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I noticed a trend that when I lost weight it was when I skipped breakfast and started my day with lunch.
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Yes, Athena, that's exactly how my downward trend started, and it was soon afterward that I found Eat Stop Eat and the Anything Goes Diet.
In ESE the author sited multiple benefits of short term fasting. What drew me in the most was that after just a single 24-hr fast, increased insulin sensitivity and decreased insulin levels occured in healthy people. And then reading that our bodies can't burn fat unless insulin levels are really low. So staying in a fasted state for 24 hours seems to be what my body needs the most.
In AGD, the author talks about a study done on two groups of people eating the amount of food to maintain their weight but a different number of meals (3 squares vs. 1 meal). The 1-meal/day group lost fat and not muscle over 8 weeks while the other group maintained their weight and body composition. The researchers concluded that with more meals eaten people had more opportunities to overeat. Those in the study who ate just the one meal/day seemed to have difficulty eating all the calories at the one meal.
I can do that. I don't have to starve myself all the time, but I don't have to freak out about eating either. It seems so freeing.
So the only thing I have to deal with is my body being accustomed to higher blood sugar levels due to having overeaten for so long. It takes time for that to happen. I've tested myself when I thought I was hypoglycemic and I just wasn't. And there were other times when I tested my blood sugar and was at a level where I should have felt hungry or light headed and I didn't. So now I check my blood sugar when I'm feeling wonky and if it's low enough, I'll go eat. Otherwise, I try to ride it out. So far, I haven't been truly hypoglycemic ever!
Good luck to you, Athena. Let me know how things go for you too.