I have been on that path for pretty much most of last year. I'm happy to say things seem to have improved now that I am completely off my thyroid suppressing medications. But boy do I get it about the scenic route!
I can't help but think that some of the other things I'm doing are also helping:
- I wear a fitbit so I can get a more accurate daily determination of what my TDEE actually is, and I get 10K steps a day now (took me a couple of months to work up to that). Amazing how it changes on a day to day basis!
- I look long term at a weekly calorie deficit of 3500(ish) instead of at the short term, which is very forgiving. The fitbit actually tracks my weekly deficit for me!
- I do one proper fast each week, usually on Monday, and aim for a 1750+ deficit, which is half of my goal, then and there. For Tuesday-Friday, I simply wait until noonish to eat. I also make sure I get in at least 1 mile walk before I eat, in order to burn up any glycogen stores in my liver and make sure I'm in fat burning mode. Pretty much, I have found that just skipping breakfast allows me to eat reasonably, healthfully, and satisfyingly (with small treats!) for those four days and end up with a calorie deficit of about 500 per day, bringing me to my weekly goal. On Saturday I splurge, and on Sunday I mop up any excess - doing a bit more exercise or eating a bit less, depending on just how much fun I had on Saturday.
- I read Dr. Amanda Sallis' book, and have a good think before and while I eat - how hungry am I? How satisfied am I? If I'm not particularly hungry - easy peasy - don't eat! I try to really assess while I'm eating how satisfied I am. I don't care if there are only three more bites of sandwich left - if I've actually had enough food, I will throw it out.
- Half the plate should be veg, for at least two meals of the day. The rest of the plate can be divided between carbs, fats and proteins. I'm not particularly fussy about the details, and I cook almost all of our meals from scratch.
- treat yourself! Schedule treats and rewards, no matter how small. I have at least one small reward every day. I have a nice supply of small chocolate squares that are between 72% and 86% dark chocolate and are between 50 and 60 calories each. There's even room on a fast day for one of these beauties, which I turn into a lovely affair with a cup of decaf nespresso.
So far, the scales this month are very promising! Of course then I got sick this week, and so the scales are looking marvelous and I'm hoping I can keep at least some of this loss.
Now I have to say, most of this strategy was worked out by my hubby, BruceE, because he's stalled in his weight loss efforts. He had lost his first 40 pounds easily just fasting two days a week and not thinking about it the other five -- very frustrating for me to watch him on the fast track while I took the scenic route and we did - and ate the same things!! But now he's on the scenic route and he's had to make quite a few adjustments, because his old way of doing 5:2 just wasn't working for him any longer. Since they seemed like super sensible things, I joined in.
Hope this helps!!