Timing Your Eating

Today's Motivation

"EVERY JOURNEY BEGINS WITH A SINGLE STEP. BUT YOU'LL NEVER FINISH IF YOU DON'T START."


Take these steps today:


1) Ask yourself; where are you right now, at this moment on your journey

2) Accept where you are and where you need to be and begin the steps necessary to bridge that gap. 

3) Accept that you must take certain steps in order to reach a place of well being and make it fit your lifestyle. 

 

Meal Suggestions

Have you checked out your Pinterest board lately? Remember the key to sticking to better nutition is variety in your diet.  Goal? Pick a new recipe to try today!

 

What is Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting (IF) is eating pattern that includes periods of fasting and eating. Intermittent fasting does not specify which foods you should eat but rather gives focus on when you should eat them. I want you to start incorporating this type of eating pattern going forward. The key to personalizing this feature is to pick the regimen that you like the most when it comes to applying this principle. You have the option to do the 16/8, the 5/2 or the alternate day method. In addition to whatever method that you choose you will also do an intermittent 24 or 72 hours "weekend fast" either once a week or once a month. Keep in mind during all of your fasting windows you can drink calorie-free (hopefully primarily water and your health tonic which I will introduce later) beverages. **Remember if you are a diabetic please make sure that you have your PCP's or Dr. Kourtney's approval before engaging in any fast**

 

Why Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting helps increase fat loss and muscle gain. Additionally, intermittent fasting causes insulin levels to drop, stimulates cellular repair processes, reduces inflammation, and improves heart and brain health, amongst other benefits.


What are Your Options

  1. The 14/10 method (modified from the Leangains protocol) is the most popular form of IF for women. The reason why women should not fast longer than 14-15 hours (as opposed to 16 or more) has to do with hormonal balance--your hormonal balance is more severely affected as a women when you fast longer than 14-15 hours which is why fasting longer than this is not advised.  This option involves fasting for 14 hours, and then only eating during an 10 hour period (your feeding window) for example 10am-8 p.m. If you wake up later in the day (or go to bed later), you will want to adjust so that your eating period is always just 10 hours. So you eat during an 10 hour period, and then fast for 14 hours, and start over. There are no hard rules about the times that you must eat but once you decide on a schedule you will want to stick to it.
  2. The Eat Stop Eat method was developed by Brad Pilon and this method involves incorporating a 24 hour fast either one or two days per week, and then eating normally on the other five or six days. With this method you choose the days and times of your fasts but when you fast make sure you are not eating for a full 24 hours. When your fast is over you go back to eating normally. This method can be flexible for those who are finding it difficult eliminating the problem foods for PCOS that I will talk about tomorrow since it allows more time for digestive rest but if you are completely new to IF you may want to chose a pathway that has shorter fasting windows and then ease into this pathway.
  3. The 5:2 method is always referred to as the Fast Diet and involves fasting only on certain days of the week. With this method you don't ever completely abstain from eating--you eat normally on five days of the week and then restrict calories to 500-600 per day on the other two days of the week. For example, while following this method, you may eat normally on Monday, Wednesday,Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, but restrict calories on Tuesday and Friday. You chose the days of the week you fast, but you must incorporate a non-fasting day in between your fasting days. This method is one of the most researched with it proving to have a great success rate even for those who have difficulty maintaining a normal nutritional routine.
  4. Alternate Day Fasting can be done in two ways. The less common way is to alternate days of eating normally with days of complete fasting--very similar to Eat Stop Eat. The most common way is to do a modified version of this pathway is to eat normally every other day and eat approximately 1/5 of your normal calories on the remaining days. In this pathway there is also no restriction on what times you consume your calories during the day so if you work nights this pathway is built for you!


 How To Ease Into This

If you're new to all of this or you're used to eating five or six small meals or constantly grazing through the day it can be a big transition start IF. Keep in mind that you don't have to change overnight; you may be more successful if you ease into it. Start by transitioning from five or six meals a day to 3 normal size times meals. Don't force yourself to eat within a certain time window while you are just trying to get used to the habit of the 3 meal schedule. Although snacking isn't forbidden it can be helpful to try to eliminate snacks when getting started and as you get used to fasting you can incorporate snacks back in as long as they are during your feeding window.  

 

Once you've gotten the hang of the three meal schedule choose one meal to skip and commit to skipping it each day for a couple of weeks. It doesn't really matter which meal it is and you can always switch it up if it fits better with your schedule. You are just trying to get your body (and your mind) used to going without food for an extended period of time. Once you have gotten used to skipping meals then it's just a matter of working up to your fasting window. For example if you're going to follow the 14/10 method and you've decided your eating window is going to be between 11 am and 7 pm but you normally eat breakfast at 7 am start pushing breakfast back to 8 for a couple of days, then push back another 30 minutes for a couple of days or a week, and then another 30 minutes until your body is comfortable with waiting until 11 am to eat. By gradually pushing back the time it will help you ease into this transition mentally.

 

The next steps are to figure out which type of IF plan you want to follow and to find some new and delicious recipes to incorporate into your plan. Don't forget to spend some times on your Pinterest boards and save any recipes that you like so you have ideas at your fingertips. But remember during the intial stages (first several weeks) it will always be easier to keep things simple so choose recipes that are easy to prepare and make with easily accessible ingredients. Save the fancy,intricate recipes for your days off!

 

You may also want to scale back on your exercise routine as you ease into IF until your body has adjusted to this pattern or making sure that when you work out that you do so in the fed state (not while fasting). Once your body has adjusted (usually a couple of weeks) it should be no problem for you to go back to your regular routine. Keep in mind however if you are trying to lose weight that once you get adjusted to your IF plan you will lose more weight when exercising in a fasted state.

Now I want you to really take some time to think about your schedule? What rhythm will work best for you given your schedule? Please let us know which rhythm you choose to go with!

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