A Personal Experiment for September
Another month down, another 10 pounds shed. At 246, I’m a full 60 lbs down since April when I opted to eschew grains and refined sugars and a whopping 85 lbs loss in total. That’s 25% off. Deep discount, I’m on sale!
I didn’t commit to any challenges over the summer given how irregular my schedule was. I was very happy to just maintain momentum and keep on track. To be honest, it’s getting easier and easier to live Primal. Avoiding community candy dishes at the office remains an obstacle. It’s weird because I don’t have a sugar craving — it’s just when I walk by, I give in to temptation. However, I don’t beat myself up over it. I aim for 100% compliance, but 80-90% is realistic.
I rolled and sprained my right ankle pretty bad near the end of July requiring physio and slowed me down considerably. It’s much better now and for the last week or so, I’ve been increasing my low-intensity cardio with some longer walks and hikes. The goal is to get between 2 and 5 hours per week consistently. Lately, I’ve been using Endomondo as an outdoor GPS tracking tool. As a die-hard BlackBerry user, I find it better than MapMyRun and Runtastic.
My commitment for September is more of an experiment than a challenge. Over the course of the last few months, I’ve noticed something: I’m not hungry at breakfast time anymore and have occasionally forgotten to eat until lunch (once until supper). I wasn’t light-headed or super hungry; I just wasn’t hungry. This is huge — I’m not known for passing up a meal. Ever. My appetite has been legendary. Viking song legendary. I didn’t attain my rotund girth by skipping on a trip to the trough.
Of course, everything’s different now.
That observation had me reading quite a bit on Intermittent Fasting (IF). Boy, does it ever fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but I’m going to give it a shot for 30 days and examine the results. The protocol I’ll follow is to simply perform a daily 16-hour fast, easily achieved by skipping breakfast. The parameters are quite straight-forward:
- I'll consume all my calories between 11:30am and 7:30pm and only drink clear liquids (coffee, tea and water) the rest of the time.
- Part of the protocol is to do some form of exercise before breaking my fast.
- What won't change is my average caloric intake (~1500-1800 kcal) or macro-nutrient balance (50-100g carbs, 80-100g protein, enough fats for satiety).
- Since my breakfast has consisted of 2 eggs with butter pretty much every single day for months, it's pretty easy to adjust --- just add two boiled eggs to my lunch.
- I'll follow my normal senses and eat until I'm satisfied but not full.
That’s it!
Objective measurement will be in changes to weight-loss rate (if any). Subjective measures are about energy level, hunger and sleep quality. Success is determined by an improvement in these markers; status quo or a regression will score as failure.
