At the beginning of this year I described 3 major goals for 2010 with regard to my overall health and fitness (“2010: Setting them up and knocking them down“). So how are things progressing? I will do a summary post after the month is over, but with about a week to go I want to check in to give myself enough time to push a little if I’m coming up short. Here’s a quick summary of my goals, sub-goals, and the milestones I’m shooting for.
- Year goal: Complete at least one major running event this year.
Sub-goal: Beat my aversion to running in the Oregon rain.
Milestone for January: Return to running 3 miles 3 times per week, with one 5 mile run by the end of January.
- Year goal: Lose 75 lbs this year – and if I lose it early, keep it off.
Milestone for January: Lose 10 lbs this month.
- Year goal: Start writing at least one meaningful post per week for Almost Fit.
Milestone for January: you guessed it – 5 Almost Fit posts.
So how am I doing so far?
Ed. note: This is part 2 of a series that was written after a day of trying intermittent fasting, or IF. As I explained in part 1, fasting is not starvation, and is a discipline that has been practiced for thousands of years by cultures around the globe. Here’s how it went.
On Saturday I decided that it was the right time to try intermittent fasting (IF). As I explained in part 1 (“20 hours without eating: the intermittent fasting experiment“), IF is essentially giving your body a break from food for a set period of time, and then eating the calories and nutrients you need during a specific window. If you are trying to lose weight, the key is during your eating times you take in the appropriate nutrients while maintaining a reasonable and healthy caloric deficit.
In my case I chose to fast for 20 hours, starting at 9PM the previous evening and having only water (and a cup of coffee) until 5PM the next day. I also asked my wife to make dinner for the family to be ready at 5 or so, just so that when the fast was over I could actually eat something substantial and more importantly, planned (in my mind, no plan might equal disaster food-wise). I also asked her to make something extra tasty 
.
Of course, I wasn’t sure if I could even make it that long mentally. Could I actually last 20 hours without giving in to cravings of, well, anything? How would I do physically and more importantly, emotionally? I decided to go for it, knowing that if things got too out of hand I could always stop. The results were pretty surprising.
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