When Mike Prytkov lost 44 pounds in a year, he took the extreme route.
Now, he understands his approach was unhealthy and unsustainable.
In 2017, the entrepreneur either had one meal a day or ate in an 8-hour window followed by a 16-hour fast, known as the 16:8 diet. He also did three 7-day fasts, when he only drank water.
He lost weight quickly, but the diet negatively affected his life.
“I tried to do some workouts, and I had zero strength,” Prytkov, 38, told Business Insider. “When the muscles are depleted of energy, just everything is hard.”
Eating so little food, he couldn’t get all the nutrients his body needed, and his strict routine affected his family and social life. “When everyone is having dinner and you’re not eating, it can create tension,” he said.
Then he had a body composition scan and learned that along with fat, he had lost 15 pounds of muscle mass. Muscle is essential for staying strong and mobile, and plays a key role in regulating metabolism.
Fasting meant he simply didn’t have the energy to fuel a workout or the calorie budget to eat enough protein, both of which are crucial for maintaining muscle mass — but he didn’t know it at the time.
“Now I understand that with better training and nutrition focus it could have been avoided” he said.
Prytkov focused on creating habits that would sustain both fat loss and support his long-term health.
“I worked with nutritionists, spoke with many people in the industry, and ran a lot of self-experiments to understand what works best for me,” he said.
Prytkov added more strength training to his workout schedule of mainly cycling and swimming, and ditched the extreme fasts.
Dietitians previously told Business Insider that following a Mediterranean-style diet, which emphasizes fresh produce, lean proteins, and whole grains, and eating around 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, is recommended for maintaining muscle mass, and supporting overall health.
By focusing on eating a balanced diet of mainly whole foods and his body composition over the number on the scale, Prytkov said he has kept the weight off for eight years. He founded Simple, an AI weight loss app, based on his experience.
He shared the three lessons he learned about losing weight sustainably.
1) There isn’t a one-size-fits-all fix for losing weight
Prytkov learned he needed to experiment to lose fat sustainably. It’s also OK for your weight, diet, and workout routine to fluctuate depending on your goals and circumstances, he found.
A person with a busy job and three kids will likely have less time to meal prep and go the gym as a college student, for example, he said.
“It showed me how individual the process is and how deeply it affects your entire life,” he said.
2) Healthy living is a life-long journey
Treating weight loss like a box you can tick off after 30 days of dieting won’t work in the long term, Prytkov said he learned.
“It’s a lifestyle rather than just a one-time effort,” he said.
It’s unrealistic for people to stick to extreme diets, so they don’t lead to long-term change.
Forming daily habits that help you maintain a healthy body weight and fit into your lifestyle is “the best thing you can do for yourself,” in terms of sustainable weight loss, Prytkov said.
He likes routine, so for him, eating the same breakfast every morning and working out most days, rather than two or three days a week, works best.
3) Prioritize the basics (sleep, nutrition, movement)
On social media, we are bombarded with information about how to optimize every aspect of our lives, but Prytkov said he learned that focusing on the basics is key.
“I tried a lot of approaches and realized that none of the ‘extras’ matter if the basics are missing,” he said.
It doesn’t matter how many supplements you take, how much cold exposure you do, or which biohacks you try if, for example, your sleep is poor, Prytkov said.
“People tend to overeat when they’re tired and sleep-deprived,” he added.
Research suggests that getting enough good-quality sleep, being physically active, and eating a nutritious diet are what make the biggest difference to the average person’s energy and fitness levels, mood, and body composition.
“If people would do just that without anything else, without any extreme workout routines or extreme biohacking protocols, it would do 95% of the improvement,” he said.
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