If I went and asked someone a little bit on the heavier side, if he/she was interested in losing 20-40lbs a year until you reach your target weight and keep it off, his/her answer would be an “unequivocal yes” and their next question will be “What is the catch ?”.

If I told them the catch was to stop eating for a little over 2 months or roughly 70 days, I am sure they will think of me as a crazy person and won’t want to hear any advice from me about losing weight or anything else for that matter.

In IF, if we add up all the fasting days that is what we are doing. We actually skip 208 meals a year in 5:2, which comes to 70 days (3 meals a day). It is amazing how much food we are giving up – it sounds too much when I think in terms of days or months.

Now the question is why some people do not lose any or much weight at all even after skipping 70 days’ worth of food.

– Bad genes?
– Feasting instead of eating normally on rest of the days?
– Need more exercise – ( I have my own doubts on this) ?
– Need patience since it takes time to undo the slow weight gain with slow weight loss?
– Not counting snacking or drinking sugary beverages?
– Not giving up wine and other alcohol?

Anyway my weight was stuck between 154-157 for about 8 weeks occasionally touching 158. So I gave up my weekend wine, meat, cheese/oil based diet and switched to mostly vegetarian diet with lots of green cruciferous vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grain bread, nuts and not much exercise.

And in the last 2-3 weeks, the digital needle has started moving to the left a little bit and now the pendulum is swinging between 153-156, more close to 153. I believe the weight loss is faster when you have a lot to lose and the last 5-10 pounds are going to take some work.

We have to be mindful of what we eat and stay strong to achieve our weight loss and fitness goals.