My Intermittent Fasting Experiment

So I’ve mentioned that I may have possibly lost a substantial amount of weight in just a few days and promised that I’d reveal how. I love a good experiment with nutrition and exercise and haven’t done one in a while, so I thought I’d give intermittent fasting a go.

What is it?

When I first had the idea to do intermittent fasting as an experiment, I thought “aha! Easy just don’t eat for a couple of days a week and see what happens”…wrong. When I started actually doing my research my brain was suddenly bamboozled by all the different types of intermittent fasting that are available. The basic gist (we’ll leave the complicated stuff for another blog) is that at some point during your week you take part in a fasting period, whether it be a daily fast or up to a 48 hour fast. 

The idea behind intermittent fasting is that it resets your hormones to get your body burning fat, and that eventually at some point you’re actually meant to consume the calories that you’ve missed out on during your fast, just using different timings, and sometimes consuming large quantities of food.

The Experiment

So why do an intermittent fasting experiment? Well, as I’ve mentioned I love a good experiment, those of you that used to follow my old blog will remember my no sugar experiment that had amazing results! I’ve since done another trial nutrition program, again we will save that for another blog. Real reason for doing this one…after being on a restricted eating plan and training regime for my ultramarathon last year, there’s only one way to describe what happened afterwards…

It all went a bit Pete Tong wrong and I went on an absolute bender…..woops

Never one to get disheartened about falling off the healthy living band wagon, I will justify it and tell myself and you all that sometimes a month off is good! So what did I do for a month? I ate crap, drank huge quatities of alcohol on a regular basis, didn’t do any running, ate some more, drank some more and then well…became very lazy and did as little as humanely possible. But it’s ok cause I ran 100 miles in under 30 hours!!!

Needless to say, even an inactive ultramarathon runner can’t get away with a horrendous diet for long, and all the blood, sweat and tears (literally) that went into getting me super duper fit, went out the window very quickly, and my weight crept up….VERY quickly.

A shadow of my former self and with stats and measurements that would make my ultra running former self stare in shock, Monday the 7^th January 2013 saw Elizabeth Davies decided enough was enough. (It didn’t have anything at all to do with the booking of a lovely holiday and wanting to wear some nice shorts….)

So I decided to get my lazy bum in gear, decide on an experiment to try and get some quick results (which will benefit all of those around me), and also get 2013 off to a good start signing up to some new running challenges too!

Losing Weight the Lean Gains Way

Back to the experiment…After lots of research on intermittent fasting, I decided that long term, with my running training soon to kick off, the full day fasts were not for me (it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that going a whole day without food is my idea of torture). I was pleasantly surprised when I came across what I percieved to be more long term approaches to fasting…lean gains!!! This basically focuses on fasting in a short burst within a 24 hour period. 16 hours fasting with an 8 hour eating window in which you eat your days calories in 2-3 large meals.

The goal: to get my 2011 lean running body back!!!

Question: how long with this fasting approach could it take to get back down to 9st 4lbs just by changing my eating timings?

All very exciting stuff and let me tell you the results so far have been excellent, there will be a new post to come updating you all with my starting stats, and the results so far!!