Since the competition that got me started on this journey has ended I’ve been basically stalled at my weight. Fluctuating back and forth between 200 and 198 lbs. I’ve been fairly OK with this weight but I realize that I’m still not where I need to be. According to the BMI charts for me just to get into the normal range I would need to be about 179 lbs.
I’ve come a long long way. I’m in the best shape since my teens, I have a good routine of running going on. Lots of lunches I go for a good walk with my manager. But my eating has really slipped back. Obviously not enough to send me gaining weight but I’m not going down and there is still a lot of fat I need rid of. Especially around my abdominal area.
I’ve done a fair amount of reading into it this is about the worst type and place to have fat. It has been linked to all kinds of diseases and things that will shorten your life span. Here are a few links.
- http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/study-belly-fat-officially-the-worst/261630/
- http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/25/is-belly-fat-more-dangerous-to-our-health/
- http://greatist.com/health/belly-fat-worst-kind-fat
So this is why I have made an effort to step it up and try something different again.
Back a couple months ago someone first mentioned to me the 5:2 diet from the documentary Eat, Fast, Live Longer. I didn’t think to much of it at the time but did a bit of reading just to see what it was about. At the time I was still making good progress doing what I was doing and figured that was good enough.
Well now that I’ve stopped doing well someone else brought this up to me again. I thought I would dig in a bit deeper. I actually watched the documentary and everything sounded pretty reasonable. There seem to be many other possible benefits other than just weight loss by intermittent fasting, which is the whole premise behind this “diet”.
It appears that you don’t have to completely fast but that if for two days a week you reduce your calorie intake to about a 1/4 of your proper amount you can get most of the benefits seen from actual alternate day fasting.
So yesterday I started this and only had about 600 calories. I broke this up over three small meals throughout the day. I was very surprised to find out that it wasn’t very hard at all.
I woke up this morning and could feel I was hungry, but not even close to being over whelming. So I went about my usual routine and went for a run and then had my normal breakfast when I got back.
My wife is a bit skeptical and even a bit worried about this. But from the reading I’ve done and after how I felt today I think if I see results and if there is even a chance that it can help me ward off some of the less desirable effects of aging than why not try. If I start seeing any negative come from it, I can simply stop.
Sandy McFadden 