I’m a 55M, 6’1”, currently 230 lbs and have lost 30 pounds in the past 11 weeks. My weight loss has been very steady and the unique thing about this weight loss effort vs. others I’ve done in the past has been the lack of a plateau. There are usually a week or two along my journey where I don’t lose any weight, but that hasn’t happened this time.
I think the difference is a weekly 40-hour fast.
On top of a daily 16:8 eating schedule, I will pick one weekly point where I eat dinner but won’t eat again until lunch two days later (for example, I’ll eat dinner on Monday but won’t eat again until lunch on Wednesday). This seems to have almost guaranteed 2-3 pounds of weight loss each week. On week 11, I lost 4 pounds even though I went to a brewery and had pasta over the weekend (which I normally never do).
This weekly fast seems to be able to erase any bad eating days that I’ve had and is keeping me on schedule and has been very easy to maintain.
I did a weekly 36 hour fast for a while. I find it to be just about the perfect balance between easiness vs results. You definitely will lose weight, and it’s not hard to implement at all.
And long term it’s pretty easy to make it a part of your life.
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve been thinking about doing this style of fasting, mainly for autophagy, though I wouldn’t mind losing a bit of fat as well. Can you comment on whether you exercise and how the fast affects your performance if you do?
I agree, fasting works wonders. I think the fact that insulin isn’t constantly high allows your body to use fat stores (as well as not storing fat) in a way that regular cico dieting doesn’t. I have been doing a weekly 4/7 fasting schedule and I have consistently lost 2 - 2.5 lbs every week. The times where I haven’t lost weight in the last 5 months is when I wasn’t fasting. I didn’t gain weight, but I wasn’t losing weight either.
Fasting is legit!
I started fasting on August 5th. Been fasting from Sunday night to Wednesday morning then starting a fast from Wednesday night to Friday morning. On the weekends I eat what I want and don’t worry about calories. As of today im down 12 pounds for August. I’ve been trying to lose weight for the past 2 years. I weightlift 4 days a week, count calories and macros. Cut out carbs and I was still not losing weight. I tried everything! I was getting so discouraged. I decided to try fasting again and saw results in the first week. I’ve been consistent with it for the past month and I have gone down a shirt size. Im going to give away my fat clothes now since I can now fit into my old shirts comfortably. The only thing with fasting is it has affected my weightlifting. I’m going to try to work out on the weekends now since they are non fasting days. Fasting is amazing and so easy. Can’t believe I didn’t do this earlier.
I like that I don’t have to go crazy with what I eat when I’m not fasting. Fasting actually makes it so I don’t want to eat as much when I come off it. When I do eat, I’m pretty satiated for a while. I’m going on my 3rd week of a 48 hour weekend. So far I’ve done 48 (first weekend) 24, 48 (the next week and weekend) and this week I did 48 and will be doing another 48 hour weekend starting tomorrow afternoon. I find that doing an early meal and “sleeping” off most of the in between fasting hours has made this process WAY easier.
I do exactly this same thing! Daily 16:8 and then I have 1 day a week (always Wednesdays) where I do roughly a 36hr fast, eat dinner Tuesday night and then nothing until Thursday lunch. I also find it extremely effective! If I don’t eat too healthy in a week, it kind of resets me
Yeah, I started with a 48 hour once per month just to really shock the system because my 24 hour fast doesn’t really feel like a challenge anymore
Combined with daily brisk walks with the dog (I HATE lifting weights)
Then upped it to 48 hour fast per week and I feel like it’s a good sweet spot and very sustainable for your weight loss to go in the right direction
Not to mention, you don’t have to cook, clean and save a bunch of money
Only thing is, not sure if I’m getting adequate protein doing this but I feel like it’s doing my body some good
Was thinking of doing 72 hours but that might be a bit hardcore, maybe once a month perhaps