As I’ve mentioned a few times, my recent weight loss has come from a significant reduction in my consumption.
As I’m sure is the case for the majority of us, the main time that I eat where it is impacted by other people is the evening.
I nearly always have my evening meal with the wife and kids.
Often my wife has cooked it without me knowing what it’s going to be beforehand.
Sometimes it involves eating out.
Conversely my breakfast is nearly always eaten by myself first thing in the morning.
The majority of my lunches are by myself, unless my wife is working from home.
So it stands to reason that making adjustments to the first two meals of the day (and my snacks) was the easiest approach.
What I consume at that point is just my choice and is completely in my control (it is at any point though really, let’s be honest. But it’s just the easier when no one else is involved).
So most days I haven’t bothered with breakfast or I’ve had a protein shake.
Most lunches have been light and many missed completely because I wasn’t all that bothered and it was only a handful of hours to the evening meal.
Despite being somewhat peckish come tea time I just chose to have a normal sized meal and no more.
Many times in conversation people have told me that “that’s Intermittent Fasting”.
When you look at most definitions of Intermittent Fasting it says things like “an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating”.
And if you define fasting as “not eating” we’re basically saying they were alternating between periods of eating and not eating.
Which we essentially do every day of our lives.
For most people they will set predefined times of the day or week where they won’t eat.
Maybe they’ll only eat from midday to 6pm.
And that’s great if weight loss is their intention and they eat in a calorie deficit in that time frame.
There’s nothing magical about different approaches to alternating between eating and not eating.
When calorie matched, they all do exactly the same.
Eating 2,000 calories in one meal in the evening will have exactly the same impact as eating it spread out across three meals and snacks (assuming no changes to activity levels).
By having predefined periods of not eating, we may find it easier to consume less overall.
Usually having that ‘cut off period’ for the evening is the big win.
I often say “Smashing a bottle of wine and a tub of Häagen-Dazs on the sofa is equally fattening at 8am or 9pm, but when do we ever do that for breakfast?”
Big fans of Intermittent Fasting may talk to you about things like autophagy (the body breaking down and recycling old cells).
Neglecting the fact that our body does that all day every day and we’d have died years ago if it didn’t.
Adjustments to the way we eat, exercise and our lifestyle can affect how much of that we do and can have health benefits, sure.
But it makes zero difference to the relevance of calories in weight gain and loss.
Have long periods of not eating and (mildly) increase your autophagy……….
But be eating in a calorie surplus………
And you’ll gain weight.
Eat every 10 minutes in a calorie deficit and you’ll lose weight.
None of this means that it might not be beneficial to create rules around when and how much we eat.
It probably will be for most people.
But understanding why rather than essentially thinking it’s magical will make it more beneficial.
Much love,
Jon ‘Münecat’ Hall
P.S. If being on holiday in the coming weeks is your reason for putting this off, then I’ll just stick that extra time on the 4 weeks. So you have 4 weeks of progress plus support and accountability on your holiday to not undo it all and have more to do come September. www.myrise.co.uk/apply
