Beating Obesity - Intermittent Fasting

 Up until earlier this year, I was an obese man for close to two decades.

I brought my weight under control through a few methods, but one of them was intermittent fasting. As a diet, intermittent fasting works because by controlling the hours that one eats (I only ate between noon and 7pm), one can limit the intake of calories.  

I enjoyed this way of eating because I am busy and don't like making frequent logbook entries. Second, intermittent fasting technically allowed me to eat things like fast food burgers covered in bacon served with fries. I had to give up sausages and eggs in the morning.  I didn't find this too difficult as an eating plan. It basically eliminated evening snacking plus breakfast.  On the downside, I would get tremendously hungry around 11:30AM.

I went from about 245lbs to 217lbs using intermittent fasting over a few months.  For a 5'11" man, this weight would still be considered obese but is a much more healthy size.  Running, moving and flexibility were much better, and my appearance was drastically better.

The most interesting part was I didn't feel sluggish at the end of the fast.  I was focused and energetic.  Some excellent work was done there.

I picked up a few good habits.  I never went back to heavy breakfasts and pretty much stopped drinking soda.  Ultimately it wasn't totally sustainable.  It was hard to skip drinks at night and breakfast with the family all the time.  I eased up a bit to not get awkward on a family vacation and jumped back to 222 pretty quickly.  I also found it hard to skip breakfast on Christmas morning and follow some other traditions that I like.   Eventually, I hit a patch where the clarity and focus in the morning were replaced by distracting hunger, and I started eating breakfast again.

I learned to get by on less food, and I never got fully back to 245 lbs, so it did teach me a few good habits.  In closing, I would say this way of eating does help one to lose weight, but it can be uncomfortable and hard to sustain. Intermittent fasting was a good step, but it ultimately was not the full cure for obesity.