Dear Kayla,

Reading your page finally felt like someone understands. Every single day I start over and try something different – calorie counting, fasting, weight watchers, giving up. I am 5’3 and weigh 233. I am 45 years old and so tired of sitting on the sidelines watching life go by reading success story after success story, wondering why I can’t get there. I did OMAD several years ago but never seemed to get below 220. Trying to do OMAD now seems to throw me into a dizziness that I am not sure where it is coming from. I have read all about clean fasting and the importance of that. What do you consider dirty fasting? A certain number of calories? I am sure I am making this far more complicated than it needs to be. I get so frustrated when the scale doesn’t move as fast as I want it. Where do I start? Any advice, tips, stories – anything at all that will help and encourage, motivate and inspire and get me moving in the right direction? Any podcasts with success stories of those with 100 pounds to lose?

Signed,
Tabitha

Dear Tabitha,

You can do this. And yes, you are making it too complicated. As a fellow overthinker, I want to encourage you to keep things simple this go round. How simple? Focus on this one principle:

Weight loss will occur if and only if you eat less food than your body needs to maintain its current weight.

Every plan works, provided it gets you to eat the right amount. Weight watchers works, so does calorie counting, and fasting. Every plan fails the moment you start overeating.

If intermittent fasting appeals to you, I recommend starting slow and working your way to a 16:8. I also recommend daily weighing, though I stress the importance of paying attention to your 7-day average and how it has been trending over the past 6 weeks. This helps you ignore water weight fluctuations, which can throw you off track if you don’t understand them. My free weight tracking spreadsheet will do the averaging for you.

I advocate for slow weight loss. When I went from 222 to 158, I lost an average of one pound per week. When I lost from 158 down to 142, I lost one third of one pound per week on average. My patience has been rewarded, because this time I’ve maintained my weight loss, instead of gaining it all right back. Here’s a short video that gives you an overview of how I lost 80 pounds (spoiler alert, I have always practiced dirty fasting.)

I’ve interviewed many people who have lost weight successfully with intermittent fasting on my YouTube channel. Here are some to encourage you:

Intermittent Fasting Success Story Interviews of People Who Have Lost 100+ Pounds

Start small. Focus on making permanent changes. Be patient. Celebrate every victory. Don’t wait until you hit your goal weight to start living. Start today. Start filling your life with things other than food and enjoy the ride. Most importantly: DO NOT QUIT. You can do this!

Sincerely,

Kayla Cox

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