Before I begin this week’s Trainer Talk, I will begin by saying it is the last time I will write this column. It wasn’t an easy decision to let it go, but I am gaining new responsibilities next year, so I must be willing to relinquish this column that has been near and dear to my heart.
Trainer Talk is how I started my journey with The Criterion, and sharing fitness advice for my fellow mavericks has been a source of great joy. I will miss it dearly.
Now that’s been said, allow me to share one last time. At the beginning of the semester, my column “Confronting intermittent fasting” I explained to my readers that unlike other fad diets, this wasn’t actually a diet in the conventionally recognized sense at all.
Diet, of course, is used here to discuss a special way of eating with the desired result of shedding fat. This varies from the exact definition of the word, which refers entirely to whatever any person, animal or plant consumes.
In the sense being discussed here, a diet usually includes drastically reducing calories, slamming down insane amounts of saturated fat in the name of fitness or embracing the myth that carbohydrates make people fat. Often, it’s a combination of those things.
Most of those diets have scientific reasons why conscientious dieticians caution people away from them. Only those who profit from selling the fad diets will claim that such deviations from balance are healthy.
I could go on a rant about the morals of people who profit from harming others’ health through misinformation, but that would take a very long time. I’ll shorten it by saying they’re just terrible.
Intermittent fasting, however, is new enough that the jury is still out. Every legit source I have found has decreed that more information is required to reach a definitive conclusion.
As I had explained, this led me to experiment with it on my own since there wasn’t an unhealthy decrease in calories or a variation from balance. Previously, my experiment led me to lose five pounds in a week.
Unfortunately, I allowed myself to lose the habit even though there was good progress. It just didn’t seem convenient enough. That was to my detriment.
Recently, I decided to give it a more consistent attempt. As before, I fasted for 16 hours a day and consumed my calories in an eight hour window. During fasting hours, I still consumed coffee and water.
After a brief adjustment period, it no longer became difficult to get through the 16 hours before I began to eat. These days, I sometimes have to remind myself to eat once the window opens up.
The results have been very good for me. In the last three weeks, I have lost 14 pounds. I still have plenty of energy and I have not experienced any muscle loss. This is because I am still consuming the same amount of food I was previously. It was just a matter of when I could eat.
The biggest difficulty I have faced as I continue to utilize intermittent fasting is convincing my wife that I am not starving myself. Since she works when I am free to do most of my eating, she never sees me eat, so I can’t do a good job of making her believe I actually do eat.
However, with that being the biggest challenge, I don’t find it beyond my ability to continue. I will keep using intermittent fasting and continue reaping the benefits, even though this is the last time I will provide an update on how well it is working.
I would be remiss to leave off stating that my results are not the guarantee that anybody else will experience the same. Consequently, I can’t actually recommend doing it. I can only state my own results.
Anybody interested in trying intermittent fasting should do their own research and decide what their fasting and eating timeframe should be. It may work or it may not. A person will never know unless they try.
