In short, fasting for 12 to 14 hours after my last meal of the day enabled me to lose another 25 pounds in about 6 months, but now I seemed to be stuck on another plateau, tipping the scale at 229 lbs. That's a long way from the 290 lbs that I used to weigh, but still a way off from what I think would be my natural healthy weight.
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What that is I don't really know. Eventually, a new body set weight gets established after substantial weight loss and further weight loss becomes extraordinarily difficult, but to know beforehand where the new set point will settle is anybody's guess. So far this year, I have dropped five pounds, which isn't so bad because I was on vacation for two weeks and missed almost a month in the gym while trying to get over a bout of the flu. Nevertheless, I am thinking that I am going to have to change things up if I want to reach the 25 pound weight loss for 2016.
That doesn't mean that I will alter any of the previous changes I have made. I will continue the three workouts per week at the gym, four or more hours of salsa classes and social dancing, using my stand up desk at work, taking walks and the stairs whenever I can, eating clean 95% of the time, limiting my alcohol consumption, and sticking with my feed and fast cycle. But, I am running out of new habits to adopt. The low hanging fruit has already been picked.
In fact, I think I'm going to give cycling to work one last try, but this time something different. Seeing that I am breaking new ground, I thought that I would give cycling to work in a fasted state a try. In the morning, I'll hop on my bike after waking up and ride one hour to work before breaking my fast. That way, my body, having already exhausted its access to my glycogen stores in my liver and muscles, will be forced to burn my body fat as a fuel during my morning commute. Will that change result in a lowering of my basal metabolic rate throughout the rest of the day in order to compensate for the fat loss? I really don't know. Only one way to find out.
At the moment, I am chomping at the bit to give this new strategy a try. My bike is ready to go and the only thing holding me back is the weather. Last night, we had about 10 centimeters of snow dumped on us, and the temperature at 6:00 a.m. this morning was -9 degrees Celsius, a little out of my comfort zone. Hopefully, things will warm up next week and I can begin with my latest experiment in trying to become lean and fit.
I'll keep you posted.
