Ep #98 - Discomfort on Purpose: What a 7-Day Fast Taught Me

Brave, calm, and a little bit hungry. In this episode I share why I chose a 7-day fast and what sitting in deliberate discomfort taught me about control, calm, and getting life done without the constant rush. We talk practical planning (decisions made ahead of time = peace), how to meet urges with compassion, and why women should consider their cycle and hormones if they choose to fast. This isn’t about perfection or punishment — it’s about self-trust, clarity and creating ease on purpose.

In this episode:

• Why “discomfort on purpose” builds confidence (and how to do it safely)
• The mindset that makes fasting (or any hard thing) simpler
• Planning ahead so your future self has an easier day
• Urges, triggers and the skill of pausing without drama
• Women’s hormones, cycles and why context matters
• Kindness, always: doing hard things without the self-bullying

Take this with you:

• You don’t need to be comfortable to be okay.
• Decide once, support yourself often.
• Compassion beats willpower, every time.

Note: This episode is for inspiration only.  NOT educational and NOT medical advice. I'm purely sharing my experience. If you’re pregnant, breastfeeding, have a history of disordered eating, or any medical condition, please speak to your GP first before fasting. It isn't for everyone. 

If this helped, share it with a friend who’s feeling overwhelmed.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingWomensLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Transcript

Welcome, welcome to this week's podcast, and if you're watching me on YouTube, you can see I'm in a slightly different location.  Um, behind me is my… this is my dining table. I just felt… The urge to sit in my breakfast bar today and talk to you, so… Thank you for having me in a.  As you can see, not so perfect space. But this is what life is like.  Right? Life is perfectly imperfect. And especially for any perfectionists that are listening. sometimes perfect… seeking perfection can actually stop us living in the present.  And so… I think I might do a whole podcast on that some other time, actually. But today, I wanted to talk to you about discomfort.

And here's why.  I am currently… On day 6 of a 7-day fast. Which I think I'm actually going to make an 8-day fast. I haven't quite decided.

Um… I do need to decide, because I do think planning ahead of time.  and making decisions ahead of time is actually what gives us so much more control, so much more calm.  And much more peace in our lives. But I wanted to come and talk to you about my experience. Now.

Fasting will not be for everybody. Especially if you have a history of trauma around hunger.  If you have had. any sort of eating disorder or disordered eating.  This may be triggering for you to listen to, so please.

I invite you to listen to this podcast with so much kindness.  And a real tenderness to that part of you.  I discovered Dr Mindy Peltz. I think about almost 2 years ago now.  And I soaked… I just hoovered up and soaked up the first book I read.

by her, which was fast like a girl. I had always been curious about fasting. It had been how I lost a lot of weight.  a couple of years ago, two or three, well, 3 or 4 years ago now, actually.  Um, I did intermittent fasting, so I had always been curious about fasting.  But the way that she describes it is just.  fascinating. So, in the book, she goes into a lot of the science behind our female hormones.  Um, she describes estrogen, she describes testosterone, she describes testost- um, progesterone.

And she does it in a way that. really kind of is understandable. It's very easy to read, it's very easy to understand.  And as women, when it comes to fasting. and feeding, we have to do it in line with our menstrual cycle.  Now, for men. Fasting is really easy. They're literally only concerned about testosterone. That renews every 24 hours. So, for a man to lose weight, or to have health benefits, he could just intermittent fast every single day.  What I mean by intermittent fasting is having an eating window.  Of which you're going to eat. So, you know, between 12 and 6, so I'm not going to eat until 12 o'clock midday, and I'm going to finish eating at 6 o'clock. And I'm going to fast the rest of the time, for example.  And you could choose an eating window that suits you.  

Women, however. Our female bodies.  We have to approach fasting differently, so… Estrogen, for example. It needs fasting. Progesterone, however, we need to feed.  Progesterone needs carbs. So we can't have.  a standard, regular 24-hour process.

We have to be able to.  feed and fast in line with our menstrual cycle, and I have got very.  used to this process now because I've done it so often.  So, generally speaking, even if your cycles aren't regular.  actually eating this way could help your cycles become regular, and if you're interested to know more, please look up Dr Mindy Peltz, because she's incredible on this.

But generally speaking, the first 10 days of your cycle, so day one being your bleed, my husband's just walked in, hello.  Day one being your bleed. Um, the first day of your bleed.  10 days is when we can fast. Then we have 5 days of not fasting, so feeding.

You can intermittent fast then.  And then you can have 4 days of fasting again, and then the last 10 days, depending on when you bleed again.  we need to be feeding. And so there's this real process, and what happens is you learn about your body, you learn about your cycle, and I have to say, since eating and feeding, feasting and fasting this way.  My cycles have been… come a lot more regular.

I don't have such extreme. mood swings before, because I used to be really vicious before my period started.  That's lowered, it's still there a little bit, but that's lowered.  And I just feel healthier. So… discomfort.

This is what I wanted to talk to you about.  Because when you're fasting. As you can imagine, you get hungry.  And hunger is uncomfortable by design. Like, hunger is uncomfortable because that is our body going, hey, we need to go and get food.

So, that urgency to eat, by design, is made that way, because otherwise we would have just sat in our caves by the fire and not moved.  So we can… start to change.  our relationship around. hunger.  And the discomfort attached to it.

So here's what I do.  When I feel hungry, and my belly will rumble in a minute, you may even hear it if.  If the mic picks it up. I then think deliberately and consciously.  This is amazing.

My body now is going to dine in.  So it's going to go and eat the fat stores that I have in my body. That is how our.  brain… our brain and our liver, and I'm not an expert on this, so do your own research, but.  It takes about 20 minutes for the liver to register that we need energy.

And glucose is something that our body and our liver creates automatically and naturally.  But very few of us allow ourselves to go hungry long enough.  For the liver to kick in, produce glucose, which then gives us that energy spike.  So what we keep doing is going to the store cupboard and the fridge when actually we want to learn to dine in.  So I see when hunger comes, I think to myself very consciously, very deliberately.

This is amazing. I am dining in. The other thing that I think about.  is how my cells are rejuvenating and renewing. So, again, look up the science.

Mindy talks about this a lot in her podcast or in her books.  And… or just YouTube it. Google it, ChatGPT, whatever your go-to form is.  at a certain point in a fasting window, your body starts to.  eat itself.

But your body is really clever. So, it eats the old.  Diseased. imperfect cells.  First.

I can't remember the guy's name.  he… he wrote the Ultimate Guide to Fasting. His name is totally gone. If I remember, I'll put it in the show notes. And my husband, if you're watching on YouTube, has just eaten something right behind me.

What is it? Um, but you know, I have… and this is what I'm so grateful for, right?  I am able to sit, my mouth is now watering because my brain is thought of food.  Of course it has. And to sit in that desire to eat.

To be able to sit in that discomfort for the long-term benefits makes me feel like a fucking badass.  So when my family has sat behind me eating, or I'm even preparing the food, I can sit in that discomfort and not add drama to it.  And this is what makes us powerful. I am not suggesting for one minute that you do that through fasting.  I'm not suggesting that.

If you're intrigued. go and get support on it, come and talk to me if you want to.  But most of us are only ever avoiding an element of discomfort in our lives, and in avoiding that, we don't make our lives.  comfortable long term, because we drink all the alcohol, we eat all the processed foods, we go to chocolate to relax us.  And over time, it makes us feel.

So, avoiding that temporary discomfort makes us feel so uncomfortable in the long term.  And this is what I would really love to invite you to consider.  Not necessarily through fasting. But through whatever it is in your life that you're currently avoiding because you think it would be uncomfortable, is it saying no to somebody?  Is it, um, setting a really loving boundary with someone?

Is it looking at your finances and sitting down to budget from a place of abundance instead of shaming?  beating yourself up. Is it going for that. run, or doing that exercise, or going for the cold water swim. Is it sitting with the urge to eat.

instead of actually eating. It doesn't matter what your discomfort is.  putting your hand up in a meeting if you're in the office at work.  and you're thinking, oh no. they're going to think I'm stupid, I'll hold back.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Put your hand up. Voice your opinion.  You don't have to do that from… agitation or annoyance, you can do that from a place of real love.  set that boundary from a place of love.

Be willing to start loving your body enough to give it what it needs.  As in, nutrients. So I went off on a bit of a tangent. What was I saying before I got interrupted by my husband?  I can't remember, but if it comes back to me, I will… I will pick it back up again.

But… it's really incredible how. When you get comfortable feeling uncomfortable.  There is then literally nothing you can't do in your life or in your business.  Literally nothing. And it takes courage.

And it takes a willingness. to be uncomfortable.  And you really have to have a very compelling reason why you're doing it.  really compelling. So the reason I'm able to go through a 7-day fast.

is because I love the idea that my body is getting rid of the crap.  that when my… amazing body is going about doing its thing, it's eating away all the diseased cells, and it's eating away all the.  fat bits that I don't use, and it's… and it's really rejuvenating.  My body. Oh, that's what I was going to say.

So, in his book.  Oh, I can't remember the guy's name. there's… there's a claim.  that if everyone did a 7-day fast once a year.  It would eliminate a lot of cancers.

Now, that's a huge claim.  I have no medical proof to back that up.  But I'm really intrigued to see. if that's the case. In my older years.

Now, I… sat here today.  don't know if that's going to be the case.  But what have I got to lose? I'm in tune with my body, I'm checking my body.  I'm making sure that I'm drinking lots of water.

There are certain things that you can. have a small amount of that don't take you out of a fasted state, so if I feel you really feel sick and wobbly, I will have half an avocado.  And that keeps me going for the rest of the day.  And I feel like a badass for doing it.  It's the same with my cold water swimming.

As I'm walking to the river, my brain is literally thinking, Nikki, what the actual.  what the actual. And then I get out the river feeling so amazing because I've overcome myself.  And that builds self-confidence. But it takes a willingness to be uncomfortable.

And if you're constantly avoiding discomfort. You're never going to really be truly.  Comfortable, because life gives us. hard things to deal with.  Life gives us situations and events that are unfair.

That seem torturous, that. are full of grief and confusion and fear and self-doubt.  But when you learn the skill of being okay with all of that.  That gives you a real depth of. Contentment.

a really solid, grounded base at which life can be.  going to around you, but you've got yourself in whichever form that looks like. And sometimes that looks like sitting on your sofa and bawling your eyes out.  So this is what I've learned from fasting. It's okay to be uncomfortable.

And actually, the other side of discomfort feels amazing when it's done with a true.  purpose of why. So I hope that helps you today.  I'm sorry that I got distracted. Um, that's life happening, right?

And I hope that it inspires you, and gives you some form of comfort that life is not ever supposed to be perfect. It's not.  And listen, if you're curious about learning more about being uncomfortable to gain the life, the connections, the intimacy that you want with yourself and with others, please reach out to me and have a conversation. I would love to help you navigate through that process.  

Have the most amazing week and I'll see you all again next week.

Bye-bye!