Anyways, one day a week (usually Tuesday but sometimes Thursday) I will fast from the time I get up until I wake up the next day, so roughly ~30 hours or so. It was working pretty good I think. I didn't really do much the first couple of weeks, but I started weighing myself weekly in January. So I got down to 261, 8-10 lbs down. I was pretty happy about that. So last week, I guess I overdid the superbowl and this week I weighed in at about 265. Not too happy about that. Literally gained 4 lbs in a week just from a little extra chips/cheese/alcohol during the Big Game.
One point to add here... 8-10 lbs in 6 weeks is just on the upper end of a "normal/safe" weight loss. But although you might feel like you lost all that weight, chances are if you were just eating a little healthier and
avoiding carbs, a good portion of that weight was water. And then there's NO way you gained 4 pounds in a week. Your body doesn't do that. You ate crappy
[carb-laden] foods and your body started retaining water. So you "gained" four pounds... Of water.
This is often what happens when someone goes low-carb. They lose a crazy amount of weight REALLY quickly... Because their body is no longer retaining as much water. You can lose weight with a low-carb diet, but that initial burst usually isn't real. You add back some carbs, and 5-10 lbs can pack on effectively overnight. The only thing that can do that, that quickly, is water retention.
If you REALLY want to drop weight with diet, the best way IMHO is simple calorie counting. Figure out your daily burn rate. Try to live in mild (no more than 500/day) calorie restriction. At 500/day, you should lose about a pound a week. I did this a long time ago. My basal metabolic rate (BMR), i.e. the amount I'd burn with absolutely zero exercise, was about 2700/day, I watched it very closely and lived around 2200/day, and the weight just fell right off. The nice thing about being big guys like us is that we have high BMR, so you don't have to restrict as much. 2200/day is more than many smaller people can eat without gaining weight lol!
I personally think things like intermittent fasting, or not eating after 4 PM, or eliminating carbs, or any other "don't eat item X or don't eat during time Y" are essentially a way to get you into calorie deficit. It's just a hack to do it w/o all the work of calorie counting.
Exercising and working out is great to improve your health....cardio, strength, making your doctor gripe at you about your lab results less, etc. But it's not going to help you lose weight much. Not unless you combine it with a modified diet, in which case, it's mostly the modified diet that's working, not the exercising.
Yeah, I probably should have touched on that... The old saw is "You can't outrun your fork."
And it's true. For most people, the more you exercise, the more hungry you are. The more hungry you are, the more you eat (to balance the extra calorie burn). And if you eat more, you won't lose weight. Your body
wants you to stay in calorie balance.
You can get strong/fit in the gym. But if you're not paying attention to diet (and living in a calorie deficit), it won't cause you to lose weight.
