I implemented intermittent fasting into my lifestyle. I started counting my net carbs, and I also made sure that I drank a certain amount of water every single day. This has become a lifestyle for me. I am keeping with intermittent fasting, and honestly, I think it's something I'll never give up. My body enjoys it. I truly feel good when I eat this way. So hey there, welcome to my channel. My name is Renee, and five months ago, I decided to make some lifestyle changes. I was tired of the way that I looked. I was overweight. I was constantly bloated. Oh my gosh, my stomach was always bloated up. I felt full. I felt heavy. I just felt uncomfortable, and I was very not happy with myself. And so I did a little research, and I decided I was going to change things up. I was going to implement three lifestyle changes, and I was gonna give it 30 days, and I wasn't gonna cheat, and I was gonna

see did it work? Did I lose any weight? And how did I feel? I implemented those lifestyle changes ironically exactly five months ago today, and I kept a journal on my computer. How much I weighed on the day that I started, and then every week when I got on the scale, I kept a log. And as of today, exactly five months later, I have lost a total of 12 pounds, and I'm so proud of myself. But the big news is I lost the 12 pounds pretty quickly. After the third month, our week 12, I had met my goal weight. I had lost 12 pounds in 12 weeks, so I was really pleased with the progress. And you can see by looking at this journal, there were some weeks where I lost a lot of weight, there were other weeks where I lost just a little bit of weight, but overall, I lost 12 pounds in the first 12 weeks of being on this eating plan. And in the last two months, I have changed nothing, and the weight has

stayed off. The very first lifestyle change I made was to implement intermittent fasting. I chose an intermittent fasting scale of 16 to 8. That means I eat all of my meals and I consume all of my calories within an eight-hour window of time, and then the other 16 hours of the day I eat nothing, zero, nada, zilch. I consume no calories. There is one little exception to that rule, which I'll get to in just a minute, but I eat in an eight-hour window, and 16 hours of the day I don't eat. So for me, I eat breakfast about 10 o'clock in the morning, 10:30, just really when I'm hungry, and then I eat my dinner, and I'm finished eating my dinner by 6 to 6:30 in the evening. And so that is my eight-hour window. I don't snack after dinner. I eat nothing at night, and I know that's a tough one for a lot of

people so many of you all are nighttime snackers. That really wasn't too hard for me to give up. I wasn't somebody that normally ate after dinner anyway, but I was somebody who would get up and wanted my breakfast. That was the tough one for me, delaying my breakfast from the time I get up around six o'clock to eating breakfast, you know, at 10 or 10:30. That was the hardest part, but now that I've gotten used to it, honestly, it's no big deal. Don't even think about it. The second change I implemented was counting my net carbs. If you don't know how to cut internet carbs, look at any package at the nutrition label, and if you take total carbohydrates minus dietary fiber, that gives you net carbs. So, in the beginning, I was counting my carbs. I was eating less than 50 net carbs every single day, and during that period of time while I was trying to lose weight, I did eat less than 50.

net carbs. A lot of days I had 20 net carbs or 30 net carbs. There were some days I did have 50, and I'm sure there was a day or two in there where I had 60 or 70 because I did not want to feel deprived. But overall, I stayed under that 50 net carb number, and that's how the weight came off. I also make sure that I drink 64 ounces of water every single day. I have one of these Arctic cups. I fill it up over and over. Every one of these cups will hold 16 ounces of water, and I just know that I have to drink my 64 ounces of water. I have been asked a lot of times, How do you know how much water you're supposed to drink? And I have read that the best way to figure it out is take your body weight and divide by two, and that will give you how many ounces of water you need to drink.

every single day. So, what do I eat and how do I eat it? I do get up about six o'clock every morning, and I want my coffee. And you all know, if you have followed me for a while, I loved my coffee. I used to put heavy cream in it and honey. It was my thing. I was obsessed with my coffee, and I had to give it up. It just comes down to that. You have to give it up because if you have honey and all those things in your coffee at six o'clock in the morning, you are opening up your eating window. And at two o'clock in the afternoon, you are done. And there's no way I could do that. And so, what I did was I had black coffee at six o'clock in the morning, nothing in it, zilch, plain boring black coffee. And I did that for 30 days. And that helped me to realize I can do it. I don't have to have honey in my coffee. So,

I toughed it out. I had straight black coffee for the first 30 days, and I will tell you that little trick worked wonders. After about the first 45 days of drinking black coffee, I realized that I really, really missed my coffee. I just did not enjoy straight black coffee. So, I did a lot of research, and there is a lot of debate on this topic: what can you put in your coffee that will not break your fast? And I've come to the conclusion that you can put half-and-half cream or heavy cream in your coffee without breaking your fast. But there is a very scientific, a very studied, a very medical answer as to why this doesn't break your fast. But just know it doesn't break your fast. I do it every morning. I put just a splash of cream in my black coffee—no honey, no sweetener, nothing else—and I enjoy that when I first wake up. It's 6 a.m., but my body is still in a fasting state until I actually

eat my breakfast. I ate breakfast around 10, 10:30. Some days it's 11. So what do I eat for breakfast? In the morning, I'm a creature of habit. When I find something that I like for breakfast, that is, I can eat it every single day, over and over and over. And I have discovered something that I have not gotten tired of in five months, and it is this keto ratio yogurt. It comes in a variety of flavors. I love the coconut, the strawberry, and the vanilla. There's only two net carbs in this yogurt. And then I love to top it with the keto ratio granola. Then I'll also add some pecans and some unsweetened coconut flakes. I love a little bit of crunch in my yogurt. I have a big old bowl, and I top it with fresh fruit, normally raspberries and blackberries. So that breakfast is about five net carbs. It makes me full, it makes me happy. I got my fruit, I got my sweet, I got my Crunch, and I'm ready for my

day so moving on to lunch. What do I eat? Well, I eat a variety of things. Today, I actually had leftovers from last night's dinner. Last night, I made a pot roast with potatoes and carrots, and I had green beans. So, that is what I had for lunch today. But I had a very small portion for my lunch, really. My breakfast filled me up. I wasn't super hungry for lunch, but I always know to eat because if I don't eat, I will get hungry in the afternoon and regret not eating my lunch. So, I had a very small portion of leftovers. And yes, I had potatoes. Potatoes have carbs, but I didn't have a ton of potatoes. I just had a couple very small sections of potato. It filled me up. It made me feel good. I did not feel deprived. And if I don't have leftovers, I will typically make myself a sandwich with this keto bread. And I know in some of my other videos, I talked about another brand of bread that I had to

order that was before I tried this one. This one's available at my grocery store. It's Healthy Life Keto. There's no carbs in this bread. And I make a very small sandwich, one piece of bread with some ham or some deli chicken on it, and avocado. And that's my lunch. So I'm very low-key for lunch, small portions, make sure that I don't get out of hand on my carbs for lunch, because really, I want to enjoy my carbs with my dinner. But for dinner, I do a variety of things. For the most part, I cook whatever I want to. I'm just conscious of the carbs and try to not overeat them. I have several videos on my channel, their recipes and things that I cook that have a very low number of carbs in them. There's meatballs and ricotta. There is a broccoli and chicken dish. There's how to make tacos low carbs. There is a salmon sushi bowl. But all sorts of dinner ideas that you can cook that

are low carb, but now that I'm in a maintenance phase, I kind of feel like I can eat what I want to. I just know not to overdo it. If I want to make a pasta dish, I will make a pasta dish, but I just eat a little bit of the pasta. Earlier this week, I made a dish that was served on white rice. I just had a little bit of the rice, but a lot of the chicken and the tomato sauce. I will often make big hearty salads for dinner. I do have croutons in my salad, but you get my point, right? Once you get the hang of it, and you've lost the weight, I have found, for me anyway, that I don't have to be so strict on the carbs as long as I'm paying attention to the carbs in my meal, and I don't have a large quantity of them. It really turns out to be fine in the end. But the main thing, the number one thing that I am

loving my body enjoys it. I feel good, and I can see a difference. And the number one thing is the intermittent fasting. I truly believe that if you implement intermittent fasting and you do not overeat on your carbs, and notice I did not say Don't eat carbs. I said do not overeat your carbs. The intermittent fasting will do a world of good for your body. Since I implemented intermittent fasting five months ago, I've lost 12 pounds. I feel so much better. The swelling and inflammation is gone in my face. My stomach is not bloated up. I don't wake up in the morning and feel yucky and big from the day before. Intermittent fasting has allowed my body to digest the food properly. It gives my body a break. I consume all my calories and all my food in that eight-hour window. My body says yes, give it to me, I want it, and then it has the other 16 hours to digest the food. It has 16

hours to relax and process everything that I've given it, and it just feels good. This has become a lifestyle for me. I am keeping with intermittent fasting, and honestly, I think it's something I'll never give up. My body enjoys it. I truly feel good when I eat this way. We just got through the holidays, and around here, I did eat a lot of things I shouldn't have been eating. I was eating sometimes outside of my eating window because, you know, you have family meals, you have guests in your home, they want to eat late, and all these things. And so, there were some nights that I had dinner two hours after my eating window, and I felt it the next day. I truly felt the difference. And so, intermittent fasting is something my body loves. I'm responding well to that, and I truly believe that it is the number one reason, combined with paying attention to your carb intake, that will keep the weight and the bloat and the inflammation away. So, a couple of things that I have learned

about myself. When I eat on a 16 to 8 ratio, I am not hungry. And you would think that's weird. You're eating your meals in a very small window of time and not eating in a very large window of time. But when I eat that way, my body is not hungry. I don't know how to explain it. I'm just not hungry. But if I cheat, if I have an off day, if I do eat a very late dinner, then in the morning when I wake up, I know that I'm hungry. It's weird. It makes no sense, right? And because I am consuming all of my meals and all of my calories in an eight-hour window, I don't really need to snack. I'm eating everything I want to eat in this amount of time, and my body is full. I'm not wanting to snack. I don't need to snack. I'm not stretching out my meals and causing gaps within my day that I'm hungry and I need to snack to fill in those gaps. Nope. I'm pushing everything in into a small window of time.

I'm still eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I don't really have any gaps. There's no time in that eight hours that I actually get hungry and need a snack. So, that is another huge contributing factor to my weight loss because I used to be a really big snacker. I don't crave sweets or junk food, go figure. It's crazy how your mind and your body adjust to your eating habits. When I used to eat junk food, chocolate chips, ice cream—because I used to own an ice cream store—my body wanted it all the time. I craved it. I needed it. But once I started my new eating program and I really cut down on the carbs in the beginning, I cut out all of that stuff because sugar has a bunch of carbs, chocolate has a ton of carbs, ice cream obviously has carbs. So, I cut that out, and my body decided, I don't need it. I don't want it. Hey, I can do without all of those sweets. Randy and I will occasionally

share a little sweet treat after dinner, and we always share. We love double chocolate cookies and mint chip ice cream. There's three grams of carbs in the whole ice cream sandwich, and these are really big ice cream sandwiches, so we share them. One and a half net carbs each. We also enjoy these con bars. They're frozen, and this is the dark almond. No, this is the dark chocolate almonds, sea salt, and nuts. There's nine net carbs per bar. They're pretty small, but they're very sweet, and so we will share one of these. Four and a half net carbs each, and it's the perfect little sweet something after dinner. And then, of course, a 64 ounces of water. So, that's my follow-up to my five months on intermittent fasting, eating low net carbs, and drinking the water. That is how it has worked so well for me, but I have stuck to it, y'all. I have been diligent. The first 30 days, no cheating. If you're going to implement this plan or any portion of this plan

Don't cheat. Commit yourself for 30 days, and I guarantee you, you will realize you can do it. You will realize how much better you feel, and you will see the changes on the scale, and you will not go back to the way that you used to eat. I'm living proof of that, so I'll see you in the next video.

I Tried INTERMITTENT FASTING for 5 Months and This is What Happened | 16:8 + Counting Net Carbs

I Tried INTERMITTENT FASTING for 5 Months and This is What Happened | 16:8 + Counting Net Carbs