Just want to share my story.
So, I started fasting in 2019, I went from 106kg to 76kg (about 200 pounds to 140 pounds I guess) in the span of 6 months. I could easily handle consecutive 2-3 day fasts.
I started travelling. I’m a foodie, so I was trying a lot of new things, kind of neglecting my fasting since I was finally “skinny”.
Fast-forward a year, definitely not 76kg anymore but still fit, fasting on and off, still abroad, when Corona hits. Met a girl and we spent the lockdown together in her country. Turns out being active because of travelling around so much was the only thing holding the flood back. I slowly start gaining the weight back, not too worried about it, I fast a bit to keep myself in check. Did the longest fast I ever completed to date, which is 10 days. I did lose a good chunk of the weight again there.
A few months later, I decide it’s time to finally head back home after a year and a half being abroad. Get home and I relapse. Hard. I moved back in with my parents, temporarily, lockdown is still going. The fridge is full and am bored out of my mind. Start eating irresponsible quantities of food, naively thinking being overweight was a thing of my past. After a month or so I noticed that I gained a lot of weight, I stepped on the scale for the first time since 2019 and saw, to my horror, I was back at 95 kg. I felt absolutely gutted. All the hard work, all the discipline and sacrifice had been for nothing. Fuck. I’m still so mad about it all. Losing that weight had not been a joke. And I was back at square one.
I’ve been back for 2 years now, and I hit 100 kg again this month. I’ve tried fasting on and off, in those 2 years but I can’t keep it off like I did before. And I can’t find the discipline to be hard on myself like I was. I just don’t want to go through that again.
The main goal for me losing weight was finding a girlfriend and get laid (I was a virgin at the time) but now I have that and I feel like I don’t have that drive anymore.
I don’t feel good about myself, being overweight has always made me feel very insecure and now I feel like a loser for allowing myself to gain everything back.
If anyone has advice or if someone is going through something like this, please feel free to share.
I just wanted to vent a bit.
I know it’s very individual and personal to you.
Also, the same thing happened to about half the population (weight gain during pandemic).
Your not alone in your pain, nor are you a singular failure. But lucky you, you know how to get out of the hole. Most everyone else doesn’t know the way out.
Don’t feel bad, we’ve all been there before. You can definitely get to where you want to be again. Focus on one day at a time.
I lost 75 lbs doing fasting and omad over the course of 6-7 months. I kept it off for more than 5 years. After getting into an awful car accident and doing nothing at all during my recovery I gained a little more half of it back. I never ever imagined I’d gain any weight but how could I not. Being inactive while trying to heal… it was almost impossible not to gain some weight. Fast forward to now I am back to fasting regularly and feeling much better. The weight will come back off again.
Well, it seems that you realize that you are using food to cope with some sort of emotions or conditions that are difficult for you. That is the good news.
The bad news (temporarily) is you are going to have to figure out what those emotions are and work through it.
You may want to consider if certain foods trigger certain eating patterns for you. Everyone’s brain is wired differently and some people respond to some forms of carbohydrates in such a way that once it enters their body they physically cannot stop.
Wishing you the best and as someone else said, it is one day at a time from here on out.
The more you yoyo diet like this, the more effort your body will make to gain and hold onto fat by slowing your metabolism. This is why fasting typically works great to begin with, then doesn’t.
The best option is to look at what you are eating, minimise foods that promote weight gain, maximise foods that increase metabolism, exercise and don’t eat too much.
Maintenance is a process of figuring out what your food limits are. Good news is you know you can do it.
Consider you might need take a two path approach to get back in fasting mode. One part physical one part mental.
Physical. Consider fat fasting until your body says I can’t eat anymore fat. Google fat fasting. Lots of ways to fat fast. I try to keep it simple and boring. E.g. Bacon eggs olives Sardines avocados. 🫒 as you decrease the insulin in your body by fat fasting, your cravings go down and water fasting is much easier. There is more beneficial activity with regards to you hormons as well but not going down that rabbit hole today.
Taking care of the physical 1st makes the mental a bit easier. All I will say on the mental is… be gentle with yourself. Opps had an earing stumble.. now I know what doesn’t work. Ook time to experiment until you find the right combo. Curiosity is a much easier viewpoint that beating up on yourself. You cN be curious about you body process during fasting and refeeding.
Just from personal experience my body is an adaptation genius. It likes homeostasis.so I have to change my fasting schkdule almost weekly to keep my body guessing and when I get tired if fasting with water only I go to fat fasting.
Welcome back to the fasting lifestyle! You got this!