As some of you know, I’m on a new eating pattern: I’m concentrating all my calorie intake in a 6 hours window, usually between 10 AM and 4 PM. It’s been more than 3 months since I’m doing this, so I thought an update will be necessary.
Weight Loss
I’m finally getting confirmation from my friends and close ones on the weight loss. It was a slow process, and it was like that on purpose. Instead of shaving some fat off of the top layer of my body – the superficial fat between muscles and skin – this habit makes the internal body fat to slowly disappear. As a result, my body “shrunk” overall, including my face. Or at least that’s what Raluca, my partner, is saying to me.
It’s normal for a weight losing process to take that long, especially when it happens organically, as a metabolism adaptation, and not as a result of some disruptive diet. Speaking of diet, other than being vegetarian, I don’t have any other restrictions and I eat how I see fit. The most consistent meal seems to be breakfast, but it’s quite balances: the “dinner” (the 4PM meal) is also quite packed in calories.
Outside this interval I only consume liquids: water, coffee and, occasionally, during evenings, a beer.
Training
I ramped up a bit my running training, as the autumn competitions for which I signed up are approaching. I continue to train using MAF (or Maximum Aerobic Fitness level) which means I’m gauging my effort by my heart rate, not by speed or power. The intention is to adjust my body to aerobic effort for more and more time, which will naturally lead to an increase in speed as well.
I’m happy to report that my results here are quite spectacular. I’m having two types of runs: short (1 hour) runs during weekdays and long (more than 2 hours) during weekend. The weekdays runs are starting to fit consistently under 138bpm, while the weekend runs are staying at 120bpm. The speed is almost shameful, but that’s not important for me at the moment. What counts is to create enough of a momentum for the body to adjust for this type of effort, at which energy is produced by burning mostly fat, not sugars.
All my runs are done fasted now.
Focus and Mental Strength
I’m working as a full stack programmer for two months now and I admit the adaptation process was intense. Nevertheless, I found my mental focus to be stronger and the emotional fluctuations to happen less and less. Although this might happening for a variety of causes, I think a certain part of the cause is to be found in this new habit. It may not necessarily come from the physiological effects, but probably as a boomerang effect of the self-discipline created to maintain this new habit.
All in all, I consider this experiment to be a success and I’m making it part of my lifestyle from now on. If there will be significant developments, I will obviously write about them here.
That’s great that intermittent fasting is working for you Dragos. I tried it once, for about a week, and couldn’t stick with it. It has great research behind it, and it might be something I will try again in the future.
What I like about you though is your willingness to try it and to stick with it. 3 Months is no joke.
Way to go man. Best of luck as you continue.