Intermittent Fasting Update - August 2020

My weigh in this morning was 241.4 but the average for the month is a little higher. As you can see from the below chart, this past 12 months has been ups and downs. You can see the gradual decline from my past posts discussing my progress before falling off the wagon.

This month has been interesting for sure. At the start of the month, I took a road trip with my 16 year old brother from Texas up to the Great Lakes. During our trip I stuck to my eating windows but went absolutely hog wild with what we ate. We were having a good time trying all of the local food and enjoying each other's company.

Side note: Wisconsin cheese curds are fucking amazing...

Me

I thought I'd mention something else here as well that my wife keeps bringing up.

My current ritual is to weigh in on Friday mornings right after I wake up and use the bathroom. Depending on what I'm doing in regards to work, this might be 9-10am even if I wake up at 8am. During that time from rise to first bathroom break, I do not drink any water. I also try to not go ham with the water on Thursday night. My thought is that if I wake up and chug a 32oz cup of water, that I've essentially "gained" 2 pounds. In terms of keeping an accurate track of my weight loss numbers, this seems like an okay practice.

My wife thinks is unhealthy to think of water in such a negative way. I'm not sure if we're having some sort of miscommunication as I've tried explaining it different way and she says she understands and still thinks it's problematic. Tell me your thoughts. I'm interested to hear them!

My weekly routine

I've had various people ask about my routine so I thought I'd update the internet here with what I'm doing and what's working currently. If I change something in between these posts I'll try to remember to make a not of it in future posts.

Sunday

At the start of the week, I'm usually volunteering with my local church. Eating is a social activity we usually partake in with friends so I keep Sunday's a bit lax. Obviously with Covid-19, we're not going to church or seeing friends, but I still eat Dinner and sometimes a light lunch. I aim to stop all food intake by 10 PM.

Monday

This is a fasting day. No food, only water and my meds (asthma pills and some supplements). Ask your doctor if your medicine needs to be taken with food. Mine do not.

Tuesday

Around 5-6 PM (or later) I'll eat dinner with the goal of finishing by 10 PM. My current diet consists of two meals from https://www.cleaneatzkitchen.com/ and then a bag of popcorn if I'm still hungry. I've really been trying to eat my food slower and allow the hormones to work their magic to make me feel full. The problem I still have to a degree is my ability to inhale food at such a rate that my body can't even react to being full.

Most of the time I'll start my fasting timer right after I finish eating, irregardless of the time. Bed time is around midnight.

Wednesday

Basically a repeat of Tuesday. I may eat an extra serving of some frozen vegetables in preparation for Thursday, but it depends.

Thursday

Another full fasting day! No food, just water and my meds. Like I mentioned before, I try to not go crazy with the liquids after 10pm or so because of weigh in on Friday morning. Basically I just want to ensure that I'll have to pee soon after waking up and that my body is actually getting rid of the extra water I don't need.

Friday

Weigh in day! I have a lot of work calls on Friday's so it's a busy morning. If I have to use the bathroom, I'll do that and then immediately weigh myself. Tracking is always done in my birthday suit for maximum results and easier reproduction.

After that, it's water and meds until 5-6 PM for dinner. Same meals as the previous week, though I've been known to grab some Wingstop on the weekend. Aim to finish eating by 10 PM.

Saturday

A repeat of my other eating days basically. If we were having social events, I'm sometimes less picky about eating times, but I still aim for 16 hours fasted as least. Rarely do we have events before noon so in those cases I would politely decline anything until later in the day. If we do have breakfast plans with someone, I'd probably eat, but opt for as low carb as possible. Eggs, bacon, vegetables. An omelette does sound pretty good right now. 🙂

Re: Food choices

I've historically made pretty terrible food choices. Weighing 310 pounds is evidence enough of that. Self control when it comes to food has been very difficult for me, and frankly a lot of other things as well.

I'm very spontaneous and when I want something I tend to get it pretty quickly afterwards. New toys, going somewhere, eating something. I've really had to work at controlling these urges and work on planning ahead of time.

As part of embracing more planning and self control, I opted to purchase pre-cooked meals in bulk. I've essentially removed any ability to cheat by limiting myself to these pre-purchased meals and a handful of pre-approved snacks!

So far, I have to admit that it seems to be working. I'm not tracking it explicitly, but my daily calorie intake on feasting days is somewhere around 1200-1600 calories. For a dude who still weighs 240 pounds, this is a significant deficit from what my body needs to function, thereby forcing it to burn more fat.

During my first attempt at this last year, I would say I was normally eating more than 2,000 calories a day making my own food. The portion sizes were larger mainly, and I wasn't afraid to load up on low carb, yet calorie rich, liquids like ranch or butter.

I wonder when I'll get to eat "normal" food again but for now this is working. Especially with the world in a state of quasi-lockdown, it is nice to not have to worry about making grocery store runs. My wife buys food for herself on her way to / from work.

Conclusion

If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment or reach out on Twitter @daronspence . I'm sometimes slow to reply here on the site, but if more people comment it might motivate me 🙃

Also feel free to join my fasting circle on the app I use. iOS only though! Sorry! https://lifefastingtracker.app.link/z3D7qHg2W8