...never posted here before, and maybe I'm missing the point of the thread entirely, but here goes my recipe. A few words about boundary conditions: I like to eat, I like fine wine, I'm not too fond of "doing sports" for the sake of it. And I have an office job that keeps me glued to the computer for about 10...12 hours a day. Still I have managed to maintain my weight at just under 100kg for the last eight years, and see a slight recline lately. So, I basically eat what I like and more or less as much of it as I like (of course, managing one's desires still plays a bit of a role). What I regulate is the timing between meals. I start with lunch (12am) and end with dinner. Between dinner (7-8pm) and lunch, no food. Unsweetened tea and water are OK, but nothing to start up the digestive system. What I started more or less as a weak attempt to reduce my calory intage has recently received a bit more scientific attention, regular phases of famishment (14 hours minimum, 16 ideal) in the daily feeding cycle. Apparently that helps the body at the cellular level to also "recycle" inactive parts of the cellular molecules, e.g. of mitochondria that are no longer active, etc. At least for mice this strategy seems to work excellently, it might also work for humans (and apparently it works for me). Since I have extended my fasting period from 12...14 hour to now 14...16 I see a slight but steady decline in body mass.
Things that I don't do:
I have no car. Shopping groceries I do with a push bike, or walking to the store.
Once a week, I go swimming (1500m). Important detail: I do it with a friend, so that there is some social pressure to keep it up. And it works - we recently confessed to each other that we both didn't really want to go that day, but we both came to the meeting to not let the other down. And we decided, since it apparently worked, to actually do what we came for.
No munching of potato chips and similar stuff while watching TV, except maybe once or twice a quarter. Chocolate: Only dark, only in small doses (like one or two pieces, and lately not even that).
Alcohol: One tee-totaling quarter every year (from New Year to mid April).
The great thing about my system is that it isn't very intrusive, nor hard to follow, once that the body gets accustomed to the cycle of daily fasting. I develop hunger at pretty much exactly noon, which fits nicely with the 16/8 hour pattern that I set up for myself. I wouldn't recommend this to people with regular amounts of physical work, and not everybody can do without a car, so these are, I think, important factors that must be considered.
