 8 hour window), I rather enjoy the feeling of an empty stomach.  When you eat every few hours, food is either in your stomach or your digestive track and more often than not it makes you feel slightly heavy/sluggish.  I much prefer the light/lean feeling of an empty stomach.

• In addition to this pleasant physical sensation, psychologically I feel like I am conquering my addiction to food – like I am doing battle with the evils of obesity and am winning.  Every time I sense a slight twinge of hunger (and I do from time to time throughout the 16 hour fast), I remind myself (1) it will quickly pass, (2) I am doing something good for my body, (3) this is what freedom from addiction feels like, and finally and most convincingly, (4) I remind myself that the meal I eat to break my fast is going to taste absolutely delicious.  Fasting has a way of making every meal a culinary masterpiece.

• I absolutely love my home gym. Having worked out in commercial gyms for the last few years, I wasn’t sure whether my home gym would cut it.  After all, it’s in a garage, in Florida, in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record, and there is no air conditioning.  Regardless of what time of the day I exercise, when I first step foot into the garage, it’s like being hit with a blast furnace.  It is hot.  Well over 100 degrees.  Fortunately, I’m one that likes to work up a sweat.  Regardless of whether it’s true or not, whenever I sweat a lot, I feel like I’m working hard, losing fat and building muscle.  So, the heat is a good thing.  Would I prefer it be air conditioned?  Yeah.  But just like the good feeling I get from an empty stomach, I like the sweat drenched feeling of exercising in a sauna.  There’s a warrior mentality to it.  And you need that if you’re going to succeed.

• The other thing I really like about my home gym is the convenience. My work schedule is always changing.  I never know exactly when I can exercise.  Most days, I come home at noon and workout.  On other days, I’m stuck in the office doing back to back shoots and don’t get home till 6 pm.  On those nights, I rarely get started till 8:30 or 9:00 pm.  If I had to drive down to the gym at that late hour, I would probably skip it.  But I find I rather enjoy hitting the weights at that late hour.  I’ve got my TV to keep me entertained and I’m always at full strength having eaten a good healthy meal just a few hours before.  Also, I find that when I exercise hard, I am never hungry immediately afterward.  I just feel exhausted.  It takes me a few hours to start feeling hungry.  By then, I’m in bed and fast asleep.  So, on those nights I do exercise late, I’m never tempted to eat before bed.  That’s a nice little plus.

If you’re reading this and know you need to lose weight, let me just encourage you to give Intermittent Fasting a try.  It is the easiest thing I have ever done to lose fat.  I know you think you can’t fast because you (1) don’t want to feel hungry and (2) a lot of what you’ve read about fasting is probably negative and you’re thinking it’s unhealthy or at the very least unnatural.

But let me just set the record straight on both counts.  Feeling hungry from time to time can be a wonderful and motivating feeling.  I have come to love it.  I feel alive.  I feel lighter on my feet (well as light as any 269 lb person can feel).  I feel lean and energized.  And far from being unhealthy and/or unnatural, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists have proven time and again that those cultures and societies (like our early hunter/gatherer ancestors) that regularly fast (or go for long periods between meals) are far stronger and more healthy than we are.  We think because we have “conquered” a few diseases and some infection, and because we live longer, we are healthier than our cave man ancestors.  But the truth is, pound for pound they were by far stronger and healthier than the most elite athletes of our time.  And fasting (by necessity) was a way of life for them.

All, I’m trying to say is “Give Intermittent Fasting a try.”  Give it a week.  Better yet, give it two days next week.  Fast for 22-24 hours next week on say Tuesday and Thursday (take your last meal at 6 pm Monday and your next meal at 6 PM on Tuesday).  See how you feel.  You will be a bit hungry.  But you won’t starve.  You won’t die.  When you break your fast, eat a normal meal.  Don’t pig out.  Be conscious of what else you eat throughout the day and cut back.  You’ll discover you don’t need (or even want) as much food as you think.  If you do this, I can almost guarantee you will experience three very positive things in your life:

1. You will lose 1-2 lbs without ever changing your diet (what you eat)
2. You will start to feel in control of your body and appetites (breaking free from your food addiction)
3. You will discover that a bit of hunger now and then feels great

Here’s hoping for your success.

Intermittent Fasting Update: 8 Weeks

I’m down another 2 lbs this week (29 lbs total).  My weight continues to come off easily.  I am amazed at how quickly the weeks fly by.  At another time in my life and on other diets, I would have been disappointed had I only lost 2 lbs in a week.  But now I’m delighted if I can keep my weight loss steady at 2 lbs.  It means I am losing fat (not muscle) and that I’m actually reshaping my body.  And all this without any long, grueling, joint-destroying cardio.  I’m loving it!  Here’s what I learned this week:

• You don’t have to do lots of cardio to lose fat. A few years ago, I lost close to 100 lbs in less than 8 months.  It was a tremendous achievement of which I was very proud.  I literally “worked my butt off.”  But three things about that weight loss stick out in my mind:

1. I gained back most all my weight over the next 18 months. I discovered, as so many do, that diet and exercise work, but once you stop dieting (having reached your goal) and you start to slack off on exercise (you just can’t maintain the pace anymore), you regain the weight.  In reality, diets are merely short-term, goal oriented programs that help you achieve weight loss, but they are seldom transforming lifestyles with which you can live for the long term.  I am hoping Intermittent Fasting will be different.  So far, I am encouraged.
2. Even at my lowest weight (220 lbs) I was simply a smaller version of my larger self. Weight loss is easy if you don’t care what your losing (fat, water, muscle).  I’ve read of guys who lost 20 lbs in a weekend.  I lost a lot of weight fast but sacrificed muscle loss in the process.  Even though I got down to my ideal weight, I was still 24% body fat and looked pudgy.  I was so disappointed.  I had envisioned a new, more muscular body, but all I got was a smaller version of my fat self.  This time around, fat loss (not weight loss) and muscle preservation are my top priorities.
3. I was totally exhausted all the time from doing so much cardio. During this time of tremendous weight loss, I was following a protocol that required I do at least 1 hour of resistance training (weight lifting or body weight training) 3 days a week and 45-60 minutes of cardio (running, jogging, cycling) every day.  If your weight loss plateaued, it was suggested you up your cardio to as much as 2 hours a day for a week or more just to break through the plateau.  There were weeks I was in the gym 3-4 hours a day.  I was totally exhausted.  I couldn’t maintain the pace.  I was losing weight but I was severely overtrained.  And when I backed off, I started regaining the weight.  It was a vicious cycle.

• This time is different. I don’t do any cardio at all.  At least, no traditional cardio (walking, running, cycling).  I lift heavy weights 5-6 times a week for an hour a day and on some days (depending how I feel), I will do things like get up off the floor a hundred times as fast as I can or do a circuit of leg lifts, crunches, kettle bell swings, push-ups for time.  It gets my heart pumping (like a good cardio workout should) but I’m using different muscles than I otherwise exercise when I lift weights.  I’m hoping to add sprints when I get a little leaner, but I refuse to do any more long, boring sessions of cardio.  I’ve learned the hard way that cardio eats into your muscle as well as your fat and I’m all about preserving muscle this time around.

• I lost control one day this week and went on an eating binge. It took me several hours before I regained control and since I am all about Intermittent Fasting, I simply readjusted my eating schedule and minimized the damage.  I suffered for my loss of control – I filled up on empty calories around noon one day when I was baby sitting the grandchildren (toast and jelly, waffles with syrup, Wendy’s hamburger, french fries, frosty, a bite of candy here and there) – because when it came time for supper I didn’t get to eat my wonderful meal of salad, pork chop, baked potato, vegetables.  Instead I limited myself to a protein shake and called it a night.  In hindsight, I would rather have had the balanced meal instead of all that junk food (which just made me feel bloated), but at least I was able to adjust my calorie intake and probably didn’t do too much damage.  It was another valuable lesson.  You can never drop your guard.  It’s perfectly alright to eat any of the things I ate, but it’s so easy (at least for me) to lose control if you don’t have some kind of protocol like Intermittent Fasting on which to fall back.  I’m glad I was able to regain my balance and minimize the damage.

• I feel like I am building muscle while losing fat. I can’t be sure since I am not able to measure my fat loss, but I can tell I am putting on some muscle.  I had several strength gains this week increasing my dead-lifts rather dramatically from 205 lbs to 265 lbs x 5.  I also increased my bench, squat and presses by much smaller margins, but it’s a well known fact that increased strength means increased muscle mass.  It is very difficult to gain muscle while losing fat, but not impossible if you focus on eating right and lifting heavy.  I may be deluding myself, but worse case scenario, at least I am not losing any muscle.  That’s a positive.

A final thought: next week will be a real challenge.  Barb is traveling North to visit family and will be gone for 5 days.  And although she will undoubtedly fill the refrigerator with yummy and nutritious food, I will be responsible for making it.  I’m use to her just serving me what I can eat (and to be honest, her servings are a lot smaller than my servings).  Anyhow, it will be a good challenge for me.  I have a feeling I can easily eat my larger servings without any damage because of the calorie I will burn just getting up and down out of my easy chair to get my own meals and drinks.  I’m not use to that.  And Oh, don’t forget the last minute rush around to make the bed, straighten the house and do the laundry just before she flies back in on Thursday.  Heck, that ought to be worth a good 2000+ calorie burn.  I’ll let you know how I fare next week.  In the meantime, think Intermittent Fasting.  You can do it!

Intermittent Fasting Update: 7 Weeks

I’m down another 2.5 lbs this week (27 lbs total).  But believe me, it’s not been easy.  This has been my toughest week to date.  My motivation never wavered, but my daily routine was repeatedly interrupted by social engagements and family obligations causing me to eat more of the wrong kind of food than I would otherwise eat.  Here’s what I learned this week:

• Daily routines make fat loss a whole lot easier. Normally, I get up, arrive at work by 8 AM, go home at noon at which time I break my fast with a small meal and exercise, return to work till 5 PM, and eat my largest meal around 6 PM.  I may or may not have a healthy snack or protein shake around 9 or 10 PM.  I like this schedule.  It has served my weight loss well.  I know when I’m going to eat.  I know how much I’m going to eat (without ever counting calories).  And I know that if I maintain this schedule I will show a weight loss by the end of the week.  It couldn’t be more simple.  What complicates things is when I get off schedule like this week when I had to eat out 4 different times and didn’t get to bed till well past midnight 2 times.  I also missed a couple of days of exercise.  It made for a tough week of weight loss.  But such is life.  I was still required to make good food choices (which I did for the most part) even in restaurants.  Here’s an example of how it went:
  • One day last week, a co-worker wanted me to go to lunch with him.  I did because he is a good friend and I needed to spend some time with him.  He suggested we go to a place called Tropical Smoothie Cafe.  Never been there, but I figured a smoothie can’t be that bad.  I chose what I thought was a healthy one:  Peanut Paradise – peanut butter, banana, non-fat yogurt and whey protein.  That can’t be bad for you.  It came in a nice 24 oz cup and tasted OK – nothing special – needed a bit more flavor for my taste.  When I got home that night, I checked their website to get a calorie count.  690 CALORIES.  Can you believe that?  That’s ridiculous.  I could have eaten two large overstuffed chicken wraps for the same calorie count.  That’s why restaurants are killers.  You don’t know what you’re getting.
  • Later that week I ate a 900 calorie burrito at Chipotle with some other friends.  I knew when I was eating it that it was going to be a lot of calories, but at least it was filling and tasted great.  But the smoothie was a waste of calories in my opinion.  Life is about trade-offs.  After eating lunch at Chipotle, I decided for dinner I would just eat a salad.  Wrong!  After all the carbs I had for lunch (100 g in one burrito) a salad didn’t satisfy my hunger (in case you didn’t know, carbs make you hungrier).  I ended up eating the salad and a few more things before I went to bed making my daily calorie intake more than usual.  I got through that day and the rest of the week, but I won’t lie to you, it was a struggle.

• You exercise to maintain muscle, not to lose weight. It is so tempting to think, “It’s OK to eat this bagel smothered in butter and jelly (I like sweet stuff), because I’ll just hit the gym a little harder or add a bit of cardio to my workout.”  That, my friend, is a recipe for disaster.  It’s so true what others have said, “You can’t out exercise a bad diet.”  Now let me first of all say, it’s OK to eat the bagel with butter and jelly IF it fits into your overall daily/weekly calorie intake.  The whole idea is not to deny yourself anything.  You can eat whatever you want (within reason) as long as there is a calorie deficit at the end of the week.  I like to keep my carbs low because I find eating protein and healthy fats make me less hungry.  But I eat whatever I want and seek to compensate by eating less of something else so as to maintain a calorie deficit.  Intermittent Fasting helps in this regard.  But whenever I start thinking about eating more of what I shouldn’t and then exercising off the excess calories, I know I’m in trouble.  Exercise should never be used as an excuse to over-indulge.
  • For one thing:  you can’t exercise enough to shed the excess calories.  190 lb man walking briskly (4 mph) for an hour only burns 345 calories – if he jogs, he might burn another 300 calories.  A Panera Cinnamon Crunch Bagel will cost you 430 calories without the butter (and jelly – if you’re like me).  As much as I like bagels, it’s not worth an hour of walking/jogging.  If you want a bagel, build it into your weekly menu, but don’t think you can eat it and then go exercise it off.  (There is a funny/sad McDonald commercial running right now.  A slender woman finishes up her jog with a McDonald breakfast wrap and cup of coffee saying she likes doing something healthy for herself.  But she just ate more calories than she exercised off.  Crazy!)  Keep your exercise for maintaining muscle not indulging your cravings.
  • Secondly:  exercise just makes you hungry.  There was a Time magazine cover story last year entitled, “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin,” that created quite an uproar in the fitness industry.  Most fitness experts disagreed with the premise of the article but what they couldn’t disagree with were the scientific (as if we needed science to tell us what we already know intuitively) findings that exercise makes you hungry.  The more you exercise the more you eat.  Simple as that.  It went on to say, that exercise can preserve and/or build muscle – that’s a good thing.  And it can vastly improve one’s cardiovascular markers – again a good thing.  But it won’t make you thin.  When we exercise, we tend to overcompensate by eating more than we otherwise eat and thus pack on the calories.  Obviously, we need to exercise, but for the right reason.  To maintain or grow our lean muscle mass.  Fat loss is the direct result of our diet (what we eat).

• One last note:  I benched a personal best this week – 220 lbs. I also, squatted the same.  I have a long way to go to be able to bench/squat my weight, but hopefully, as my weight comes down and my bench/squat go up they will meet somewhere in the middle.  In the meantime, I’ve lovin’ it.  (I tried on some “fat” pants I wore two months ago – no go.  I had to move them to the back of the closest.  They were way too big.  Just more evidence that it’s all coming together.  Oh, yeah!)

Intermittent Fasting Update: 6 Weeks

I’m down another 2.5 lbs this week (24.5 lbs total).  I attempted to slow my weight loss as I was averaging approximately 4.5 lbs a week and felt I might be losing more than just fat.  As a result, I feel good about my rate of weight loss this week.  In addition, I’ve made several observations regarding my fasting and exercise:

• I am continually amazed at how very little food it takes to quiet the hunger pangs one feels at the end of a fast.  If one would just give his/her body a chance to signal the brain that food is on the way, he/she would avoid the all too tempting mistake of pigging out when hungry.  The other day is a good case in point.  I had video shoots all day and was unable to get away at noon and break my 16 hour fast with exercise and lunch.  As a result, I didn’t get home till close to 5 pm.  Needless to say, I was hungry.  It had been some 21 hours since I had last eaten.  Since I still had to exercise and I don’t like to exercise on a full stomach, I ate two small spoonfuls of some chicken salad Barb had prepared for my lunch.  I would be surprised if it was more than 100 calories.  Within seconds, my hunger pains were gone.  I felt good.  I felt satisfied.  I was not full, but I was certainly not hungry.  I then went out and did a full hour of weight lifting (legs, no less – heavy weight day) without any side effects from fasting.  Even more surprising was the fact that after my exercises, I was not  hungry.  So I decided to wait to eat dinner till I was really hungry.  That occurred around 9 pm a full 4 hours after I arrived home from work hungry.  Amazingly, those two small bites tided me over: getting me past my hunger spell and through my exercise routine.  After my 9 pm meal, I went right back to my 16/8 Intermittent Fasting schedule without missing a beat.  I am convinced, that given a chance your body can function just as well (maybe even better) with less food and you don’t have to shovel it in to stop the hunger pangs.  Given a chance (c’mon now, everybody sing):

Just a spoonful of PROTEIN
Helps the HUNGER PANGS go down,
The HUNGER PANGS go down, HUNGER PANGS go down.
Just a spoonful of PROTEIN

Helps the HUNGER PANGS go down,

In a most delightful way!

I can’t help it!  I just love Show Tunes!

• In going over our household expenses, I determined that we saved on average between $400-$500 on food this month.  Astonishing!  Between buying groceries and eating out each month, I am ashamed to say we sometimes spend more than our daughter, her husband and their 4 kids (they’re all young though, 8 and under).  That’s ridiculous.  The savings from our food bill virtually paid for my home gym.  Now, if I could only get Barb to do this Intermittent Fasting thing with me, I could buy a big 60 inch plasma TV screen and A/C for it.  ChaChing!  (Just a note:  The biggest savings came from not eating out so much – although we still ate out twice during the month – and not ordering in.  Beyond that, we ate good.  If you haven’t noticed, convenience and processed food are expensive.)  My new motto is:  Eat Less, Lose Fat, Save Money.  Wise words by which to live.

• I’m settling into my new exercise routine.  I am attempting to lift heavy (at least for me) doing the basic exercises like squats, dead-lifts, overhead press, bench press and pull-downs.  These serve as my foundation and take up most of my training time.  I generally keep the reps low 5 or 6 and focus on lifting as much weight as I can without injury.  I don’t want to get hurt.  Been there, done that.  No fun.  I round out my time using lighter weights doing specialty exercises pushing and pulling as many times as I can until I am thoroughly exhausted.  I’ll rest a few minutes and repeat this exercise 2 or 3 times.  It gives a nice burn and builds strength.  I always feel pleasantly tired.  A couple of times a week I’ll add cardio.  I particularly like the box step-up and will do at least 20-30 minutes and/or the elliptical on which I do a light jog.  Both work up a good sweat and elevate my heart rate to the proper zone.  I follow this basic regimen 5 or 6 times a week.  I especially enjoy coming home for lunch and working out then.  If I wait till after work, I am generally exhausted and don’t get quite as good a workout.  But each has it’s reward.  There are better TV shows on at night.

Hey, if you’re still on the fence regarding Intermittent Fasting, try a 12 hour fast.  Once you’ve succeeded in doing that, stretch it out an hour or two the next few times.  Pretty soon, you’ll discover just how easy it really is and how you can create a calorie deficit without really trying.

My New Home Gym

For the past five years, Barb and I have exercised at commercial gyms.  Wherever we’ve lived and whenever we’ve traveled, we’ve sought out a nice gym at which to workout.  We like what they have to offer.  They are generally bright and cheery, well lit, with lots of cool equipment (most of which I now know how to use), air conditioning, and full of interesting people.  Most have televisions (but you can never hear the sound – unless the TV is attached to a cardio machine) and some even have movie theaters where you can jog or spin while watching a relatively recent movie.   In the last five years, we’ve had membership in approximately 6 gyms from Franklin TN (USA), to Bangalore (India), to Canmore, Alberta (Canada) as well as numerous places in Florida.  All in all, it was a good experience.

There is, however, a downside to commercial gyms.  Staff is a mixed bag.  Some are friendly, some not, and there is a huge turnover at the bigger gyms.  It’s sometimes difficult to ask training questions of the staff without them trying to sell you a personal training package of some kind.  And if you ever get suckered into buying such a package, you feel uncomfortable seeing the trainers when your allotted lessons run out.  Although you’ve just spent $2000 with them and you’d think they would now be your “newest best-est buddy,” they have a way of making you feel guilty because you don’t want to plunk down another two grand to continue their “training.”  The truth is most of the training hour is spent doing exercises you would normally do in a gym anyhow.  The only difference is you have someone pushing you a bit harder than you might otherwise push yourself.  As far as nutritional advice, I generally knew more of the latest information than they did and most of the time they just wanted to sell you their particular brand of Whey, or multivitamins, or supplement because unless you used their brand they couldn’t be responsible for your results.

Perhaps the least desirable part of a commercial gym is the inconvenience.  Even though we often lived within minutes of the gym, I still had to get dressed, pack my gym bag, and travel to and fro.  Although, they usually provided generous hours of operation, there were always times I wanted to use the gym and it was closed, sometimes for a holiday or repairs, but mostly because my hours didn’t coincide with the hours of the gym.  I’ve been run out of a gym or two because they wanted to close early.

I also found most of the gym memberships overpriced because you seldom utilize everything they offer (classes, saunas, massages) but because memberships are generally a one-price-fits-all kind of deal, you’re forced to supplement those people who do.  And don’t even get me started on the contracts.  Ridiculous.  The last gym we belonged to demanded we give them a full 60 days notice before we quit which meant when we unexpectedly had to move for a job, we had to send them our dues for two months of membership which we could not use.

All that being said, we decided to create a home gym.

I Love Craig’s List

I’m a newbie to eBay and Craig’s List.  I like to handle the stuff I buy.  Photos are OK but they don’t tell the whole story.  I started out bidding on eBay but found it too cumbersome and time consuming.  Also, I don’t trust the process.  It’s too easy to rig.  Craig’s List, however, is an altogether different experience.  Every day, new items are posted.  Most are reasonably priced and many are just around the corner, not halfway across the country.  You can contact the people directly, go see the item, and if you like it, take it home that day.  What could be easier?  I guess both eBay and Craig’s List have their place, but I’ll take Craig’s List over eBay any day.

Recently, I purchased a stack of weights (500 lbs) and an Olympic bar from Craig’s List.  I already owned a set of dumbbells (10 lbs through 45 lbs) and a weight bench.  I had a promising lead on a Smith Machine but someone beat me to it.  I ended up purchasing one at Play It Again Sports.  I think it was the same machine I lost out on as the sales clerk told me they just bought it off Craig’s List and so I probably paid two hundred bucks more than I should have, but I was satisfied.  They delivered it and set it up.  I also inherited a great elliptical from my daughter and a spinning bike from work (left over from a video shoot we just completed).  Throw down a couple of floor mats, add a TV, fan, and refrigerator and I now have a home gym worthy of an aging monarch from a very tiny oil depleted Middle East nation.  It ain’t fancy, but it’s all mine – well mine and Barb’s – and I love it.

I can work out any time I want.  I can sweat to my heart’s content without wiping off the machines (don’t tell Barb).  I can watch whatever TV channel I want and actually hear the sound.  I can grab a cold one from the refrigerator and make myself a sandwich if I want.  I don’t have to wait on any machines.  And best of all, I can (while pushing up massive amounts of weight) make all the crude guy sounds I want without apology to some cute little blond doing crunches on a Swiss Ball (Barb’s a brunette).  I love it.  There is no contract, no membership fee, and no staff with which to deal.  There is just me pumping iron and getting ripped.  OK, OK.  That’s the dream – getting ripped.  Time will tell.  I’ll keep you posted.

Hey, if you’re ever in the neighborhood.  Drop by for a workout.  I do miss all the interesting people at the gym.

Intermittent Fasting Update: 5 Weeks

I’ve just concluded my 5th week on IF.

I weigh and record my weight every Saturday morning.  Occasionally, I will weigh myself throughout the week just to get a sense of how I am doing, but I refrain from recording it.

Of course, I realize that it would be better to measure Body Fat percentages than to measure weight alone, but in checking into calipers that would measure Body Fat I was discouraged from buying one at this time because the manufacturer clearly states that the measurements of the “obese” are highly inaccurate.  As much as I hate to admit it, I still fall into that category, so the calipers and the Body Fat measurements will have to wait till I get a whole lot thinner.

In the meantime, my balance beam scale does perform a valuable service.  It gives me some indication in which direction I am heading.  As long as it is dropping, I have some confidence I am losing Body Fat especially since I am doing everything I know using resistance training to maintain lean muscle.

Here Are My Weekly Results for the Past Five Saturdays

• 6/19  –  300
• 6/26  –  297
• 7/3    –  289
• 7/10  –  287
• 7/17  –  283
• 7/24  –  278

So far, I’ve lost 22 lbs in 5 weeks.  As you can see, some weeks I lost a whole lot (up to 8 lbs) whereas other weeks I lost as little as 2 lbs.  I’ve averaged approximately 4.4 lbs per week.

My Observations

• As much as I enjoy moving the counter weights on my balance beam scale to the left, I realize I cannot maintain such a large weekly weight loss, nor do I want to.  Since it is virtually impossible to lose more than 2-3 lbs of Body Fat per week, some of my weight loss has undoubtedly come from water and lean body mass.  I need to slow down the weight loss to an acceptable 2.5 lbs per week to ensure muscle retention.

• I am presently on a 16/8 schedule, meaning I fast for 16 hours and eat during an 8 hour window, usually between 12 noon and 8 PM.  This allows me to eat a little something before I exercise (to take the edge off my hunger and give me a protein boost), a nice meal after I exercise (to replenish my depleted protein and glycogen stores), a very healthy supper sometime between 6 and 8 PM.  I also allow myself the option to have a protein shake around 8 or 9 PM if I so desire, but generally I am full from my evening meal and skip it.  I am seldom if ever truly hungry.  As you can see from my eating schedule, I get plenty of opportunities to eat, so I do not feel deprived.

• Surprisingly, my cravings for sweets (to which I am addicted) are almost non-existent.  I can’t really explain this except to say, I’ve never truly experienced this lack of cravings on conventional diets.  I’ve always struggled to avoid sweets on other weight loss plans.  And I most often lost the struggle to a night or two of binging.  I know it’s early in the process (5 weeks is not a lot of time), but I am encouraged.  I freely admit that I use artificial sweeteners in my tea and I drink Crystal Light and Diet Soda which help blunt my craving for sweets, but I did so as well on other diets and still “pigged out” more often than I like to admit.  Time alone will tell if my loss of cravings is a nice benefit from Intermittent Fasting.

• I find I crave good, wholesome, nutritious food more than sweets.  When I come off my fast, I am ready to eat, make no mistake about that.  I am not ravenous.  I am certainly not starving.  But I am hungry.  And I’m hungry for all the good stuff.  Most of my life, I avoided salads and vegetables.  I liked fast food, processed food, sweet food.  Up until recently, I ate applesauce every day.  I learned to eat it as a kid, so I could mix my unwanted vegetables with it and force it down.  But because it is sweet and tasty, I continued eating it every day for the last 50+ years.  Not good – at least from a health perspective.  Too much sugar.  Too processed.  I could say the same about breads, jelly (I like to eat jelly bread with pizza to give a bit of sweetness to the mix), corn, macaroni and cheese, pies, cakes – heck, any kind of dessert.  Now, I don’t crave any of it.  I enjoy eating all the good stuff and don’t in the least feel cheated.  Interestingly, because I am not really on a diet, I can eat any of these things (within moderation) if I so choose, but I have not had the desire or need to do so just yet, so why waste my eating opportunities on food with empty calories.

• One last thing.  I love exercising.  I exercise at least 5 days a week.  I always look forward to it.  Especially if I am a bit stiff or sore.  I know that after my workout, I will feel great.  And I always do.  There is something about working up a good sweat.  I don’t mess around when I exercise.  I work hard and lift heavy.  Of course, I’m not one of the big boys who can push or pull their body weight and then some, but I do OK for an old fat guy.  As I work my way down the left side of the scale, I am working my way up the right side of the weight rack.  And I feel great for the effort.  I always do a bit of cardio throughout the week, but having learned my lesson about over-training on cardio from previous diet/exercise routines, I keep the cardio to a minimum and concentrate on resistance training.  I believe, and scientific evidence confirms, I get more bang for my buck lifting weights than running on a treadmill.

In Closing

It’s now close to 9 PM and Barb and I just returned home from Dinner and a Movie.  I broke my 16 hour fast today by eating a small chicken breast around noon just before I went out to exercise.  I had planned to eat afterward, but wasn’t really hungry, so I just skipped my post-workout meal and saved up my calories for our meal out.  I thought I might have a little trouble when we got to the theater.  The smell of buttered popcorn is pretty enticing, but I was fine.  I was, however, ready for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants:  Bahama Breeze.  I really wanted to get the ribs, but I knew I would be full well before I finished the plate so I didn’t want to spend $20 for a plate of food I couldn’t eat and didn’t want to take home least it tempt me tomorrow.  Since Barb doesn’t like ribs, we split the following:

• Smothered Pork Tenderloin – Oak-grilled, moist and tender, smothered with creamed spinach and melted cheese, served with garlic mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables.
• Cuban Black Bean Soup – Slow-simmered and served with yellow rice.
• Warm Chocolate Pineapple Upside Down Cake – a warm rich chocolate cake with a Chocolate molten center topped with caramelized pineapple, Raspberry sauce, butterscotch brandy sauce and fresh Whipped cream.

The plates were huge, so we just tasted the soup and took it home to eat for lunch tomorrow.  We plan on enjoying the Pineapple Upside Down Cake tonight as we watch Masterpiece Theater.  Total calories for the meal (1/2 servings of Tenderloin, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and taste of soup) – 1020 kcal.  That means I am a little on the low side for today, but will make it up tomorrow on a heavy workout day.  Still, I am feeling good and totally satisfied.  Who ever said losing weight had to be hard?  Bon Appetit.

Flexible Intermittent Fasting: Part III

The Operative word here is “Flexible.”   Intermittent Fasting is all about being “Flexible.”

If you have been following my last two posts in this series, you are now somewhat familiar with Intermittent Fasting (IF) and my eager embrace of it as a highly effective tool for fat loss.  I’ve shown two very different methods of employing IF (Brad Pilon’s EAST, STOP, EAT and David Ward’s The Retired Dieter).  Having tried each, I can attest to the efficacy of both.  But neither was quite right for me.  I wanted something more tailored to my goals, personality and lifestyle.

Although, I liked Brad Pilon’s 2 day a week fast (it got me started with IF and was easy) I wanted something a bit more robust.  Having found fasting quite enjoyable and very rewarding in its own right, I found 2 days a week too limiting.

David Ward’s approach was certainly more robust (he advocates fasting 22 hours a day, Monday through Friday), but I didn’t like the imbalance of fasting 5 days in a row and “binging” on the weekends.  I know binging is a strong word and no doubt he would take exception to it, but I found it difficult to keep my eating in check if left unfettered for a weekend.

What I needed was a more robust, yet balanced approach to Intermittent Fasting.  I needed a model which would help me successfully and painlessly shed unwanted fat stores in the short term AND which would then serve me equally well in the never ending struggle to maintain body composition once I achieved my desired goal.

I found such a model in the writings of Martin Berkhan, a Swedish nutritional consultant, magazine writer and personal trainer.

Martin’s Story

Martin Berkhan was, by his own admission, a fat teenager.  Disgusted with himself and his life, Martin went on a diet and promptly lost over 50 lbs.  The only problem was he looked like a smaller version of his larger self.  He had no real muscle definition.  He was basically a FAT SKINNY person.

So, Martin did what any smart 19 year old would do, he hit the gym and the heavy weights.  A few years later he realized the hard fought fruit of his intense labor by winning a modeling contest and spent the next three years of his life traveling Europe making his living as a fashion model.  But all was not perfect.  Modeling demands thinness.  Listen to how Martin describes his experience:

At 19 I started dieting, lost weight, gathered attention from a model agency and then won a nationwide competition that sent me off to Milan.  I think I was about 175 lbs when they first sent me down there, but a few weeks later I dropped weight quickly down to 165 lbs…and then to 160 lbs at my lowest point….It was a great experience, but these years were basically spent over-exercising and over-training.

Martin describes his look during this time as “semi-anorectic.”  He was thin to be sure, but had virtually no muscle mass.  While this was more desirable than being fat, it was not what he wanted for himself.  So, at the age of 22, he quit modeling, returned home and got serious about his studies, his diet, and his weight training.  Over the next two years, using traditional body building methods (eating 6 meals a day and pushing lots of weight), Martin managed to increase his muscle mass but his nutritional regimen was far from ideal.  Here is what he now says about that time:

I was basically sick of the obsessiveness with nutrition, meal timing in particular, that seemed to follow me wherever I went.  I was becoming a social pariah and I didn’t think that, for all the energy I put into it, the obsessiveness provided me with anything else than misery and anxiety whenever I missed a meal. Maybe some of you can relate to this or maybe you have a more relaxed attitude towards bodybuilding nutrition than I had back then.  If so, I salute your ability to keep a relaxed attitude towards this crucial aspect of the iron game.  I sure as hell couldn’t.

Sick and tired of his obsession with food (what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat), Martin threw over everything he had ever read or heard about nutrition and embarked on a bold new approach to fat loss and muscle gain.  He adopted Intermittent Fasting, but with a unique twist:  select an 8 hour window every day during which time you can eat 2-3 nutritious meals and fast the other 16 hours.

Now think about that.  You fast every day.  Of course, the 8 hours sleep you get every night count toward the 16 hours so, you really only have to go without food for an additional 8 hours.  Generally, that means you skip breakfast and possibly lunch (but you can choose to skip whatever meal is most convenient to your lifestyle).  Once you have completed your 16 hour fast, you have 8 hours to eat.  Remember, the goal is to eat till satisfied (not gorge – calories still matter) and then, when hungry, allow yourself to eat again.

The genius of Martin’s method is that with just a little bit of tweaking (what you eat and when you eat), you can either lose fat or gain muscle.  The choice is yours depending on where you’re at in your fat loss cycle.  And Martin is proof positive that it works.  Since abandoning traditional dieting and body building methods, he has been able to put on muscle while maintaining a lean 5-6% body fat.  That is virtually unheard of.  Most body builders diet down to those numbers over a 12-16 week season to get in shape for a few contest but cannot maintain it for more than a few days.  Through his use of 16/8 Intermittent Fasting, Martin Berkhan has maintain his body fat composition for more than 3 years.  Check out a few of his photos here and his blog here.

My Personal Experience

Let me give you an example of  how this works in my own life.  I generally eat my last meal around 8 PM.  It is a well balanced meal: spinach salad with nuts, fruit, and some dressing; 8 oz of meat, vegetables and a baked potato with butter.  I eat late so as not to be tempted to snack before I go to bed.  I am always full and never hungry afterward.  Even now as I am writing this blog entry, it is around 11 PM and I am still feeling quite full from my evening meal.

I am then up around 7 AM and off to work by 8 AM.  By this time, I have already fasted 12 hours.  I am never hungry first thing in the morning and so skipping breakfast is not a problem for me.  In the past, following other diet regimen I always ate a healthy breakfast (eggs, toast and fruit or oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins), but now I just go to work.

By noon each day, I have completed my 16 hour fast (reaping most if not all the benefits from a short fast) and am free to eat for the next 8 hours.  I generally go home for lunch, have a small bite of protein (a mouthful of chicken breast or egg salad) just to give me a bit of energy and then workout for an hour in my home gym.  After that, I eat a small lunch – generally a salad or wrap (egg salad or tuna salad) and head back to work.  I drink lots of liquid (tea, water, crystal light, diet soda) throughout the day to keep hydrated.   Except for some sugar-free chewing gum, I don’t eat anything else until I eat my main meal around 8 PM.

Here is the fascinating thing about all this.  I am seldom hungry.  I may feel a twinge of hunger just before my workout.  But amazingly, with just a mouthful of protein, my hunger subsides almost immediately.  After my workout, I eat till I’m satisfied.  By the time dinner comes around I am once again ready to eat and the food tastes absolutely wonderful.

There are some days, when at noon I am hungrier than other days, so I just eat a little more.  I find I can easily adjust my evening meal and if need be eat a little less.  But I never go to bed hungry and I never wake up hungry.  I never feel deprived or weak or dizzy or any of the downsides of dieting or fasting.  Despite the fact that I have been fasting (except for a mouthful of food) for over 16 hours by the time I exercise, my workouts are intense and consistent.

I follow the same fasting and eating routine on weekends, but allow myself the freedom to eat out if I want.  Last Sunday, we had a late lunch (around 2 pm) at The Cheesecake Factory (notorious for their large portions).  I ordered the fish and chips and found after I ate just two of the four fish pieces and a handful of potato wedges, I was full.  So, I wrapped up the remainder and took it home for supper.  When I got home, I logged on the restaurants website to see how many calories are in a serving of fish and chips and was astonished to discover it was close to 2000.  No worry though.  I just polished off the rest of them at my evening meal, topped it off with a bit of cheesecake (you got to have cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory) went to bed completely satisfied, and stayed within my weekend calorie limits.  The best part of the whole experience was:  I ate guilt-free at one of my favorite restaurants, ate exactly what I wanted, and when I weighed myself the next day, I was down 2 lbs for the week.  “Sweet” as my grandson likes to say.

Here’s the Take-Away

Intermittent Fasting is extremely “Flexible.”  You can customize it to your physical needs and lifestyle.  If given a chance, you will discover like me that you really don’t need (or even) want all the food you normally eat in the course of a day.  You’ll find you’re less hungry than on most diets, you can eat (in moderation) all of your favorite foods, and the food you eat is much more satisfying.  You might also discover (as I and countless others have) that you have more physical energy and mental clarity during your fast than ever before.  It’s a delightful and totally unexpected benefit from the fast.

If you need to lose a lot of fat (or even a few pounds), you ought to at least try it.  Remember, you don’t need any special diet books or meal plan.  All you need to do is tailor your fast schedule to your internal clock and family lifestyle and you are on your way.  Believe me, it’s easier than you think and more effective than you can imagine.  Good Luck!