Hello guys, I just turned eighteen back in October, I’m currently 5’9 and around 150lbs. I was wondering where I begin? I hate going swimming because I’m so self conscious about my body, I have a bit of a tummy and am looking to try and get rid of it. What would be a good schedule for me? Do I have to exercise to see any visual results? I always seem to lose motivation when I do diets, but I have faith that IF could be what gets me to being skinny. I don’t have hardly any muscle so it’s hard for me to do workouts. Thanks for reading this huge post.
Your weight is healthy for your height already, so don’t panic, take your time and yes exercise is probably what you need if you don’t like your shape. You are so young, and not fat! Eat healthy, work out, let form follow function.
Happy birthday!
So where to begin? In my opinion, it is best to begin with accurate information. Before embarking, I suggest reading “The Obesity Code” by Dr Jason Fung. He will walk you through the reasons why most diets fail and the science behind fat gain. This will lead to the inevitable conclusion that obesity is the result of eating too frequently, rather than a disease of consuming too many calories. This is because eating triggers the pancreas to produce insulin, which signals to your body to store energy (fat). Between meals, the pancreas produces glucagon, which signals to your body to burn energy (again, fat). When we eat too frequently, especially refined carbohydrates, our insulin levels never go down, so not only are we storing energy, but our cells become accustomed to high levels of insulin. This means that the pancreas must produce more and more insulin in order for our cells to continue storing energy. This is called insulin resistance and it is at the heart of the problem of obesity. With this background in mind, it becomes obvious why intermittent fasting is so helpful in treating obesity. He gives the example of hearing loss. When you are perpetually exposed to loud sounds, your ear protects itself by decreasing its sensitivity to sound. We call this hearing loss. Often, some hearing loss can be reversed by reducing exposure to loud noise. Similarly, by intermittently fasting, we are creating a low insulin environment for our cells, which builds up their sensitivity to it. When our cells are more sensitive to insulin, our pancreas does not need to produce as much of it. With less insulin kicking around in our blood after we eat, our body can more easily transition from energy storage to energy burning. Notice how this explanation has absolutely nothing to do with how many calories you eat. It has everything to do with when you eat them, and in what form (refined sugar? complex carbohydrates?).
So before beginning, my advice to you is to read this book. I think that understanding the science is empowering and it will cut out some of the noise in places like this subreddit where people share all kinds of theories with no scientific basis.
My second recommendation is to be extremely forgiving of yourself and start with very managed expectations. I personally find a 16 hour daily fasting window to work best for me. But it takes a ton of motivation to stick with it. At first, it is very difficult to do, so I think it’s really important to start with very small goals. I would play around with a much shorter fasting window, even if it doesn’t have the intended effects of weight loss. It will help you get into the mind set of restricting your eating time. For example, you can start by simply not eating 2 hours before bedtime. Once you do this consistently for say one or two weeks, start to increase the time in the morning before you have your first meal. I tend to have lunch at noon. Once you are set into a routine, try to avoid snacking between lunch and dinner. Eventually, you will get yourself to a point where you stop eating at 8 pm and start again at 12 pm the next day. This might not be the right window for you. You’ll have to play around with it. The great thing about intermittent fasting is that it’s impossible to fail. If you happen to eat outside of your eating window, all you have to do is not eat for a while.
As for exercise, you do not need to do any to lose body fat. You will definitely see changes in your fat composition. But you are at the perfect age to start building some core strength. You don’t need to go to a gym or to a class or anything. You can do it in the privacy of your bedroom. I recommend videos by “caroline jordan” on YouTube. She has a lot of great beginner videos for building strength.
I hope you find this useful
Good luck
So IF for weight loss is a mechanism for calorie control and maintaining a calorie deficit which causes the weight loss. 16 hours fast, 8 hour eating window. Skipping breakfast and eating a normal lunch and dinner will presumably cut your calorie intake by 1/3. So a 2000 calorie diet becomes 1300-1400 calorie diet. This is usually enough to start seeing a weight loss of about 1 pound a week (500 calorie deficit a day x 7 days = 3600 calories = 1 pound of fat.). That’s perfect world shit though, most people will eat more, snack during their eating window so we round up and just say expect to lose about 0.5 pounds a week. 3 months = 6 solid pounds of weight loss. If you go back to eating normal though expect to gain the weight back, extra energy will be stored, not enough energy from your diet is made up from by your fat reserves. If you want to look better (aestheticly), lift weight and do IF at the same time.