Hi One and All,

Flying back from Amsterdam to Kaohsiung I stumbled upon the Horizon documentary “Eat, fast and live longer.” After reading about exercise and nutrition for the past 6 years this made perfect sense to me and I was impressed by the science that backed it up. Once home I delved a little deeper into the subject. I was very active, marathons, triathlons, half Ironmans and long distance swims but last year I sustained an injury while running a marathon. I was out from almost one year. Furthermore with 2 young kids (4 and 3 years old) time for sport and exercise disappeared. The weight piled on. I went from 82 kg, which is still too heavy for me, to 96 kg. In April I took part in a triathlon without training. The next day I suffered facial paralysis. The doctor said I had overexerted myself. The face is back to normal and with some light exercise over the summer and eating less I went back down from 96 to 92.5-93kg. Way too heavy for my liking.
I’m 51, suffer from high blood pressure for the past 8 years. After 3 years of trying doctors were unable to find medicine to bring it down. Only relaxing and losing weight will help me. My liver is slightly too fat. The last time I had a complete health check all other parameters were normal.
That is why I’m so glad I saw the documentary on the plane. Got the book and started on Sept 30th weighing in at 92.8 kg.The results have been mixed. Sticking to the fast is not at all as easy as Michael makes it seem. The first week I stuck to it but after that it was a bit haphazard. I weighted 2 to 3 times a week. After 2 weeks I was down 1.5 kg but by week 4 I was back to 92.4 kg. I did not get it. Not only did I fast but had added 2 exercise programs to my week. Which means I now exercise 4 to 5 times a week, apart from walking and hiking 2 to 3 times a week. As before it seems that when I start exercising seriously I also eat more.
Last week though I stuck to my guns. My first fast day went awry (my wife is an excellent cook). I decided that since I stumbled to just carry the fast over to the next day. That worked fine. Same happened on my second fast day. The thing is my heavy exercise days are planned on my non-fast days but this time they coincided. I also started to drink more tea instead of water.
I want to stick to one or even no meal on the fast days. At first I thought breakfast would be best. Soon turned out that is absolute torture. I now make dinner my one fast day meal and it works very well. If I don’t feel hungry I just skip it all togther.
Imagine my surprise when this morning I weighted myself and weight 88.6kg. We are 2 days into week 6.
Oh yes and my clothes. Well my pants are loser but all my shirts and t-shirts are getting tighter. My belly has shrunk a few cm but because of the exercise my chest and shoulders have in fact expanded so I need to look for clothes that are wider on top and have a tailored waist.

Hi Nika,

Thank you for your reply. I’ll take you up on the Ironman. It was during my prep for a full Ironman here in Taiwan that I hurt myself. I had planned to do it for my 50th birthday. Now I am aiming for either next year or the year after that. Just as not to force it too much. My goal is 14 to 16 hours. No rush. As a friend of mine put it. What do they call someone that finishes in 16.5 hours: An Ironman! Before there were only Olympic Tri’s then 5 years ago they added on half Ironman and for the past 3 years we had 1st one and now 2 full Ironmans locally. After that I still want to do an ultra marathon (spartalon maybe).

I’m Belgian, Amsterdam is OK but it’s Holland after all. Have lived and worked in Taiwan for the past 19 years. Importer and distributor of Belgian beer. And believe it or not a not a big drinker myself.

As for the weight I know it goes up and down. A lot of it is water. I can lose 2 to 3 kg in 3 hours if I go for a long run, even if I drink. With temperatures here being 25 – 35ºC all year round sweating 3 liters is easy. But it is all water and has to be replaced.

ChrissieinBrittany Definitely not thinking right when I wrote that. hats off, of course, Thanks for pointing that out.