Perpetual Poppycock

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UPDATE: I’m kicking off 2024 with a 52 week OMAD journal goal! I am excited to see what another 52 weeks of OMAD can do for me and thought you might be interested in following along or joining the fun. You can come here each week for a post or you can join me by getting your own copy of the journal and see how OMAD works for you!

If you are looking for the quick facts about intermittent fasting and how it worked/works for me, here you go. I lost 75 pounds from July 2022 to January 2024. I did OMAD (one meal a day), or 20:4 eating window for most of those days. And when I say “most days”, I mean almost every day. I allowed for holiday eating or special occasions that called for more than one meal a day but it was rare. More on that later when I talk about maintaining. I put zero restrictions about what I could eat or drink. I only limited when I would eat. I exercised by walking/running/cardio and lifting heavy weights, 4 or more days per week. That’s it! That formula resulted in 75 pounds of weight loss in 7 months.

This is me at 280-285 pounds. I don’t have many pictures of myself in general but even fewer of my full body. I think these do a good job of showing my size.

I read these two books for a bit of direction on how to do intermittent fasting and the science behind it. “Delay Don’t Deny“, by Gin Stephens, has been my most influential read but “The Obesity Code“, by Dr. Jason Fung and Timothy Noakes, let me deep dive into the gritty, sciency stuff to fuel my interest. “The Obesity Code“, does recommended a low sugar, keto approach in combination with intermittent fasting, but I did not do that. In fact, I eat dessert every single day. I LOVE sweets! “Delay Don’t Deny“, is still something I listen to as an audiobook regularly, to keep my way of life top of mind.

This is me now. I am 210-215 pounds and have maintained this since March of 2023. I’m not perfect or an ideal weight. I’m just a middle aged, basic b*tch, B-bellied mom, who said, what the heck…let’s give it a shot. And it worked!

I wanted to give you the goods right up front because I know when I was looking for information about intermittent fasting, I really just wanted to know if it works. And guess what? It does!

The deeper dive

Now I’ll go through the details for anyone who is still reading. Soup to nuts, so to speak. Maybe it will strike a cord with you the way it did with me and be a tool you can use to achieve your health or weight loss goal.

*Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and I am not giving you medical advice. I’m only telling you what I did, that worked for me. Period, end of story. I’m not a counselor, dietician, scientist, or magician. I’m just a middle aged, basic b*tch, B-bellied mom, who said, what the heck…let’s give it a shot.

So, here is my story for anyone who wants to hear it. I want to start by saying, you are all beautiful just as you are! This is not written to fat shame or perpetuate any beauty expectations or standards. My decision and efforts are a result of my desire to reverse some medical diagnoses that resulted from my former way of life and feel more in control of my physical capabilities. That’s it. The vanity side effects are awesome and a bonus but they weren’t my north star this time, and maybe that was part of why I was able to make some real change. I continue to learn from this experience so expect more posts about this but for now here is a little bit about me.

Reasons I Tried Intermittent Fasting

In the months leading up to my decision to try intermittent fasting, I had gained a lot of weight back that I’d lost 8-10 years earlier. Quick history about my size. I’m 5’6″ tall. I was a chubby kid, overweight teenager, obese young adult, morbidly obese adult. I have weighed over 200 pounds since the year 2001. I lurked around 285-290 pounds for 8-10 years, then dropped to around 250-260 pounds for 9-11 years. Time is fuzzy but the point is, I was big for a long time. In the year 2022, towards the end of the pandemic, the stresses of worrying about the status of the world, had taken its toll on me and my family and I put on 30 pounds.

I was miserable. I felt bad. I ached. I was embarrassed when I saw pictures of how I had bloated back up to a size I had promised myself I’d never be again. My hair was thinning, my clothes didn’t fit, I had no energy, and my blood pressure and blood work showed my health was officially suffering. For the first time in my life, I was told I needed blood pressure medication and my A1C was borderline insulin resistant and would require medication if I didn’t get it under control.

This was the catalyst I needed to make my health a priority. I did not want to miss one moment of my family’s lives by dying early for anything I might be able to prevent and I didn’t want to be dependent on medication if I could avoid it. Dying early can happen for many reasons outside of a person’s control, HOWEVER I knew that I could improve my odds of living longer by getting my physical stats better aligned with standards associated with accepted healthy levels.

In May of 2022, I made the first step towards trying to improve my health by joining Orange Theory for one month. I knew I would not be a member long-term because the membership is expensive for my budget, but I needed an organized jumpstart to get my serotonin flowing and it was close to my home.

I worked out with Orange Theory for May and June of 2022 and enjoyed it. It was hard at my size and I constantly worried that I was going to drop dead of a heart attack but it did what I wanted it to do, which was remind me that my body needed to move and while working out was painful sometimes, the pain of working out was much better than the pain of becoming sedentary. If you are big and sedentary you might know what I mean. When you are big and sedentary it hurts to move in every day activities like getting out of a chair or cleaning the house, but when you start to move your body more by working out, the pain shifts. You stop hurting from every day, normal activity and start to feel good doing those things. The pain shifts to being sore from working out, which is more mentally rewarding and physically stimulating. I will choose the pain of working out, any day.

It was during this time that I read the book “Delay Don’t Deny“, by Gin Stephens. This book struck a cord with me because it sounded like something I could do. I did not want to stop eating any food. I love food and the idea of cutting anything out had never worked for me in the past beyond the first two weeks of a program. WW, calorie restriction, keto, low carb…you name it, I tried it.

Intermittent fasting, the way Gin Stephens described it, sounded easy. I could have anything I wanted, as long as I limited eating to one time per day. I could have fast food and not count the calories. I could eat dessert and not limit my dinner choice before. I wanted to sit down to a meal and just be able to turn off the noise in my head and enjoy the experience. Gin Stephens explained that I could do that if I just ate one meal a day. I was intrigued.

A couple years earlier, a friend’s husband had started eating one meal a day to drop the weight he’d put on over the years. He lost weight and maintained without much effort. He felt great and had more energy. This fueled my curiosity about if intermittent fasting would work for me.

The first week of July 2022, I started skipping breakfast and just ate lunch and dinner, having only water from the time I went to bed the night before until lunch the next day. Coincidentally, my husband’s personal mental health crisis came to light during this first week, and my survival instincts were stretched to the limit. I was faced with two big life changes in a 7 day period and it was HARD. This would have normally been a situation I’d turn to food for comfort but I made the choice not to do that this time. I had two kids that needed me. I was going to be a parent and make the counterintuitive decision to take care of myself in order to be able to take care of them.

By the second week of July 2022, I made the decision to only eat dinner every day as Gin Stephens, had described in her book. At this point, I had gotten back into the rhythm of working out, and experienced the hunger pains of skipping meals, so I was cautiously confident I could take this next step. I had lost zero pounds from May-June, so I was making this change at the weight of 285 pounds.

Here’s what you should know about hunger pains. They don’t get worse and they pass if you wait it out. Think about yourself at your most hungry state. The hunger doesn’t get worse than that. It will last an hour at most but it will pass. Ice water helps to speed this up for me. I think most people are like me and they just want the hunger to go away. I used to get nauseated and light-headed from hunger. I would get weak and angry. Those symptoms are temporary, you just have to be patient. That was the only real adjustment I felt. I had to learn how to be ok with being hungry.

The month of July was spent learning how to manage my one meal a day and how to adjust for the unknown. I practiced feeding other people while not eating myself and navigated answering people’s questions about why I wasn’t eating. Guess what? The answer to that question, that shuts down further questions you don’t yet have the answer for is simply, “I’m not hungry”. Most of the time that was a lie, but it worked to get people to not focus on me and just get on with their own needs. I was quietly learning how to be this new version of myself who would prioritize my health to be able to give better care to the people I love. It wasn’t easy, I wasn’t good at it, and I made mistakes.

I gave myself grace to fail. My actual thought about my weight was, it can’t get much worse than it is right now so if I just keep trying, it might get better. Some days I ate lunch instead of dinner. Some days I skipped my work out. Some days I had a social event with day drinking and grazing. I let those things happen without feeling much guilt but the very next day I would go back to one meal a day, lots of water, and working out.

During the months of August to January, I really found my rhythm. I was doing those three things almost every day. One meal a day, lots of water, and working out. It became routine and less mentally exhausting. I enjoyed each successful day and didn’t dwell on the failed days. I would just look at the 24 hours in front of me and aim to follow my plan. If I didn’t follow plan, I would look back at the sum of my days and see that the majority were successes. To reiterate this point, I looked ahead by only 24 hours, but looked back at the sum of my successes. This made it easy to see where I was winning and keep plowing ahead.

My successes added up during those months and I lost 75 pounds. I went from 285 pounds to 210 pounds. My size went from a 24/3XL to a 16/XL. I still buy some of my shirts at 2XL because I like them loose but XL fits as it is meant to. The bigger win and my metric for success, was my blood pressure and A1C lowered down to normal range! I was THRILLED!

I was eating a big, delicious, meal of my choice and dessert every night. I had not felt deprived once during my months of OMAD and even found greater satisfaction when eating food. Everything tastes better when you are hungry! I could move better, had more energy, and felt mentally more clear. It was awesome!

Starting in February, I relaxed my regiment a bit. I allowed myself sugary coffee in the mornings of the weekends, and usually ate lunch on Saturday and Sunday. I did this with intention. I wanted to see how my body would adjust. I followed this pattern of OMAD Monday through Friday, and weekends were a bit more relaxed for months. I put back on around 5-7 pounds in months that I ate more on the weekends and allowed more food during the week, but it would fall back off the next month I practiced OMAD more consistently. I also stopped working out during this time.

During those months, my son regressed a good bit with his sleeping and I was up and down all night answering his calls for support. This interfered with my sleep and made it too hard to get up at 4:45 to work out. I just didn’t have the desire to do it. So part of my weight fluctuation could be attributed to the increase in sedentary time and lack of exercise.

Either way, I was happy to find that my weight is easily maintained if I do a 5 day OMAD fast, followed by weekends of eating at will. That is a standard that is easy for me to keep and I am happy with that way of life.

Recently I have started working out again and sticking to more OMAD days. I want to get below 200 pounds just to see if I can get a bit smaller and maintain with the same pattern I mentioned earlier. That is a personal goal and not one based in health needs or vanity. I just haven’t seen the scale read those numbers since 2000 and I would like to get there again.

I don’t know if everyone will have the same success I did but I do believe that most will see some benefits. Dr. Fung goes into a lot of the health benefits of fasting in “The Obesity Code”, and I believe I’ve experienced a lot of them myself. If you want to try this, please talk to your doctor. I was in contact with mine from day one and kept him informed of my choices. He monitored my health vitals during this time and my bloodwork. Don’t do anything dangerous or uniformed. Read, study, consult with a doctor, and see if its an option for you. I would love to hear if you try this and what you experience. Its my new normal by now and I don’t plan to go back to a traditional 3 meal a day lifestyle, ever. This is too easy. I’m hooked!