My Weight Loss Journey: How I lost 20 pounds in 2 months

To sum it up in two words: Intermittent Fasting. 

Why did I choose Intermittent Fasting (IF) over any other method out there? Simple. IF has less restrictions. And this girl is not about that life (anymore). I’ve been there, done that, and refuse to do it again.

IF gives me the freedom to live my life, eat how I want to eat and be happy. Now don’t get me wrong, this lifestyle does require discipline, but I am not spending my day saying “I can’t eat that” or asking “How many calories does it have” or better yet “Is it gluten free.”

Of course I am not knocking anyone that chooses to live that way, but I prefer freedom when it comes to food. I already have food sensitivities, so adding additional restrictions to my current list of foods/ingredients I “should not” eat is not something I want to do.

So after reading several articles and watching video after video on Intermittent Fasting, I told my husband we should give it a try. Of course, he looked at me crazy. But after I told him we were practically already doing it, he agreed to give it a go.

Prior to starting IF, we were sorta, kinda doing OMAD (one meal a day) on the weekends. I say sorta, kinda because we would skip breakfast, eat a really big lunch, and not eat again for the rest of the day. OMAD. For the most part, our big lunch would hold us over for the day, but every now and then we would find ourselves looking for something to snack on later in the night, hence breaking the OMAD method.

I decided to try the Lean Gains method which meant I would fast for 16 hours and eat for 8 hours of the day. The 16 hour fast was a mental road block for my husband. He said he would try it, but wouldn’t make any promises. This didn’t bother me because I knew he didn’t eat before 1p anyway.

Initially, my feeding window was 10a to 6p during the week. This meant I would not eat anything before 10a or eat anything after 6p. And I decided to stick with OMAD on the weekends. OMAD. There’s that word again. But this time I would really focus on the weekend and cut out the late night snacking.

I started my IF journey at the end of July, weighing 184.5 pounds. I weighed myself regularly, but never took my initial measurements. I could really kick myself for that mistake, but there are other ways to tell when inches are dropping.

Fast forward to August, a month later, I was down 10 pounds. And by mid-September, I was down another 10 pounds, weighing 163. Losing 20 pounds in two months may sound like a like of weight, but in reality I lost an average of 2-3 pounds a week which (in my mind) is not a bad thing.

It is now January and I am happy to say, I am still living the IF lifestyle. Even though I eat what I want, I still stay within my eating window unless I am on vacation. Now I did throw caution to the wind during the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). My eating/fasting windows were no where close to 16:8 on these days.

Despite the holidays, I am still on this journey and still losing weight. I did hit a plateau in October, which is normal, but so far I have lost…

~To be continued ~