What I’ve Learnt On The 16/8 Diet

I have been doing the 16/8 diet for about 3 months now so I think it is time for a summary of what I’ve learnt.

The first thing is that is definitely a good way to lose weight.  I am just under 5Kg lighter now than when I started it.    It is a slow way to lose weight.  You hardly notice the difference week to week.  This is probably a good thing.  Weight loss programmes are notorious for recidivism.  The majority of people who lose weight put it back on again.

The second thing is that your body is very adaptable.  For years, I woke up feeling hungry and wouldn’t do anything until I had breakfast.  This was such an ingrained habit that I would sometimes be late for appointments rather than miss my morning food intake.  So I anticipated that missing the first meal of the day would be the big problem.  It turned out that after about a week, I was no longer hungry after waking up.  I now much prefer to get out of bed and get started on the day.  This is a huge, and I mean huge, change to my lifestyle. And yet it took almost no effort to achieve it.

The body's adaptability is behind the even more surprising thing I have discovered.  My body rapidly adjusted to a new lower food intake rate by slowing down.  So, reducing the number of calories going in didn’t materialise in as much weight loss as I expected.  I think I, and probably everyone else, have evolved to make do with a restricted food intake when we have to.  This is impressive as an example of the power of evolution, but it does mean that I haven’t lost as much weight as my thumb nail calculations had led me to expect that I would.

The fourth thing is something I already knew, and indeed, most people know.  Eating makes you hungry.  That’s why we have appetisers.  But I hadn’t fully appreciated that the food that does this most effectively is sugar.  If you want to wreck a daily fast, eat something sugary.  I have responded to this by drastically cutting my sugar intake.  

And finally, I discovered that despite putting less energy into my body, I have more energy to get things done.  This was most noticeable in my success rate at having a daily cycle.  During January, I was very reluctant to get out on my bike and rarely succeeded in doing so.  The weather was probably a factor, but my strong impression is that getting to actually do some exercise was much less easy when I had more pounds to shift around.  It sort of makes sense - I was carrying around the equivalent of 3 bags of sugar with me more then than I am now.  I don’t think that exercise is an effective way of losing weight.