We’re a couple from Southern California who decided to take the plunge and join a virtual pilot program sponsored by Dr. Misra out of San Francisco, California. We were both overweight and unhappy with our lifestyles, so we decided to do something about it together. With remote monitoring and telehealth assistance from Dr. Misra - and with a whole lot of hard work and accountability to one another - we achieved a goal we’ve been wanting to accomplish for a long time now. With some outside help and guidance, we went on to lose a combined 40 pounds, including 20.6 pounds of body fat.Let’s take a closer look at our story while explaining the process that we used. Just like us, you and your spouse might also team up and get into better shape than ever.

Background 

The way that the system works is quite simple. It’s a 10-week program that combines intermittent fasting and weekly in-home body composition testing. These were our body composition results before starting the program.

Goals 

For any program to be successful, it's important to set goals for what you want to accomplish throughout the journey. We strived for permanent weight loss and to make lifestyle changes that were healthy and lasting. Starting this program was the motivation we needed to start a new healthy lifestyle. Nathalie originally only joined to support me but quickly fell in love with the intermittent fasting (IF) lifestyle, and she never looked back. 

 "I needed something other than my wonderful wife telling me regularly that I had to lose weight and exercise. I wanted to find an additional, not another, but an additional motivation. And that's what the challenge was for me." 

Intermittent Fasting 

Intermittent fasting, or time-restricted feeding, is a lifestyle that's gaining popularity and recognition rapidly. This eating schedule involves 16-20 hours of fasting, followed by a strict 4-6 hour eating window. Previously, we tried to kickstart a healthier lifestyle by eating six small meals a day but saw little to no results even with all the preparation and hard work.The part that really made an impact on our success was the freedom from being highly intuitive with what you are eating.Here are some of the reasons that fasting was so effective for us:

• It's a “simple science” – no counting calories or steps, it’s as easy as setting a daily alarm or stopwatch 

• For the most part, you can eat what you want. 

• It doesn't involve timely and laborious food prep or meal planning. 

• You feel less hungry 

• It helps you feel healthier, more mobile, more energetic, and more confident.

"The fact that you could eat what you really wanted, with some exceptions obviously, was a big change from the previous diets that we did." 

Hurdles Faced and Overcome 

Like all serious lifestyle changes, there are always hurdles and obstacles to overcome. That's part of what makes the outcome so rewarding. Knowing that you overcame adversity to achieve your goals boosts your confidence. Nathalie faced her share of obstacles and fears regarding intermittent fasting. 

"I was afraid of the scale … I never wanted to get on it. Even the doctor knew I wouldn't get on it. Now, I go on it, and I'm not so afraid anymore" 

She even managed to continue her lifestyle of tracking body composition when traveling overseas. That's the beauty of portable, dependable at-home body composition devices. It's a lifestyle that you can take with you no matter where you are. 

Accountability 

When it came down to it, neither of us could have succeeded without the other. We needed accountability and encouragement from one another to accomplish what we did. In the end, we did it for each other because it’s something we’ve been putting off and a way to show how we care about each other. With teamwork and accountability, we were able to turn Dr. Misra’s program from a challenge into a lifestyle.Committing to the experience and being each other's reminder for a healthier life ahead helped to keep us on track from the challenge into a way of life in our family.

"We went through that stage where we're challenging each other and pushing each other. Now it has become just the way we live our life. It's not a challenge anymore. These are conversations we never had before" 

Gains Seen on the Scale

Not only did fasting help us feel better and healthier, but it also helped us see surprisingly rapid results on the scale. Through weekly in-home body composition testing and family accountability, we saw great health results by the end of the 10-week program. 

What's Next?  

Once we started losing weight, we found a new fire among us to continue these health improvements. Intermittent fasting led us to start exercising more, helped us feel healthier, brought us together as a family, and made us more motivated to live a healthy life. The program was the kickstart we needed for a new healthy start for our family. Our household's entire culture and lifestyle has changed to one of striving for health and wellness. 

Tips for Your Journey from Us

There are some things that we will do differently moving forward. Here are some helpful tips that we wish we had known when we first started the program: 

• It's important to keep active and exercise alongside your fasting strategy. This is something that Michel wishes had done more initially, but it's also to look forward to as the weight comes off and confidence builds. 

• If you don't feel like going to the gym, running miles, or lifting weights at first, Nathalie’s secret weapon was walking to stay active. It was an activity that fits in a busy schedule, keeps her active, and something she could do with the ones closest to her… like our dog, Tobi. 

Overall Experience 

Fasting and frequent body composition check-ins changed the culture in our house. It was the jumpstart we desperately needed to make better and healthier lifestyle choices. Aside from the physical and mental benefits we experienced, we also formed a unique bond that will continue in our family just like time-restricted feeding. We learned that anything is possible with teamwork and accountability to one another. 

"You do a challenge, for a certain period of time, and if you don't believe in it, you stop, go back to whatever you were doing. But Nathalie and I are completely committed to continuing this. It's becoming a lifestyle change" 

An ordinary couple from Kansas embarked on an extraordinary journey that enabled them to lose body fat and lower their blood pressure easier than they had thought. Here is their story: We have always been concerned about our health, especially given our age; Fran is 78 years old, and John is 86 years old. However, we struggled to achieve any kind of success because we weren’t sure where to start or how to track our progress. We joined a 10-week pilot program led by Dr. Misra, that emphasized the importance of intermittent fasting and exercise. We tracked our progress using an at-home body composition scale and even though he resides in San Francisco, California, Dr. Misra was able to monitor our progress throughout the duration of the program. We met with him remotely for consultations and he helped guide us and answer any of our questions through the InBody mobile app.

Why Fasting?

Even though intermittent fasting, or time-restricted feeding, is a popular strategy for getting healthier these days, Dr. Misra taught us that this strategy has been around for a long time.Because our ancestors were hunter/gatherers, they didn’t have food readily available at grocery stores as we do now. Instead, they would go periods of time where they had nothing to eat, meaning the human physiology evolved to go long periods without food. Many people today eat in a 16–18-hour window, which is not how our bodies adapted to survive. Constant eating is thought to be a contributor to obesity and many of the prominent health issues of today.But what is intermittent fasting? We learned that while there are many forms of fasting, the most common technique requires individuals to fast for 14-20 hours a day. Fasting can impact certain hunger hormones which caused us to be less hungry, meaning we naturally ate fewer calories. We also learned that fasting is more about when you eat, not what you eat, so watching calories or eliminating our favorite foods wasn’t necessary. We were particularly excited about this aspect because counting calories is hard and time-consuming! We’ve tried counting calories before and it never worked for us, and it always left us feeling bad about ourselves if we had a “bad” day. 

“It hasn’t been near as hard as we thought it would be, we eat two meals a day. Usually, we eat our bigger meal at lunchtime and then have a salad with some protein at night.”

Along with fasting, we walked about 1.5 miles a day. We learned that “you can lose weight in just a very patient and uncomplicated way”. Walking is easy to add into your schedule and can be done at almost any age or mobility range. 

Where we started

Monitoring our body composition was a new habit we had never tried before, as we normally just used a traditional scale and only provided body weight.We both agreed that our fat mass was higher than we wanted it to be and that our muscle mass was lower than ideal (especially later in life). While this was a little disappointing, we used this as motivation. We acknowledged that we had room for improvement and were excited to start this journey together.

Monitoring Our Body Composition

With a normal scale, there is no explanation as to why body weight changes. We learned that people sometimes put on muscle weight and lose body fat, which is good, but the scale will show a higher number. This can leave people feeling defeated and like they accomplished nothing. But because we used the body composition scale, we knew exactly what was going on in our body and if any gain or loss in weight was due to an increase in muscle mass or a loss in body fat. It really enabled us to stay motivated, focused, and positive, - if we used weight alone, we could have been discouraged and given up.We used the InBody mobile app that synced to our body composition scale at home. While there was a slight learning curve, we adapted and could look at our progress at any given time; it was so convenient! Being so in tune with our body composition, John was able to detect body composition changes from the trending data on his mobile app when (at first) he received surprising test results. Instead of throwing in the towel, John was able to piece together that although his weight went up one week, it was actually due to muscle gain and not fat gain, which would put anyone’s mind at ease.

What Kept Us Motivated

Tracking overall fat mass helped us realize the impact on our visceral (abdomen) fat, which is considered the most important area to lose excess body fat. Doctors have been telling us for years now how bad excess visceral fat is, so knowing we were able to not only lose weight but specifically body fat was very motivating.By incorporating fasting, staying active, and using the InBody body composition scale to keep us accountable, we were able to keep ourselves motivated to achieve the health goals we’ve sought after for so long and we even made this a habit. We also better understand body weight changes and how they can be attributed to changes in our body composition. 

"Now that we have our results on the InBody mobile app, and we can look at them and compare them, it makes a lot more sense. "

Our Progress

 Looking back at our 10-week journey, we attribute our success to the accountability and [strict, structured,] fasting and consistent body composition testing does to your motivation. Weight really is just a number and it doesn’t tell the whole story. Small changes in eating and activity habits can make a huge difference – we only walked about 1.5 miles each day and incorporated intermittent fasting and were able to achieve so much. 

What We Got Out of It

Weekly testing of our body composition progress kept us motivated. On the weeks where we thought we made no improvements, our body composition results said different and also validated our hard work. Maintaining your weight from one week to the next can boost your confidence when you can also see that you still lowered your body fat amount at the same time. This helped us to continue with our journey whenever we were tempted.Now, we regularly test our body composition – alongside our other regular health monitoring habits, to maintain and improve our health. Not only did we improve our body composition, but our blood pressure also decreased, and John’s blood sugar levels decreased. We (especially John) were so happy to see these numbers go down!

"We’re still seeing the benefits from it, just doing the same thing that we were doing that helped us."

Where We Are Going Now

We have achieved so much success with this program that it’s clear this is a new habit for our family. To continue to stay active, we want to get a recumbent bike to change things up for the colder months in Kansas. Right now, we plan on maintaining our new healthier lifestyle until we achieve our final body composition goal. In order to maintain the progress made,  we are going to continue to keep ourselves in check with regular body composition testing. This will help us stay motivated and prevent any unwanted body fat gain. We feel better, we look better, and we’re excited to see what additional improvements we can make toward our health.

"If someone said, well, could you give [intermittent fasting] up? I’d have to say, I really hate to give that up because I think that my much-improved discipline is rooted in that. "

Previous Health & Wellness Journey 

My health journey started after a doctor told me some startling news—I was developing a fatty liver. That was when I decided to take control of my health by starting a HIIT program for regular exercise. Unfortunately soon after, I started down this road toward wellness, COVID-19 hit and we were in lockdown. I started to slowly gain all of the weight back. Around November of 2020, I hit a point where I knew I had to do something if I really wanted to regain control of my health once and for all. That's when I signed up for the Grand InBody Challenge. The Grand InBody Challenge is a community-based event to promote health and wellness awareness. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grand InBody Challenge transitioned to a virtual national competition that focuses on improving your body composition over the span of 10-weeks. The challenge is measured by an at-home body composition scale at the start, middle, and end of the challenge. The virtual challenge includes the use of the InBody mobile app, weekly email reminders, educational content, as well as two virtual experiences to help you stay motivated!  

Why the InBody Challenge? 

With a flood of fitness challenges out there, I chose InBody because I was introduced to their body composition analyzers at my gym and trusted their technology. I joined the challenge as a way to stay accountable and to ensure that I track my progress every week, which in turn helped me to improve my health and wellness while staying motivated regardless of the ups and downs along the way. The entire process really spoke to me because it focused on more than just weigh-ins and what the scale had to say about my progress. The focus on body composition really helped me track success in a much more meaningful way than just a number on a scale. Not only would the challenge keep me motivated and accountable, but the fact that it was also available from anywhere in the US as a remote challenge, made it even more desirable with the ongoing emphasis on health during the COVID pandemic. 

Remote Challenges

It's understandable that some people may be uncertain about the results you can get by leading yourself through a remote challenge. However, it really worked for me! It was convenient to have the InBody app, which made it easier to know where I was in my journey and track my progress. I liked that the InBody H20N smart weight scale had Bluetooth compatibility because my results would go straight to my phone onto my InBody app. Since I wasn't able to test on the professional InBody unit there, it was nice to use the H20N at home and track my progress from there. The remote aspect allowed me to stay on track despite what was going on with the pandemic.  

Staying Motivated Throughout the Challenge

It's always challenging to find motivation when nothing is holding you accountable. I wanted to make a real change in my life, and my lack of motivation was the main reason why I couldn't remain consistent. If I ever started to feel this lack of motivation during the challenge, I would tell myself “I can do it” and remind myself that there is a huge community holding me accountable in this challenge. There were moments I wasn't there mentally and physically and even times where I started to lose confidence in myself. However, I was committed to making a difference in my health, and if I didn't do it now, then I probably never would. I played off of that mindset throughout the entire challenge. It helped when I was able to go to the gym and do a detox that helped me with energy levels and doing cardio.  

 You just have to find the things that keep your head in the game and then just keep taking that next step forward.

Steps towards the right direction

I made many positive changes that I am proud of. I worked hard to change my diet based on information I found online. I did mostly keto, which included high protein/fat and low carbs. With the carbs that I did have, I had Ezekiel bread (as a carb alternate). I tried to include plant-based food also. I incorporated other things such as cutting back on calories, completing intense workouts in an hour where my goal was to burn at least a thousand calories each time. I wanted these things to be more than just something I did for the challenge and more about positive changes I would continue on in my life.   

The power of support 

To be successful at anything like this, you really need a strong circle of support. My family and friends encouraged me to better myself and keep going when I really wanted to give up.  My housemates and I would make healthy meals together which helped keep my diet and hold me accountable. People at my gym were huge supporters throughout my entire journey, and that certainly went a long way toward my success.

Support is, without a doubt, just as critical as doing the actual work. We all have moments of weakness, and support is what helps pull us through those really tough times.

Finding the balance with your mental health

When you start focusing on your body, you really have to remember to balance your mind as well. To help with that, I would go to the sauna at my gym, and it helped with a lot of my stress. At some points, I was having issues with energy levels and sleep consistently. Going to the sauna actually helped improve both of those things. I finally felt rested and ready to tackle new challenges. I can honestly say I never truly wanted to give up. Once I saw my results taking place, I got really excited. That in itself helped keep me motivated to do more.  

Focusing on THE right numbers

Throughout my whole life, people would focus on the number on the scale, but they don't realize if you want to lose 20lbs, you don't really know where those 20lbs are coming from. I always wanted to lose weight but more body fat percentage. When I found out about InBody H20N scale, it was a game-changer since it tells me everything. It's not just focused on the number on the scale but rather your entire body composition. The scale tracks the entire history of weigh-ins and tells you the entire story. Finally, I had something that was not just basing my success off of a few lost pounds but a total focus on body fat loss.   

My Advice to Challenge Participants 

I hope that my story motivates and encourages others to join in on a challenge. The challenge is overcoming the mental roadblocks you may have set up against yourself. I would encourage people not to worry so much about the weight itself. Try to find a workout regime and diet you like to do and understand what works best for you. Personally, I enjoyed doing cardio more than lifting weights, so that's what I focused on more. There's a ton of workout videos you can do online and not go to a gym. When it came to eating right and working out, most of my information came from online sources. 

Where I’m Going From Here 

This journey has certainly inspired me to move forward. I would like to create a YouTube channel and make videos of what I do to keep a healthy lifestyle to encourage and motivate people. As far as my stats go, I started at 35% body fat, and now I'm around 22%. I'm going to make a video at 22% body fat and create another video "on the road to 20%." I want to get into the best shape of my life and reach between 8-9%, so I hope to share my story and create a lot of videos following along my health and wellness journey.  

I believe this process is something many people can relate to, and I'm just happy to encourage other people to live a healthier lifestyle, too.