Fast & Feast
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It’s a sunny December morning of 2012 in the Rocky Mountains of Park City, Utah and I am headed off to my free ‘Well Visit”, my first. In March, I turn 40 and it’s been 10 years since my Dad and 7 years since my Mom both had cancer, chemo, and surgery. Luckily, they are still kickin’ it back home in South Carolina. Dad turned 70 on Labor Day weekend 2018. At home, my scales registered at 185 pounds, but at the Doctor’s office I weighed in at 202. For someone who is 5’ 10”, that’s 40 pounds overweight, again? I am a fat vegetarian? How? How can I be toting around an extra 140,000 calories? That was 7 years 40 pounds, ago. I lost 40 at age 40 with primarily one tactic, one change. I switched from 3 squares to Intermittent Fasting (IF)
I know most people’s first response to fasting is…”I could never do that!!?!” Copy that. We all are different, but that is mostly in what we can wrap our minds around...our mindset. We have been brainwashed to believe that, ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’. Now, I am not saying this is not the truth, I am just telling you that when you break (your) fast is more important than what you eat. Or, when you eat is more important than what you eat. That maxim is to a point as common sense must prevail. Fasting and still eating junk is not optimal for anyone. Choose your timing and foods wisely.
Please note that IF is not water fasting. It can be, but its called underfeeding and overfeeding. I call it ‘Fasting and Feasting’. Our bodies need to experience both.
Mentally, we all may be different from one another, but the science of weight loss and getting our bodies to burn fat is exactly the same. For all of us, insulin has to be low enough to send the signal to burn fat. High insulin and the signal is fat storage.
What spikes insulin? High glycemic foods, stress, and poor sleep habits. Since this is about fasting let’s focus on food. Dr. Mindy Pelz has a 7 min 11-second video that explains this perfectly. See link below. She says that if anyone eats a high carb food and spikes insulin it will take 13 hours before your insulin will be low enough to send the signal to burn fat. For instance, if you have pasta for dinner at 8 pm (insulin spikes) and then have a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast (insulin spikes) at 7 am that’s 11 hours in between, no fat burning. Then you have lunch at 1 pm (insulin spikes) with a 6-hour break with no snacks. Dinner again at 8 pm. If this pattern repeats each and every day then your body will not get to that 13-hour point. That is unless you are in ketosis or on the Keto Diet, but that is another post for another time.
Back to my story, 7 years ago I was 40 pounds overweight and started to workout again with P90X. Over the first month, I lost 10 pounds. At that time I was a food & beverage director at a hospital in Salt Lake City. One day I was talking to the marketing director for the bariatric doctors and the conversation lead to weight loss and how our diets are 70% to 90% of the equation. To lose weight all I did at this point was to start working out harder than I should in an attempt to beat this into submission again. That very day I started reading a diet book that a friend had gifted me titled ‘The Warrior Diet’. The very next day I started on a 20 hour underfeeding and 4-hour feeding window regime. Not that easy, but rewarding. The very next week I lost 7 pounds. This was without changing what I ate, just when I ate. Starting at 202 and ending up at 161 just months later with 75% of the weight loss with IF.
The benefits of fasting are much, much more than weight loss. There is increased energy, mental clarity, cognitive enhancement, autophagy, longevity and possibly stem cell production
If you are interested in fasting I suggest consulting a doctor... Remember, I was working in a hospital and had 2 -Ph.D. dietitians who reported to me. I asked lots of questions and was monitoring everything.
There are several styles of fasting
- 16/8 or 16 hours fasted and 8-hour feeding with 2 meals normally. This fits perfectly with no breakfast or skip only one meal.
- 20/4 or 20 hours fasted and 4-hour feeding window. Some call this ‘One Meal a Day’ or #OMAD or The Warrior Diet
- 5:2 or 5 days be mindful of your calories and 2 days cut calories to 25% of your normal intake
- Alternate Day Fasting or Eat. Stop. Eat by Brad Pilon
- Extended Water Fasting - See the Book ‘The Complete Guide of Fasting’ By Dr. Jason Fung
- Bulletproof IF - Bulletproof is a brand created by Dave Asprey. I will be careful not to infringe. This will be very similar to 16/8 but adds a bulletproof coffee or 2 that contains butter and MTC Oil. This is what I use for maintenance status and the cognitive boost from the MTC’s as these Medium Chain Triglycerides convert into ketones quickly and pass the blood-brain barrier.