In today’s episode, Nikki Esquivel shares her 30 pound weight loss journey with intermittent fasting. An autogenerated transcript is available at the end of these show notes.
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The following is an AI generated transcript of this podcast.
Welcome to the Six Miles to Supper podcast. I’m your host, Kayla Cox, and I’ve lost over 80 pounds with intermittent fasting six days a week, eating whatever I wanted at my meals, taking a cheat day every Sunday and walking six miles a day. And I’m here to help you on your weight loss journey. Today’s episode is a crossover from the Intermittent Fasting Success Stories series I do on my YouTube channel, also called Six Miles to Supper.
These interviews are recorded on Zoom, so the audio might be a little bit different than what you’re used to on this podcast. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. If you consider yourself a success story and you would like to be interviewed, please reach out to me at interviews at six miles to supper. Tor.com. Nikki Esquivel lost a £30 with intermittent fasting and she’s kept it off for two years now.
So thank you for being here. Nikki. Why don’t you give yourself a little introduction, Tell everybody who you are and what you do. I sure. Thanks for having me, Kayla. My name is Nikki Esquivel, and I live in the Philippines. I’ve lived in the Philippines for ten years, along with my husband, Anthony. We run an orphanage for street boys called Mercy House X Street Boys because there are boys now.
We have 17 boys in our home right now. We’ve had as many as 25 at times here and there. Ten years ago, we moved here from the U.S. We were just your regular typical American family. We had six children that we homeschooled. My husband worked outside and I stayed home and took care of the family. And just kind of your normal, average family that we’re called to to come overseas and and start an orphanage.
So that’s that’s me. Wow. So why don’t you give us a rundown of how you have found success with weight loss? How much have you lost and how long did it take? Sure, sure. It took about a year and I lost about 30 pounds. I was not ever what you would call obese. I was probably I’m five little less than five four.
So I’m not very tall and at my highest weight, I was probably about £170. So maybe by the doctors charts, I was I was on the edge of obesity. But what really challenged me to lose weight was I was just feeling so achy and old and bad every single day. When we first moved to the Philippines, it was busy and hectic and I lost some weight and I had a lot of energy.
And then as we got settled into our routine with our orphanage and kind of knew what we were doing and knew the ropes, we just I got a lot more sedentary. A lot of the work that we do here involves a lot of writing of newsletters and updating our friends in the States and all of this. And so there was a lot of sitting on the computer for me and I started packing on the pounds.
My husband and I started this nightly habit of having a glass of wine and some chips in our room, and it became every single night. And before I knew it, I had just put on weight and I just felt achy and uncomfortable. So that’s kind of what led to the I just had to change. I knew I had to do something.
Mm hmm. Right. So. So you lost 30 pounds and it took about a year. What were you doing during that time? What was your daily routine like? Well, first of all, I learned about intermittent fasting from a friend of mine in the States who. Who’s a lady much older than I am, and one of the a close friend of our orphanage.
I went home on a furlough and I saw her and she looked amazing. She looked thin, but just radiant. Her skin was beautiful, her eyes were bright. And I said, What are you doing? And she said, I’m intermittent fasting. And I kind of said, okay, well, that’s great. And I didn’t think about it again until I started to feel bad and realized I needed to do something.
And I thought, what was that thing that my friend said she was doing? And I just started Googling. So the routine that I settled on is I started out slow at 16 eight, I think was my first fast and I had to take a spoonful of peanut butter in the middle of my my fast I couldn’t even make my first bypass because I was so hungry, but I stuck with six eight for probably a month.
And I was amazed in the first two weeks just how much better I felt. My my aches and pains started to go away. My sleep got a little bit better. Just small things of those non scale victories in two weeks time. I was already seeing those. And so about a month in I upped my my window. I made my eating window a little bit smaller and I did 18 six for a while now, now several years in, I’m in maintenance.
I’m about 132 pounds, I think. I don’t weigh regularly anymore, but I know when my certain pair of pants fit a certain way, you know that it’s time to to do something different. So my maintenance is either 24, so four hour eating window or man, just depending on how busy the day is. And I like to eat early in the day, so I will have a window for maybe 9 to 12 or 9 to 1.
You know, earlier in the day. And then I will close my window before dinner time for sure and just fast out the rest of the day with some decaffeinated coffee, helping me make it through to bedtime. So that’s my my window. And I do exercise. I do walk about six kilometers. I don’t know what it is in miles, but I think that’s six kilometers, five days a week probably, and then two days a week of strength training with dumbbells, resistance training.
Just a an hour. I’m just I’m light near. Exercise is fairly light, but it’s super effective, coupled together with with my fasting program. So when you are eating in the evening window, what do you eat? I’m a I’m a mindful eater, but I’m not on any specific plan. I’m not low carb or no sugar. I’ve toyed with those things.
I know you have to because I’ve listened to your podcast and I’ve tried temporarily and I’m just so unhappy right now. I, I like I can’t have a piece of cheesecake if I’m at a gathering and there’s cheesecake. Come on. You know, I’m not going to I’m not going to live that way the rest of my life. I’m more than 50 years old and I’m definitely not going to live out the rest of these years, not having cheesecake or not having so I’m mindful, but I do eat till I’m nice and full and satisfied.
I focus on vegetables and protein because I know those things keep me going until the next day. And then I usually do have a little dessert at the end of each window, sometimes a little glass of wine, even though it’s still afternoon, just so I don’t feel deprived. And then I shut my window and I think, okay, I’ll see you again tomorrow, refrigerator.
And I kind of go about my day. And so you said mindful eating. I think that’s really interesting. What what is mindful eating to you? Like what? How do you define that for yourself? I eat with a purpose. Like I know I need to get some fiber in my diet each day. I want to have vitamin dense food.
So normally I will have we don’t have good lettuce here in the Philippines. It’s hard to find. So I’ll use a cabbage for my lettuce and I’ll cut it up and then I’ll put the things on it that I know have what I think my body needs. I’ll put cashews and some raisins and other vegetables, some kind of addressing that doesn’t have a lot of sugar in it and just make a really big, pretty salad and eat that first.
When I when I open up my eating window and I feel like I don’t want to take a bunch of supplements, I just feel like, okay, I’ve you know, I’ve given myself food as medicine, and so I’ve given myself the things that I know my body needs. And it tasted good. But now maybe little something I want after that and I’ll go for a little treat of some kind of a break before I shut my window.
I’m just mindful of what’s going into my mouth. I don’t eat in front of a screen watching a movie or on my phone or any of that I really look forward to. It’s almost like a little ceremony. I get my food, I get my whatever I’m going to drink, and I’m excited. I like to be alone. If I’m if I’m eating.
A lot of times of the schedule, the kids is a lot different from my schedule. So I like to have that kind of as me times saying and just kind of enjoy my big salad and think about the day and, and and eat alone. Very good. And so you said you drink coffee during your fasting window and do you put anything in every district hit black?
I just think it’s like I always have even before intermittent fasting. So that was an easy thing for me. A lot of my friends struggle with that, that splash of cream, that that’s stevia or monk fruit or something to sweeten it. But I really have never used anything. My dad’s a military man and so black coffee was I thought, that’s all you could have if we put that around the house.
And so I grew to love it at an early age. So in maintenance, you said that, you know, occasionally maybe the pants get a little bit too tight. And so what do you do when you when you find yourself? It’s like, huh, I think I’ve gained a little bit. Do you what has there been anything where you’ve noticed, like, oh, here’s what I started doing and this is what led to it to a lot of gain.
Can you talk about that a little bit? I’ll notice I get a little bit loosey goosey in my window. My my four hour window will still usually be 4 hours, but I’ll have you know, I’ll get a candy bar at the gas station. And when we stop, I’ll get a few more treats here and there, and then I’ll notice maybe the next week or so.
The the pants getting tight and I’ll just go back to oh, mad for a few days. I don’t stop having my little one treat if I want it, because I know that it takes time to, you know, to to gain it takes time to lose. I don’t mean to do it overnight. I’m very thankful for my body the way that it is right now, the way that it’s working.
I feel so good and I love the way that I look. So it’s not a matter of beating myself up, but I just don’t want it to get out of control. You know how one one kind of Lucy Day can turn into two, three, four. And before you know it, so am I still in intermittent fat? Start in my still on a health program at all of my.
So I like to rein it in kind of quickly, but I don’t do anything drastic. I just go back to Oman and just kind of move on and it always resolves in just a very short time, just a few maybe three days to five days of being a little bit more mindful and it resolves. All right. And so do you feel like you have any challenges that you that you still face with this whole thing, or do you feel like I’ve pretty much got it under control?
I do sometimes have challenges. There are times that I have I’m challenged with being consistent, giving myself a few too many liberties sometimes. And I and I, one of my big challenges is, is finding good shoes here for my walking like I love to walk. And it’s hard to find a good pair of trustworthy walking shoes when I find a pair, I I’ll buy them and then when they start to hurt, it’s hard to find another pair.
That’s been a big challenge for me. So when I come home on furlough, that’s when I. I get good shoes, good shoes that are made in the States. And then I but I mean, I’d a consistency as far as the fitness journey can still sometimes be a challenge for me because I can be an emotional eater and it’s a very high stress environment.
I live inside the orphanage with the boys and my husband and some of our own kids and, you know, a lot of behaviors from past trauma come along with what we do. And so sometimes at the end of the day, I just think I just want a sleeve of cookies and need to end my and some days I give in to that.
And I’m sorry when I do and other days I don’t. And I feel really strong that I didn’t. But I still do struggle. I battle myself sometimes. That’s good. Thank you for for sharing that. So I’m going to show my ignorance, like in the Philippines because you’re in the Philippines. So Amazon is not a thing there. It’s no, they have their own version, but it’s local products.
So Amazon has just started delivering over here. We haven’t tried it yet. I mean, we’re missionaries, so we also have to be careful and frugal. And there are times that I just feel bad about dropping 100 U.S. dollars on a pair of shoes. But I think, yeah, Amazon has just started. And so I’m thinking it may be something that’s worth the investment just because it it’s my sanity, my mental health, those walks are my everything.
And like, I can’t wait to get out there when it’s time to walk. It’s not even a chore. I never dread it. I don’t think I’ve got it. I think, Oh good, I do it all at once. a6k all at one time. I don’t break it up. I know that you break it up, but just. I know, I know my Marg when it’s three K when I turn around but that’s when I listen to podcasts.
Yours and others, I listen to worship music I can think have time to just not focus on the orphanage so that you know, that that walk is. It’s one of my favorite things, actually. That’s awesome. So what is one piece of advice that you would give to someone else? Right now they’re on the weight loss journey. What would you tell them?
I would tell them to be patient on the journey. It takes so much longer than you think it’s going to take, but it’s instead of eyes on the goal all the time, eyes on the being skinny or eyes on the wearing a size whatever, or having a certain number on the scale just each day. Just enjoy the journey because it is going to take you longer than you think, but it’s so worth it.
I am so thankful that I saw that friend and her glow and heard the words intermittent fasting and then, you know, came back here and thought I got to do something. I honestly I thought that maybe I have an autoimmune disorder or some kind of an illness or even ALS. Like, I scared myself because my body was just hurting and I was young for that.
I wasn’t you know, I was too young to be in that much pain. And I would just I would just encourage anybody who’s thinking about starting intermittent fasting to just start today, pick a pick a window that you think you can live with whatever food you really wanted when the windows closed. Just save it for tomorrow and do a little bit.
Do a little bit of moving, if you like. Put on a song and dance to one song with the blinds closed in your room. Just one song. Maybe the next week, two songs, little by little and just give it time. Give yourself a year. Don’t, don’t say if I’m not feeling better or looking great in 30 days, I’m done with this thing.
Give it a really good, fair shot. And I don’t think anybody would be sorry that they did. I’m super thankful that I started this this journey. I can’t even believe I’m in maintenance. I never thought I would say I’m in maintenance. I always thought I’d be losing those extra ten. Those extra five on there. I’m just I’m just exactly the size that I love being just a normal, healthy, energetic 53 year old woman.
That’s awesome. And something I said, You’ve been in maintenance for a while, so when did you actually lose the weight? And so you’ve been maintaining for how long? It took about a year, a little bit more than a year to be where I was really felt like I wasn’t going to go back and I was comfortable. So I started around 2020.
So sometime in the middle of 2021, toward the end of 2021, I would say I had lost all the weight I was going to lose. And then I became I went into maintenance. But even through maintenance, I worked on toning up things through exercise and trying to walk my 6ka little bit faster. Little personal challenges just for my heart.
In my own physical health. I do have my youngest child is a child who has Down syndrome. And so a big part of my motivation was just to be here as long as I can for him. So it’s, you know, it’s one of those special needs parent’s worst fears that something would happen to you and your child would be left with somebody that isn’t just as crazy about them as you are.
But for me, it was, you know, that bad thing was already happening. I was out of energy. I was out of, you know, desire to play and run and all those kinds of things. And so that was just a big part of my motivation to get myself together for him so that I can be the best mom. So, Nikki, is there anything else that you’d like to share about your weight loss journey?
I guess, you know, one one little tiny piece of advice that I’d caution people that are maybe just starting or haven’t started yet is to be really careful about scrolling the Internet for advice. You hear so much contradicting advice. Meals, great. Oatmeal is terrible. Peanut butters, great. Peanut butter is terrible. And you can get yourself so confused. And I know you call this the research stage.
People will get there. It’s so easy, especially with Reelz on social media, to hear from these influencers. All this contradicting advice and think, forget it, I’m not I’m never going to get it right, but you’re never going to get it right if you don’t get started. So my advice is just to get started, eat mindfully what sounds good to you and your window and just test it out and see what can see.
You will make progress if you’re if you’re reasonable with your input and your and you’re faithful with your window, you will have progress. So don’t be scared of all that contradicted contradictory advice. That’s such good advice. Okay. So Nikki, if people would like to get in touch with you, connecting with you somehow, how can they do that? Sure.
So they can go to Facebook and look for Mercy House of the Philippines, and that’s me. I run the page for our orphanage and I’m happy to answer questions. I can, you know, help somebody be there. Accountability, partner, if they need that. I’m happy to help out in any way that that is feasible for my time schedule and theirs as well.
So Mercy House in the Philippines. And I can I can help you out. Awesome. And can people donate to Mercy House? Is that like do you? I’m assuming charities always need money, right? Yeah. Yeah, we are. We’re missionaries and we we don’t we aren’t allowed to work here. Even though my husband is a native Filipino, he’s not able to work on the visas that we have.
And so, yes, anybody wanted to to donate to the work we do here. We have residential care for street boys and then we have a lot of community outreach. If anybody listening is planning to be in the Philippines for another reason and wants to join in a feeding program or community outreach, you can just come and serve food and meet the kids.
We’d love to have you. Awesome. And I’ll put the link in the description so that everybody can find you on this. And so thank you very much for being here, Nikki, and for sharing your story. Thanks for having me. You’ve been a great part of my journey here lately. Kayla, it’s been a pleasure to really meet you. Now that I’ve met you on a podcast, to really meet you on on a chat.
So thanks for the opportunity. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that interview. I just want to take a moment to remind you, if you are a student in my slow and steady Success Academy that you have access to me during office hours to make an appointment. You just simply need to log into the academy and go over to the Office hours module.
So if you’re having trouble implementing some of the concepts, be sure to reach out. Do you want to lose the weight without getting rid of the foods you love and that you know you’ll go back to eating again? Anyway, my book, The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting, teaches you how to practice intermittent fasting so that you lose the weight sustainably and keep it off for good.
You can get the audiobook read by me for free when you sign up for your 30 day trial of Audible. The link is in the show notes, and if you’ve gotten value from this podcast and you’d like to let other people know about it, it’d be great if you could leave a review on either iTunes or wherever you get your podcast.
Thanks.