In this episode of Intermittent Fasting Stories, Gin talks to Dharmesh Topiwala, who lives in Raleigh, NC.
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Dharmesh is a software engineer, and he is originally from India. His family moved to the US in 1992, and Dharmesh shares that this was when he began to gain weight. In India, he was very active. But after moving, he “lost all of his friends, and lost all of his activity.” He found himself turning to food for comfort. Dharmesh remembers that he “fell in love with Doritos.” When his weight climbed to 300 pounds in 1998, he decided to do something about it. This began many years of yo-yo dieting for Dharmesh. He followed extreme calorie restriction and exercised. He took diet pills and tried low carb, and eventually lost 50 pounds. But whenever he stopped restricting calories or exercising, the weight would pile back on.
By 2018, Dharmesh gave up, deciding he would be 300 pounds for the rest of his life. He shares: “I invested in being this size,” and bought all new clothes that fit. At this point, he was wearing a size 44 pants. In July of 2019, Dharmesh came across intermittent fasting through an app on his phone. He researched everything that he could about IF, and started with 16:8. The weight fell off quickly! He easily transitioned to 18:6, then 20:4. He currently follows 22:2. Dharmesh has lost 90 pounds and is now wearing a size 34 pants. The Delay, Don’t Deny facebook group has been a huge support in his IF journey.
The advice Dharmesh would give to new IFers: “Take a lot of pictures. IF is not a wagon, it’s a path. Don’t punish yourself. It is day to day. Deciding to change your life is the hardest decision you’ll make, and you’ve already won!”
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