So, during the self isolation period, I mostly stayed in bed rewatching Louis Theroux documentaries, working and eating through jars of Nutella which unsurprisingly, led to a bit of a weight gain. I think if I was asked what kind of body type I had, I would describe it as ‘definitely not fat but loves a bloomer loaf from Tesco’. Home workouts never seemed to work with me (I think partly because there’s a bed at home but not at the gym) so, I surfed the internet and came across intermittent fasting. On a whim, I decided to try it out.
So there are many types of intermittent fasting techniques but the one I settled on was 4:3. That meant eating totally normally and sticking to 2000 calories 4 times a week. The other 3 days, I only consume 500 calories. Whilst reading about it I very dramatically thought I wouldn’t survive on such a small amount of food, but a month later, here we are! So without further ado, here’s how it went down.
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Week 1- Started off strong. My fasting days (which were Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday), weren’t so bad. I’d have a bit of a lie in, do some work, have an apple at around lunchtime (which surprisingly filled me up) and I normally ate soup or spicy pasta (without the cheese). I noticed by the third day I had a bit of a headache coming on multiple times during the day but a few sips of water helped.
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Week 2- Tuesday went fairly well but I had a wobble post-midnight, once my fast had ended, and snuck a few huge spoonfuls of Nutella. Thursday and Saturday were particularly hard mainly because I was bored and procrastinating and I wanted to eat. I’ve always done badly with diets and I didn’t want to fail this one so I ended up jumping into bed and watching a season of Queer Eye to distract myself. It was a strange feeling by the end of Week 2, knowing this has been the longest I’ve stuck to a diet.
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Week 3- The fasting has actually become more bearable, the hunger pangs I felt in the previous two weeks had more or less gone and I’d actually get through the day and do my work and then just have one meal in the evening with no problems. Another change I saw was my collar bones were a bit more prominent than usual even though every week I was still able to eat pizza or a whole tray of tiramisu.
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Week 4- Last week of fasting and it was actually the hardest one for me (I think mainly because I knew it was my final week and I’d already lasted 3 weeks longer than anyone had thought). I did the same thing but added in going for an evening walk or a 10 minute home workout I found on the internet. Surprisingly, I felt a lot lighter doing a workout whilst fasting. The rest of the week turned out to be a breeze and I felt so proud of myself at the end of it because I realised I can actually do diets.
So a few days later, I weighed myself and I found that I’d actually lost 7 pounds in just a month of doing the diet. I felt a lot more energetic and nowhere near as bloated as I used to get. I don’t think I could do the 4:3 personally on a regular basis but I do think for anyone who needs to lose a few pounds, try out intermittent fasting!
*Please speak to a medical professional before fasting if you you have an illness which may be affected by the diet*