Intermittent Fasting

I also attack my weight problem from the angle of intermittent fasting. What is intermittent fasting, or IF?? It is simply a way of eating where you eat within a specific time period and fast the rest of the day.

You may be surprised to realize that you already fast intermittently every day of your life, if you are like most people. You sleep, right? Well those hours that you are sleeping, you are also fasting. If you go to bed at 10pm and wake at 6am, you've just fasted for eight hours. A person can extend their fasting time on either or both sides of their sleep hours. Stop eating at 7pm and don't have breakfast until 7am and voila! you've fasted for 12 hours. It's an easy eating method that can provide serious benefits for many people.

Personally, I usually eat on a schedule called 16/8. I fast 16 hours per day and limit all of my eating to an 8 hour period. I usually have lunch around 12:45pm and dinner around 6:30pm.  Some days I eat 18/6 and some days I eat 23/1. This is often easily accomplished because I am fat adapted. See this post for more info:  Fat adaptation  I am burning ketones, which are available in abundance due to the amount of fat I still have on my body.  Because I don't rely on sugary/starchy foods for energy, I don't feel hungry during my fasting windows.

Dr. Jason Fung, a kidney specialist in Toronto, Canada is an expert who thought outside of the box when it came to treating his diabetic patients.  He realized that the problem for obese patients was insulin.  Insulin is a fat storage hormone.  Too much insulin and all your body (well, mine at least) does is store fat.  So, how do we get our bodies to not produce as much insulin?  Stop eating. This will encourage our body to start using the stored fat, rather than continuously storing fat.  It's that simple.  Here is a section of a presentation that Dr. Fung gave that describes how MY metabolism works, starting at 8:42:

What are the benefits of intermittent fasting?  Well, it depends on the individual.  For me, I have experienced greater mental clarity, better ability to concentrate, improved fat burning, more energy, and body fat loss.

Dr. Fung's website is Intensive Dietary Management Program.  I highly recommend you check it out, even if you aren't obese. The IDM blog is chock-a-block full of information on the benefits of fasting, often in easy to understand language.  There are scores of lectures and interviews available on youtube.  I find this interview particularly helpful and well worth an hour of your time.


If you have any questions, please get in touch and I'll do my best to help you out.

Life Changing

Fat Adaptation.  

It has simply been a life changer for me. 

What is fat adaptation?  Fat adaptation is a way of eating that encourages your body to use its own fat as fuel rather than sugar.

Disclaimer:  I am not a scientist.  I am not a doctor.   I am a woman who has educated herself on what it takes to shed her body fat.  Just because this works for me does not mean it will work for you.   

Macronutrients

Let's start at the beginning.  There are three types of foods, or fuels, you can consume and they are called "macronutrients."  They are:

• Protein
• Fat
• Carbohydrate

Protein consists of the building blocks of most parts of your body.  Your skin, hair, nails, blood, organs, bones, enzymes, hormones and muscles are all made of proteins.   Protein consumption is essential to humans, as our bodies cannot create all the component parts of protein on our own.  You must consume protein!  Examples of dietary protein are animal meat, dairy products, eggs, nuts and some beans.

Fat consists of, well, everyone knows what dietary fat is.  Examples include butter, cream, olive oil.  Believe it or not, fat is an essential nutrient for you to eat.  There are some types of fat that our bodies require that our body cannot produce on its own.  This is true for even the most obese people among us.

Carbohydrates are compounds that include grains, sugars and vegetables.  The body breaks down most carbohydrates into glucose, or sugar that the body can use to feed its cells.  Glucose is the primary fuel source for all the bodily functions for those people who eat the standard American diet (SAD).

For many people, myself included, this has led to a lifetime of obesity.  Why?  Because every time you eat carbohydrates, your body is swamped with glucose.  If you don't immediately need all of this energy, that glucose is stored as body fat.   If you eat carbs at every meal, every snack, every day, every month, every year, many people will become obese.  They can't help it.  Their bodies are not capable of processing all the sugar.  

It doesn't have to be this way.  Your body can get it's fuel from a different source.   All of that stored body fat can become the fuel your body needs.

How can you make this happen?  It's really simple.  Eat less than 25 grams of carbohydrates per day.  Period.  That's it.  This change will cause your body to adapt to burning body fat as fuel.  This is fat adaptation.  It is also called a ketogenic diet, or LCHF (low carb high fat).

Cut the junk

You will need to cut out all processed foods, all grains and all sugars.  You must go hardcore.  Purge your refrigerator, cabinets, pantry and freezer of these offensive foods.  For a great beginner primer on what to eat and, more importantly, what not to eat, Vinnie Tortorich, a celebrity personal trainer, offers an excellent free resource entitled, "Intro to NSNG."  You can find it here: Intro to NSNG

Fat adaptation can have many benefits besides weight loss.  In fact, this way of eating has been used for decades as a treatment for epilepsy (Epilepsy Society recommended diet).  Personally, I have experienced a drop in blood pressure, a drop in A1C levels, and an increase in energy.  Of course, I've also dropped a lot of weight.  After seven months of being fat adapted, my body has shed seventy pounds.  This is mainly due to the fact that by cutting out most carbohydrates, my cravings for them have disappeared.  This side effect is absolutely priceless and has enabled me to keep going without much effort.

Our ancestors likely were fat adapted.  Humans only ate when they found food - they went days without it.  They certainly did not have three meals and two snacks per day.  They did not constantly deluge their bodies with sugar, as the SAD does.  They survived without sugar and thrived.  Our existence here today is evidence of that, right?  So it makes sense that many of us would likely benefit from a similar way of eating.  I am just one example.