try intermittent fasting

I woke up feeling good,
made my Supergreen whey
and oh gee! 2% milk and
banana smoothie, and drove
to town.

I like going to the store
in the morning – no one’s
there and the organic Peruvian
marching juice is fresh and hot.

I made my normal weird
purchases: distilled water
and plastic Ziplock storage
bags to pack my stuff in for
the trip to Oz.

“Hi!” I chirped to the
checker, “beautiful day!”
(it’s raining and dark and
really windy). A bunch of
Jehovah’s Witnesses work
at the store and I always
try to get them to smile.

It’s hard though; monotheistic
religion is a mostly serious
business – not much room for
spontaneous joy – but I’m
praying for them.

))){

over the last two plus weeks and
here’s what happened:

1. I lost 7 pounds of fat. I’m normally 161 lbs – I’m
leaner and springier.

2. My skin is clearer and healthier and less florid. My
sweat is clean – just salty. No smell.

3. My eyes are brighter and my hair is glossier.

4. I’m more alert in the morning yet relaxed.

5. I run faster easier – more sub 6 minute mile pace intervals and quicker recovery time.

6. I’d say I sleep better but I don’t; I hardly sleep anyway – I average 4-5 hours a night. It may just be a high energy thing but sometimes I wish I could sleep longer. It just doesn’t happen unless I go run for 3-7 hours or something similarly heavy.

How I ate:

Every morning a whey, banana, 2% milk
and yogurt smoothie and a handful of
potent micronutrient multivitamins.

A light lunch – handfuls of sunflower
seeds, rice, stir fry, energy bars, a
tuna fish sandwich – essentially, small
servings. some energy gels if I felt sort
of faint or dizzy (low blood sugar) but
I never did actually feel weak or faint.

Yogurt and bananas or another whey/banana
smoothie for dinner or more stir-fry
(following Coupland’s model) very early in
the evening and lots of distilled water. If
I felt hungry later I’d have another small bowl of yogurt.

No processed food or high-fructose corn syrup. Not
even a little. No desserts.

So, I’m leaner, healthier, more alert
more relaxed during the day and my
blood pressure and pulse rate dropped
(especially in the morning).

))){

I decided to try this for a number of reasons: weight loss, health, more energy & convenience.

I work 12-9pm mon-thurs and hate eating late after work as I find it makes me sluggish the next day… so I stopped.
I eat a piece of fruit, some nuts and a coffee for breakfast.
Some fish with steamed veggies or an omelette for lunch
and a bowl of chilli for my break at 4pm
-so my fast is from 4pm to 8am the next day, not much of a fast I know but it still works really well for me if you look at what I get from it:
WEIGHT LOSS:
I’ve lost .5 lb of fat each week so far, while eating (& drinking) whatever I want fri-sun
HEALTH & ENERGY:
I haven’t felt hungry once while doing this and I’ve noticed much more energy and clarity of thought during my working week. Also I’ve had a better mental attitude toward enjoying food at weekends -not having to scrutinize food choices so much but really enjoying my 3 days of regular eating, especially my girlfriend’s Japanese cooking.
CONVENIENCE:
I usually get home around 10pm work days so I tend not to socialize on the days I work but come my days off I don’t want to think about limiting my choices or be weighing up what I can and can’t have… so I don’t. It’s easy, it’s not ideal but it seems pretty ideal for what I want. There’s a Stoic inside me that loves the restricted eating during the week and I actually enjoy getting back into it every monday, helped all the more by enjoying myself at the weekends. I also workout just before I start eating regularly on Friday and I love the feeling of focus I get from training on an empty stomach while feeding the workout afterwards and starting my weekend with a hyped up metabolism.
I wouldn’t claim this is the be all & end all of eating plans but it is very workable and very enjoyable… so far.

I found this off/on approach has worked well financially too. I’ve stopped spending any money mon-thurs and now only spend money on my days off.

So… the 2 day fast thing!

Yesterday had breakfast at about 8 and started eating this evening at about 6 – so that makes 34 hours by my calculation. If we factor in the inadvertent milk drinkage at 11 yesterday and the couple of vegetable crisps at 5 today (chiefy was threatening to have a drinks session, and I didn’t think that would be wise on an entirely empty stomach! it then didn’t materialise after all, phew) then it was 30 hours.

Either way, I skipped lunch and dinner yesterday and breakfast and lunch today. Today was much easier than expected. I genuinely wasn’t hungry at all. My stomach did rumble embarrassingly in the middle of a meeting but fortunately someone was talking at the time so I don’t think anyone heard ;)

This is working well for me at the moment – I feel good, it’s simple to follow and it’s helping me address my inherent greediness!

Now I just have to not eat everything in sight this evening, but am still not particularly hungry so it will just be a normal dinner. If only this would translate into some fat loss, I’d be even happier. Think I might alternate 24 and 36-ish hour fasts for the next few weeks to see what happens.

added milk to my 11 a.m. coffee, and then had a dreadful dilemma as to whether to drink it or throw it away. I drank it. Oh well!

I have been Biscuit Resistant today at least so it’s not going too badly ;)

Went all right. I didn’t eat between about 8.00 yesterday morning and 7.45 this morning – so almost 24 hours. Did have black coffee and tea and water.

Ok, I was in a foul mood for part of the day but I don’t really think that had anything to do with it.

The main reactions were: mental clarity – feeling sharp and alert – and boredom. It’s weird how not having lunch leaves a hole in the middle of the day and deprives you of something to look forward to. Even weirder is not having dinner and therefore having 5 hours stretching out in the evening with no focus. I’m pleased to say I got a lot done – some admin bits and pieces, some reading, some writing and some DVD watching, but there were periods of just wishing the evening would be over.

Am trying to decide whether to continue doing this. Initially I did it to prove I could. I also like it as a diet technique as it’s very easy to follow and also cheap! But it’s too early to say whether it will have any long-term impact. I think I’ll do it again next week and just go on a week-by-week basis.

decided to get on with this – today I skipped lunch and then mid-afternoon I suddenly thought, if I skip dinner too then that will be a 22 hour fast. With G being ill he’s not going to tempt me with open bottles of wine as would so often happen, so it’s a good opportunity.

The ebook I read on the subject said ideally one should do 24 hour fasts once or twice a week but as this is the first one I think 22 hours is reasonable. I did have a couple of liquorice sweets mid-afternoon before I decided to do it, so have cheated I suppose but never mind. They were very small!

The main thing stopping me from doing this before was the fear of feeling hungry. And I did feel a bit hungry this afternoon but it went away again. I’ve been drinking water with lime juice in which helps, and am currently feeling quite zingy and alert. Also doing it from breakfast to breakfast means I get to have the all-essential coffee in the morning (black coffee is allowed anyway, but I like milk in mine). So far so good!

in the concept of intermittent fasting for some time… the mainstream bodybuilder fat-loss sites (Tom Venuto, Will Brink etc.) tell you to eat 5 or 6 times a day which I find totally impractical. Now I have no desire to be a bodybuilder but I would dearly like to lose my spare tyre(s) ;)

I’ve been following the Paleo diet for about 8 years now with some cheats e.g. dairy, coffee and alcohol. I’m not perfect and I do succumb to carby treats from time to time (especially when socialising) but left to my own devices, I avoid processed foods as much as possible and I’ve noticed the following benefits:

• my year-round hay fever has gone away completely – I used to be on pills, nasal spray and eye drops but now I can’t remember the last time I went to the doctor
• I very rarely get colds. Basically the only time I get them now is after I’ve been on a conservation holiday and eaten lots of bread
• I haven’t had a new dental filling for years
• I feel much more alert
• I very rarely feel hungry

I do think Paleolithic principles are the right ones to follow based on evolution. My problem is that I eat (and drink) too many calories and IF could be a way of dealing with that.

There’s a basic guide to it here. I just need to pick a day to kick off and I might try to do it once a week for starters. Basically no breakfast _{I do hope coffee is allowed} and no lunch and then a fuck-off great big dinner ;)