This is going to be a long winded post. I hope that is OK. I am really excited and wanted to share.
I just started IF Sunday exactly one week ago. I was at my mom’s house with my son and he wanted to see if he weighed enough to sit in the front seat of the car yet. I figured that I would weigh myself too. My mom has a really accurate scale that she bought when she lost a bunch of weight a couple of years ago. It said that I weighed 288 Lbs. I was shocked. I have never really cared about my weight, but I have been at or around 275 for close to 3 years now. I was pissed. I was uncomfortable with that.
I went home and dove into a bunch of websites looking for information on weight loss. The deal is simply to lower the calories that you eat so that you burn more than you take in. I stumbled upon /r/intermittentfasting and I immediately gravitated to OMAD.
The next morning I took my son to school then went to the grocery store. I had no clue what to buy or how I was going to cook it. My wife and I are not very competent cooks. We usually eat out, like a lot. I decided that since my son eats breakfast and lunch at school, I would make my one meal a day dinner. I can cook and everyone can eat together.
The only healthy thing that I know of is chicken and rice. I bought a rice cooker and some rice as well as some chicken breast and broccoli. The last time I ate was Sunday at 3pm. By Monday at noon I was starving. I figured that I can quit tobacco cold turkey, I can wait until 5pm to eat.
I cooked dinner and was super satisfied. My family enjoyed it as well. I decided that I would choose what I want to eat the next day and go to the store in the morning. I have created a routine. In the evening I research new recipes and in the morning I buy the ingredients.
I make a meat dish, a veggy dish and a starch dish. I eat a full plate and that is it. I drink hella cold tea in between meals. I weighed myself at my mom’s house again tonight and I dropped down to 278. I didn’t believe it at first, so I weighed myself 2 more times to be sure. They were all within .1 Lbs of each other. On top of the losses this week, I am sleeping better. After the first 2 days I was on a completely normal sleep schedule. I have not been to bed before 3am in I don’t know how long. I am now in bed no later than 11pm. I am more busy too. I am shopping and cleaning the kitchen and preparing the things that I am going to cook later that by the time I realize it, I have to go pick my son up from school. I have been walking my dogs farther too.
I have a sleep tracking app that talks to my apple watch and tracks my sleep. I have a lower average sleeping heart rate than I have had in a long time. The one thing that I am noticing is that I wake up more during the night. I still feel rested when I wake up though.
I don’t know if this feeling/results will continue, but I am super stoked and wanted to share with you guys. If you have any questions for me I would love to get feedback and recipes. Thanks for reading.
I started my own journey after watching this video. I was about 6’2” and 220. I ended up targeting about 180 which is where I think I look and feel best and I’ve been at that for about 4 years now. So I may be able to give a little insight from my own experience.
The hunger mostly goes away as your body’s expectation of food changes. It’ll basically stop releasing the hormones ghrelin before you’d normally eat breakfast and lunch but will happen before your normal dinner time. It’ll usually take about 30ish days to get adjusted, until then hunger can be normal and is the biggest reason I see peopel fail, giving up in 1-2 weeks.
You body will process carbs like rice much like sugar so best practice is to limit how much you have. Brown rice is a better choice over white and has some nutrients that are good for you in controlled quantities. The chicken and vegetables like broccoli is maybe the healthiest thing you can eat, it’s even the staple diet used by marvel actors to get in super-hero shape. If you can do this 5 or so days a week you’ll be fast-tracking your progress, but it’s nice to have 1-2 days a week you can enjoy some favorite meals as well which helps prevent burnout.
Alcohol is the worst. I enjoy some drinks but even if you do everything else perfectly it’ll set you back more than anything else. Also if you haven’t eaten for a day and have a drink it’ll not only get you hammered fast but it’s pretty bad for your liver so pick your drinking occasions wisely and ensure you have food in your system before drinking.
My weight will fluctuate by up to 10 lbs in a given week. Partially body fat, partially raw biomass in my digestive tract and partially water weight. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t keep the pace you’ve seen so far, 1lb a day average is REALLY aggressive and not usually sustainable, over a long timeline I’d expect closer to ½lb/day.
Though it’s optional, some light/moderate cardio at the end of your fasting window can help the process along and generally improve cardiovascular health. You body will become more “metabolically flexible” in time making the process easier to sustain.
I use plain black coffee on occasion. I’ll suppress your apatite and keep you energized. Tea does this too to an extent.
Set a target weight. I wanted to be about 10lbs below the BMI of “overweight” so that’s what I aimed for. Keep at it consistently until you get there. You’ll feel and look better as you approach it. Use that consistent progress as motivation.
Anyhow, glad to hear you’re having such a good experience. Maybe snap a “before” picture to share with an after picture when you reach a goal. Once you can see your flexed abs in the mirror you’ll never want to go back.