I had intended to post each week with my progress, but life got in the way. Best laid plans huh. Anyway I’m at the end of the six week “fast diet” and here’s what i discovered:
- when the rules are black and white it’s so much easier. The difference between fasting days and non-fasting days were stark. Fasting days I was extremely disciplined but on non fasting days i found it harder to keep to the 1600-2000 cal limit. So my lesson from that was that I need more black and white rules to take away the judgement (and inevitable internal dialogue and justifications).
- you gotta measure to manage. I got bored with weighing my food and scanning bar codes to see what calorie count was. On the upside though I have a better feel for the calorie content of different foods and can estimate what more accurately what I should be eating.
- I had to be flexible with my fasting and non-fasting days. There were several occasions my fasting days coincided with dinner invitations with old friends or family that I refused to miss. At first i got a bit stress about it and thought I could still fast, but this proved too hard. So I just switched fasting days. no big deal.
- Finally, I think my weight is about the same as when I started. BUT I haven’t put in the effort with HIT exercise so I can’t really draw any firm conclusions on that front. I intend to continue with intermittent fasting and introduce more exercise. I think it is a sustainable way for me to control my weight, especially if I can work in the exercise and drop a few kilos.