Amazing good job.
Did you count calories daily for a year and a half?
Longest I've lasted calorie counting is about 4 months. I've done that a few times, but just burn out in the end. It's too much logging everything daily, and obsessive, I'm thinking the ritual may even be disordered. It does work though!
My problem has been dieting while doing heavy training plans. You end up in a bad place and everything falls apart. Hunger spikes from going from low blood sugar to high are way more extreme when you're doing a lot of long hard rides every week while calorie restricting. Eventually you're doomed to fail.
I'm liking the fasting so far. Did 6 days this week at 16/8, and today I'm hoping to go for 20/4. It's more fun than calorie counting I'm finding and hunger does hit a bit at times, but it's not horrible ever. Insulin spikes after eating so far haven't been so bad that you just want to eat non stop. Stomach feels to fill much faster too, like it's shrunk or something.
Today will be interesting with the 20/4 though
Been thinking about long term.. I think 16/8 for me I could do (well based on my measly sample of a week), but @853 has been doing it for years and now regularly does 20/4s so who knows. Not really that many places online where you have cyclists fasting/IF for years on end. Lots of unknowns here.
I was worried about power so did a small test before dinner yesterday and power was excellent, was able to do a big 50 minute effort (picked ADZ on Zwift to test it as it's relentless). Body hasn't broken down yet, so so far so good, but I'm going to test it weekly on Saturdays because I know that when your body is starving itself it's unhealthy, and the first thing to go is higher end sustained power. Don't want to get into that mess again..