Week 23 of ADF

This morning I was still at 156 lbs. Perhaps taking in up to 1000 calories on the "down" days is going to be my maintenance level. I feel pretty good eating 1000 calories. I usually don't eat anything but fruit until dinner, and then just eat some fruit, vegetables, low fat dairy, and bread. It's easy to have a meal with about 700 calories in it so long as it is nearly fat free. If you eat anything with much fat in it, you can be over 1000 calories before you know it. I have been getting rather hungry in the evenings, but the best solution for that is to drink a glass of water, or perhaps eat another piece of fruit. The nice thing about eating more on the down days is that I have a bit more energy to work and do things.

Week 22 of ADF

This week I increased my approximate calorie max on "down" days to 1000 (although I don't count very carefully and so am probably well below this still). Despite this rather large increase in food intake, I continued to lose weight. This morning I was at 156 lbs., down 2 lbs from last week. I find that when I eat more on the "down" day I am less likely to gorge on the "up" day. But I still did have some fantastic meals and snacks this week. But I'm also still finding that eating more actually makes me feel more hunger on the down day. Yes, you get the pleasure of eating more, but the feeling of huger is much stronger. If I stay below 300 calories, my stomach never growls, but this week my stomach has been growling loudly.

Week 21 of ADF

I am happy to be holding at 158 lbs this week. I have been feeling tired and weak much of the time, so this week I increased my food intake to around 700 calories on fasting days. That means I eat about three servings of fruit/vegetables in the afternoon, and then several servings of fruit and vegetables for dinner. I think it has boosted my energy a bit, although it makes me even more hungry in the evenings, I think. I may need to add a bit more food in the evenings on fasting days.

Week 20 of ADF

This morning I weighed in at 158 lbs. Now my average weight loss is 1.7 lbs per week.

Week 19 of ADF

This morning I weighed in at 160 lbs! It is nice to finally break that barrier. I guess I am still slowly losing weight. This past week I noticed that fasting days seem easier if I don't eat anything until about 4:00 pm. At that point I start eating a few fruits and vegetables, and then don't eat anything more after 6:30 pm. Eating anything earlier in the day just seems to make me more hungry. It fits my theory, that fasting is easier than calorie restriction. In other words, I find it easier to eat nothing for most of the day rather than to eat a little all throughout the day.

Week 18 of ADF

Today I'm at 161 pounds. I was really strict about the diet this week. I stayed well below 300 calories on fasting days and did not splurge on eating days. Since I'm not back to the 2 pounds lost per week, I guess that I'm really in a plateau for weight. That is probably fine, because most experts think 161 pounds is plenty thin for my height of 6 feet. I find it intersting that I'm eating the same but losing very little now compared to when I started the diet. It seems that my body "knows" how fat it is and it is losing down to this level in a response to ADF. It did not lose the fat because it was starved for calories, but rather due to the physiological/gene expression changes brought on by the fasting. At least that is what some authors suggest, and so far it makes sense according to my experience.

Week 17 of Alternate Day Fasting

Today I'm still at 162 lbs, the same as last week. I guess the weight loss is slowing. I did indulge pretty heavily on a couple of the fasting days this week. I really don't need to lose any more weight for health reasons, but when I'm fasting three days week I like to see a bit of progress on something. Probably I should just be happy that I am holding steady while feasting four days a week.

Week 16

Today's weight was 162 lbs. It is nice to be back to losing 2 lbs per week. Yesterday I was terribly low on energy (a fasting day). But perhaps that was due to lots of physical activity over the weekend that left me low on reserves and with sore muscles. Perhaps recovering from physical exertion on a fasting day is actually more difficult than engaging in the physical exertion on the fasting day. I usually have plenty of energy for physical work on a fasting day, but yesterday I was dragging. But I guess everyone has those days, so it is not fair to blame everything on the diet.

Week 15

This morning I weighed in at 164, the same as last week. That is a bit disappointing, but it may just be due to normal fluctuations. It also seems possible that muscle building could have kept the weight up this week. I did lots of lifting of cement blocks this week, and every muscle in my body seemed sore. So I wouldn't be surprised if I gained a bit more muscle mass. I did eat a few more calories too on my fasting days than I had been, but I'm still under 500 or so. I've decided to eat just a bit more so that I don't get quite so lethargic in the afternoons and evenings. If I don't eat anything until 6:00 pm, I have a hard time being productive in the afternoons. Anyway, even though the weight held steady this week, I do not believe that I have reached a weight loss plateau yet. I have dropped about three inches off my waist, and can't go much further there. But there is still plenty of fat left on my thighs, so I hope to be able to drop at least another five to ten pounds.

Vacation weight gone!

I weighed in the morning at 164 pounds, which is one pound less than my pre-vacation weight. So I lost about 3 pounds this week. I was skeptical that I was going to be able to lose anything at all because I felt like I was eating vast quantities of (not so healthy) food over the 4th of July holiday weekend. I guess part of it is that you feel like you are eating a lot when you are comparing it to fasting days when you eat nearly nothing. Yesterday, for instance I ate several beets, a couple cherries, and a strawberry Popsicle. Everything was red, but I'm sure that it came in at well under 300 calories for the day.

Vacation weight

I have now done a week worth of fasting since the one week vacation. I gained 4 lbs on the vacation, and have now lost two of those. So my weigh-in this morning was 167. I guess that it will take another week of fasting to get back to my pre-vacation weight of 165. Two weeks of alternate day fasting is a high price to pay for one week of eating whatever you want, but at least those pounds are coming back off.

After the vacation

Since my last post 16 days ago, I went on a vacation to visit family. I tried to fast one day on the 8 day vacation, but after skipping breakfast gave up. The result was, inevitably, that I put on some weight. So yesterday, my first day back, I fasted again. This morning I weighed in at 169. So that means I am up 2 lbs from my last entry. However, after my last entry I fasted for another week and got down to 165 lbs. So, I am now up 4 pounds as a result of skipping three fast days. Of course, since it was vacation I not only skipped the fast days but I ate a fair bit more of high calorie foods. I hope that some of the weight gain was actually just food in process or water/glucose stored in the liver, which can be easily lost with a week of fasting. It is hard to imagine putting on 4 lbs of pure fat in just 8 days of rather normal eating. Hopefully by next Tuesday, my normal weigh-in day, I will be back down to 165, my pre-vacation weight.

Week 10

After 10 weeks of alternate day fasting, I am now at 167 lbs. That puts my average weight loss at exactly 2.5 lbs per week. Since I still lost 2 lbs last week, I'm going to keep on with the diet as I have been doing it (taking in less than 300 calories on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with no restriction on eating the other days).

Week 9

This morning I weighed in at 169 lbs. I'm officially below my weight loss goal of 170! So long as I keep losing at 2 lbs per week, I'm going to keep this diet up for at least another five weeks. I am interested to see if I can go below 160, since I think that the last time I weighed 160 was probably in high school.

Week 8 of Alternate Day Fasting

This morning I was pleased to be down to 171. So even though I was only down 1 pound last week, I made up for it be losing 3 pounds this week. I tried to eat a bit less over the weekend, even skipping breakfast on Sunday. I guess that worked, but I didn't feel very good yesterday. It was perhaps my most difficult fasting day yet. I was pretty hungry occasionally, but the biggest problems were feelings of weakness and light-headedness. The great thing about fasting days is how cool it makes me feel. Yesterday it was about 80 and humid in the house, but I stayed pretty comfortable.

Week 7

This week I only lost one pound. That is a bit discouraging, but I'm not too surprised. I started to do some strength exercises this week, which is probably building muscle mass. Hopefully that increased mass will soon start to burn more fat, so that the weight loss can continue. Current weight: 174 lbs.

Week 6

My weight loss continues at a steady 2 pounds per week. This morning I was 175 lb. In the past week my eating was totally unrestrained on the eating days. Those two weekend days when I eat all I want are really fun. Another interesting thing is that even though we are in the height of allergy season here in Kansas, I haven't had itchy eyes at all. I've had just a bit of sneezing, but the symptoms have been very tame. Most springs have been really difficult for me. Perhaps I'm just becoming less allergic, but I suspect that the diet is helping. It has been theorized that since allergies involve an inflammatory response and alternate day fasting reduces the inflammatory response, the diet could help to reduce allergies. I sincerely hope so.

Week 5 Report

Last week I lost another 2 pounds! My average weight loss on a (modified) alternate day fasting diet is now 3 pounds per week. Considering that it took me five weeks of feeling hungry every day to lose 5 pounds on a "normal" calorie restriction diet before I started fasting, this is really nice. I'm only hungry three days per week, and even on the fasting days I probably only feel hunger for about a total of thirty minutes during the day. I'm certainly going to continue on until I reach my goal of 170 pounds. In fact, this has been so painless that I'm probably going to move that goal even lower, so long as the weight continues to come off at 2 lbs per week.

Week 4 Report

As of this morning I am down to 179 pounds! It is great to break through the 180 barrier. So now my weight loss has averaged 3.25 pounds per week. This past week I did lots of physical work, so that probably helped with the weight loss. But over the weekend I ate VERY well. When I have been eating only every other day during the week, it seems that I can eat huge amounts of food on the weekend and never really get full. It is amazing to be losing weight at a good rate and still be able feast occasionally. It is hard to believe that 4 weeks have gone by already!

Week 3 Report

After three weeks, I am down to 182 pounds. So I've lost an average of 3.3 pounds per week so far. I've adjusted well to the diet with very few side effects. I'm seldom hungry and generally feel energetic. However, I also haven't had any positive side effects. I had hoped that the diet would help with migraine headaches, but that remains about the same. I do think I have fewer migraines on fasting days, but no reduction on eating days.