I hope this lifestyle plan will help motivate you to move more — not only for the long-term weight loss maintenance benefits but also so you can tap into the significant health benefits an active lifestyle has been proven to provide.
www.mayoclinic.org/ and search for calorie calculator.
See how this is done using Kiki’s goals and activity level. Take Kiki’s stats from the previous section, and plug in her age (45), height (5-4), weight (150 pounds), and gender (female). Her activity level is somewhat active (Kiki walks her dog for 30 minutes three times per week).
Her estimated calorie needs are as follows: She needs to eat somewhere around 1850 calories per day (approximately 13,000 calories per week) to maintain her current weight.
Consider Kiki again: She wants to lose 10 pounds, and she has chosen to practice the 5:2 intermittent fasting plan (on two nonconsecutive days in a week she confines her eating to one 500 calorie meal; refer to Chapter 12 for more about this plan). Assuming she continues to eat 1,850 calories on five days in a week plus her 1,000 calories (on her two fasting days) gives her a grand total of about 10,250 calories ingested in one week. If she continues with her current activity level, she’ll have created a calorie deficit of 2,800 calories per week (presuming she continues her 300 calorie burn per week from her dog walks). Kiki will lose about a pound a week — the recommended safe rate of weight loss.
Following the 80:20 rule
One of the main reason diets fail is because people deprive themselves of the foods they love. When life happens, they go off the diet and gorge on those foods they restricted during the diet. Face it, if you love carbs, there’s no way that you’ll ever be able to not eat pasta for the next 50 years! The long-term solution and the gold standard of dietary balance and moderation is what nutritionists call the 80:20 rule.
The 80:20 rule, more formally called the Pareto principle, states that, for many events, roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. If you apply this philosophy to your eating regime, you can use it as an approach to healthy eating. The 80:20 rule shows you the way to balance, moderation, and indulging without any feelings of guilt. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.
The basic idea of the 80/20 rule as it applies to your intermittent fast is very simple. In order to be healthy and balanced, you don’t always have to make 100 percent healthy food choices. Eighty percent will do the trick. You can choose less healthy food and indulge yourself without guilt with the remaining 20 percent. Think of your 20 percent time as the freedom to eat the foods you love that may not be the healthiest. The 80/20 rule is a fantastic way to enjoy your treats and stay on the intermittent fasting train.
Revisit Kiki again: She loves her red wine (she drinks one 8-ounce glass a night) and munches on her nighttime snacks. Kiki has zero intention of giving them up. She is following the 5:2 intermittent fast. On her five non-fasting days, she eats three healthy plant-based meals totaling approximately 1,400 calories. That leaves her with 450 treat calories for nighttime. If she makes her dog walking a daily routine, she gets to add an additional 100 calories to her treats stash or 550 calories per night during her five non-fasting days. Five hundred and fifty calories translate into 8 ounces of red wine (approximately 200 calories) plus an additional 350-calorie high volume, slow-eating snack such as a huge bowl of popcorn. No deprivation here!
Trying just one more time
Several intermittent fasting approaches can succeed in helping you attain your goals. Intermittent fasting has many healthful effects on your body such as flipping your metabolic switch and changing your hormonal balance, which contribute to weight loss. But make no mistake about it, intermittent fasting doesn’t work through magic, and these plans don’t work through some secret bio-hack. Intermittent fasting lifestyles cause weight and body fat loss primarily by creating a sustained calorie deficit.
If you’ve tried intermittent fasting for a few weeks and haven’t lost any weight (or maybe you’ve even gained a little) despite doing everything by the book, you can easily get discouraged and give up. One of the major mistakes people make when first trying this lifestyle is giving up too soon. This lifestyle takes time to adjust to and for you to see results. If the plan isn’t working for you after say six weeks, switch to a different intermittent fasting schedule or better yet, come back to this chapter and do the calorie math. The calculations enable you to pinpoint where the problem areas are in your calorie intake (food consumption) and/or calorie output (exercise). Just remember to keep at it.
Chapter 4
Understanding the Link Between Weight and Health
IN THIS CHAPTER
