I was chubby up until 2006. I was slender until 1990. All those sixteen years, I tried every diet I spotted: eating tiny portions, avoiding carbohydrates, going vegetarian, squeezing sweat out on the treadmill, cutting down alcohol intake (very unsuccessful in this) and many others, just to fit myself in the size of clothes I had enjoyed before 1990. 

Nothing worked. My belly fat still wiggled underneath a pretty dress I dared to push myself into.

OK, enough! I was determined to be roly-poly for the rest of my life. Anyways, I was crazily busy with my own tiny business expanding to Canada. I talked to myself I had no time for diets. Instead, I decided to go back to university and get ideas for my entrepreneurial challenge in Canada, while enjoying eating without worrying about getting chubbier.

Then, in one of my courses, Biopsychology through University of British Columbia, I had an Aha! moment. Understanding the human metabolic system in depth gave me a shocking insight. Why we humans become fat is dumbfoundingly simple: we don’t have long enough intervals between eating for our bodies to process all the food energies we cram into our mouths. The excess energy (you can call this FAT) is stored in adipose tissue (FAT tissue). 

I wasted no time to begin my fasting in between meals. I did not eat anything for about 5 to 6 hours between meals. For my thirst, I only drank water or Japanese tea. No snacking, no sugary drinks, of course. In the first week of my fasting trial, I kept thinking of the next meal, staring at the ticking clock, listening to my stomach growl. The difficult university courses helped distract me from the temptation of eating. I forced myself to focus on studying. I kept telling my brain to use up all the energies in my body. The good news is that the brain uses up to 20% of the body’s total energies. 

I surprised myself. I lost 2 kilos (4.4 pounds) in the first two weeks of “fasting”. I lost total 10 kilos (22 pounds) in two months. I felt exhilarated. And, I started deliberating on how I could maintain the mind-blowing changes in my body to keep the weight off for good.