Introductions
Hi, I’m Andrew — that’s me in the picture at upper right. And standing next to me is my beautiful wife Isabel. I have lived in Mexico since 2000, and married Isabel in 2001 — she is a native of Guadalajara, Jalisco.
As you can see, neither of us are obese. In fact we both are just about 10% over our ideal weights, according to the charts. I’m 6′ 3″ (191 cm) tall and in my mid-50s. Isabel is 5′ 4″ (162 cm) and recently turned 40 — but don’t tell anyone that, it’s a state secret. When we were married in June 2001 we were both near our ideal weights, I was 197 pounds (89.5 kilos) and she was 126 pounds (57 kilos). ‘Scuse me if I don’t give the weights in pounds (or how about stones?) from here on — you can always convert those yourself if you are metric impaired.
A couple years ago I got up to 108 kilos and Isabel was just over 67 kilos. She is just too good of a cook! We tried a version of the Atkins diet, but actually gained a little weight. After that, I eschewed specific diets, but Isabel tried several others. I tried to eat a bit less and exercise more. Isabel tried several very restrictive diets, hated them all and lost very little weight. I refused to follow any diet that I could not see myself following for the rest of my life — so none of the one’s she came up with fit the bill.
As of March 5th, 2008 — the day we began this intermittent fasting — I weighed 99.2 kilos and Isabel was 65.9 kilos. She had just completed two months on a very restrictive diet, and had lost .3 kilo in those months. I recommended the intermittent fast for its health benefits, I didn’t really expect to lose any weight since we made no attempt to cut down on total calories. I was never much of a breakfast eater, so two meals a day was normal for me. Isabel was still concerned with losing weight, so tried to avoid snacking and limited the portions of high-calorie foods she ate.
Now, at the end of our first month with the intermittent fast, I weigh 97.7 kilos (a loss of 1.5 kilos, or 1.5% of my body weight) and Isabel weighs 63.6 kilos (a loss of 2.3 kilos, or 3.5% of her body weight). We were both amazed at that. I hadn’t expected to lose anything, and she felt like she was eating so much more than on that previous diet that she was afraid she would gain, rather than lose. That weight loss, plus the fact that this diet is so easy I can see it lasting a life-time with no qualms; caused me to start this blog to share with others this amazing discovery.
