After a lifetime of my weight going up and down, losing the same 40 pounds over and over and over, I have found the secret cheat mode. Up-down-up-down-A-B-B-A! For real, the secret is eating a ketogenic diet and using intermittent fasting to trigger weight loss. It’s the one-two punch: one is the keto diet leaves you feeling satiated in a way that eating carbs does not. Two, is that intermittent fasting drops weight off of your body without slowing down your metabolism. They work together to overcome the diet fatigue that has happened to me every other time I’ve tried to lose weight.
Seriously, I’ve tracked my weight over more than ten years and I can see the process happening over and over again. I get to about 210 pounds and I feel uncomfortable so I start to diet. I spend 3 or 4 months on a calorie restricted diet to get back down to somewhere in the 170s and then my progress slows, I am starved and demoralized and I give up. And you know what happens then? The very next day I start to increase again slowly marching back up to the same 210 number that makes it all start over again. And it’s demoralizing as hell to go through that. I blame myself for “not having the strength” or for being addicted to food and beer.
But it’s not my fault! It’s not yours either if you have lived through the same thing, and I know that we all have. The food we eat leave us unsatisfied, always craving more, and make our bodies hold on to fat like we’re about to take a trek to the north pole! Eating a keto diet gives you satiety, or satisfaction, without needing to stuff yourself. If you keep with it, you learn to notice the point where you achieve satiety when you are eating and, you’re not going to believe this, just stop when you’ve eaten enough. I didn’t believe it when I was first learning about this stuff but it’s true! I don’t count calories, I don’t weigh food, I don’t deprive myself at all; I simply eat the foods I know are good for me and I eat until I’ve had enough. And I lose weight doing this!
Well, I am skipping one part as I explain it here and that part is intermittent fasting (IF). Eating the right foods gives you the satiety and teaches you when you’ve had enough. You use this tool to (you’re not going to believe me again) skip meals! That’s it. That’s the secret. You just eat until your full and then don’t eat again until it’s mealtime. And you eat 1 or 2 times a day. And really, you’re not hungry when you’re not eating! You’re just fine. In fact, you’re better than fine; you have extra energy, a better mindset, your skin is clearer, your body feels great, and you’re sharper. Like you’re having your best day: every day!
I am at the lowest weight I’ve been at in 10 years. And when I’ve done this in the past, I’ve suffered a very low metabolism. I was getting chilly, I was eating 1000 calories a day and not losing any more weight. I was constantly hungry, even right after finishing a meal. It sucked. No wonder I would stop and go right back to gaining weight. This time though, I am happy to keep going. I am not wanting for anything. I enjoy awesome food every day, I eat until I am full, I rarely feel hunger, I am able to drink when I want to, I am able to eat snacks at game nights or movie nights. I am not depriving myself and I am also not fat! Cheat mode.
So, what and when do you eat?
I follow an 18/6 intermittent fasting schedule. This means I don’t eat for 18 hours each day and I eat all my food in a 6 hour window. During the 18 hours, I drink water, herbal tea, and coffee with no creamer or sweetener. I don’t take any calories at all during this time.
I eat my lunch around noon or 1PM. For lunch, I aim for about 600-800 calories and under 10g of carb. I usually have salad with some combo of chicken, bacon, and hard-boiled egg with a homemade creamy dressing. My dressings are decidedly not low-fat! They are delicious and make my salads very satisfying, especially when combined with lots of proteins. Then the greens give me the crunchy mouthfeel that makes the whole thing come together to break my fast with lots of satiety and pleasure.
I aim to finish my dinner as close to 6PM as possible so as to limit my eating to the 6 hour window. But I don’t stress too hard if it doesn’t happen on any given night. Dinners tend to be a protein, two vegetables, and some sort of sauce to pull it all together. Again, it is not in any way low-fat so flavor is high and it leaves me very satisfied. Here I aim for 700-900 calories and again less than 10g of carb. When I am eating this much, and it is delicious meat with lovely sauce, it doesn’t feel like I am dieting at all!
To give an idea of dinners, some of my current favorites:
- Salmon baked with lemon and butter with cauliflower and asparagus on the side with pour-over lemon butter
- Tex-Mex beef casserole covered with melted monterey jack cheese served with salad, guacamole, sour cream, salsa and cheese
- Chicken casserole with black olives, feta cheese in a creamy pesto sauce with spinach on the side
- Meatloaf covered with bacon and served with a pour-over cream gravy
I rarely snack outside of these two meals. Snacking has switched from me trying to achieve satiety after meals to a more social experience. I snack now because I am meeting a friend or having a game night and food is part of the social experience. When I do snack I enjoy things like nuts, pork rinds, berries, or pickles.
Do you cheat?
Yes. I eat outside of my window and I go over on my carbs. I forgive myself for it and just get right back to it the next day. I’m going to say that again: I forgive myself. In the past, I used an incident where I broke the diet as an excuse to break the diet completely. I was looking for a way out and a cheat gave me the push I was looking for to get away. This is different. I feel better when I am eating this way so I am not looking for a way out. Sure, some ice cream may tempt me or I drink too much and have some late-night munchies but the next day, I am happy to get back to my way of eating. I feel better when I do. So, I forgive myself and move on. No big deal.
This is profound! And it’s why I believe that this will be forever. No more back and forth with my weight. No more lack of control. No more guilt. I’m done with all that now. I’m in charge and I’m listening to my body and it’s speaking clearly to me. I’ve found the cheat code and, just like using those old NES codes, playing this way makes me like a god.
I am Galt 