Hello,
There was a hiatus in my videos and blogs - I was quite busy with a number of things. I've been teaching, working on several articles and a research grant, so it was quite a busy moment. Just before I took a pause in writing here, I made a short nutritional experiment on myself. I was 2 weeks away from my weight loss milestone and I realized that at that point it was seemingly impossible to reach it. At the same time, I considered all my options and devised a plan that theoretically would help me achieving my milestone, which was losing 30+ lb by November 19th, 2017. At that moment I rolled back in weight loss a bit after a long period of stagnation, plateauing and breaking my diet here and there, so effectively I had 15 days and I had to lose 15 lb.
The plan:
I decided to use my situation as an opportunity to make a naturalistic experiment. The gist of it was to go on a low-calorie (less 1000 Cal/day), low-carbohydrate diet and in addition to that, I was planning to eat only once a day, so effectively I would be fasting intermittently.
My expectations were as follows:
1. My BMR was around 1900 (use my website to calculate yours) and with some moderate physical activity, I could expand my daily energy expenditure to around 2900 calories. With 1000 calories intake it would create less of 2000 calories energy deficit per day, so I could expect to lose 8 pounds of body fat in the 15-day period.
2. In addition to that, I was expecting some sort of initial body cleanse, that would allow me to lose 2-4 pounds.
3. Ultimately, the first thing that would go away literally on day 1, would be my glycogen storages. Given that I'm a relatively large man, I would expect to have (and to lose) around 1 lb of glycogen, which in turns would go away with 3-4 pounds of water.
Taking these three items into consideration, planning to lose 15 pounds in such a short period of time was a borderline realistic expectation, so I began. Here is the timeline of my actions and weight changes:
Day 1: I made a short video that day describing my plan, weighed and measured myself - 92 kg /202.8 lb Also, I took some before pictures and made my day 1 video explaining the whole approach. By the way, I'm taking my progress pictures almost all the time, but I'm not planning to make them public simply because I don't want my patients to stumble upon them on the internet. Also, while I do know a lot about weight loss and body transformation I do not consider myself to be a role model for that.
Days 2 and 3: I have lost around 3.5 pounds in the first 24 hours and then almost 3 more pounds in the next 24 hours. Sounds like a great start, but these were the easy pounds to lose - items 2 and 3 on my expectations list, primarily glycogen, water and cleansing. Here, I would like to note right away that this is something that is happening to almost everyone who start any diet and that is exactly why many fad diets promise you fast weight loss - they can demonstrate it easily and bank on it.
Days 4-7: I had some sort of a plateau here 0 as I have been sticking to my diet and working out daily, I haven't lost much. Also, I went into ketosis only around day 5 or 6. This just shows how irrelevant workouts are for body fat loss and that it might several days to get into ketosis.
Days 8-15: I had a minor surgery and couldn't workout, but at the same time I kept following my diet and as I have been in ketosis all this time, I have been losing around a pound a day. Interestingly enough, I think that the fact that I didn't work out led to additional muscle loss that contributed to the overall result. Also, I've received lots and lots of compliments from my coworkers and my patients of looking "like you've lost a lot of weight".
Day 16: Final measurements in the morning to mark my progress over the course of these 15 days. I have lost 14.8 pounds of body weight, which includes 8.6 lb of body fat. Also, I've lost more than an inch in my waist and hips as well as around a half of an inch I my arms. Pretty much everything that transpired was predictable. In terms of psychological aspects of these 15 days - I cannot say that it was ridiculously tough, but I did feel the effects of food deprivation throughout this time period. It was challenging, but definitely doable.
I think that my self-experiment illustrated the following:
1. There is an initial weight loss of several pounds, which are not body fat.
2. It is realistic to lose around 7-8% of body mass in a very short time period
3. It is realistic to lose around 0.5% of body weight a day on a very strict diet
4. When losing weight, only half of this weight is body fat - the rest is glycogen, water and muscle
5. Working out slows your weight loss, but spares muscle.
Also, what I have learned from my experiment is that I can take a good stab on my body fat and jumpstart my body transformation. It was tough at times, but the psychological benefits of feeling in control and successful as well as multiple compliments I received from my coworkers totally outweighed the negatives. Another important point is that not to relax to much afterwards, we can do a lot in short-term prospective, but the main effect is achieved through consistent work on yourself (more on it my next blogs).
Sincerely Yours,
Dr.Sam