Is fasting strict?

I used to think that I can’t do fasting because it is so strict.

Now I love it because it is so flexible I eat whatever I want whenever I want it and I also fast at least 18 hours a day. Listen here to find out exactly how flexible it can be.

You can learn more about how flexible it is on Jackie's podcast here.

Jackie from Intermittent Fasting Foodie has inspired me to try OMAD or eating one meal a day and i am loving it so far!

Gin Stephens is the other awesome lady who inspired both of us, check out her book Delay, Don't Deny and her other book Jackie from Intermittent Fasting Foodie has inspired me to try OMAD or eating one meal a day and i am loving it so far!

Gin Stephens is the other awesome lady who inspired both of us, check out her book Delay, Don't Deny and her other book

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Hey guys, how's it going? It's Friday here and I wanted to do some shout outs. I wanted to say hi to all of you listening from these places. So my mom, my mom is listening. So you're number one here on the list, mom, London, Ontario. Hi to people from Tempe, Arizona. Hi to you from Stockholm. Hi to people from Coventry. Hi to Puerto Vallarta. Ooh, lovely. Hi to people from Calgary. Woo-hoo. This is where I'm at, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Hi to people from Connecticut, Mansfield Center. Hi to everyone from Denver, Merida, Yucatan. Wow, a couple people from Mexico. Awesome. And, of course, hi to you from Frankfurt, Mexico. Main Hesse. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Frankfurt. So thank you guys all for listening. There's a lot more of you, but this is just kind of the top. the top list. So I'm so happy to have you here. And I am going to tell you more about fasting. If you're really, if you're kind of curious about it, this is what keeps me doing it right now. And this is what didn't work for me previously when I tried fasting and it is flexibility. So Thanks to Jackie, and I've referenced her in my other episodes, and I'm going to link her in this episode, but thanks to her, I now can really customize it and practice being flexible, even though my mind really wants to solidify everything once and for all and just say, this is how we're doing it forever. Done, decided, certainty, and moving on. But As life is, nothing ever stays the same. And I keep learning about my body, about how my hormones are working through my cycle, about how I can work around my family, et cetera, et cetera. So I keep having to readjust and to be flexible. with my fasting. And I want to tell you about it because previously when I've tried fasting, the way that I was introduced to it was super rigid. And if you have experienced that as well, if you've seen people talk about it online or anywhere else, you maybe have noticed that the way that the fasting options are presented is always in these super specific numbers, first of all. For example, they would say you can fast for 16 hours and eat for 8. Notice how it's just like not 16.05 or not 16 hours and 30 minutes. It's like 16.00 and then 8.00, right? So Just my personality perceived it as if it has to be that rigid, and of course it doesn't. And it seems silly to realize that now, and it seems obvious to me, but it wasn't back then, for many years actually. And so that's what really, I couldn't really stick to it because... I never took the chance to customize it to myself, to listen to my body and eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. And so whenever I would do it, it didn't feel good. I was always trying to fit myself into this mold. And so if you are like that, I wanted to just kind of share with you some of the different things you know, variety, different days of fasting that I've had over the last bit and just give you an idea of what flexible kind of fasting schedule looks like. So for example, I'm just going to pull up my schedule. So today I've only fasted for 13 hours, which is Very little for me. I would like to get in more about 16 to 18, 19 hours. But again, as I said, I have been experimenting. And actually what happened this week is that one day I had a lunch, like a late lunch, but I didn't have a big enough lunch to sustain me. So I ended up being really hungry by the evening, which I normally don't get. If I get a good lunch, like I really feed myself well, I am good. I'm set. So I didn't do that that day, and then I was hungry. So then it kind of affected the rest of my day. So I ate late one day, and then the next day I was more hungry, or I tried to fast later. And so one day was 13. Yesterday was 13 as well. Before that, I had 22 hours. So that was a long fast for me. And I think that's after that one, I didn't feed myself properly. So the day before that, I had 19 hours. The day before that, I had 17 hours. And these are all like rounded up numbers. But in the reality, they were like 17 hours and 22 minutes or 19 hours and... well you know 10 minutes or nine minutes whatever they're like totally random times because I again do it approximately and I decide to break my fast when it works for me and I was just actually talking to my mom about it and she's been doing that for many years actually already her my dad and that's exactly how she does it she approximately eats her first meal around 10, 11, or 12, and then her second meal around 5, 6, or 6.30, around like that. That's when they eat. And so I feel like such a winner just discovering this now, being this flexible, but I could have just copied my mom and have done that, tried that earlier. But of course, we all have to come to it on our own time, and that's why it works when it does, because we have to experience it on our own, at our own time. So And then on the weekend, I had a 16 hour fast, 18 hour fast, 20, 21, 20, 20, 20, 18, 16. So as you can see, every single day, my number varies. And that's so awesome. And that just, that I have to keep reminding myself. And so I'm sharing with you that this is a lifestyle and we can be flexible with it. So even if I say one meal a day, It can be a four hour stretch where you eat, right? It doesn't have to be a, you know, sit down, eat and be done. Or it can be a six hour window on the weekend or eight or longer if you need to, if your body's telling you. Or if you've had a full weekend full of eating, you can really enjoy a 22 hour fast like I did on Wednesday, right? And that could feel really good. So, so far, I've done now 49 days of fasting, which is a lot. But what I'm finding is mentally, when I do a longer fast, I really, really do enjoy it. I feel good. I love knowing how my body's repairing itself, how it's burning all the extra fat, how it's resting and all the things. And Sometimes I don't even want to eat because I'm like, I'm feeling so good. It feels a shame to eat. But I do eat because I don't want to overdo it. I don't want to go too far. But often what I've noticed is that after a long one like that, I do want to eat more for the next day. So that day I eat, but then the next day again after a fast, I want to eat more.

UNKNOWN: 8:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 8:32

And whether it's mental kind of scarcity or whether it's my body is just actually trying to, you know, get more food. That's what I've noticed with myself. And I am trying to honor that. I'm just saying, OK, if you want to eat, eat. But I do love, again, how. We can have the best of both worlds where we get that awesome fasting window, where we get to rest and burn the extra fat and heal, and then we can really feast. And that's the other book. I actually now remember the title, as I didn't mention in the other one. I linked it. The book is called Fast, Feast, Repeat. And I love it because I love the word fasting because I associate that with... a rest from eating, using up all your stored energy. And I love the feasting because I really do want to feast. After I've been fasting for however hours, I want to just eat all my favorite foods and the bread and the cheese and the veggies. I do usually start it with the veggies and the meat and And then dessert at the end. And I love my tea. I love tea with lemon. Or I actually made a blackcurrant jam recently. My friend and I went to a farm and I bought some frozen berries there. And I made black currant jam. So this was huge when I was little, when I was in Russia. And we had black currants, I remember, and that's just a taste of my childhood. So if you're Russian, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not, I can't tell you. It's very yummy. So I made that jam, and sometimes I mix it in with tea. And I also put it on bread with butter. Oh my God, that's delicious. So back to the fasting flexibility. This was the missing piece for me to get to from not fasting to fasting. It really, really, really helped me to... to fast as long as I have, 49 days. That's a long time. And I feel my body changing. I feel my waist shrinking. And I've also been, you know, building muscles. So I feel my body changing from that. So I feel my body changing shape, not necessarily as much weight, but my bum is getting like firmer and my waist is getting smaller. So I remember my personal trainer telling me that that's a good thing. You know, we're burning fat here and then we're building muscle there. So the flexibility, yes. If you are on the fence and want to try it, if you are curious about the health benefits, there are numerous, numerous, numerous health benefits available. And there's many, many different stories. Actually, I would just recommend you go listen to Fasting Foodie podcast. And she interviews people like you and I who fast and they tell their story of fasting and their life and how they came to it and their progression. And I love listening to that one because they share all their stories and they're all different stories. And the benefits are all different and how they came to it is all different. But they all share the same love of fasting and of food. And that just makes me feel like I belong to a vast community of fasters. And it is normal to fast because, you know, when I look around people I know in everyday life, not many people fast. I don't know why. anyone actually who fasts in my everyday life, but I do know in that community and vast community all over the world is a lot of people are fasting and enjoying the benefits. So I would highly recommend you go check out her podcast. So flexibility is something that can really serve you. And I know even some people when they fast, their one meal of the day is in the morning. Okay, other people have heard they do two meals a day. One lady does morning and lunch. This one lady actually I do know one one mom from school I met her a while ago, and she Didn't call it fasting. You know what she said? She said, I just eat once a day. And she was actually kind of shy about it. Not really wanting to share it because it's not really that well spread yet. I guess it's not, you know, some people may be concerned about her health. But she said, yeah, I am not a big eater. I just eat once a day. And she was eating about 3 p.m., 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And she looks and looked fantastic. And And I said, you look amazing. Like she looked healthy. She looked like a healthy weight and not overweight and just healthy. So there's just so many different options that we have to choose from. We can eat one meal in 10 minutes one day. The next day we can eat, we can still have like a shorter eating window of two hours. And that could be after 18-hour fast. You know, the next day we can have a... big eating window because it's the weekend and we want to enjoy a family breakfast and a lunch and a birthday dinner and then we Monday we can go back to having a longer fast and a one meal it's so flexible and I just I'm still adjusting to it and I have to keep reminding myself that I will adjust and I will change my plans and sometimes when I'm telling my mom what I'm doing I go I'm just hungry she goes well remember you decided to be flexible she's So just eat. And I go, yeah, okay. So I kind of forget that I decided that. So it's kind of funny how my mind just wants to pick one plan and just stick to it. But the reality requires, you know, paying attention and adjusting. All right, guys, check out all the links in my notes, in the episode notes. And shoot me also a note if you want to know more. I would love to chat with you about fasting. If you are a faster, I would love to chat with you and find out your story about it. And yeah, so enjoy. Have a great weekend or week wherever you are. And I will talk to you in my next episode. Bye. Love you.