How Not Eating For 19 hours Feels

Doesn't not eating for 19 hours sounds so foreign and weird?  Sure did to me at first, but now I am beginning to strongly embrace it.  And breaking a fast (break-fast) with a bowl full of nuts tastes so good!

Here is what I am trying, how it feels so far and then let you can decide if you want to try it yourself.

I was unsettled with how my body felt before I started this journey.  I was squishy in areas that are stubborn for me, eating certain foods caused my brain to be foggy, I was napping on the weekends consistency, needed caffeine during a workday and was just plain frustrated.  I did not feel as good as I thought I should based on the focus I have with my personal health and fitness.

So I decided to try something new and tinker with my health plan.

When I first heard the concept of what is coined, "intermittent fasting" I was shocked.  I remember it clearly.  I was on a cruise ship at an all-you-can-eat very fancy dinner restaurant with friends and one of my wife's friends said dinner was the first food she had eaten that day.  Surely she was kidding right or being too strict with eating - or so I thought?  I later learned what she was doing was called intermittent fasting and it was very successful for her personal health story.  I dabbled with it a bit last year but it never stuck for one reason or another, but that was the start.

Basically the concept of intermittent fasting is going without food for an extended period of time then stacking all your eating within a short eating window. Not trying to cut calories, just eating quickly!  You can also do an alternate day fast (haven't tried that yet), where you only eat on alternating days or a longer term fast (haven't tried that either).  I have personally been going for a 19/5 split, so only eating during the 2pm-7pm window then fasting the remainder of the day.  19 hours off, 5 hours on.  Following roughly the outline established by Dr. Bert Herring (http://www.fast-5.com/).

The concept behind it is that in those 19 hours your body depletes its stored glucose and then switches to burning stored fat and your insulin levels stay low.

Fat is money in the bank, and I am asking the teller for a withdrawal.

I am only beginning to understand insulin and how it affects our bodies but when a doctor says, "If you keep your insulin levels low, chronic disease has a very difficult chance getting started."  I tend to listen and it makes a lot of sense to me from a logically health standpoint.  Fake foods which are processed and chemical constructed to be addictive with added sugar spike insulin and our bodies continue to fight, fight, fight against the sugar rush we are giving them.  Our bodies enter a point of "dis-ease" because we have not cared for them properly.

I am convinced that when God gave commands in the Old Testament and demonstrated in the life of Jesus that fasting & prayer are connected, that he actually knew what the most ideal way was for our bodies to operate.  Just now science and I are understanding that fasting can heal our bodies, our brains like running on ketones and eating a diet based on the whole and super foods God made is really the best life eating plan.

So I am 1 1/2 weeks into my intermittent fasting journey and here is what I have discovered so far.

1) I have not died...God designed our bodies to adapt and restore themselves! Down 5lbs also!
2) Day 2 is the worst, but day 3 makes you happy you did not bail on day 2 because of the new energy you have.
3) Eating lots of healthy fat (like nuts) does not get boring.
4) Stress is a food trigger.  It is MUCH harder to not eat when I am at home with 3 kids then it is at work.
5) I feel my body changing, definition forming and my energy level increasing.
6) It is freedom to not think about food for 19 hours.
7) It's ideal to be almost carb/sugar free before attempting fasting or your body will scream at you as it did me last year when I first tried it.
8) It is well worth the effort and time it takes to tinker.
9) It is hard to do alone, but not impossible.  Find a friend, spouse or colleague to do it with so that when you have to pass on that tray of bagels at work or just grab a coffee for lunch you have support.  Or join me and we can do it together.
10) You are a sample size of 1...just give it a try for 3 weeks like I am and see what you think.  All you have to lose is your addictive dependence on food and maybe also a few pounds, cause your body is burning those stored fat cells!

Keep following my journey over the coming weeks.