What?

Fasting is the willful refrainment from eating. In a physiological context, fasting may refer to the metabo- Jesus Flippin Christ Wikipedia how hard it is to say "not shoving food in your face constantly"?

 

Why did I start?

My journey with fasting started in 2018. At the time, I just wanted to lose some weight and I didn't really care about any of the other benefits that come with fasting. And it was one of most goddamn effective methods for losing weight (more on this later).

 

I'm not gonna lie, it was a really hard at first, especially for someone who was used to shoving food in their mouth immediately after waking up. And I mean, immediately. Ok what text formatting effect should I use to tell you what I mean by IMMEDIATELY.

 

I M M E D I A -

 

Ok, you got it.

 

I spent most of my life eating breakfast during the first 15 minutes of the day. Why? Most people do it this way, I guess? shrug

 

Wake up -> Immediately shove heavy carbs in body -> Step on scale -> Pikachu face -> Feel tired and crappy and the day hasn't even started -> Heeey it's lunch time -> I need a snack -> Fml I'd kill for some sweets -> Did somebody say dinner? YES SIRRR -> Midnight sweets? SIGN ME UP -> Go to sleep -> Wake up -> Repeat.

 

Worst. Cycle. Ever.

 

My mom was always amazed by our breakfast habits and she couldn't understand how can we eat that early.

 

However, her breakfast was usually black coffee and a cigarette (to her credit, she quit a looong time ago), so it was not the best example to follow for a 5yr old.

 

"Ma, I'm skipping breakfast but I cannot find a goddamn lighter in this house" - 5 y.o me in a parallel universe

 

It runs in the family

When me and my sister were sleeping over at my grandma's place, she would get up super early and watch like a hawk. If any of us made the slightest movement, and I mean the slightest movement, the S L I G H - (ok let's not do this again) if you made the slightest movement she was like:

 

• GOT YA! You're waking up. Time for breakfast motherfucker!!! throws 3 eggs in a pan with a ninja move
• But grandma, I haven't even brushed my teeth or read the latest stock market new-
• You're awake. Time for breakfast. End of story.

What was I saying? Ah yes. Changing my eating habits after 25 years of eating super early in the morning was really hard at first. Now, after my metabolism got used to it, I cannot even imagine to eat early in the morning and the feeling of "lightness" is amazing. My fasts easily extend beyond 16hrs (usually from 18 to 20hrs).

 

I recently did a 24h fast and I didn't even think about food (but it took me ~3 years to get here)

 

What can you consume during a fast?

• Water
• Coffee
• Tea

No additives, no honey, no sugar, no milk.

 

Maybe fasting can help you to start drinking actual black coffee instead of that StarbucksFrappucinnoMarhsmallowChocolateHoneySyrupDoughThing that's literally a cake.

 

That's it. And it's so great. I got so used to this that I cannot even imagine putting food in my mouth for the first 4 hours of the day.

 

The benefits

• Less wasted time on cooking (because you're always skipping one meal: breakfast or dinner)
• You have only 8 hours to eat during the day (so you cannot shove that many things in)
• If you eat very late, you cannot eat very early, so you start planning things and you're not saying yes to anything that resembles food at any time of the day
• After 16 hours, the body starts "eating itself" (Autophagy) so weight loss is one of the benefits
• Yes, you can workout and you'll be 100% fine. I've done 5K and 10K runs, swimming, weight lifting, the Insanity workout program, and a bunch of other workouts without a problem.

Losing weight

Fasting can be a double-edged sword when it comes to weight loss. When I started fasting I was just looking at the clock and as soon as the fasting was done, I would devour as much food as possible. It took me a long time to adjust to the fact that I don't have to eat everything in those 8 hours when I'm not fasting.

 

I dOnT nEeD aN aPp fOr fAsTiNg

I rated the strength of this habit an 8 instead of a 10, even though I'm doing this regularly for more than 3 years. Why? Because I screwed it up a couple of times when I decided to freestyle instead of using an app.

 

Whenever I have convinced myself that I'm doing so good and I don't need an app anymore, I would start messing up and saying things like:

 

• Eh, I can eat half an hour earlier…
• Do I really need to fast at least 16 hours?
• Today is Sunday, which means fasting is cancelled!
• furiously googling to find opinions of how fasting will literally ruin your life and steal your pet turtle

Now I'm back to using Zero and hopefully I won't uninstall it again.

 

As soon as I finish my last meal I start a fast from my watch as soon as possible. I keep a complication (apple's dumb term for a widget) on my watchface so I can see the progress all the time.

 

If I fast without using an app I can just push around the start and end time of the fast depending on how I feel, which misses the point of fasting.

 

Fasting taught me a lot about discipline and commitment.

 

When I get a temptation to eat but I have already started a fast, it's totally different. I can glance at my watch and remember that I committed to it to this and there's no going back.