Sunday 27 November 2016

Intermittent fasting

So I heard recently about this idea of intermittent fasting. And it just blew my mind!! Why? Because it's so simple and in line with what I'm trying to achieve.

When you hear a word "fasting" you probably have these images in your head of starving yourself, monks in a temple meditating all days long, anorexic girls etc. Intermittent fasting is nothing like that. 

There are 3 simple rules to follow:
1. You eat 8 hours in a day and let your body rest from eating and digesting for another 16 hours.
2. You eat only natural food (hence clean food).
3. You eat 2-3 meals a day.

Idea behind it? Let me put it in points again:

1. By not eating for quite long time during a day you allow your body to digest all food before you go to sleep. You basically go sleep with an empty stomach. And because your body doesn't need to work on processing food it can rest properly. Effect? You have more energy the next day you get up.
2. As you eat only natural food it is quick to digest and dense in nutrients  which gives you stable levels of energy during a day. Apparently with time you stop craving things that are processed in any way (including bread, pasta, dairy products) and you start craving fruits and veggies.
3. If you stick to the above rules you notice with time that you actually don't need as much food as you could think. We tend to overeat these days. Eating on emotions, bad habits, choosing "comfort foods" over good foods. Very often confusing huger with thirst or cravings. 
4. With time focus shifts from EATING itself to overall care of your well-being. Food has a great impact on how we feel (and so this is why it is so popular topic) but there is also stress management and spiritual growth. Body, mind and spirit - that's what we are. Not only a body. And any form of fasting actually forces you to get your mind off physical aspect of life and seek for something more. (Otherwise you would go just crazy thinking of food all the time).

I'm going to test this on myself. I'm so curious how this will work in practice for a person who works full time and does sports daily. And who has still struggles with some aspects of bulimia (i.e. tendency to obsessive thinking of food).

It's now 4 weeks to Christmas. I will use this time for this test and hopefully I will get a perfect Christmas presents that I can give to myself:
1. more energy
2. leaner body
3. feeling overall great and by that being ready to serve others and help them to achieve their goals.

I'm ready to go.

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