"Ah-Ha" Moments in Fasting

I am two months into experimenting with FASTING more than I ever have in my lifetime.

It's a very different mindset than I was ever used to. Growing up as an athlete you constantly think "EAT for FUEL & ENERGY". Right or wrong, that was the mentality;

Food = Fuel = Performance

The idea of skipping a meal (even if just by placebo) would make me feel crappy if I tried to play a sport with no food! "My tank is empty" would be all I could focus on and/or make myself believe. I felt weaker and less energy (so I thought .... )

Before I share about my first two months of experimenting here are a few reminders in regards to human beings and fasting:

- Humans have "fasted" throughout evolution (due to food being unavailable when we lived in nature or do to choice)

-Many religions fast (Ramadan for example is where Muslims fast for 30-days)

-Our bodies are incredibly efficient! However, the constant feeding of our modern lifestyles (due to the convenience and availability of food) can burden our physiology and not allow the natural work-recover balance of nature.

-Humans have feasted and fasted throughout evolution; Eating plenty at times, while at other times eating little to none.

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Fasting was a means for me (recently) to help with several aspects of health;

-Body compostion

-Mental clarity

-Energy maintenance

-Allowing the body to do it's thing naturally

-Stress management

It really took a long time of touching on bits of fasting information (including in my nutrition coaching certification) before I really decided to try it. "You're not going to starve or die" is the biggest thing we all need to remember. If the body was that weak, our species would be LONG GONE. Humans and our bodies are incredibly resilient.

Let's remember that FASTING and STARVATION are NOT the same thing:

FASTING - Is a choice. A period of time (in our modern world) where we CHOOSE to NOT eat (but can anytime). We have total control.

STARVATION - Is NOT a choice. This is when food is NOT available and we DON'T KNOW when our next meal will come. We have no control.

That fact / reminder alone helped urge me to give it a more indepth try and experiment with it. We're so out of touch with our bodies today, that we don't even truly understand what HUNGER is and quite often think that any little rumbling in our stomach means we're on the brink of starvation.

MY EXPERIMENT SO FAR...

My fasting has been "short" in terms of the grand scheme of fasting. 24hrs has been my longest fasts, which I've done a couple times. As daunting as it seems, remember that for just under half of that time period, you're sleeping. For example, a 24hr fast may be dinner time on a Saturday until dinner time on a Sunday. During fasts you can still have whatever you'd like to drink (tea, coffee, water etc) providing it has essentially no/minimal calories.

Fasting for anywhere from 12-24hrs (generally 15-20hrs most days I fast) has taught me a few things that I'm excited to share so far....

1) My cravings are more easily controlled. Almost on day 1, I found myself NOT "craving" food. As I've discussed with clients many times, much of what we do even when it comes to nutrition comes down to practice and habits. Often, I've realized how much of my "cravings" come from habit rather than ACTUAL cravings.

Part of this lesson while fasting I attribute to lesson #2...

2) You don't think about food as much. I was in "athlete mode" we'll call it most of my life. Meals + snacks. Eat throughout the day = energy throughout the day. I better understand now, that's not the case.

When you're not reaching for food as often, you suddenly don't think about it; less meals to prep, less decisions to make, less time THINKING ABOUT FOOD... Suddenly you feel a bit more at ease, with a bit more time on your hands. Mornings where I fast, I no longer need to get food ready and figure out what I want to bring to work to eat. I shower, grab a glass of water, grab my stuff and head to the studio because I'm not eating until at least mid-day after my morning client sessions.

3) The feeling of "Hunger" doesn't stick around and YOU'RE NOT STARVING. In our modern world, we don't listen to our bodies well at all. We don't understand what our body is trying to tell us. When you practice fasting, you learn how hunger comes in waves. You learn "that feeling" isn't always hunger even. You learn that you'll totally survive (and even forget about it). You begin to become less of a "slave to that feeling" which creates a sort of ease or even freedom in a way and you don't give it as much thought or attention (which allows your thoughts and attention to go to other things).

4) Eating seems easier to control and a stress reliever. As I'm finishing up a crazy busy 7-weeks as Head Coach of the women's soccer program at Loyalist College, there have been several nights on the road where I'm having "dinner" after 9pm (including our final game last night on the morning I'm writing this). In the past, I'd not only be thinking that's "so late for dinner" but I'd be getting up the next morning and having breakfast as per usual because "I'm supposed to". Then I'd stress about feeling off, foggy brain or unhappy with my body composition because I feel full or "blah" (because my body has been digesting food for the better part of the last 12-14hrs). With fasting, it eliminates that stress and those thoughts. If/when I eat on the road like that, I don't eat until (at least) mid-day the following day. It's automatic in a very short period of time. As silly as it sounds, it eliminates STRESS that I put on myself mentally and emotionally after eating late meals (or meals close together like that). It creates a little more flow and freedom to my days in that way and provides me with a greater feeling of control.

5) We've skewed our thinking of the human body. The body is WAY smarter than we recognize and MASSIVELY MORE RESILIENT. We're a bit conceided in that regard eh? The body never depletes it's energy stores (except perhaps in prolonged, extreme conditions). The idea that we need to be CONSTANTLY feeding ourselves is oversimplified and skewed modern thinking (very far from the natural state humans lived in throughout evolution). Sometimes humans went weeks without food during hunter-gatherer times. If our body depleted everything each day the way we believe, guess what? We wouldn't be here!

That's what our fat stores are for. Energy for later. Energy for if/when food is not available. The difference is in our world today, food is ALWAYS available. It's now up to us humans to DECIDE when we NEED food for the first time and in an amazingly small period in human history. We no longer have to hunt and gather. We have food available to us at almost every minute of the day in SO MANY WAYS. Food is convenient for us now. However, the convenience of food in modern society makes us lean towards the "always eating" scenarios, which is the opposite of how Mother Nature designed our complex physiology.

Which leads to the final lesson so far...

6) The body needs time to do it's thing. To go along with the last point, I've learned how fasting can allow the body time to "work it's magic". If we're constantly putting food into the body, the body ends up stressed because it's ALWAYS digesting food. It's an incredibly efficient system, but it's not meant to ALWAYS be on. Like anything in life, a work-recover balance is necessary for optimum function.

I think back to when I worked at my old studio in Belleville (25min drive from home) and would be in the studio for 5am most days. I'd be up just before 4am. After a shower, I'd make and eat breakfast (because "you should eat breakfast" - whether I was hungry or not) and my lunch for the day to take to work. Oh and don't forget snacks - because "I have to "fuel" between meals to keep my energy up" ya know!?

With my Nutrition Coaching certification a couple years ago and my current understanding surrounding the HOW and WHEN we eat, I look back on these times and better understand why my "fueling" actually was having the opposite effect on me then. I was tired, feeling run down, gaining weight, even more moody than now (it's amazing I still have clients LOL)... I was eating for 14-16hrs a day!!! Because after 4am breakfast, mid-late morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and often an evening snack or two my body was CONSTANTLY digesting food!!! Wow. My system/physiology was under CONSTANT stress with NO RECOVERY TIME! Unreal.

FINAL "FOOD for THOUGHT" (Bahahahah!!!!)

I'm NOT writing this post to tell everyone (or anyone) for that matter, to fast. I'm just sharing my lessons and experiences so far with fasting.

What I love about fasting is that there's so many ways you can approach it; as simple or as intense as YOU want / need. Like anything with our daily health practices, I truly believe it has to work for YOU, you need to LISTEN to your body and work within the confines of your CURRENT lifestyle, beliefs, abilities, knowledge etc and you need to keep it simple and non-stressful.

If you have underlying health conditions, I would NOT recommend diving into fasting without consulting a nutritionist or dietitian.

If you're generally healthy with no health conditions, there are many simple ways you can start slowly and ease into your own fasting experiments. Feel free to connect anytime and I'd be happy to chat and share some insights from my Nutrition Coach perspective and personal experiments.