“The price of fasting is free.”
Ketocoaches
Having an autoimmune disease can be a real pain sometimes. I’ve recently been going through a flare-up of my Psoriasis. While psoriasis is a skin disease, the effects of it begin and end far beyond my skin. I do believe that food is medicine and I’m always adapting my diet in an attempt to manage my disease. Psoriasis is caused by chronic inflammation so lately I’ve been making an increased effort to reduce inflammation in my diet.
The other day I was listening to a podcast about inflammation and intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is essentially a shortened fast. We all fast while we sleep at night, but intermittent fasting takes it a step further. The fast I choose was 16 hours of fasting & an 8 hour ‘feeding’ period. Essentially I stopped eating by around 7pm at night and then started eating again the next day sometime between 11 and 12pm.
My experience? The first few days were great! I was really excited about my new health experiment! I felt like I was cleansing my body and giving it plenty of time to rest! But I can’t lie, a few days in and it was getting HARD. I’ve been practicing intuitive eating for years and I suddenly felt like I was actively working against my intuition. By the time I finally sat down to breakfast after 16 hours of nothing, I was weak and famished. I was SO hungry that I felt like I couldn’t fully the food which was finally in front of me! I realized that I was probably not eating enough calories since it was such a short window of time.
I’ve decided to take a more intuitive approach to intermittent fasting! Meaning, I still have days where I decide to fast in the morning and not eat breakfast till 11:30, but other days when I wake up hungry, I will eat! I still try to do 12-13 hours of fasting because honestly I’ve been doing that for years. I’m not a nighttime snacker and I usually prefer to eat a late breakfast, so that just works out for me. Bottom line? Listen to your body!
It’s all about balance… so while ‘intermittent fasting and I’ are no longer exclusive, I’m SO glad I tried it for a week. We learn something new everyday! 🙂
Have you tried intermittent fasting?
2 Comments
It’s great you tried IF but didn’t stick with it strictly when you noticed it wasn’t working for you. 16 hours are a long time!
July 1, 2018 at 3:53 pmFor me,it’s actually funny. Just a few months ago, I still thought of intermittent fasting as crazy, unnecessary and impossible to do long term. Now, I’ve been doing it for a few weeks and quite like it. Granted, I do 14:10 because I’ve heard it’s better for women (something about our hormones) and – let’s be honest 😉 – I just can’t go without food for 16 hours most days. And if I feel extremely hungry and can’t make the full 14 hours one day or meet friends, I’m taking a break from IF and commence when I can. Like you, I’m trying to eat intuitively and I won’t let IF get me off that path.
I usually do intermittent fasting, but I agree that an 8-hour eating window is too short for me as well. I usually do non-feeding for probably 14-15 hours a day, and I feel great doing it. And I also have psoriasis flair ups girl, so I feel your pain. You are not alone!
July 5, 2018 at 7:31 pm