I wouldn’t just sit there feeling guilty about it. If you suspect you’re eating too many carbs, it’s easy to fix: Google “Atkins induction”. Spend two weeks doing that and a couple of months on low-carb high-fat (basically normal food minus the starchy stuff) and you’ll lose your desire to overindulge. You’ll be able to enjoy ricecakes etc for what they are and not feel an immediate craving to eat another one.
What seems to happen is that continually eating carbs for fuel recalibrates the way your body burns energy, and it eventually stops burning fat. The usual symptom is feeling comatose immediately after a meal and then desperately hungry (often weak and lightheaded) two hours later. If that describes you, it would be worth trying to sort it out.
One of the hardest parts for me is finding low carb food that I don’t need to prepare myself. Basically a lot of repetitive foods and places. Not unique to Taiwan.
Keto friendly 0 carbs at 7 Starbucks locations in Taipei area. Nice cold draft at with 280mg caffeine, similar to 3 cups of coffee. Tastes good much better than the regular coffee.
If you can’t find a keto friendly meal at the moment in Taiwan, then don’t worry “as Yale University professor and author of Food: The History of Taste Paul Freedman argues, there’s no biological reason for eating three meals a day at specific times.”
This is anecdotal, but I have started intermittent fasting for 8 hours a day, usually between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Since starting this strict regime, my weight has dropped by more than 20 lbs.
Good job on losing the weight. But is that going without food for 8 hours intermittent fasting? It just seems like a normal schedule of sleep and not eating while sleeping. The most common method is involves going without food for 16 hours.
These are the most popular methods:
The 16/8 method:** Also called the Leangains protocol, it involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 1–9 p.m. Then you fast for 16 hours in between.
Eat-Stop-Eat:** This involves fasting for 24 hours, once or twice a week, for example by not eating from dinner one day until dinner the next day.
The 5:2 diet:** With this method, you consume only 500–600 calories on two non-consecutive days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days.
I agree! But they say you get used to it. Also, there are many people that skip breakfast (I use to back in college) so it’s not too hard for these folks to just stretch that out a bit longer. It makes sense for some people, at least the 16/8 method.
I just did my first fast last week. I was planning 16 hours but somehow made it to 42 hours. Interestingly the first 7 to 8 hours were the most difficult but it became progressively easier the longer I went. In the end I lost 1kg. Getting out of the fast I decided to go on Keto. Just 1 week in of keto + IF and I feel great. In total I have lost 1.5 kilos in just one week, and I feel more energetic, less bloated and just good overall.
This is the first time in my life that I have spent a whole week on very little carbs. Being from southeast Asia I have been eating bread (chapati) with literally every meal, from breakfast to dinner. It’s hard to explain to my family why suddenly I won’t eat bread with everything anymore. They think I will get sick anyways, I have always avoided fat for years, as much as I could. Feels great to be able to enjoy fatty foods again, without the guilt. Guess I was doing it opposite I.e Too many carbs.
The only bother for me is having to avoid beer ( didn’t realize it was so high carb). Are there any low carb beers in Taiwan ?
You can eat high protein and it doesn’t keep you out of ketosis nor is there any chance of rabbit starvation (silly to even bring that up), I’ve tested it with ketone sticks and many others have too.
Great diet for losing weight and maintaining satiety and energy. Biggest downsides have to be the social aspects like not being able to eat at some restaurants, and no beer.
Also dangerously extremely low tolerance to alcohol, compounded by only being able to drink spirits.
And having to piss often (carbs hold water, 4 grams for every gram of carb).
I’ve found that, after many years of doing low-carb, I just don’t feel inclined to eat very often. I usually have only two meals a day, and one of those (brunch) is fairly small. My main meal is enormous, post-workout. I agree that those “fasting protocols” are largely pointless: if you feel hungry, then eat, and if you don’t, don’t. But I guess dieticians have to make it sound more complicated than it is in order to justify their existence.
I am on low-carb + intermittent fasting now since 7 weeks. Here’s my results :
Week 1 :
Starting on 22nd July, starting weight 66.5 Kg
Week 7 :
Current week, as of today I am 61.5 Kg
Lost 5 Kg in total.
I have been fasting (water-fast only) every Monday and Tuesday i.e. I have my last meal on Sunday night and then start eating on Tuesday night.
I did 6 weeks like that. Strangely though it really didn’t feel like a diet. Very easy to do because rest of the week I ate freely (though still healthy). I wasn’t counting calories or anything. I always ate till I was full on eating days.
The 48 hour continuous fast has been getting progressively easier each week, to the point that I don’t feel any hunger during the first 2 days of the week.
This week, i.e. Week #7 I fasted for 3 days (because I had hit a plateau + wanted to challenge myself) and it worked. So far so good. In addition to weight loss, just feeling healthy overall, both physically and mentally.
Looking at the big picture : In the last 49 days (since I started this) I have fasted for a total of 15 days. That’s huge for me… In the start I couldn’t imagine not eating for one whole day, intentionally.
That is awesome Fuzzy so happy to hear about your progress. The ultimate fasting life style is eating one meal a day consuming daily allowance of all calories within a 2 hour feeding window. Keep this up for life and you will never look back. End obesity and reverse diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol problems for good.
Now that you mention cholesterol, I got my bloodwork last month. Guess I have to up exercise as everything is fine but my bad cholesterol is still a bit high. Sugar is normal.
What’s your HDL/TG ratio? This seems to be the only figure that’s even halfway meaningful, but the bottom line is that cholesterol measurements don’t have anything like the predictive value that doctors claim for them.
For women in particular, there seems to be no correlation (literally none) between any of the commonly-measured cholesterol fractions and future heart disease.
Incidentally … how’s your weightloss coming along?
anyways, I have always avoided fat for years, as much as I could. Feels great to be able to enjoy fatty foods again, without the guilt. Guess I was doing it opposite I.e Too many carbs.