My weight loss experience: eating less vs. exercising more

jxspxr

Hi,

I am Jasper, 26 years old. Since I became a student 8 years ago, I went from weighing about 76 kg to 106 (I am 188 cm long). The last years, 6 months ago, I've weighed between 88 and 95, but quitting smoking a year ago led me to rise to 106 quickly. I was always aware that I was slowly gaining more weight, but the shock of getting that much weight and getting past the 100 kg level was what led me to decide that I needed to change this. However, I had other things going on in life, so this issue couldn't get the attention it needed, but I did try, and had limited success, which was temporary, I just gained it back and more.

So, 6 months ago, I decided that this should get priority and I should start serious weight loss; my motivation was that I was always good in sports when I was lighter (in the 76-85 range) and that I liked that, but that I didn't even want to think about moving weighing 106 kg. Also the fact that I became bigger and my clothes didn't fit me well, with the discomfort, were things I wanted to leave behind.

So, I started eating less and moving more. I didn't want to go running, because it would only discourage me because I would be so bad relative to my old self, so I did a lot of walking instead which was rather enjoyable. This is part of my 'secret'; I make weight loss as fun as it can be. If I don't like one approach that's supposed to work very well, I choose another one instead that I do like.

This was successful and now I am 92.6 kg, my average weight loss rate for the last months is 700 grams per week, or 100 grams per day. I've come to the point where I like to run again, I did this once per week the last three weeks and will increase it to twice per week starting this week. I will also increase my distances, which was about 5 km at the start and now about 7. I know I can do 20 km , even now because I know from experience that distance is not a problem for me, but instead of crazy extremes I prefer to focus on the long term, slowly building a routine, thus allowing my body to get used to it and prevent injuries.

One thing that I like is measuring my weight every day and tracking it with a graph. I've been doing this for three months and it's exciting for me to see my progress and to try to keep it going.

Another thing that I've been doing is intermittent fasting - eating just a bit one or two days and eating close to normal other days. I like the fact that I don't have to pressure myself to eat less all the time, instead just ask strong discipline on certain days, knowing that I can eat more the next days.

I've had very few problems during this time, but there's one thing that I am thinking about now; I notice that my energy level is significantly lower now during the day, because I don't eat enough, which causes me to consider changing my approach to weight loss. Until now 80% or so of my weight loss or so was due to reducing calorie intake (the other 20% was due to increasing exercise). I am considering flipping this around, so that I would eat normal portions most days (though I think I will continue my intermittent fasting 1 - 1.5 day per week) and gradually increase my exercise so that I'll burn 4000 calories per week or so. Again, I would go for this from week 1, but would increase to this gradually, and I would do several different types of sports - mainly running, swimming and cycling.

I am curious what your thoughts/advice is about this and I hope it was interesting.

jxspxr

So, what do you think?

GauchoMark

either way will work, as long as you maintain your calorie deficit. Exercising more has the benefits of building more muscle, so you look better as the fat reduces.

The downside to what you are doing is that you get in the habit of eating big portions and exercising to eat, so if you ever slack off of our exercise, you gain the weight back if you aren't careful!

holly1283

I don't think it matters what anyone thinks. It works for you. We are all individuals with different likes and dislikes. Nothing sounds outrageous or unhealthy to me. I personally cannot fast or partially fast because then I binge when I get too hungry. Good luck.

jxspxr

Thanks. I agree that it is personal.

Good advice Gaucho about being careful with this - I'll make sure that I will keep doing my exercise every week.

I will go this evening, I already feel that I've recovered from Sunday's exercising. If I recover as quickly as last time I can go running on Thursday or Friday, so I think I will go three time this week, which means that I will do about 20 kilometers of running, which is a nice start to make this exercising really a part of my weekly routine. I may go swimming on Saturday too.

Which brings me to some other questions:
How do I make sure that I stick with this? During the last 5 years, I've never sticked to exercising 2-3+ times per week for more than a month. I know that you can't look into my head to say how it should work for me, but I am curious how you achieve this, how it works for you.

One new strategy that I bet on is the slow approach - like I described: first I went walking and lost some weight, then I ran once only a couple weeks, with a lot of muscle ache afterwards, and now that I recover quickly I think I am ready to run 3 times per week. Now let's hope to stick with it - I'll make it a goal to do this for 5 weeks, increasing my distance from 7 to 10 or 12 per time.

jxspxr

Whoops I just did an 18 kilometer run. It was running through an unknown part of the forest and my urge for exploration got the best of me. It was good, though I won't do this again to prevent injuries. I am curious whether I will have a lot of muscle ache the next days - I've only ran 3 or 4 times or so during the last weeks (which is the same as this year). And I've only ran this 18+ kilometers 2 or 3 times in my life.

Anyways, it is nice to see that I still have this in me, or better that I found it back after losing 13.5 kg, and it's exciting to think about how my running ability will be in a few months, since I plan to lose another 10-15 kg during that time and I will train my running every week, so my stamina will also improve. I will allow myself to do half a marathon in a month. But first a month of shorter distances.

Mitchlou84

Hi Jasper

I think if you are really keen on the exercising I’d scrap the fasting and just log your food and exercise maintain a deficit every day.

I bought a Polar HRM to ensure that I was accurately logging my exercise.

I think the fasting may make you struggle for energy for your exercise?