Less Vort!

[Vort]

When I graduated from high school at 18, I was stick-thin and weighed about 160 pounds. After eating Italian pasta for my mission duration, I came back at 21 weighing in at a hefty 165, which was more or less my weight when I married at 25. By the time our first child was born when I was 29, I was north of 170, and things have been going, well, north since then.

At the end of September, my weight was as high as it has ever been in my life, about 219, a figure (so to speak) I had been holding at for about a year. For various reasons, some physical and some just excuses, I have a hard time exercising -- and carrying around 50 pounds of blubber factors into that. So I decided to try to lose some weight using my revolutionary, controversial theory: Every pound I gain enters my fat body through my mouth, so if I eat less, I'll probably lose weight.

Starting at the beginning of October, I decided to try to cut out the low-hanging fruit by stopping my consumption of soda pop and peanut butter M&Ms (aka candy crack). I very quickly dropped five pounds, then sort of yo-yoed around that weight for the next six weeks. November was mostly just stagnation; I found that eating a little bit of candy crack and drinking an occasional soda pop didn't really set me back, but it did make it easier to eat and drink too much, which would pack on the pounds.

My experiment was therefore a success, but only a small one. Time to get more radical. Exercise should factor in, but for now, I'm not sure how to get there from here. To protect my joints, especially ankles and shoulders, I would like to get down below 200 before I start even a casual exercise program.

So I decided that after Thanksgiving I would get a bit more radical. My new idea: The revolutionary Quit-Eating-So-Much-You-Fat-Pig Diet. I do not know much about diets or dieting, but I know that some (e.g. "Paleo") attempt to mimic eating patterns the diet designers supposed our prehistoric ancestors followed. What has long intrigued me is that our ancestors did not eat every day. That is, they did if they could, but often (especially in winter in cooler climates) there may simply not have been much food around.

So, my version of the QESMYFP Diet (KES-mifp -- quite catchy!) would be as follows: Fast on any weekday with a 't' in it. Thus, *T*uesday, *T*hursday, and Sa*t*urday (as well as Fas*t* Sunday) would be Vort-Doesn't-Eat-Anything days. (For Fast Sunday, I just started my Saturday non-eating after lunch, like normal.) Note that for my purposes, "fasting" means not eating anything; I still drink water (or diet soda).

It has been a very interesting experiment. I'm still in the beginning stages, but early returns are quite promising, though it's far too soon to draw any conclusions. Some observations and items of interest:

• After ten days, I have dropped eight pounds.

• Fast days are much less difficult than you might imagine. Because I know from the time I get up that I'm simply not going to be eating that day, I don't worry about food. I just ignore it. The psychological effect is that I don't particularly crave it. I get hungry, but not overly so.

• When I feel the occasional mild hunger pang, I think to myself, "Self, that's the feeling of your stomach getting smaller so that it doesn't take as much food to get full." If I ever feel a bit achy or tired, I think to myself, "Self, that's the feeling of your body metabolizing some of the fat from your belly." I consciously realize that both of these things are probably not strictly true, or at best are only partially true, but it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something.

• Fasting days don't find me weakened or irritable. Maybe it's the psychological lift provided by the attitude mentioned above -- that I know I'm not eating today, so I don't worry about it -- but for whatever reason, I seem to do just fine without eating. I do feel the occasional desire to eat (not sure I would call it true "hunger", a condition that few of us have probably ever experienced), and maybe a bit fatigued at the end of the day, but nothing unusual.

• For yesterday's fast, I ate Wednesday night, then didn't eat again until this morning (past 9:00 by the time I finally ate). So it was something close to a 36-hour fast, albeit one where I drank water and ate some breath mints (see two bullets below). I tested this out mainly to see if I would have any trouble sleeping on an empty stomach after a 24-hour fast. Guess what? I slept like a baby, woke up after seven hours, and felt quite refreshed -- and not a bit hungry. (Hence the reason I didn't eat until after 9:00.)

• Predictably but encouragingly, my weight drops after a fast day by 1-2 pounds.

• On non-fast days, I am not particularly hungry and don't feel any need to binge. On the contrary, I try to eat normally or even conservatively, but without any deprivation; for example, I may eat some candy crack, but I don't eat an entire bag, just a handful. And I do try to avoid soda pop.

• "Fasting breath". Ah, yes. That lovely chlorinish odor of hydrochloric acid from an empty stomach coupled with the sweetish acetone ketosis smell (there's that fat-burning in actual reality!) can make for a less-than-pleasant social experience. We've all noticed this on Fast Sunday. Since I'm an American, I don't normally talk to someone face-to-face while standing within twelve inches of them. But my wife (with whom I do talk face-to-face in close quarters) suggested breath mints for fasting weekdays at work. This works great, except that it means that I'm not really fasting. This does not bother me conceptually -- it isn't a religious fast, it's a health fast, and fifty calories worth of breath mints over a day is irrelevant -- but it does fool my body into thinking, "Hey, food's coming!" So, perhaps counterintuitively, the mints make it slightly more difficult to do the fast. But not greatly so, and it saves me the potential embarrassment of my office mates thinking I really need to go see a dentist. If I were really worried about the calories in a small handful of breath mints, which I'm not, I would simply buy sugar-free mints.

• A filling but not overdone meal the night before the fasting day actually keeps me from feeling hungry (the American version of "hungry", I mean) until probably the following afternoon. By that point, the fast is a breeze.

• As I have mentioned a couple of times, I still drink water (or diet pop) on fasting days. But honestly, when I'm not eating, I have very little desire to drink. So I could easily go without drinking water if I wanted, but I see no particular health benefit to that on an every-other-day basis. I also do think that drinking a glass of water every couple of hours helps with the acidic-empty-stomach-breath problem, which therefore might cut down on my mint consumption.

• Possibly totally a psychological effect with no real basis in physical reality -- but today, walking to work and contemplating breaking my fast, I just felt lighter. It just seemed to me that my body didn't weigh as much. Of course, it didn't, but whether that feeling was a reflection of reality or just my mind creating rainbows, I don't know. But it sort of amounts to the same thing, at some level.

• Fast Sunday is different: It's a traditional fast, totally abstaining from both food and drink for 24 hours. For some people, especially in warmer climates, the lack of water might make the fast somewhat more uncomfortable; but as I mentioned, I (living in cool Seattle) could mostly go without the water anyway. So Fast Sunday turns out to be a very easy fast: only two meals, a simple 24 hours, really nothing to it! Which is a far cry from the torturous deprivation I felt when I fasted as a boy or younger man.

Here's a graph of my weight, just for fun. I realize there are some real health fanatics on here, and I don't pretend that what I have been experimenting with has the same value as their advice. But it's my experience, and so far it seems to be working well for me.

[RMGuy]

1st: congrats! Not easy, but worth it and its always nice to see progress. But.....

2nd: M&M's?!?!?!?!

All kidding aside. Good luck!

[Vort]

I don't claim my tastes are refined, just compelling. To me, anyway. For those who find M&Ms disgusting, I can only say congratulations and good for you! Would that I felt the same.

[RMGuy]

Naw, I get it. We all have our own temptations in the chocolate department. The nice thing is it looks like your loss has been steady...seriously, way to go!

-RM

[slamjet]

Oh my word, you have a graph, you have a graph of your weight loss, with notations and a running average to! I mean, good grief, you have a graph! Dude, that's just hard-core.

[NeuroTypical]

Congrats, and thanks for giving me something new and exciting to read about people trying to lose weight.

After ten years of trying various things, and watching others try various things, I have collected two categories of examples. Stuff that works (about 2% of the total) and stuff that doesn't work. To make it into the first category, I have developed the LM rule of weight: If it comes back within 3 months, you never really lost it.

I have graphs too. I've charted 20-30 lb weight loss over 6 months in such charts. Only to go a year and start another chart back where I started originally. I have done this 3 times since 2006.

I will set a reminder to myself to come find this thread around the first week of March, and ask you how you did.

Good luck!

[Vort]

Oh my word, you have a graph, you have a graph of your weight loss, with notations and a running average to! I mean, good grief, you have a graph! Dude, that's just hard-core.

I added the notations for the list's benefit. As far as tracking my weight, if I'm keeping track of it anyway, it's just as easy to do it in a Google doc and make a graph.

[Bini]

This method of weight loss is very affective. It's not widely recommended but it does work. I have been underweight most of my life but I have also battled with an eating disorder since I was about 9 or 10. Since "fasting" can trigger unhealthy long term habits and behaviours, I personally try to stay away from it as a routine, and would not encourage it as a solution to others - especially young girls.

Vort, you know your own body. Do what feels healthy to you. By the way, aren't you 6-foot-something? Maybe that was someone else..

[Bini]

Off topic.

I can envision non-Vort fans rushing into this thread, eager to find out what "Less Vort" means. Does it mean he's taking hiatus? On vacation somewhere with no internet access? Only to realise.. You're still here, there's just less of you.

[pam]

Well I did think we were getting rid of him for awhile. hahaha

[classylady]

Off topic.

I can envision non-Vort fans rushing into this thread, eager to find out what "Less Vort" means. Does it mean he's taking hiatus? On vacation somewhere with no internet access? Only to realise.. You're still here, there's just less of you.

That's what I thought when I read his thread title. My reaction was "Nooo". I happen to like Vort's posts. He's concise, understandable, and doesn't beat-around-the-bush.

[Bini]

That's what I thought when I read his thread title. My reaction was "Nooo". I happen to like Vort's posts. He's concise, understandable, and doesn't beat-around-the-bush.

I used to think Vort was a big meanie but then he added me to his Friend List. :)

Like I've said before, it's all show, the iron - the red suit - that annoying glowing ball mounted centre of his chest.

[Backroads]

Congratulations!

What I find most fascinating is the multiple fasting days.

[Vort]

I can envision non-Vort fans rushing into this thread, eager to find out what "Less Vort" means. Does it mean he's taking hiatus? On vacation somewhere with no internet access? Only to realise.. You're still here, there's just less of you.

Well I did think we were getting rid of him for awhile. hahaha

I was originally going to call the thread "Good news! Less of Vort!", but I decided that might give some people a false hope, and that would be cruel.

That's what I thought when I read his thread title. My reaction was "Nooo". I happen to like Vort's posts. He's concise, understandable, and doesn't beat-around-the-bush.

I used to think Vort was a big meanie but then he added me to his Friend List. :)

That's very sweet of both of you. But don't be fooled: I am a big meanie. But hopefully, getting somewhat less big as time passes...

Edited December 20, 2012 by Vort

[pam]

I haven't quite figured out why classylady and Bini are sucking up to Vort.

[classylady]

I haven't quite figured out why classylady and Bini are sucking up to Vort.

Maybe I don't want him to be "mean" to me. But, I don't think sucking up to him would stop him from letting me know if I was out-in-left-field about a concept.

[Bini]

I haven't quite figured out why classylady and Bini are sucking up to Vort.

I'm just nice - to everyone on this forum :)

[Bini]

Maybe I don't want him to be "mean" to me. But, I don't think sucking up to him would stop him from letting me know if I was out-in-left-field about a concept.

I'm out in left field often, and maybe I even qualify as a "leftist" to some? My liberal views have been challenged before on here (and I'm not singling out anyone specific).

[pam]

I'm just nice - to everyone on this forum :)

Prove it by making me pancit.

[Backroads]

I personally like Vort. He reminds me a lot of Husband. I think if I put Husband and Vort in the same room, they'd either become best friends or kill each other.

[pam]

My it's getting deep in here.

[viannqueen3]

Good job! Do you think you can keep the fasting thing going long term though?

My husband has done really well with a low carb diet and cutting out the sugar. He's not a huge guy himself (185 lbs at his heaviest, 5'9"). He's lost 20 or 25 lbs and has lost that "spare tire" and surprisingly he's been able to maintain it pretty well over the past year. He's sitting behind a computer all day at work so he doesn't get hardly any time for exercise. He stopped eating cereal for breakfast. Eats a salad almost every day for lunch. And then for dinner he pretty much eats whatever he wants as long as it's low on the carbs. I've got little kids who live off carbs so it kind of stinks that he won't eat my dinners though . A lot of the time he'll eat bacon and chips/salsa for dinner, lol. So it's not exactly like he's living off of fish and veggies. He's had naturally high triglycerides for years and doing the low carb thing has finally lowered them. Just an idea if you get tired of the fasting.

[Vort]

Good job! Do you think you can keep the fasting thing going long term though?

Don't know. For now, it's an experiment. I want to see if I can get certain physical results from weight loss in this way. I don't know if I will care to sustain a three-fasts-per-week regimen. Maybe it will be fine, I won't care about the lack of food, I'll get used to it and not find the "hunger" at all distressing, and will just live my life that way. Or maybe I'll get bored with it and quit. No idea yet. If all or most of my physical results come through as I am hoping, I will be highly motivated either to continue the fasting or to find some other way of weight maintenance. For the moment, this is just an experiment that I thought I'd share, nothing more. As LM said, check back in March (maybe March 2014) to see if it's an actual, long-term change.

[beefche]

Just wondering if you are still doing this, Vort.

BTW, where did you get the name, Vort, from? Does it have a meaning?

[Vort]

Yes, off and on. Over the holidays I didn't worry about it much. On my birthday I didn't worry about it. I'm not being hard-nosed about it. In fact, I need to start up again in taking it more seriously. I'm in a transition period at work, which (along with the holidays/birthday) mostly accounts for my lack of rigor. I have more or less maintained my weight at around 207 for the past five weeks or so. If I start being more regimented again, I am sure I'll drop more weight.