I have spent many years trying to lose weight following different diet plans, joining Weight Watchers and most everything that promised to help me lose weight. I reached my peak weight of around 330 pounds in the 1980's which is when I started to realize I needed to do something. Enter diet plans, exercising more and eventually 4+ years with Weight Watchers. The WW's support group is really good and helped me get down to around 250 pounds within 6 months but I realized I had to change my lifestyle and that was something no one else could do for me. I had to make better food choices and eliminate some foods and snacks that I knew were part of my problem.

I initially chose intermittent fasting after reading Lee Aase's @LeeAase health journey - https://social-media-university-global.org/my-health-journey/. What really got my attention was a blog entry in Lee's health journey - An Unfortunately Named Book - https://social-media-university-global.org/2020/02/an-unfortunately-named-book/. The blog entry has a YouTube video by Dr. Jason Fung: Fasting as a Therapeutic Option for Weight Loss that gave me some new insights into my weight issues and how it affects my health. My wife had been doing intermittent fasting for a few months and I just wasn't buying it without a good explanation which is what I found in Dr. Fung's video.

At the time I started intermittent fasting on Jan 18, 2020, I weighed 244.7 lbs. This morning I weighed 211.2 lbs. I started with a 24 hour fast and then started experimenting with the 16/8, 18/6 and 20/4 intermittent fasting periods. The 20 hour fast with 4 hour eating window has worked the best for me but I have to mix a few days a week with an 18/6 or 16/8 so that I can enjoy eating with friends and family outside of my normal windows of what I deem opportunity 🙂 Two things that have helped my on my intermittent fasting journey are an inexpensive Bluetooth bathroom scale and the Zero app (https://www.zerofasting.com/) which was a tip I found in @LeeAase's health journey blog. I chose the Greater Goods Smart Scale and have been extremely happy with it - https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-GreaterGoods-Composition-Bathroom-Connected/dp/B07DHSSND5/ref=sr_1_10. It also incudes the Weight Gurus app for tracking your progress - https://weightgurus.com/

Why am I here? To put it simply, when I started intermittent fasting, I set a goal of dropping my weight to 220 lbs. When I reached that goal, I felt so good about myself that I decided to set a new goal of 200 lbs. I have not been at 200 pounds since graduating from boot camp after joining the Navy. My second goal has not been quite as easy to reach as the first one. I have been eating pretty much whatever I want during my intermittent fasting windows of eating opportunity, not counting calories and letting some of my snacks back into my life. I think my missing link is LCHF and I am excited to learn what I need to do to implement a new strategy to help me reach and maintain my new goal of 200 pounds.

So I am here to learn more about LCHF and hopefully break my current plateau.

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