 Hey everybody, Dr. O here. So I've been talking a lot about my fasting regimen and when I don't eat, but I've been getting a ton of questions about what I actually ate to lose 165 pounds. So just to review, I lost 49 pounds in 10 weeks, 101.2 pounds in six months and 165 pounds in a year. And it's pretty awesome that I'm recording this video today, because this is actually my two-year anniversary of the day that I started. And I've now lost 180 pounds and I've added some more muscle and I'm still making amazing progress. And then most importantly, I've maintained my weight loss. So what did I actually eat though? So I'll kind of go through the rules that I used and then how I designed meals to kind of fit within those rules. You know, if you don't want to eat the way that I do, just kind of follow the same rules and I think you can have the same progress that I did. So number one, I started at six to 414 pounds, right? So obviously I ate a lot more than you if you weigh 200 pounds, but I was carrying 414 pounds around. So I ate three to four days per week. So I did a modified type of alternate day fasting where I would fast three days one week and four days the next. And I explained in other videos why I did it that way. But I was eating 3,000 or more calories per day on my eating days, right? In the beginning, I ate as much as I wanted at each meal. I was really, really focused on getting used to fasting and that was the key. So I would generally eat 900 to 1,000 calories per meal. And then if I needed it because I was extra hungry, I would add a fourth meal. So I would eat three to four meals that look like the ones that I'm gonna explain to you here. I was not on a diet on my eating days. I don't recommend that with alternate day fasting. I recommend eating at maintenance or even slightly above even once you get used to alternate day fasting. Let the fasting days be when you diet. Let your feasting days be when you refeed and really get recover from the last fast and prepare for the next one. Also, as you can see here, I walked every day 60, 70 minutes or more and I did lift weights on my eating days. So between my size and the huge increase in physical activity from doing nothing when I weighed 414 pounds, I could eat a lot of calories and still lose a ton of weight. Like I said, I averaged five pounds of weight loss for the first 10 weeks. Okay, but of course the amount of food that I ate certainly did decrease as I got used to fasting and it's gone down now. All right, so what are my eating rules? And you do not have to follow this first rule but I'll explain why it's important to me but you do not have to be low carb. I think low carb pairs really well with fasting and for the reasons I'll give you in a second but you don't have to follow this rule but the other two rules I think are really important. Number one, low carb. I ate between 40 and 60 grams of carbs per day and as you can see here, I ate at least half of them in the meal before exercise. I had played with lower carb and that's perfectly fine. You know, getting as close to zero carbs as possible and there may have been a time when that was really important to me but I've learned that I can eat this many carbs per day and still keep my blood glucose and my ketone levels right where I want them. So why do I think low carb is a good idea? Again, it's not for everyone. I enjoy it personally. I can stick with it better than being on a low fat diet. You have to find a diet that you can enjoy to some extent, not just endure. So low carb works better for me even just from a food choice standpoint but I also do think that low carb helps many people control their hunger which makes fasting easier. If you think about a low carb diet keeps your blood glucose levels stable and your insulin levels low which is very similar to what we're trying to do with fasting so I'm not on a blood sugar roller coaster. I don't go low glucose, low insulin on fasting days and then my blood sugar shoots up as I eat a bunch of carbs. So I feel like I'm always in this fat burning mode. So I'm always burning fat whether it's the food from my meals on my feasting days or lunch from five years ago that's stored on my body on my fasting days. So that's why I like low carb but completely understand if it's not for you. Rule number two though I think is important no matter how you eat protein is the key. So I aimed for at least 40 grams of protein at every meal. But remember I was very large and I'm still big. I'm still six, two, 220 pounds. So I aimed for 40 grams of protein at every meal. My goal, 220 grams of protein per day it was higher at the beginning it was more like 250 or 260 and I aired on the side of going over when I first started but now I have it, now I have it dialed in where I really do shoot for that 220 grams of protein per day. If I don't get that in my meals I will add a low carb whey protein shake to make sure I hit that target. So why is it so important to me that you prioritize protein? Protein keeps you full. It has what's called the highest satiety value of any of the macronutrients between protein, carbs and fat. Protein also burns more calories because it has a higher thermic effect of food which means that you use a larger percentage of the calories to actually digest them. So it keeps you full burns extra calories and the key for me is it helps to preserve lean mass while you're on a diet. Your goal should be to lose fat as fast as you can without sacrificing any lean mass without any muscle at all. So your protein goal should be somewhere around that one pound of protein or one gram of protein per pound of body weight. That's a good goal to shoot for. If you're very overweight like I was then you can shoot for one gram of protein per pound of goal weight. That might be a safer target for you. Rule number three is fiber for very similar reasons for health reasons and for helping keep you full. 10 to 15 grams of fiber at every meal was my goal. My goal was to get 50 to 60 grams per day and if I didn't I would use something like metamucil. I would use a psyllium husk powder to hit my fiber goal. So why? Fiber keeps you full. So that's obviously a really good reason. It keeps you regular so you don't have any issues with constipation but another really cool thing most people don't know about fiber especially fiber like psyllium husk or what's known as soluble fiber is it carries cholesterol out of your body. Your body squirts bile into your gut, fiber grabs it and pulls it out of you so it can help lower your cholesterol. If you've watched the video about my health transformation you know that I was able to lower my cholesterol like by 107 points while eating the diet that I'm talking about here and I do think that trapping some of this cholesterol and carrying out of my body using fiber did play a big role. All right, so those are the rules. What did I actually eat? So a typical breakfast for me was scrambled eggs, quite a few of them, spinach just cause I love veggies and I think I need to get the fiber, avocado and then maybe some leftover meat from the night before. So that would be like a basic typical breakfast for me. Remember I said I'd be aiming for a 900 to 1,000 calorie meal you would need to scale that based on how many calories you eat. Occasional breakfast treats so I'll share some kind of exceptions to the rules that go through it. I found these zero net carb bagels on a website called Thin Slim Foods, no affiliation at all. I like their cinnamon one. They have a plain one too but 90 calories, zero net carbs, 14 grams of protein lots of fiber, just liked it. So these bagel, you have to enjoy your food too. These bagels I would either put cream cheese or almond butter on them. So that was kind of an occasional breakfast treat. Also my wife makes these really good breakfast burritos. So I would, she makes them for the family and they use regular tortillas because they're not on the same diet as me but I use these Mama Lupe zero carb tortillas usually. There's also like a carb smart tortilla that I know I've played with. There's lots of different low carb tortillas but I would eat some of these. So they'd have scrambled eggs and breakfast sausage and a bunch of veggies in them. So that was another really good breakfast for me that I really enjoyed. The cool thing about my diet is I really enjoy everything I eat. There's not like a flavor explosion every time I eat but I enjoy every meal. I'm not like sick of eating these things. I really do enjoy them. All right, so what's a lunch look like? Salad, bunch of greens with chicken, bunch of chicken and then olive oil for the healthy fats and then macadamia nuts. See macadamia nuts I think are the best low carb nut out there, I really like them. They're kind of expensive but good way to get some healthy fats. Then I really like this good culture. Again, no affiliation with anything here but good culture cottage cheese. It's just if you don't have this in your area just a lower carb cottage cheese. Basically half as many carbs here as you'd find in a typical cottage cheese and 19 grams of protein which is pretty sweet. So that's what a typical lunch would look like. Lunch on the go. So a few days a week I'm gone during lunch and if I'm eating I use this keto bread. I just buy it at Walmart but there's lots of low carb breads out there as well. So I could make a low carb sandwich or a wrap using those low carb or zero carb tortillas. So it might be deli meat and cheese. I really like I make this wrap that's a chicken bacon ranch wrap. So a little bit of cheese, a little bit of bacon and then a bunch of chicken and then some ranch that my wife makes but those are some really good lunches on the go for me. And then here's another one I really like as well. We buy these at Costco. Again, I don't know if you have a Costco in your area it's an apple and Gouda cheese chicken sausage basically like a bratwurst type of thing that I could eat just as is or put them on a wrap or put them on the low carb wrap. So you might have to find something else in your area but similar just a type of thing. Pretty easy thing to eat for lunch. And then what's a typical dinner look like? Just meat and veggies, right? That's basically what most meals are. I might add a low carb bread or a tortilla or something but I'm mainly eating meat and vegetables. So steak, salmon, chicken and then I might also use those tortillas. You see, I really like them. They're also higher in protein and higher in fiber and low calorie. Some of those normal tortillas are like 200 calories. It's just way too many. But so I might do soft shell tacos with either ground beef or chicken, those types of things but then lots of veggies. You see broccoli, asparagus, kale, lettuce, peppers. You see here, my family really loves vegetables which is great. But so looking here, I just wanted to show you that we have a garden in our backyard. We grow a bunch of our vegetables. We buy the rest of the store and then we do have a hydroponic garden inside for the winter. I live in South Dakota so we definitely don't get to garden year round. All right, what's an occasional dinner treat? So this would be, I don't know, every couple of months. Also from that Thin Slim Foods website they have zero carb pizza crust. You see here low calorie, zero net carbs, high protein, lots of fiber. So we make like a low carb pizza. So some pizza sauce that's pretty low carb, bunch of meat, bunch of veggies, some cheese and that's a really nice treat every once in a while. Just take a break from just the typical dinner or supper. So what do I drink? I've had this question as well. So first of all, I drink a lot. Like whether I'm dieting or not, whether I'm fasting or eating, I'm just, I'm constantly drinking, right? I always have a water bottle with me. Of course, when I was 414 pounds, I always had a soda with me so that was one of the big changes I made. But I do aim for around a gallon of water a day and then I think electrolytes are very important. I've made videos about that. So I actually make my own concoction if I'm at home where I just mix sodium and potassium powder and magnesium supplements. But the LMNT electrolyte brands are something that I'm really starting to like. That's anytime I'm out of the house, I take those with me in case I need electrolytes. I might use one a day or two depending on how I feel. I do have coffee and then I have tea in the evening, decaffeinated or no caffeine tea because I think that impacts my sleep a lot. So coffee and tea, those are both good. Even with clean fasting, they actually both can accelerate autophagy, which is one of the health benefits of fasting. So I don't think many people would have a problem with that. But in case of emergency, so I think I'm gonna lose some of you here because I think if weight loss is your primary goal, I do not think that clean fasting is always required. So things like chicken broth, sugar-free gum, diet soda, these are things that I think that people, many people can get away with and it's totally cool if you don't want to. But in the beginning, right, I was really struggling with fasting. So chicken broth was a huge deal. So yeah, I was having 20 or 30 calories of chicken broth, a couple grams of protein, but it allowed me to keep going with the fasting and I think that's super important. So I don't think everyone needs to fast clean if weight loss is their priority. You're gonna read in some books and you're gonna read online that things that make it sound like a diet soda or a piece of gum will ruin your fast, but I don't see it that way when I look at the research or in my personal experience. So I'll dive into the science later. I've looked at 40 studies recently about artificial sweeteners and glucose and insulin, not saying they're healthy at all, but I'm having a really hard time seeing how they're gonna cause major changes in insulin levels or glucose, but we'll come back to that. But I just, I have this, this is the biosense breath ketone meter. It's scientifically validated. Love this, again, no affiliation. It's called biosense breath ketone meter, but I have tracked my blood glucose and my breath ketone levels since the beginning and I don't see any difference, literally zero difference between days that I fast clean or days that I would, that I have a diet soda or a piece of gum or those types of things. I honestly just don't think the human body is nearly as easy to fool as some people do. So no difference. I could show, you know, side by side, I can show you the readings and I couldn't tell you at which day I drank just water, coffee and tea and which day I had some of these other things. So do not think you need these things. Do what is right for you. You can absolutely skip these things. You can fast clean. I always say fast as clean as you can, but as dirty as you need to, to stick with it. Sustaining your fasts is the key. I'd rather you have a piece of gum and stick to your fast than give up, right? So will a piece of gum slow down your progress? I honestly don't know, but I know that quitting will. So keep that in mind. So what does my maintenance diet look like? So I got here, lost 165 pounds. Literally a year ago today was when I weighed in and I was down 165 pounds. My diet hasn't changed much at all, right? I basically just eat more meals. So the meals look the same, even their size is the same. So I just scale up or down how many meals I eat in a week if I'm trying to gain weight or lose weight. So this is why I love fasting, right? I just don't have to change what I eat. My maintenance diet basically looks like my weight loss diet. I just add in a few more meals throughout the week to maintain my weight. I do have periods where I actually do add calories. So I'm focused on performance. I'm focused on building muscle, right? I've gained at least 15 pounds of muscle and I've gotten much, much stronger over the last couple of years. So if I do that, if I'm really focused on that, I'll eat four meals on those days instead of my typical three. And then I will, so I'll increase my calories and increase my carbs a little bit, just a little bit. I basically will add a smoothie with almond milk and frozen berries and yogurt and some whey protein. I'll add that smoothie one hour before I train. But that's basically it. So my maintenance plan, very, very similar to what I was eating in the beginning. All right, there you have it. I absolutely hope this helps. Please ask questions. Let me know what else you need to hear. All right, I want you to succeed. So I hope this video helped. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.