We all arrive at moments where our body whispers — or screams — for attention. This was mine. And it changed everything.
How I Lost 10kg Naturally With Intermittent Fasting and Mindful Eating
Looking back over the past four months, it’s hard to recognize the version of myself who began this journey in early September. I wasn’t trying to be extreme, nor was I chasing a number on a scale. What I truly wanted was to return to my body — to understand what it had been trying to tell me.
I wrote about this briefly in My 4-Day Fasting Journey: Listening to My Body. After the summer, everything felt off. My digestion was a mess. My face broke out in ways it hadn’t in years. I had this dull, lingering body ache I couldn’t explain. I felt inflamed, heavy, and disconnected. And earlier this year, I had shingles — followed by asthma flare-ups — signs that my body wasn’t functioning in the way it should. Nothing was “wrong” enough to run a major treatment, but deep down, my body was asking for attention. It whispered at first, and later, it was screaming.
I’ve always been an advocate of whole-food-plant-based eating and the principles of lifestyle medicine. I’m usually mindful of food and consistent with movement. But this past summer — with heatwaves, school holidays, and the kind of humidity that makes you avoid even stepping outside — my routine slid away from me. The beach felt like the only place that made sense, and exercise didn’t happen.
But there was another truth I had been avoiding: I was overweight, and my clothes were telling a story I didn’t want to read. My jeans were too tight, and I kept telling myself to “embrace the body I have,” as if that made everything okay. It felt liberating in some way, almost like switching my phone to airplane mode and calling the problem solved.
So I decided to start listening again.
Today, I want to share what I’ve been doing over the past 4 months to lose 10–12 kg naturally through intermittent fasting and mindful eating. This is not a story about starving, suffering, or forcing yourself into a shape. It’s a story about choosing a lifestyle that feels sustainable, compassionate, and aligned with the way I want to live.
Come with me through this journey — not as a set of rules, but as a conversation with the body that carries us through every season of life.
Reset: My Four-Day Prolonged Fasting
Everything began with a four-day fast. I’ve already shared the scientific and physiological side of that experience in 4 Days Prolonged Fasting: Benefits and My Experience, but what stayed with me even more was the emotional and spiritual part — the part that doesn’t show up in research charts.
Those four days stripped my habits down to their core. They revealed how much of my eating had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with habits, boredom, reward, routine, or comfort. By removing food, I could finally hear what my body had been trying to tell me for so long.
The hardest part was honestly the first and second night. After that, something surprising happened: when you stop eating, you suddenly realize how much free time you actually have. We really do spend half the day thinking about what to buy, what to cook, what to eat, and when to eat again. Without food, the day felt strangely spacious. It was all an experiment for me, and I felt good throughout the process.
By the second day, my body was already shifting. I went to the bathroom and released what had been stuck in me for over a week (Oh boy! thankfully). My acne calmed down noticeably. The breakouts didn’t magically disappear overnight, but they stopped popping up, which already felt like a victory. And yes, during those four days, I lost about 0.7 kg per day.
But the most crucial part is this: I never felt ill or weak. After the 48-hour mark, I actually felt energized. And when I finally broke my fast on the fourth day with a simple bowl of miso soup, I felt mentally strong — the kind of strength that comes from doing something challenging and meaningful, like hiking up a mountain you weren’t sure you could climb. Physically, I felt detoxed, lighter, clearer. The brain fog lifted, my migraine disappeared, and for the first time in months, my body felt like it was working with me again.
Up to this point, I wasn’t thinking about weight loss at all. My only intention was to help my body feel good again. But as the fast went on, together with tons of research about fasting. The idea of losing weight naturally came into focus. I had to be honest with myself: the weight I was carrying didn’t reflect the “healthy lifestyle” I believed I was living. But I also wanted to approach weight loss without obsession or pressure, without forcing my body into stress.
So I began looking at the basics — BMI, body fat percentage, and what a healthy range seems like for a 40-year-old woman. That’s when I realized that losing around 10kg was a realistic and necessary goal if I wanted to return to a truly healthy place.
Of course, I wasn’t anywhere near that weight yet. The fast wasn’t meant to be a shortcut. It was a reset — a way to bring my body back to zero so I could rebuild my habits with clarity, intention, and a better understanding of what my body actually needed. It gave me a clean slate that eventually made sustainable weight loss possible.
That reset became the foundation for everything I did in the months that followed.
Further reading:
When, What, and How I Eat
After my prolonged fast, I felt the momentum — mentally and physically. My body felt clearer, lighter, and more responsive, so I continued with intermittent fasting. For me, fasting became the structure of when to eat. Then came the next layer: what to eat. That naturally led me toward a low-carb, keto diet that supported my goals. And finally, there was how to eat — the mindful, intentional relationship with food that kept everything sustainable.
When to Eat: Intermittent Fasting
I stepped into a rhythm of 18:6, 16:8, OMAD (One Meal a Day), and the occasional 24-hour fast. I didn’t follow any of it with strict discipline or pressure. I chose what felt realistic and sustainable.
On days when I was home alone, OMAD suited me perfectly. My eating window was only one to two hours, usually the time I shared dinner with my kids when they came home from school. During the day, I kept everything simple: waking up with warm water and fresh lemon juice, brewing my black coffee in the moka pot, and feeling my mind sharpen while my body stayed steady in fat-burning mode. There’s a certain calm that arrives when you’re not constantly thinking about your next meal — when your body stops craving sugar and starts using stored energy instead. But I never wanted fasting to turn me into someone who lived in isolation or someone who said no to life just to stick to a schedule.
So I allowed myself to be human. On days when I played padel or went to hot yoga, I broke my fast after class with a barista-made oat-milk coffee, usually as part of a small social gathering. I’ve always enjoyed coffee with milk more than black coffee, and that cup became a little ritual — a way to honor my body for showing up, moving, sweating, and taking care of itself. And when friends invited me out for lunch, I said yes. My social life is important to me, and I never wanted fasting to make my world smaller.
And this is also where my 24-hour fasts naturally came in. Life happens — dinners with friends, gatherings at someone’s home, meals I didn’t cook. I’m not the kind of person who shows up at a friend’s table and says, “Sorry, I’m fasting.” If someone prepares pasta, I eat pasta. If the evening ends with bread, dessert, and wine, I enjoy it. There were nights when dinner stretched past 20:00, and instead of stressing about it or trying to undo it, I simply let my body reset the next day. A 24-hour fast after a bigger or later meal helped me stay balanced without guilt, restriction, or awkward rules around other people.
Most importantly, I always kept the evening meal with my kids open. Sharing that meal is one of the most meaningful parts of our day, and I would never trade it for a fasting schedule. With that in mind, the general rule of thumb: my eating window is between 13:00 – 20:00. Everything else, I keep flexible — letting my fasting rhythm fit around my life, not the other way around.
Should I Skip Meals?
There’s something important I want to acknowledge here. In my other article, Healthy Weight Loss After 40, I talked about the Harvard lifestyle medicine principle of not skipping meals — especially breakfast — because, for most people, regular meals help stabilize appetite, blood sugar, and energy. That guidance is scientifically sound for the general population.
Intermittent fasting is different. It’s not “skipping breakfast” in the chaotic, unplanned sense; it’s a structured eating window backed by its own body of research. And while it isn’t ideal for everyone, it has worked exceptionally well for my body in this season of life. I see it as an evolution of my wellness journey: I still focus on nourishment and balance, but I now incorporate timing as a tool. This approach wouldn’t have been right for me in every chapter of my life — but right now, it’s exactly what my body responds to.
What to Eat: My Low-Carb, Keto Diet
After understanding the eating window that fit my rhythm, the next step was paying attention to the food that actually nourished my body. Not all “healthy” foods work the same for everyone — what feels like a superfood for one person can be irritating or heavy for another. So the most important principle for me was: listen to your body.
I naturally leaned toward a low-carb, keto diet of eating. My choices stayed close to whole-food, plant-based meals: lots of vegetables, some seafood, the occasional portion of chicken or lean meat, and very minimal processed carbs. I guess you could say I’m a flexitarian — nothing strict, nothing militant, just more conscious choices that supported the way I wanted my body to feel.
Do I eat dessert? Yes, of course. Life is short. But I eat it mindfully. Dessert wasn’t forbidden; it simply wasn’t the first thing I used to break a fast. I always started with real food — salads, proteins, and whole ingredients. Once my body felt nourished, the sweetness landed with far less impact. My glucose stayed more stable, and I didn’t get the same spike-and-crash feeling I used to.
And of course, when I say “dessert,” I mean a piece of cake… not the entire cake—balance matters.
Calories Still Matter
One thing I want to emphasize is that calories still matter. Intermittent fasting doesn’t magically erase the basic biology of energy balance. Quality matters more than quantity, but quantity still plays a role. I learned to give my body what it needs — enough nourishment to function (around 1,400–1,600 calories for me), without turning the eating window into an excuse to overeat. It’s about feeding the body well, not overwhelming it.
And of course, not all calories are the same. A cup of apple juice and an apple may have a similar calorie number, but they behave very differently in your body — one spikes your blood sugar quickly, the other gives you fiber, satiety, and slower absorption. Same calories, completely different impact. That’s why I focused on real, whole foods rather than chasing numbers.
How You Eat: Mindful Eating
In Nanani World, we’ve talked many times about the secret ingredient to a delicious and healthy meal: mindful eating. In simple terms, don’t chew your past (worry), and don’t chew your future (stress). Be here, now. Put your phone away. Slow down. Spend time with yourself and the people around you. Understand the food you’re eating, the intention behind it, and the way it makes your body feel.
For me, mindful eating was about eating with awareness. It meant tasting my food instead of rushing through it, noticing when my body signals fullness, and allowing meals to be a moment of connection rather than a source of distraction. It grounded my fasting practice and made every meal feel nourishing instead of impulsive.
Mindful eating also helped me avoid overeating during my eating window. When you truly pay attention to your body, you naturally make choices that support it. You enjoy what you eat, but you also know when to stop.
Further Reading
Results
Final Note:
This journey reflects my body, my rhythms, and what worked for me in this season of life. Everybody is different. If you’re considering intermittent fasting, a low-carb approach, or making meaningful changes to your eating habits, I genuinely recommend speaking with a nutritionist or healthcare professional — especially if you’re on medication, have underlying conditions, or are unsure where to begin. Your health deserves personalized guidance.
