I recently wrote a series of blog posts about intermittent fasting with keto because I wanted to experiment with the keto diet for 14 days. One of my YouTube viewers said I should include before and after pictures of my results and I agree! I have been doing intermittent fasting for about a year and lost 3 inches at the waist and over 20 lbs at age 43. I am pretty proud of what I have been able to accomplish and I am excited to be able to share what I have been learning with other women. Before and after pictures can motivate us because they serve as a visual reminder of what we are trying to achieve. In this post, I am not only going to include before and after photos of my intermittent fasting without keto results, but I am also going to outline a step-by-step strategy you can adjust to suit your needs.
Intermittent Fasting Without Keto Results After a Year
As I mentioned, I did a 14-day keto experiment. I really liked eating keto. I enjoyed the food, I enjoyed how I felt, and losing weight was even more effortless than intermittent fasting without keto. However, I decided to go back to intermittent fasting without keto as a simple matter of personal preference. I may eat keto again in the near future. I don’t know! For now, the diet that makes me feel the most energetic and happiest is the Warrior Diet. Or I should say a loose version of the Warrior diet since my eating window is closer to 5 hours and even 6 hours. Since I am no longer trying to lose weight, I play around a lot with the timing of my meals. I will tell you more about exactly what I eat and when later, but for now, let me share my result pictures with you.
By the way, if you would like to follow the step-by-step formula that helped me lose weight, kick the cravings and tone my body, check out my 30-Day Intermittent Fasting Transformation.
Intermittent Fasting Without Keto Before Pictures
I started experimenting with intermittent fasting about a year ago. I had been trying to lose weight for years and was pretty frustrated because nothing worked it seemed. Well, the main reason nothing worked is that I couldn’t stick to anything (even intermittent fasting, which I had tried already). Don’t worry, I will explain what made a difference and how I was finally able to achieve the results I wanted.
My weight was close to 170 lbs (I am 5’10). My waist was 31 inches and my hips were 41 inches.
Intermittent Fasting Without Keto After Pictures
I took all these pictures a few days ago. As I was looking back to find old pictures, I realized that it actually took less than a year to lose 20 lbs because some of my pictures are from 9 months ago. I did start the process a year ago, but I had ups and downs.
In these pictures, my weight ranges between 146 and 149 lbs. My waste is 28 inches and my hips, 38 inches.
Before and After Pictures of Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Fasting Without Keto: Your Step-By-Step Strategy
If I was able to finally lose the weight I had been trying to lose for years, you can do it too! Why do I say this? Because I am not a very determined and certainly not an all-or-nothing type. I tend to start any diet with one foot out of the water and I give up when it makes me too unhappy. The last year hasn’t been an exercise in learning to deprive myself. Instead, it’s been an exercise in learning how to enjoy a new lifestyle that is congruent with my health goals. I think anyone can learn to enjoy some forms of intermittent fasting with or without keto.
Step 1: Start With Modified Fasting or the Keto Diet
Starting right away with intermittent fasting may seem insurmountable. For one, many women enjoy breakfast, and going without breakfast may feel so sad! Secondly, If you are carb dependent (which you probably are if you struggle to lose weight), fasting is much harder. Some women do jump into intermittent fasting (even a method like OMAD) and achieve impressive results. However, if you are anything like me and struggle with sticking to any weight loss plan, deciding you are going to practice intermittent fasting to lose weight may end poorly. Particularly when you realize that the pounds are coming off reaaaally slow.
Modified Fasting or the Keto Diet
Instead of getting started with intermittent fasting, do a modified fast or a 7-day keto cycle. I created meal plans for both options, look them over, and determine which option would work best with your lifestyle. Both will improve your insulin sensitivity and help your body learn to switch from using glucose for fuel to using fat stores. This will help you become metabolically flexible and improve your chance of success with intermittent fasting.
Modified Fasting Meal Plan
I created multiple modified fasting meal plans as did a modified fast every month for 4 months. In the end, I settled on a super simple meal plan that required very little time in the kitchen. Read Everything You Need to Know to Create Your Own Modified Fast or look at my Easiest and Simplest Meal Plan if you want to skip figuring out the rules and guidelines of a modified fast. All you need to know is that modified fasting relies on the power of temporary severe calorie restriction to achieve healing. Take my What Is Your Fasting Personality Quiz to get your three QuickStart Guides that will also include all the modified fasting info in PDF form.
Keto Meal Plan
I avoided the keto diet for a long time because I didn’t want to count carbs and I thought if I decided to do the keto diet, I would have to do it long-term to reap the benefits. However, it turns out you can start with my 7-day keto meal plan once a month the same way you would do a modified fast once a month when you get started with intermittent fasting for weight loss. I did it for 14 days and I can assure you that intermittent fasting with the keto diet will yield faster weight loss results than intermittent fasting without keto. It’s just that my experience and my preference is mostly intermittent fasting without keto, so that’s what I share about most of the time. I enjoy the food freedom that intermittent fasting without keto has given me.
Step 2: Choose a Weekly Intermittent Fasting Method
After your first modified fast or keto cycle, you are ready to start with intermittent fasting. I recommend you pick a method that allows you to not fast every day at first (except for your regular 12-hour overnight fast). My two favorite methods are the Eat-Stop-Eat Method and the 5:2 Method.
Eat-Stop-Eat Diet
The Eat-Stop-Eat Diet (or intermittent fasting method) means that you fast for 24 hours once or twice a week. Most likely, you will start fasting after dinner one night and fast until dinner the next day (your dinner will be a bit later to get you to that 24-hour mark, but you will still get to eat. Pretty doable, right? You can even have tea or coffee during the day.
5:2 Method
If you decide to do the 5:2 Method, you will eat only 500 calories two days a week. I wrote a whole blog post about this method, and I include some meal plan ideas if you would like to check it out, it’s called The 5:2 Intermittent Fasting Method for Women.
Step 3: Fast for 20 Hours a Day, But Take the Weekends Off
I did a combination of modified fasting and weekly intermittent fasting for about 3 months before starting the warrior diet. As I was experimenting, my strategy wasn’t laid out in advance. I recommend you listen to your body and monitor your progress. If you are losing weight and feeling great, stay there. If you feel ready to move on, start fasting every day, but take the weekends off to ease off the transition. At this point, I don’t recommend you pick a method like the 16:8 method. If you practice intermittent fasting without keto, you need to fast longer. I recommend 19 to 20 hours fasts each day. The 20:4 Method is often referred to as the Warrior Diet. It simply means that you are consuming all your daily calories within a four-hour window.
Warrior Diet Sample Day
I found that the Warrior Diet was the best way to naturally decrease how much food I was consuming without feeling deprived. As your body runs on ketones most of the day, your appetite decreases, and you feel amazing. Then, you break your fast by flooding your body with nutrient-dense foods and you keep promoting healing and optimal health. I love to break my fast with the Power Shake. It’s made with raw organic superfoods. It’s also filling and satisfying.
About an hour later, I am ready to eat again most days, so I eat a large salad. Then, I eat dinner with the rest of the family. I sometimes eat an evening snack too before 8 pm. As you can see, I get to eat a lot during my 4-5-hour window and I feel very content each day. I never feel like I am starving or depriving myself.
Step 4: Monitor Your Progress
It’s essential that you monitor your progress to see what’s working for you. Take your waste and hip measurements. Take before pictures and step on the scale a few times a week (you will get to know your monthly weight patterns). If you are taking your time like I was (not enduring too much hunger and learning to read your body’s cues as you go), the process will be slower. You may find you lose about 2 lbs a month if you are close to your goal weight. Some months I would not even lose any weight but then I would lose 4 lbs another month. My eating window varied sometimes. I had moments when I overindulged in desserts (another advantage of doing the keto diet is that you can’t have desserts, which will also speed up your progress). I just feel that life is meant for living and I wanted to be able to treat myself regularly. You decide what works for you! Just understand that if you want to lose weight faster, you are going to have to make more sacrifices. Monitoring your progress helps you determine how effective your current intermittent fasting practices are proving to be.
Step 5: Adjust As Needed
If you are happy with your progress, keep doing what you are doing. If you are not seeing much weight loss at all (a pound or less a month), you need to be stricter. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are my expectations realistic? Losing 10 lbs a month is not a realistic expectation. You need a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound a week.
- Am I really eating only during a 4-hour window? You may think you are, but if you are honest with yourself, you will see that you grab a quick bite here and there outside your eating window.
- Am I binge eating during my eating window? I did that sometimes! If you are not losing weight fast enough, pay more attention to your hunger cues during your eating window, and avoid eating sweets.
- Should I stop taking the weekends off? Sometimes Mondays are harder if you take weekends off intermittent fasting. You may find you are losing 3 days a week. If your progress is too slow, consider practicing your chosen intermittent fasting method every single day.
- Should I try a different intermittent fasting method? The fact that the Warrior Diet worked very well for me doesn’t mean it’s the best intermittent fasting method for you. If you aren’t seeing results with the Warrior Diet, try Alternate-Day Fasting or the 2MAD Diet.
Step 6: Move On to Maintenance Mode
After achieving your weight loss results, it’s critical that you do not revert back to your old habits. If you took it slow, chances are intermittent fasting has become a lifestyle and you will not even want to stop practicing it. However, you may decide to practice more loosely. Most days, my eating window is around 6 hours now. You will be able to extend your eating window too and enjoy more treats or foods you may have had to stay away from when you were trying to lose weight. As you start giving yourself more space, I have two important tips that will help ensure you maintain your results:
- Monitor your weight weekly. If you start seeing an upward trend, it’s time to tighten your rules again. You do not want to put the scale completely aside once you reach your goal weight. It’s really easy to gain weight without noticing.
- Restrict your eating window to 4 hours or less at least twice a week. If you are practicing intermittent fasting without keto, it’s a good idea to reduce your eating window twice a week. It will help ensure your body keeps using ketones for energy. It will help you remain metabolically flexible as you keep fasting for health reasons rather than weight loss.
Before and After Pictures of Intermittent Fasting
In Summary
I am extremely happy with intermittent fasting without keto results, but for me, it’s more than weight loss. I feel better than I ever did, even in my twenties. Take advantage of the step-by-step strategy I outlined to create your own success story! You are the author of your own journey!
