That’s what I was thinking. Every time I read a new thread, I scroll down and find that you have already written exactly what I was thinking. Do you want a job? I could just put you in my chair at work and it would all get done while I go on holiday… 
As the excellent @Don_Q has shown, people’s BMR is not stable, it varies by 20,30,40%. So eating to your BMR won’t work.
Have you tried OMAD? I find it hard to eat past 1300ish when I only eat one meal + cream in my coffee. If I ditch dairy it’s even less. On days I eat twice I can eat 1500-2000.
The last few pounds were a real grind for me because I have week long breaks where I am not good at all. I bounced around the last 10 pounds over and over. But after a year of struggling my set point finally changed. Now I bounce only about five pounds up but my body will then just drift back down as soon as I am strictly keto again.
I have done two days of that. Once, after reading Fung’s book, about three weeks after my spinal surgery - very bad decision . Too much stress on my body. Then I did it last Saturday and it was fine. I am now over 12 weeks postop so I managed okay. I think I am going to test drive it for a while, but in a cyclical way. Like today I will do it, tomorrow I won’t, Sunday yes, Monday no and so on. I’ll try to do it for a couple of weeks and track everything that happens - sleep quality, calorie consumption, overall feelings of well being (mood, fatigue, energy levels etc). From there I’ll make a decision as to whether this will work long term.
I haven’t eaten breakfast since last summer and I have been fine with that. I am not super hungry in the morning. The 150 calories I take in from my three tbs of heavy cream in my coffee seem to keep me going all morning.
This is going to be controversial but one thing I find helps a lot in losing the last few pounds and maintenance is daily weigh-ins. I don’t stress over the numbers as I know that a variety of things can move that needle up but after two years of weigh-ins I’m now very familiar with what those things are and can discount them. If I am not seeing the trend I want for a couple of days, and none of those factors apply, I examine my diet and alter it if necessary.
I really need to do this. If I only weigh-in once a week I absolutely will start to slack here and there with snacks and extra meals that I really don’t need at all. Also, that once a week weigh-in gives too little information. Maybe that uptick is just a hormonal blip. Basically it can take three weeks to get the same information that takes three days if you are weighing daily.
I don’t think this strategy is as useful when people have a lot of weight to lose, as the swings are larger the more water weight you can carry. But for those last difficult pounds, I think it can help a lot.
I have been a daily weigher-inner since I quit sugar March 19, 2018 (except on vacation when no scales are available) It keeps me on track. If I KNOW that I will show a 2 pound gain the next day because I choose to eat candy, I won’t eat that candy! It works for me. I do note that some people on this site will come with their fingers wagging about our decision to do it that way but fuck 'em, it works for some of us. I’ve found that it only works if we don’t attach any kind of shame or guilt to the number we are reading. Even when I was in the mid 200s, it was still useful for me to get on that scale daily, but I had to let go of the anguish brought on by the number and look at it as just information about the state of things and had nothing to do with my ‘character.’ Every time I started avoiding the scale is when I would backslide. That’s why when I quit sugar last March I decided that I was getting on that scale daily no matter what, and it didn’t matter whether I’d gotten back from vacation or whether it was the day after a dinner out, or what not. It really has worked for me. It was the tough love I needed.
I do alternate day fasting, it’s actually makes life pretty easy once you adapt, maybe less stressful than an extended fast, I don’t know. I look forward to my fasting days, M, W, F.
Jody, do you eat more on your eating days, and do you eat three meals a day on your eating days? Do you think the alternate day fast is slowing down your metabolism at all? Considering this, too. Do you find you’re losing more steadily since you’ve been doing this?
I lost 40 quickly but have another 40 to go and feel like I’m not seeing a lot of movement. (I know it slows down, but I want to keep making steady progress.) I’ve done one 40-hour fast, and it was pretty easy.
An animal’s BMR is the rate of energy expenditure, at rest, per unit of time. So it fluctuates continuously. It varies widely across individuals and different animals (this has been extensively studied and calculated in labs). But over a given period of time, or over several measurements, there is an average. And that can be useful.
Just because CICO is a flawed model for predicting weight gain and loss, doesn’t mean calories don’t count. Some folks are have bodies that are very flexible in metabolizing inputs and others less so. For example, my dad has a body that can accommodate a large variation of macros and calories without a fluctuation in weight. But if he eats enough calories over a long enough period of time, or if he eats above his carb tolerance for an extended period of time, he will gain weight. He will lose weight if he eats too few calories, like a long period of ADF. In contrast, my body is not as flexible, it responds acutely and deeply to dietary inputs.
By definition, generalizations and rules of thumb work well for many folks. But when it comes to troubleshooting problems, guessing isn’t a very efficient approach. In these situations, personalized data like RMR can provide actionable information.
On my feast days, T, Th, Sat, Sun I eat lunch and dinner and I definitely eat more food. I had to learn to eat a little more so I could do the TMAD, no snacking. I eat slightly past satiation for now.
Find some of Dr Fungs work over at IDM, it’s his protocols I follow, he has free articles that explain preventing a slower metabolism, etc. The 36 to 42 hour, 3 days week is the first protocol that IDM recommends for most T2Ds. Once I made it to a 36x3, feels like the weight is coming off faster. But I suspect at some point things will slow down.
My weight is not my priority, if I can reverse my T2D, I may go back to a 24x3 ongoing till hypertension is gone, then ultimately I think I would go to a permanent 18:6 daily with 2 meals and maybe 1 24 hour fast per week. This is what Megan Ramos at IDM recommends for maintenance. .
@Jody2 do you have any calories in your fasting days at all, bone broth, cream in coffee etc? And if so how many? How about during the fasting portion of your TMAD days?
I only use black coffee and salty water on fasting days. No calories. I built up to that. Same on feast days.
For the first time this week, I have some serious PMS, so I have been using HWC in coffee in a.m. on feast days…so technically cutting my fast at 36. My meal around 42.
Thanks.
I’ve been OMAD most days for more than a year but cream in hot drinks have been there all along. I’m getting close to trying a dairy free experiment for health reasons and my mind is balking at 23 hours of truly nothing but water. It helps to hear that others really do it.
Early on I totally relied on bone broth and peppermint tea and then one day I didn’t.
I think the mental part is tough!
Dairy free has really helped me with my skin and energy levels! It sucks because I love cheese but anytime I have anything with a little bit of heavy whipping cream, I now run to the bathroom!
I realize after being off it for a month I rarely have stomach aches anymore!
I occasionally once a week have heavy cream in my Starbucks or something and I can tell you my stomach hurts that day or the next.
I would really recommend this! Dairy free may not make you thinner I wish it was my miracle thin prescription but it will help your gut and skin!!
Stomach aches and digestive issues are the reasons I want to try it myself. I have the opposite problem though, I only have a bowel movement once every seven days on average. While I don’t have any real symptoms of constipation (no straining or hardness), I do note that I feel more abdominal discomfort in the three or so days before I actually manage to go.
I’m pretty sure @Dread1840 said dairy had a similar effect on him, so I’m interested in giving it a test. I’ve tried everything else, magnesium, loads of salt, and nothing helps for more than one or two bowel movements and then the efficacy evaporates.
Dairy is weird for me, causes digestive discomfort and also bulks my stools as if I were eating plants.
Oh, that’s different from my issue. Maybe dairy won’t turn out to be my problem then. I’m still giving it a go though. I’m going to stop all cheese today.
