Life At Slow-Mo

If you read my post yesterday you might remember that I mentioned I’d like to lose a kilogram within a week. That thought was inspired by what I did the very first time I was on a diet. Let’s start at the very beginning.

It was my third year in college. “Mission: Impossible” was playing in theatres. My friend who was a big fan of Tom Cruise was dying to see it. After class, we went to see the noon screening of the movie. We did not want to be late, so we went straight to the theatre. We bought some popcorn and drinks for our lunch. I did not have anything else to eat until I had dinner at home in the evening.

In the morning, I decided to check my weight on the scale. To my surprise, I lost half a kilogram compared to the day before.

Compared to my weight now, I was not so big then. My weight was around 77-78 kilograms. Even then, my friends often teased me. So much so that it began to erode my self-image. I didn’t like to check my look in the mirror. I thought I was too chubby.

Getting off the bathroom scale that morning, I had an epiphany. Would sticking to one meal a day be enough to lose weight? There was no other way to find out than to try it again.

I spent several weeks on this eating pattern:

• I had no Breakfast
• I allowed myself some sweet drinks or light snack to ease the hunger
• I had one meal at 3.30-4.00 pm
• I toughed it out until the next afternoon

To tell the truth, I was starving the whole time. But every time I got on the scale, my weight kept decreasing at an average rate of 300-400 grams every two days. My willpower fed on that, carrying me week after week until I lost around 13 kilograms. I was a slender 65-kilogram guy when it was all over. With that rate of weight loss, it was possible to lose 1 kilogram per week.

I thought about repeating that process again and doing one meal a day (OMAD) fasting. I was pretty sure I would reach similar results. Further thinking reminded me that

• My success with OMAD was 26 years ago. A lot has happened to my body between then and now. I did not have high blood pressure, and I was a lot more physically active. I commuted to school for 2 hours each way every day, and I walked a lot in campus. I was a lot healthier then.
• I didn’t know how my body would take a sudden diet change.
• My goal is to build better eating habit. Let’s say I did an OMAD. As soon as it was finished, I would go back to my old eating pattern. It is better to train my body to eat just enough, and to not expect food randomly, even at 11 PM.

I went online today to see how much calorie deficit I must carry in a day to lose 1 kilogram in a week. The answer? It takes 7,700 calories to lose one kilogram of fat. That translates to around a deficit of 1,000 calories per day.

In the past month, my daily diet was something like this:

Item	Calories
Breakfast	500-700 calories
Morning Snack	400-600 calories
Lunch	700-1000 calories
Afternoon Snack	400-600 calories
Dinner	500-700 calories

In total, my daily food intake could contain as much as 2500-3600 calories. Leading a sedentary lifestyle, 2,400 calories is enough for me. So I ate an extra 100-1,200 calories per day.

A deficit of 1,000 calories means there must be a difference of 1,000 calories between the energy that I consume and expend. If I eat 2,700 calories a day, that means I must spend 3,700 calories a day. Or if I want to maintain a sedentary lifestyle that uses 2,400 calories per day, I must eat only 1,400 calories.

With the intermittent fasting that I am doing now, do I reach the calorie deficit that I need to lose 1 kilogram a week? To be honest, I don’t think so. I can only think of one way to find out. Without big changes to the intermittent fasting that I am doing now, if my weight on the morning of Monday, January 31, 2022, is 97.7 kilograms or less, then I am on track.

== The Distracted Guy ==