Losing weight at my age is not easy. When I started my weightloss journey back in December of 2018, I realized how different my body actually works. I no longer have the teenage body where I can sculpt my obliques just after a month of 50 daily crunches. Or that college body where I can lose the semestral break weight gain ( which often led to a rumor that I’m pregnant. haha!) in a month.
You may want to read this too: My Reality Slap: How I Finally Decided to Lose Weight
Before I started intermittent fasting (IF), I was a year and a half of my fitness journey. I love my spin class and circuit training. Though the scale was not showing much progress, I felt great. I felt stronger and many of my health concerns vanished. Most of all, going to the gym gave me willpower and discipline that I can attribute to my IF lifestyle now.
Then the pandemic came. Less movement, no gym and more eating. Lots of drinking and junk food. I already started feeling that my old weight was coming back. My body felt heavier again.
What is Intermittent Fasting? Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern of cycling your day between eating and fasting. It is also called as time-restricting feeding, fasting from 12 hours up to extended days. While fasted, you can drink zero-calorie drinks like water or black coffee.
How I was led to Intermittent Fasting
One of the worse health issue lead to this life-changing lifestyle of intermittent fasting. At the end of August of 2020, I had the most severe ear infection. I’m prone to it with my sinusitis.
The worse pain I felt. My left ear completely closed. Imagine the pressure. If I have an enemy and I want him/her to feel the most excruciating pain, that ear infection will be “good”.
Along with my medicine, my ENT requested for my glocuse test and true enough, my sugar was high. Well, I was drinking thrice a week during lockdown. My doctor said that my high sugar worsen my ear infection.
He then told me that I need to lose weight. Computing my BMI and my daily calorie allowance, which I can devour in just one meal, he told me to do intermittent fasting. ” You just have to skip breakfast”, my kind doctor said.
Cool! Sounds easy. I wake up late anyway. Well it was not easy as I thought.
The start of intermittent fasting
When I started my weight loss journey, I never entertained intermittent fasting. I have seen my own friends losing weight with IF but I love to eat and for me it is a diet.
Plus, I tried it once but what I did was a dry fast – not even water from my last dinner. I was supposed to eat by 11am but the restaurant we went to was on soft opening and I broke my fast at almost 2pm. I developed an ulcer ( based on my Google search). Not a doctor but I my upper stomach was painful for a few days. Just like most people, fasting for me will lead to what we call in dialect as, “pasmo”.
Now going back to my first night of fasting. Boy it was the hardest! How many of us love to eat after dinner? Right before playing our Netflix movie or episode, we head to our kitchen or pantry for some snacks?
Throughout my intermittent fasting lifestyle, my first night was the most challenging. I was lucky to be chatting with my best friend that she urged and encouraged me – drink water or just sleep. If I will describe my feeling that night, it was like a movie scene where I was transforming from human to a monster or aswang.
Adjusting to the lifestyle
The very next day, I felt lighter. Waiting for my lunch was not hard for me since I often eat late breakfast. During my first 16:8 intermittent fasting (fasting from 7pm-11am), I spent my time counting the hours before my feeding time.
However, I was adjusting to the routine that I still end up eating three meals and snacks in between – I just compressed it within 8 hours of eating. After a few days, I was able to adjust to eating just two main meals with an afternoon snacks. Just skipping breakfast and most of all, the after-dinner munching of junk food will lead to weight loss.
My 16:8 intermittent fasting result was a 10 lbs-weight loss in 2 months. Then I hit a plateau. I added more exercise like jumping rope but the scale won’t cooperate anymore.
1st week of IF vs Almost 5 months of IF
Moving from 16: 8 to 20:4 Intermittent Fasting
One of the things I developed with my weightloss journey are constantly challenging myself and be braver enough to get out of my comfort zone. The problem with 16:8 intermittent fasting is that 8 hours is too long for feeding time and I am a snacker. I always eat heavy snacks and I love pastries and sweets.
With my plateau, I found myself nibbling even after dinner. I was on the verge of going off course from intermittent fasting. There I decided to try the 20:4 intermittent fasting.
My experience with 20:4 intermittent fasting
My 20:4 intermittent fasting result was another weight loss of 9-10lbs (weight fluctuates). I like it because I simply don’t have time to have snacks because I only have 4 hours of meal gap.
The only “problem” with 20:4 in my case is that I still feel stuffed when I need to have my 2nd meal. I eat at 4pm with 8pm as my last meal. I can’t help but have a huge meal at 4pm simply because I was fasting for 20 hours.
While on my 20 hour fasting, I had minimal workouts. The adjustment was more intense for me like my extremeties would feel cold, brain fog, and dizziness. Like any lifestyle change, I was fine in less than a week.
Intermittent fasting during the Holidays
Food in any culture is a social event and the holidays was such a challenge. I don’t want to dampened the spirit so I went back to 16:8 fasting. When we went to Guimaras, I was not fasting at all. I consciously gave myself a break.
I had three meals. Junk food and even alcohol. Of course with Noche Buena and Media Noche, no time for fasting. If I fasted, it was the 16:8 since it is really easy to skip breakfast. I gained 5.5 pounds – but I didn’t lose sleep about this. I can always bounce back.
Shifting to OMAD Lifestyle
On January 6, I had my first OMAD meal. Viewed as the most extreme form of intermittent fasting, OMAD stands for “one-meal-a-day”. Is this starving? Of course not.
Like other forms of intermittent fasting, OMAD means you will be fasting for 23 hours and consuming all your required calories within an hour. I eat during dinner usually at 6pm.
As of this writing, I’ll be on my 3rd week of OMAD and so far, this is the IF method that I’m very compatible with. I like how I can eat big because I really have a big appetite.
On my one week of OMAD, I lost all the holiday weight gain and as of now, I lost 7.7 lbs. My adjustment was not as “bad” compared 20:4 and I feel way better.
In 5 months of intermittent fasting, I lost 10kgs or 22 pounds.
Intermittent Fasting for Weightloss
With all things I’ve written on this post, I recommend Intermittent Fasting especially those who badly needs to lose weight. Please do consult your doctor about this before starting it.
So far, aside from weight loss here are the reasons why I love IF:
1. I feel lighter
2. Fights bloating
3. Decreased cravings especially sugar
4. My skin cleared. I even slashed some of my Korean multi-step skincare regimen.
5. Way easier to control calorie intake. I find recording and measuring food too troublesome.
Intermittent Fasting for Beginners
1. Take baby steps.
Do it gradually. Start with 12:12. You eat breakfast, lunch,dinner. The only thing you will skip is the after-dinner snacking. Schedule can be 8pm-8am. From there you can extend your fast an hour until you reach the 16-8 intermittent fasting schedule.
2. Water and Zero-calorie drinks to curb hunger
Dry fast is different. You can still drink as long as they don’t have any calories. Water, black tea and black coffee ( no sugar) will be your best friend while on IF.
3. Keep yourself busy. Distract yourself and learn not to be mindful of the time when to you can eat.
4. Be conscious of what you eat. Just because you are fasting, it doesn’t mean you just keep eating on bad food. This is something I love about OMAD. Because I only have one meal a day, I make sure that my meal is balanced. No time to eat crap!
5. Just keep going. There are times you feel giving up and keep going. When hunger strikes, drink more water or do something – it will just go away.
Join the Intermittent Fasting Tribe
You don’t have to follow my OMAD lifestyle – this is just the IF method that I like and so far, it works for me. The 16:8 intermittent fasting will already yield great result to most people.
There are many things I want to write about intermittent fasting and I will be adding more posts about them, updating this one along the way. I will also update this post as I continue with my OMAD or when I change gears with my IF lifestyle. Stay tuned!
If you have questions, leave a comment! Are you into intermittent fasting as well? Let me know!
2 Comments
Hi there, just wanna say thanks for sharing your journey. I am currently doing IF as well and it is inspirational to hear about your experience and insights.
Hi K! Sorry for my late response. How is it going? What kind of IF are you practicing!