Intermittent Fasting

Four Plates for Breakfast!

Seriously 4 plates for breakfast and sometimes even more! But not the plates you may be thinking of. By 4 plates I am referring to my daily workout regimen and not food. So instead of eating breakfast I workout fasted and then eat my first meal later. This subject can sometimes become confusing to some and to others…very disturbing. Let me explain.

Intermittent fasting is often times turned off by the listener almost immediately when I just mention the term. Two reasons stand out to me:

1. The word “fasting” signals to the brain that someone is about to take away their social and almost what feels necessary activity throughout their day. Why do I see it this way? Well, because growing up we were always taught that family gatherings, parties, celebrations and so forth (although they had their main purpose) were going to turn into a time of eating. There would always be food and where there is food, there is happiness…lol! Please understand that I am not against gatherings or eating but have just come to see it a different way.

And...

1. We have always been taught that there are certain times of the day for each meal, as well as, a certain number of times we should be eating per day. Again, not completely true.
   I will touch more on these subjects as we go along.

BUT FIRST...WHY DO I INTERMITTENT FAST?

There was this moment when Chris and I were doing everything we possibly could to lose weight and regain our health. We tried everything. We even joined a fitness family (I say family because thats what they truly were and still are) called Palm Beach Fit Body Boot Camp. We were working out 3-4x per week, I was walking everyday to pick up our girls from school, we went on family bike rides on the weekends and we were eating clean (with a cheat meal here and there on the weekends). Scratch the cheat meal cause we learned that was also part of the problem. Our cheat meals were out of control…lol. But more so, the problem was the fact that we had no self control over our eating schedule. Thats exactly what it had become, a schedule. We were eating at the “appropriate” times as defined by society and sometimes force feeding ourselves without even knowing it because we weren’t really hungry to begin with.

We ate because we were told to do so. I began to test this on all of us. The girls would say they were hungry just an hour or two after eating breakfast and I would tell them to go play for 1/2 an hour and return if they were still hungry. To my surprise…they would never return! And in my disbelief I would go into their room 1-2 hrs later and ask them if they were ready for lunch. Sometimes it was a yes and more often it was a no. Then I would try to convince them that it was time to eat. I had to shake myself of this habit quick or we would just continue down the same unhealthy path and take our children along with us.

I no longer questioned them or Chris and I. My question became a statement. Now I was able to “tell” them to come and let me know when they were hungry and then they would eat. This is were Chris and I discovered Intermittent Fasting through our trainer.

It was explained to us that years ago when our ancestors had to hunt for their food there was no guarantee of a meal each night. And even if they did find food they often had to hunt ALL day before catching their 1 meal for that evening. They lived on what they could catch. Now, before you start asking any questions, I have heard the argument that they also did not live long. Well, considering that they had to hunt dangerous species, I’m more than sure this was the factor in many of the short lived lives. In all honesty, breakfast was pushed as the most important meal of the day by marketing experts when breakfast cereals were first being introduced. Hmmmm…kind of like every other diet trend out there. And this leads me to another great reason why we Intermittent Fast.

Intermittent Fasting is not a diet or fad (no matter how much the media pushes it for their own agenda). Intermittent Fasting is a lifestyle change for the better and here are my reasons why:

1. I’m not really hungry – I took on the advice of myself with the wait 30 min rule. I have this sign on my refrigerator that says “If you think you’re hungry, grab some water, tea or coffee and wait 30 min. If after 30 min you still feel hungry, eat a healthy, clean snack/meal”. It never fails! I never come back and often times realize that I didn’t even get hungry until somewhere near the dinner hour.

2. It helps me to overcome cravings for sugar – My biggest weakness is Ice Cream and Chocolate. I found that by Intermittent Fasting I was able to gain control of my self control. In the beginning I would try to get by with sugar-free chocolates. I learned real quick that they were not helping me but only temporarily satisfying my craving for the real thing and eventually I would figure it was ok to reward myself with the real thing. And…

AND...

1. It allows my body to tap into the fat that has been stored – for fuel rather than feeding my body to burn what I have just eaten. I read a much easier description several months ago and it goes like this “Intermittent fasting can help teach your body to use the food it consumes more efficiently, and your body can learn to burn fat as fuel when you deprive it of new calories to constantly pull from (if you eat all day long).” I will be sharing this article soon as it has so much great information to help you further understand this subject.

I will stop here for the sake of time and not causing overload. In my next post I will share with you how I Intermittent Fast and some of the changes we have seen. Subscribe to our blog so you can follow us to learn more. We will also post on our social media so make sure to click the links on our homepage. Keep Pressing Through!

Intermittent Fasting Part 2 – COMING SOON!