Intermittent Fasting: How I Lost 70 Pounds in 7 Months

I’m going to tell you to do something, and you’re going to think I’m insane.

You should skip breakfast every day. You can also skip lunch, honestly.

Intermittent fasting is not a diet. We’ll say it’s a lifestyle choice for now, or a tool. For one portion of the day, you fast, and you don’t consume any calories, and for the other portion of the day, you eat. This translates to about sixteen hours of fasting and eight hours of eating every day.

I know what you’re saying, but it’s a lot easier than it sounds. Eight or more hours of sleep counts for half or more of this fasting window. When you get up in the morning, you don’t eat or drink anything with calories for four hours, and at night, four hours before you go to bed, you stop eating. And that’s it. There are no surprises.

But … why? My doctor told me to eat three meals a day, and my friend said five.

You know that feeling you get, that impossible feeling, where you eat a big meal and then you’re hungry again forty minutes later? That’s because every time you eat throughout the day, your insulin levels go up. Insulin is a hormone that lets your body use the glucose (sugar) you consume from food for energy. If you have too much, it gets stored for later. So, what do you do throughout a day? You eat five meals: breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. Boom, boom, boom. It’s too much. Grocery stores haven’t been around forever, you know.

So, in comes intermittent fasting and another hormone called growth hormone. Growth hormone does all this great stuff (helps build muscle, burns fat, libido), but he can’t do his job because insulin is around. Solution? You fast. Your insulin levels don’t go crazy, you get one big spike during your eating window, and you give time for our man growth hormone to do his job.

Okay, but I have a few questions.

Sure. I’ve been fasting daily for close to seven or eight months now, and I remember how it was at the beginning. Going even an hour or two without food when I got up was hard. My morning routine was usually some form of bathroom, toast and orange juice, social media, start my day. But honestly, not eating in the morning is so, so liberating.

You got up at six in the morning for that shift in a few hours? I know. You hate being alive. You have to shower, shave, be pretty, eat, get dressed, commute, wave to your boss, wave to the one colleague you still like. It’s hard. Don’t make it any harder. Your whole routine and commute is like three hours. It gets easier and easier to forget about breakfast when you don’t have to worry about it. Get to work, and then have lunch.

Muscle is another big one that comes up fairly often if you’re a guy. “I’m trying to get bigger, Colin, not smaller.” Studies have shown that long-term fasting can have effects on muscle retention, but not intermittent fasting. The fasting window is long enough for the good stuff to come in, but not long enough for it to come out. Additionally, because intermittent fasting is simply a way of eating, and not a diet, you can still build muscle if you’re in a calorie surplus.

On days that I exercise, I fast for twenty hours, and then eat for four. During the four hours, I get all of the macro-nutrients I need across a few big meals, and in total, I’m wolfing down a little more than my calorie maintenance levels for muscle growth.

This sounds great, but what if I want to live a little?

Intermittent fasting is great because it doesn’t have to hold you down. You hold yourself down. You can decide what your hours are, and if it’s necessary, skip a day, or make your window a little bigger. When I know that I’m going to be eating late – ten or eleven, we’ll say – I’ll adjust my window to meet that. I’ll wake up and fast until two or three, have my first meal, and then later, at the bar, I’ll have my last meal. And because I’ve been doing this for so long, I don’t get hungry before my eating window - honestly.

I can’t imagine living without fasting at this point, and I know it’s a pretty big topic, so I’m going to link some videos here if you’d like more information. Happy fasting.

How to do Intermittent Fasting for Serious Weight Loss

What I've learned from 4 Years of INTERMITTENT FASTING - the good and the bad!

Intermittent Fasting: Top 5 Mistakes - Thomas DeLauer

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Colin Baines is a sloth masquerading as a human being in Algonquin College's two-year professional writing program. He eats a lot of vegetables, tries not to swear during class, doesn't own a phone and will often write articles loosely based on minimalism, nature, fitness, film, art, music, etc.

Ethics and Ink: How far are you willing to go?

When I sat down to think about what I would get for a first tattoo, I had a list of no-no’s and no-go’s. A list of places that I would never get covered, and styles that I would stay away from. This list included, but was not limited to:

- Nothing on my face, skull, neck, hands.
- No quotes of any kind.
- No small tattoos. Go big or go home.

If you have tattoos, or are considering getting any, you might have a similar list. But some of the restrictions we put on our ink and on others are a bit ridiculous. As tattoos become more and more mainstream, I’ve started to wonder if the ethics of style and placement have wiggle-room.

The obvious reasons against visible or controversial tattoos are issues with job employment, future relationship prospects, and faster aging. This thing is going to be on you for life, and it’s going to look different in ten, twenty years. But is there a way to get a tattoo on your face and still be employable? Still relationship-worthy?

Technically, a face tattoo doesn’t have to be loud and proud. All tattoos fade over time, and some areas fade faster than others, but if you don’t mind that, you can get a semicolon behind your ear and cover it with hair. You can get a small bit of ink on the inside of one of your fingers if it means a lot to you.

Or, if you already have long-term employment in an industry that doesn’t care about body modification, go wild. Have fun with it. It’s hard for me to judge someone getting a giant bat tattooed on the side of their head if they’re living a stable lifestyle and they understand the implications involved.

And then there are styles like blackwork.

I’m not sure how many people would stand with me, but I’ve considered getting both of my legs covered in solid black later in life with designs on top and bottom. Maybe that hurts my chances of finding a partner in the future, but I’m sure I’ll be okay. In terms of employment, leg tattoos can be covered completely in three or four seasons depending on where you live.

The problem? Well, for me, there isn’t any.

This stuff is going to change from person to person. You may be looking at some adventurous ink that I wouldn’t personally consider, but if it works for you and your body, and your lifestyle, more power to you.

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Photo courtesy of Larm Rmah on Unsplash

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Photo COURTESY OF Jake Davies on Unsplash

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Colin Baines is a sloth masquerading as a human being in Algonquin College's two-year professional writing program. He eats a lot of vegetables, tries not to swear during class, doesn't own a phone and will often write articles loosely based on minimalism, nature, fitness, film, art, music, etc.

What does minimalism even mean?

If you look through forums about minimalism, one thing you'll often see in the comment section is people arguing about what the definition of minimalism should be. There’ll be a discussion about a song, a book cover, a piece of modern art and someone’ll say it:

• “This isn’t minimalism.”
• “Dude, you couldn’t even clean your place before taking the photo? What's with all the shit?
• “I don’t understand the appeal of minimalism these days. We’re supposed to get rid of all our stuff and live in a cardboard box now?”

And so, the argument begins.

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Photo courtesy of stocksnap.io

On one hand, you have the die-hards. They live in their car or their van, they don’t have the latest iPhone. They bus to work or they don’t work at all. When they come to visit you for the week, their entire existence fits in a backpack or a duffel bag, and when you hand them a blanket, they don’t use it. They sleep under the stars.

And then there are the ‘casual’ fans of minimalism. They might like the idea of an art style based on solid colours, bold lines and efficient use of space, but their room is a mess. People tell them their basement is full of ‘junk’. What we have is a modern-day hippie crisis on our hands. There’s a civil war between people that like different flavours of the same philosophy and nobody’s wrong.

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Photo COURTESY OF Gabriel Beaudry on Unsplash.COM

Here’s a case study: one of these individuals makes a Reddit post. It’s a view of their bedroom, and the only items in the room are their bed, their computer desk, laptop, mouse, keyboard and a few other items. We'll say figurines. The floors are spotless.

To some, the figurines are the make or break. They’ll say: “If this was my room, I’d get rid of them. It’s an expensive hobby and I want the shelf space for something else.”

This is where you have to make a decision. Minimalism is more than a dictionary definition. It’s about asking yourself the right questions. Can I save a few bucks if I buy in bulk? If I move some stuff around in my dad’s garage, will he have more space for his tools? My room isn’t very friendly or inviting, and it’s not a great study spot. Can I change that somehow?

Personally, I’d get rid of the figurines. They’re not me. I’d probably put some books on the shelf, and if you disagree with that – if you disagree with both – that’s totally fine.

Do what’s best for you.

And remember, it’s called minimalism for a reason. Don’t sweat it so much.

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Colin Baines is a sloth masquerading as a human being in Algonquin College's two-year professional writing program. He eats a lot of vegetables, tries not to swear during class, doesn't own a phone and will often write articles loosely based on minimalism, nature, fitness, film, art, music, etc.