Intermittent Fasting

The Diet:

Only eat once every 24 hours. Eat dinner in the evening, and don't eat again until the next evening. 0 calorie drinks are allowed (such as water, diet soda, or other drinks).

The Experience:

If you like feeling hungry all the time, then do I have a diet for you. Originally I thought the diet would get easier as I went through the week, but it actually became harder. Monday is always the easiest day of the week because I'm coming off the gluttony of Sunday. As you'll see from the daily breakdown things became progressively worse as I went through the week.

Monday I neither ate nor drank until around 6:30pm. I had headaches for most of the day. At 5:00pm I lifted weights for 30 minutes, and then I jogged a 5K on the treadmill. When I arrived home I drank some Powerade Zero (0 calories) and then jogged an additional 2 miles with my brother. Afterwards I got a Little Ceasar's pizza and ate half of it with a couple of glasses of low-sodium v8. Total calories consumed was 1120 for the pizza and roughly 100 for the v8. I ended up falling asleep around 9:00pm.

Tuesday I had water and lime diet coke throughout the day. I was feeling pretty hungry all day long. In the evening for dinner I had a double Whopper from Burger King, with a side salad and their light lemonade. According to their website this put the calories around 1200. Afterwards I practiced Aikido for an hour and a half.

Wednesday was somewhat rough. By the time I got to 4:30 I was feeling pretty weak. I lifted weights and then tried to jog, but it was too much effort. Instead I ended up walking at a brisk pace on the treadmill for 30 minutes. Afterwards I was going to play Ultimate Frisbee but few people showed up. By the time we had enough players to get a game going most of us only had 20 minutes before we had to leave. We played one 3 v 3 20 minute game. That evening I had a bacon and cheese omelet, pancakes, and hash browns from Village Inn. I also had the sugar-free apple pie. Village Inn doesn't supply nutritional facts, however based on third party online sources I estimate my meal to be no more than 1500 calories.

Thursday I was feeling very hungry. I drank some diet coke and a couple of Propel Zeros (so named because it provides zero satisfaction when you are starving) throughout the day. On my drive to Aikido I had a Cliff energy bar. After Aikido I ate at Zupas and had a BBQ Chicken Salad, and a small bowl of Chicken Enchilada Soup. The meal also came with two pieces of bread and two chocolate covered strawberries. After dinner I went to my sister's house ( about 10 minutes away) and had a bunch of milk chocolate chips and some pie from Village Inn. I estimate my calories for the day to be maybe as high as 2100.

Friday was a bit of a fiasco. I needed to eat something in the morning before teaching my class, so I had a Cliff bar, and another, and another, and another. It turns out when you've been starving for a week once you start eating it can be difficult to stop. The Cliff bars combined were 960 calories. Later in the evening I made whole wheat spaghetti with no sugar added spaghetti sauce. My brother ended up not wanting any, so I ate the entire package worth of pasta. That was another 1320 calories. After consuming that I became extremely tired, and staggered around the apartment for while. Later in the evening I also ate an 8 ounce block of cheese, 640 calories. That put me at 2920 calories for the day.

Saturday I was back on track and didn't have any food until 7pm that night. In the afternoon I played Ultimate Frisbee and then practiced Aikido for a little while. For dinner I at a full chicken rice bowl from Rumbi Island Grill (1000 calories) and afterwards I got some ice cream and had a couple of bowls of that (450 calories). Grand total was 1450 calories.

The Result:

For my six days of dieting I consumed somewhere around 10390 calories. If I were consuming 2000 calories a day it would have been 12000, so my calorie deficit was pretty low. By the calorie math I shouldn't have lost even a single pound.

I ended up being 6 pounds less than I was last Sunday. I was 1 pound less than I was 2 Sundays ago, and 39 pounds less than I was 55 Sundays ago. That means I'm basically back where I was after the first 17 weeks of dieting. It has been quite a rollercoaster.