Yesterday I wrote a post about how you should go ‘back-to-basics’ if you have stopped getting weight loss results from your intermittent fasting routine (You can read it HERE). Basically, I was suggesting that our natural tendency is to add complication in order to ‘speed things up’ especially where weight loss is concerned. Despite our natural tendency to always want to add complication, my advice is if weight loss slows or stops your best bet is to remove complication instead of adding to it.
Today’s post will be about what happens when you are already back-to-basics and for some reason you are still having some problems with weight loss.
In this example you are doing Eat Stop Eat perfectly: One or two fasts per week, no crazy binges, no crazy restrictive dieting, no excessive exercise, a good well designed workout program. You were losing weight and everything was great. Then one day…nothing.
In this situation the first thing I want you to do is RELAX. Don’t panic… it’s not the end of the world. Your metabolism isn’t broken, you’re not immune to fasting or anything of this nature.
Something has simply changed and this change has slowed your weight loss.
Now, we could spend days theorizing, debating and arguing over WHAT has changed, or simply except that something has changed an move on. And that’s what I want you to do. Don’t obsess, don’t start searching forums for your rare genetic disorder that makes you fasting-immune and able to make body fat out of thin air… Don’t do any of this. Just realizing that something isn’t working and that your going to try and fix it.
The second thing I want you to do is: Stop fasting.
If something’s not working the way you want it to, take a break and come back to it later…like doing a puzzle, or trying to remember where you put your car keys.
Plus, 99% of the time, the break fixes everything.
Here’s what you do… Stop fasting, but otherwise continue to eat the foods you’ve been eating when you’ve been eating them (This part is important). Then, 2 to 3 days after you’ve stopped fasting I want you to weigh yourself in the morning. Do the same thing the next day and the day after.
*The 2 to 3 days are important to give you a chance to let your weight normalize, but still do your weighing in the morning on an empty stomach.
Average these three weights. Then I want you to do your best to maintain that weight over the the next 10-20 days. Adjust your diet as necessary, just no fasting. And, pay attention to the adjustments you had to make to your diet – you’re going to keep those adjustments when you start fasting again.
If your weight has become stable, and has been stable for at least a week (including a weekend), and your comfortable with the amount of food you are eating, then add the fasting back in when you feel ready, while NOT changing your new style of eating.
There’s a high chance you will start seeing weight loss again. The trick in this entire method is simply rediscovering how much food it takes to maintain your weight. Then you add fasting back in and weight loss tends to pick right back up.
I can see a benefit to doing this a couple times a year.
Remember, fasting is a tool, not a cure-all. Sometimes NOT fasting is the answer to your weight loss problems.
BP
