Congrats on the progress! 20/4 IF'er (intermittent fasting) here.

Thought I'd offer a few of my own tricks in case anyone finds them useful:

Coffee and seltzer water get me through the more difficult hunger pangs. Doing any sort of cardio also makes me not hungry (YMMV). Pairing IF and ketosis has been great to treat hypoglycemia and not feel hungry in general.

I wasn't obese, but I was ~20lbs / 9kg overweight at one point. IF + keto has changed my body composition in a really profound way. I'm still a similar weight, but with ~10% less body fat (25% -> %15, not exact, no dexa scan).

Keep going OP!

Keto is absolutely the missing ingredient in most dieters' arsenal. I'm sure most IF'ers end up keto intermittently anyway, but you'd be more efficient at it if you develop the full metabolic machinery for it by specifically targeting it. Would you believe you can avoid feeling hungry without eating all day if you're keto? I never thought it was possible until I tried it. Now when I "forget" to eat when I'm in the middle of a coding spurt during lunch I don't subsequently feel like shit the rest of the day. In fact, I feel great. It's kind of a superpower.

There should usually be some caution attached to comments about going keto/fat-centric.

High fat diets, while energy dense and more satiating, can be responsible for increased cholesterol, or worse, pancreatitis. Having recently fallen into that latter camp I’ve become acutely aware of that side of my eating habits.

I’m also a keto counterpoint. Because of my fat-restrictive diet I’ve lost a great deal of weight the past two months. At first because I was struggling to even keep up with my coalition requirements but even still. I’ve increased my carb and protein intake to make sure I’m getting enough calories while I aim for no more than 30-40g of fat a day. (Fat content of about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil)

I’m 5’11 and in May I was ~220-225lbs and I’m currently 188 (Mind you over 2 weeks at my most sick I lost a lot of muscle as well).

I continue to lose weight at a slow but regular pace on this diet.

Calorie restriction is likely the main contributor in my case—made easier by not underestimating the energy content in higher-fat foods.

Genetics and medical complications should absolutely be deciding factors in lifestyle changes.

The notes about cholesterol and pancreatitis are, to my knowledge, not factors in people who properly follow the diet, i.e. 70% fats composed of mostly poly/mono unsaturated fats and sparing saturated (bacon, etc.). If you can cite a large scale study that demonstrates this, I would read it.

Five years in, my blood work is amazing.

High fat diets are long known risk factors in the development in pancreatitis and high cholesterol. So much so that I don’t think I should have to cite any specific study. The rest of my comment will speak to pancreatitis with which I have actual experience.

Types of fats have no weight in that discussion. “Good fat” not “bad fat”—it doesn’t matter. It has to do with the work imposed on the pancreas in a high fat diet.

I should clarify that a high fat diet is not a direct indicator of future pancreatic issues, but is one of several leading risk factors.

I’d highly recommend going over the diet with a doctor before undertaking it to make sure there are no preconditions that might make a high fat diet put too much strain on the pancreas. It’s known as the “angry organ” for a reason.

I was on a high fat/high protein/low carb diet with plenty of gym time before possibly unrelated inflammation exacerbated by my diet (and since I was a drinker, that as well) in my pancreas resulted in a massive acute attack that caused partial organ death. That’ll be with me for life since transplants don’t sound like a great option for most cases. (Even worse, pancreatic issues can harm surrounding organs including the lungs, liver, spleen, and kidneys. Not something any active person would want to have to live with)

Prior to the attack my blood work was brilliant as well. After the attack my lipase levels were high, my white blood cell count was through the roof, and I was anemic (though I had always fluctuated hemoglobin levels with B12 deficiency, but never so low).

The worst part is you won’t see or feel it coming, and it will hit you like a brick wall. So my comments are only meant as precautionary—which I think is always the best course with any fad diets.

This is a major aside, and maybe I'm alone here, but I really dislike this common trend usage of the term 'keto.' Real ketosis is almost impossible to achieve in adults; virtually no one who thinks they are in ketosis actually are.

What people don't seem to realize is that real keto diets have strict limitations on protein intake, as your body just breaks protein down into glucose. I believe it's something like 85% of your calories each day need to come from fat, not protein.

Luckily, it's actually a good thing that people aren't actually in ketosis. It's an extreme diet developed as a treatment for epilepsy, and it can be very hard on your body's systems. The circulating ketones turn your blood acidic, which starts leeching out calcium from your bones. A lot of people get their fat from sources high in saturated fat (animal fat), which is bad for your body long-term. And with no real fiber intake, your gut flora will suffer. I don't believe a single nutritionist recommends real keto for adults trying to lose weight.

For sure most of us could stand to reduce our carb intakes a bit, but our bodies literally run on glucose. We have evolved to survive on carbs, it's okay to eat them! The healthiest countries in the world eat LOTS of carbs. [edit: 'lots' meaning, a high percent of their macros each day, not lots as in large portions] I in general dislike HuffPo as a source, but a quick google found this which I thought was an interesting read: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/japan-healthiest-people-in-th...

Now on the otherhand, I love IF. I used it without knowing it had a name to lose ~65 lbs at the end of highschool. I think it's super effective and what I recommend to others who ask for advice.

"Real ketosis" is the presence of markers that demonstrate fat metabolism. This is most commonly done by measuring beta-hydroxybutyrate with the same device that diabetics use to measure blood glucose (using a different kind of test strip). It wouldn't be uncommon for any given person on any diet to show signs of fat metabolism if, for example they've fasted for 12 hours or more and have done any kind of exercise.

Nutritional ketosis as practiced by anyone doing "keto" is generally considered to be somewhere between 1.0 to 3.0 mmol/dL BHB. Getting there is not hard for anyone on a fat-adapted diet.

For anyone following this, here I am 12 hours later after having dined on a relatively low-carb meal with some sweet potatoes and a couple of small bites of the wife's dessert of crème brûlée. I've yet to have breakfast and did some low to moderate intensity cycling this morning. My BHB is 1.6 mmol/dL, definitive signs of nutritional ketosis with very little effort on my part.

Not everyone is the same and if your diet works for you, that is great.

You have a lot of scientifically inaccurate statements in your comment. You are confusing keto with keto acidosis. Dr. Phinney, MD, Ph.D and chief scientist of Virta Health has very good lectures on youtube going over these terms which will dispel many of your misconceptions. They also have 30 years of data on keto diets.

On keto, The goal is to keep fat calories to 70-75. In our ancestral environment, we did not have grains, fruits or sugar in most forms. Ancestral forms of fruits like banana had seeds and were barely sweet.

You are going to need some sources. You are confusing ketosis with ketoacidosis

Yes. Thank you for clarifying.

> ... and maybe I'm alone here

You are. There's a difference between medical ketosis and nutritional ketosis. It's always worth researching[1] something if you don't fully understanding it.

I'm not going to dive into the rest of your comment because it's a dumpster fire of misinformation.

1 - https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324237

edit: I also lived in Japan for two years and they are slowly becoming unhealthy due to the younger generation beginning to succumb to sugary products, i.e. the current bubble tea craze. There's also a culture of not sleeping, drinking daily, and smoking. I believe their health is due to how the country forces you to walk everywhere.

> but you'd be more efficient at it if you develop the full metabolic machinery for it by specifically targeting it

Would you mind expanding on this? Or maybe some general links as to what "keto" is about.

> Coffee and seltzer water

In my experience seltzer water ends up making me even more hungry. Is this typical?

It's the co2 in the water, has a stimulating effect on ghrelin the hunger hormone.

And what is ketosis and how do I do it?

Also strongly agree with this. Never used to skip a meal, rarely used to exercise. Now most days I only eat dinner and often exercise beforehand. Would not have thought such a metabolic schedule would be realistic.

On days when I have to eat breakfast/brunch/lunch for social reason I notice a 'food is around, I better eat it' urge afterward all day long.

Also maybe I'm weird, but eating one meal a day makes me feel really great. I feel like being slightly hungry (or at least not full) throughout the day makes me more productive and mentally sharper. Only after I've finished my work for the day at around 7-9pm do I then eat a big meal.

It feels like I just lost 15 IQ points right after a meal. I also get kind of sleepy and unmotivated after.

The meal is also a great way of demarcating work. Before I eat, I'm working. After, I'm chilling. Simple as that.

I grew up in a family where life was basically based around meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all sitting down together for an hour. Since I’ve basically ditched routine eating a few years ago I feel much better. I don’t have any specific approach other than eating whatever I feel like eating, when I actually feel hungry. It’s a huge mental shift to make initially to really listening to your body about what hungry really is. There are lots of cues around food which have no basis in hunger at all. Sometimes my body screams for quick carbs, other times protein or just a good all round meal. But I’ve just learnt to listen to it. I’ve gone from 100kg+ to a steady 78kg for 2 years.

I quite often do a 1hr power ride on Zwift at around midday on an empty stomach and feel less hungry than when I started now. Before I would have felt that I deserved a high calorie meal and eaten more than I should of. Now I listen to if my body is actually, really hungry. Quite often I feel less hungry after a workout, so I might go through till dinner without any food if that’s what I feel like. Sometimes I might have deep hunger pangs, so I’ll eat straight away after in that case.

Something that shifted my approach to food dramatically was a 7 day fast two years ago. My approach to food has never been the same since.

> It feels like I just lost 15 IQ points right after a meal. I also get kind of sleepy and unmotivated after.

That’s the large meal effect.

Small meals work better for me and I get sluggish and mentally slow when I’m hungry. As soon as I eat, I perk up and have lots of energy.

But I’m also at 11% or so of bodyfat so maybe my body is just less willing to dip into reserve energy stores.

> Would not have thought such a metabolic schedule would be realistic

I mean it might not be. There might be long term consequences.

I often wonder metabolic switching between e.g. fat vs carbs as energy sources would be a good way to force cells to perform some acrobatics and die if they have a distribution of mutations that make them metabolically inflexible. Might be easy to test in a lab with radiation and different feeding cycles for cells/mice, look for rates of cancer development. May be negligible, hard to say.

There are many claims regarding "autophagy" out there, some say it helps the body to remove cancerous cells. But there are cancer types that can circumvent or even take advantage of this. As with everything it depends and is no silver bullet.

> recent blood work was really great

Creating an environment where you're triggering only one insulin secretion per day will help do exactly that. Eating unprocessed, nutrient-dense foods in that meal helps too, of course.

Congratulations, you're eating more optimally than the vast majority of the world, keep it up!

Not in the same boat as you (20/50 lbs) lost but I too had to find the right method for my personality quirks. For me, I need only the healthiest, least calorie dense snacks around and a full fridge. I reduce the situations where I decide to order takeout and if I indulge a snack, it’s something either delicious but low calorie or something I’ll get tired of real fAst like baby carrots.

Power on and I’m sure you will hit your goal!

absolutely incredible. I've been doing on intermittent fasting with a 18/6 schedule ... even I got used to it quickly maintaining it as strictly as you is really hard (in fact I failed by your standards many times). you should be immensley proud of yourself for having this amount of self control.

I imagine you feel like a million bucks. wish you all the best. this is seriously hard ass and immensely a strong will.

But he said it for him requires less willpower to do it his way.

Congratulations! I did exactly this to go from ~105kg to ~80. I slipped occasionally, but knowing that tomorrow I'd get all the food I craved got me through so many moments, while stopping in the middle of a meal has never worked more than sporadically.

I'd also note that not having any food in the house was a major help in this as well. Even if I had a non-stop mini-market 2 minutes walk away, the small friction of having to go there stopped many a cheat meal.

You are absolutely right on the "availability". Most of the time I've ordered groceries online which requires me to place orders days before delivery. Due to the minimums (90€) I had to bulk purchase and somewhat plan meals. This reduced my grocery shopping occasions to 2 occasions per months and there was no instant gratification (sweets, fast food, "bad stuff") possible.

That said, after the first couple of weeks my taste buds somewhat changed and I taste sugar in raw cooked vegetables (carrots, brokkoli, brussel sprouts). I now love raw, frozen vegetables without any additions steamed in the microwave or steam cooker. Great vitamin and fibre source and one can add even a high-fat dipping sauce or some cheese without screwing up the calories.

That's great to hear. Really wishing you the best on this.

Awesome to hear. Keep up the good work!

How do you manage minerals and micronutrients that are better consumed a few times a day (because the body cannot absorb larger quantities within a short window)? Do you take specific supplements for that?

Many things break your fast, including some supplements. For better absortion, eat at night.

Waterfasting + electrolytes for a month would probably get you to -20kg. It's just the first few days until you start burning fat that are a bit weird.

I hope I don't need to say this, but don't do this.

Have you done this? Water fasting is something you just "do for a month" nor should you casually recommend it. I've done a three day water fast and it was rough and nearly fainted on day three.

Quick wins make for quick failures. OP has found something sustainable and doesn't need a 40kg trick.

I did 2x 48hrs water fasts but I couldn't manage to get any work done during the time. And it does not fix the problem of overeating once you break fast again.

Losing weight is one thing but manage the weight long term is the really hard one.

Let's ask me again in 2-5 years about it.

The first time it's difficult. I was able to get into ketosis by diet alone when I was doing workouts, so that helped a lot to overcome the first 1-3 days (basically, massive headaches on the first day and feeling weird until the 3rd day). Also, breaking the fast was basically a week-long broth and vegetables, then I switched over to mostly salad as food. Obviously, if you don't move, e.g. due to COVID-19, it's difficult to keep yourself in shape; for that I recommend a daily routine of 30-60 minutes on an indoor fitness bike or rowing machine and avoiding sugar/starch.

> I've done a three day water fast and it was rough and nearly fainted on day three.

More electrolytes would help with this, specifically salt. And if you drink plain water, it depletes your electrolytes pretty quickly through urination.

But YMMV, as always.

You should have tried the 4th day, usually the first 3 days are the worst, then the body completely switches to burning fat and learns how to do it efficiently. 6th day is for me usually the worst sudden crisis, then from 7th to 21st day I have absolute mental clarity, I can finish very demanding mental projects quickly and require only around 4 hours of sleep, then up to 30th I feel normal and slowly start to get hungry. After the fast I feel like after a great sauna session, but it lasts around a week. It feels like having a superpower. However, physical exercise ability goes away very quickly (I actually measured it every day and even went mountain-biking to steep hills to see how much my performance degrades and it was downhill literally and figuratively).

YMMV, but yes, with full supplies it usually takes about 3 days to deplete sugars and switch to fat.

If you're not used to keto, switching may be physiologically hard. Gradually transitioning from carbs to fat, and then or later to fasting may be easier on the body, though a prolonged hardship for the mind.

Once you get used to it, switching is a normal thing to do, though again YMMV.

Fasting without fat adapted is difficult. Body needs to learn to use fat as fuel. Maybe a keto diet before fasting would have been useful.

I've done that multiple times (~30 days), usually after I wrap up some demanding project where I couldn't keep my fitness 100%. If you are healthy and take electrolytes properly, it's usually fine. It's not one size fits all, but I find people that reject it without any evidence uninformed about how their body actually works.

What kind of electrolytes do you take and how much?

I ordered various brands from Amazon and then just took 1 tablet per 1-2 glasses of water. Initially, I simply added a bit of salt to the water. Also, I usually drink ~2x more than normally because most of the water comes from food so if you keep your usual drinking levels, you get dehydrated. I believe that's why most people feel miserable (outside initial sugar/caffeine withdrawal), because they are dehydrated and the initial 10 lbs/5 kg weight loss is all just missing water. Also, taking pure chicken broth once a week might help with getting the protein that is lost back (100-150g/week).

I think if one works from home during COVID-19, then starting on Friday, going over the worst during the weekend, and then just functioning normally during the week is a perfect way to lose weight without any measurable effects on one's work performance.

I don't water fast so I can't speak about that specifically, but I can give a good answer on oral rehydration mixtures in general. Here's the TLDR I have in a notes file on my phone:

A drink made with 6 level teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 level teaspoon of salt dissolved in 1 litre of clean water.

Be very careful to mix the correct amounts. Too much sugar can make the diarrhoea worse. Too much salt can be extremely harmful to the child.

Making the mixture a little too diluted (with more than 1 litre of clean water) is not harmful.

Ideal consumption ~30ml every few mins (or ~90mim for the 1L)

I left the child reference in as a copy/paste from... I can't remember which medical source I got it from - although my use has only been for when I or someone else wants to minimise a hangover. I once made this mix for somebody in front of a GP (doctor) who said "wow, that's exactly the 'basic rehydration recipe' we teach when we go to parts of the world where they don't have the education / equipment we have in the UK".

But that's the MVP for oral rehydration. A little potassium is good to include, and looking at the commercial tablets I have (that mix with water) they include potassium (193mg / 200ml water) and chloride (350mg / 200ml).

Do you have any personal data on lean muscle loss? What Dr. Phinney of 'Low Carb Performance Fame' said that you are losing ~0.25lb/day of lean muscle mass. That is pretty catastrophic in my opinion.

From n=1 experience, if you exercise while water fasting you hardly lose any muscle, but if you don't, you lose a lot of muscle and quite quickly. (Which makes sense - maintaining muscles costs both energy and protein - if you have no intake and they are not in use, why spend that?)

In your personal experience, if you exercise when you are waterfasting, you maintain muscle. That is pretty cool, can you share your exercise routine? The parent commenter noted that exercising while fasting might be painful and I would appreciate hearing what you do. Thanks!

Mostly running at a leisurely pace - most people use many of their muscles when they run - I was doing 5km three times a week. Additionally, I was doing 2x1hr a week of karate practice (a whole body workout), And the occasional random set of 20 pushups / 20 sit-ups / 20 squats, probably 2-3 times a day.

I should note that anything aerobic like running was easy, anything anaerobic (like karate sparring) was not, but it wasn’t painful either.

I did pay attention to electrolytes - especially magnesium and potasssiun - I got cramps when water fasting and not supplementing.

I know my body well, and I think that’s essential to be able to continue - e.g. to know it is magnesium that’s needed now, and not (as one might think) the body is eating itself.

Don’t know how to learn that skill though.

Thank you, that is helpful. Good luck and keep going and keep sharing. We all need to get with it and take responsibility of our own health.

I've read various takes, some say that if you don't eat anything at all, then you lose 100-150g of muscles each week, but if you eat just a little, the muscle loss is considerable.

In your experience, no exercise, no eating ==> no muscle loss?

I tried to do a lighter version of HIIT which got progressively more difficult each day as I read it could prevent loss of muscles and was short enough to finish it with the reserves that built overnight.

Alternate day fasting (Fasting for 36 hours, Eat 12 hours, Fast 36, Eat 12, etc..) has worked well for me and isn't quite as scary.

This is great. I read on James Clear's Atomic Habit to make these tough habits easy and convenient so you don't constantly think about it.

Congrats on your success!! This is great to hear.

Best advice I ever had was to install the Habinator app and start executing my plan.