The Cancer Jolt That Led to Intermittent Fasting Success

A lifetime of dieting history.

I have struggled with my weight since my teens. With the benefit of hindsight, I wasn’t hugely overweight back then, but enough to be noticeably bigger than my friends, and a little self-conscious about it. I started the classic yo-yo diet cycle in my early 20s, after having my first two sons in quick succession when I was 21 and 22. Throughout my 20s, 30s and 40s I gained and lost the same 6 to 7 stone (90lbs/41kgs or so), mainly via slimming clubs (Weight Watchers and Slimming World).

I was GREAT at losing weight (I used to get a big round of applause at the club every week, and my membership pack was COVERED in shiny stickers), but I was absolutely rubbish at maintaining, and would always be back to where I started (or worse) pretty quickly. The longest I ever maintained at my goal weight was around 3 months.

Stats

Starting IF weight: 180lbs/82kgs
Goal weight: 180lbs/82kgs
Current weight: 145lbs/66kgs
Highest weight: 280lbs/127kgs
Height: 5’7/170cm

Cancer – a big wake up call!

Towards the end of 2018, I was on yet another weight loss journey (on the downward path – this time with My Fitness Pal and hitting the gym every day) when I found a lump in my boob – the cancer doc told me it had probably been there at least a year, maybe longer, as it was quite big – but I hadn’t noticed it when I was larger, because I was carrying all the extra weight around my chest and that was hiding it.

A year of surgery, chemo and radiotherapy followed, at the end of which I had put another 4 stone (56lbs/25kgs) back on from all the steroids and the comfort eating. Also, chemo messes with your taste buds, and all of a sudden most veggies tasted horrible to me, so I mainly lived on very strong cheddar, which was the only food that tasted “right” – either on toast or on jacket potatoes with a ton of butter, either way, not good!

Intermittent Fasting – my big hope for maintenance

After my treatment I lost that 4 stone through calorie restriction and My Fitness Pal – and got down to my usual post diet “low” weight (around 13 stone/182lbs/83kgs). I had never been able to get much below that in the past, but neither had I ever been able to maintain there.

I therefore decided to try out intermittent fasting as a maintenance tool. I didn’t expect to lose any more weight, but I really didn’t want to put it all back on again like I had every time before. I had first heard about IF during my cancer treatment, as a fellow patient had been reading up on Dr. Valter Longo’s chemotherapy fasting recommendations. But I didn’t actually try it during chemo, as the suggestion was 3 day water fasts which sounded too hard! But when Googling it, I had seen lots of people recommending it for weight maintenance. I bought and read Gin Stephens’ Fast. Feast. Repeat. and it made perfect sense to me, so I gave it a go.

Keep it flexible and varied – don’t get stuck in a timing rut (eg always eat from 3pm to 7pm, always fast for exactly 20 hours etc), or a food rut, try to eat as many different types of (real) foods as you can, with plenty of treats thrown in for good measure.

Don’t fall into a routine – because 1) it gets boring and if it’s boring you might not stick to it, 2) food variety is great for your gut health, 3) timing flexibility makes it a lot easier to fit IF around your life, and not the other way around, and 4) keeping your body guessing is good for your metabolism.

16:8 to 20:4 – it was easy!

Initially I had no plans to ever go any more hardcore with it than 16:8 (16 hours fast, 8 hour eating window), but found that I fairly quickly moved to more of a 20:4 (20 hour fast, 4 hour eating window) pattern without even trying. I’ve been there ever since (just over 3 years now).

My plan to maintain at 180lbs/82kgs failed miserably, as I lost another 35lbs/16kgs, to my delight! I have now maintained at around 145lbs/66kgs ever since (I have been as low as 135lbs/61kgs and as high as 155lbs/70kgs at Christmas, but averaging 145lbs over the last two years). That’s from a lifetime top weight around 280lbs/127kgs. So nearly half of what I once was. I honestly never thought I could EVER be in the healthy/normal BMI range. It still feels unbelievable to me.

From body to self-belief: My incredible IF non-scale victories.

The first thing to happen was that my GP took me off my blood pressure meds (which I had been on for 20 years, and they told me I would be on forever) – this was within just a couple of months of starting IF.

Previously – for at least 10 years – I had to take pain killers for back and knee pain pretty much every day (even in my slimmer times, so it wasn’t purely a weight issue). Nowadays I don’t even have any in my bag (I used to carry half a pharmacy around with me!) as the last lot that were in there went out of date.

When I went for my post surgery check after my breast cancer treatment, my surgeon was absolutely gobsmacked at how thoroughly my scars had healed. She said that they looked like they had been healing for 10 years, not under one year. She even called a load of her colleagues into the examination room to see the scars (which was rather embarrassing – I stood there topless as they all stared at my chest and ooh’ed and aah’ed.)

I’m also convinced that fasting (and the fact that my food choices are SO much better now – which is a non-scale victory in itself) will give me the best fighting chance of the cancer not recurring. Fingers crossed, we shall see.

Of course there is the additional energy (I have started a business painting murals – at age 55 I’m now up and down ladders all day, sometimes painting for 14 to 15 hours at a stretch – NO WAY could 45 year old me have done that!!) And also significantly boosted confidence – I’m so much more “my own woman” now. This has actually cost me a couple of friendships because it seems that some people preferred the meeker me, but it’s their loss, right?

In conclusion…

IF changed, and quite possibly saved, my life. It’s not just about the weight loss – although the weight loss was wonderful! It has positively impacted all areas of my life. Even little things like having so much more time in the day because I’m not spending half of it cooking or eating! I can’t recommend it highly enough, and I wouldn’t go back to eating all day if you PAID me.