At the time I thought what I was doing was extremely unhealthy. I would eat 1 meal a day, while running everyday and lifting a few times a week. I went from 6’ 270 to 190 while looking and feeling amazing. Turns out I was just on the meal a day fast routine without knowing it, I legit thought I had an eating disorder at one point. Once I hit my target weight I went back to eating ‘correctly’ and over the last 10 years put a lot of that weight back on.
Now that IF is a little more main stream I realized what I was doing was actually pretty damn healthy. I started up my old routine 2 1/2 weeks ago and I’ve already dropped 15 pounds. More importantly I feel sooooo much more energized and motivated. I had been drinking multiple coffees or energy drinks throughout the day just to stay focused at work. Since I started back up I haven’t needed an ounce of caffeine to stay alert.
Eating disorder is a mental issue, and I think what people miss is that many overweight people also have a disordered relationship with food. Eating too much isn’t healthy eating.
I can eat or fast comfortably now, because the mental side is handled, I’m not afraid of food anymore. It’s funny to say, but the difference between fasting and anorexia is intent, it really is. Not your size. There are fat anorexics and skinny binge eaters.
It’s good that you’ve found your healthy, comfortable eating pattern. It’s a marathon not a sprint, people get so focused on losing weight but so much more important to build the healthy habits that will keep you at a good weight.
This what living in an obese culture does to your brain. Not trying to dunk on fat people (who largely are at the mercy of forces they never signed up for).
I just mean that overreating is so ingrained in our popular psyche that any kind of adherence to self control is ED as opposed to “nah I just kinda want to look fit and my stomach not to hate me and my skin to glow, yah feel?” Nice job sticking it to our high fructose overlords
You could be me in the future..
I’m currently doing exactly what you’re doing now and for 2.5 weeks like you said, and dropped the same amount.
The only difference is I ride a stationary bike instead of run because of bad knees.
It’s such a weightloss hack, but people consider it insane.
I had a similar kind of experience. When I was in high school 20 odd years ago, I was essentially doing a four hour eating window most days from 4-8pm.
I have never been particularly hungry in mornings and was a bit of a latchkey kid so started skipping breakfast. I was in lots of extracurriculars that often ran during lunch so would skip that too. As a result I would often break my ‘fast’ with afternoon tea, and then eat dinner a couple of hours later - and I never felt particularly hungry. But later after university I became convinced such habits were not ‘healthy’, and wanting to be a responsible adult started eating 3 times a day. Slowly stacked on weight, but now OMAD is helping me lose it. After the first couple of days of initial hunger pangs my body adjusted to the new routine and I honestly have heaps more energy.
I know an older guy who used to refuse breakfast and lunch but would eat an extravagant dinner - he is the fittest (body type) guy of his age I know in my industry. He never shared what he was doing but it later became clear.
Me doing this from 17 until 20 something, for sure thinking I had an eating problem. Would eat omad or every two days. Go for an hour walk each day lost like 40kgs. Then moved out of my dad’s house and began to eat everything in sight.Now I’m trying to go back to my eating disorder 😂 I do 20:4 but it’s been like break fast at 20 then keep window open for 2 hours and then fast again.