My First 24 Hour Fast

There is much excitement as i'm slowly becoming less and less of a big fat-ass.  Life is throwing curve balls at me and I feel like i'm in the zone and nothing can derail me here at the beginning of my journey.

The official start date of this journey is July 1st because choosing the first day of a month makes things easier in terms of tracking and that means that I have been at this journey officially for 3 weeks.  In those three weeks I have gone from 274.4 pounds to now 257.6 pounds.  My next goal is just around the corner and I can taste it. Oddly enough it tastes a lot like water which is the only thing I drink any more.

Speaking of water, my goal is to reach 1 gallon of water drank per day.  While I'm not reaching that goal 100% of the time I am reaching it pretty often and when I don't I am still over 100 ounces.

Yesterday ended up being my most water drank in what I'll assume is ever at 192 ounces and it was fueled by two different events.

The first event was out of my control and that was being stranded on the side of the road in Las Vegas, suffering in the 105 degree heat for two hours waiting for a two truck to come and take my car to the garage because it decided to throw a monkey wrench in my daily plans.

The second event was completely in my control and that was deciding to do a 24 hour fast for the first time ever.  As you can see from the graph to the left (or if you are on mobile maybe it is above) I started consuming more water the day before when I had fully made up my mind that I was going to be going 24 hours.  The keys to success is willpower, determination and water.  Two of those things I have been developing over the course of the last few weeks and the other I have been drinking a lot of to flush out my system and help get me over my food and sweet addictions.

A few years ago when I was trying to get healthy one of my wise friends told me that it takes 21 days to develop a habit (also to break a habit if that is what you are going for) and here I sit at day 21 at 9:30 in the morning and I've already downed 64 ounces of water (and gone to the bathroom 32 times).  I feel pretty confident that my water habit is indeed formed.  The first thing I do when I wake up is reach for my water bottle and start drinking.  The last thing I do before bed is finish off my last bottle and then make sure I have two 32 ounce bottles of water refilled and in the fridge to start my next day.

My other habit is fasting, intermittent fasting to be precise.  I have been fasting for 21 days and after I realized that this was something I could do I started tracking it as well.  My fasts went from slightly difficult and annoying to me adding hours and extending my fasts and feeling better and better about it.  I started at 12 hours, moved to 16 hours and before I even realized it I was at 18 hours consistently.  This is all within a couple of week time frame and from a guy who would normally begin eating when he woke up and wouldn't stop until he went to bed.  I am fat because I love to eat.  I mean, there are other reasons like I am an emotional eater and whatnot but it all boils down to I love to eat.

I eat when i'm happy.
I eat when i'm depressed.
I eat when i'm angry.
I eat when i'm bored.

Go back and re-read those last four sentences.  That was my life from the time I discovered that food was good.  One word has changed in those sentences in the past three weeks and I plan on making it a permanent change.

Ate.  Past tense.  In my rear-view mirror.  No longer my habits but my past indiscretions.

It takes 21 days to build a habit.
In 21 days I have built the habit of drinking water and fasting.
In 21 days I have broke the habit of eating at every available opportunity for no reason at all.
In 21 days I have broke the habit of grabbing food to start my day and grabbing some fast food on my way home at 10 PM at night.
In 21 days I have broke the habit that has had it's evil hands on me for decades as I work towards becoming a new and better me.

I've been fasting for three weeks but tracking for 12 days, so one third of that time.

I have completed 12 fasts with a 19 hour average over the last seven fasts.  My shortest fast has been 17 hours and my longest 26 hours.

In these past three weeks I have dropped nearly 20 pounds!

Intermittent fasting has changed my life.  By helping me to control when I was eating I cut out the in-between meal junk food.  I cut out the after hours snacking.  I cut out the sweets because If I was going to limit the amount of times I am eating I wanted to make those meals count.

Intermittent fasting has helped me kick the soda and energy drink habit.  I have had one soda and one energy drink in the past 3 weeks and I have not craved them at all.  Sure there are still flavors out there that I want to try and there will be new flavors that tempt me but I do not have a craving for them.

Intermittent fasting has broken my sugar cravings.

It is insane how much different I am feeling and acting in just three short weeks.  My life has changed. My attitude has changed.  My habits have changed.

It takes 21 days to develop a habit and it takes 90 days to build a lifestyle.  I'm almost one third of the way towards that newly built lifestyle and I do not plan on deviating from this course.  Taking into consideration rounding to make my life easier that puts me at October 1st will be essentially 90 days and my eyes are on that prize.

At 250 pounds my good buddy Trashturkey has a gift waiting for me.
At 240 pounds (by September 15th) I will have hit the goal that another friend has and I jumped on so we could keep ourselves motivated!
October 1st I can officially say that I have now developed my new lifestyle.

Intermittent fasting has changed my life and no one can tell me different.

I am waiting on my artwork before I give the FatMan companion podcast it's own feed but I have dropped the next episode and you can get it from Podbean here or from Spotify here.

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me.

 -FatManinVegas