The quality of our life depends on our convictions. Our convictions are the basis on which all our actions are supported. Our convictions are our limitations. Often times they stop us from trying something new, something different. Often times they interfere with our own change when the world around us is changing. Our convictions are what keeps us stuck in one place. What forces us to be static in a world that is a personification of dynamic.
This is true for everything – in our case for diet and workouts.
I am constantly reminding that the diet is not something static. It is dynamic and it should change – together with the change of seasons, the demands that each day has upon us – change in our daily schedule, quantity of physical activity, the type of physical activity, time for sleep and so forth.
I am not afraid to change. I do it all the time. Actually, I love experimenting with myself. Routine kills me. Even when the experiments carry the risk of making a step backwards, I love trying. What makes me feel alive is change, the unknown and challenges.
I do it all the time with my workouts and often times with my nutrition. There are things that I believe in and I stick to them, but they can be adapted in so many different ways.
Intermittent fasting helped me get in the best shape of my life
About two years ago, I gave IF a try (for the first time). I sticked to the 16 hour fast with an 8 hour feeding window. If I have to be honest, there were a lot of times when I didn’t abstain from food for the whole 16 hours. Sometimes I broke the fast after 12 hours, 14 hours and sometimes above 16 hours.
But the main thing was that I never had breakfast.
Back then I was surprised by the way I felt and the results I got. Actually, fasting helped me achieve the best shape of my life. Fasting helped me get leaner and see my abs the way I have previously dreamed.
I sticked to the IF for 8 months. Then, I reached a moment when I had a really low body fat. As time went by, I found it harder to skip breakfast. I didn’t have enough energy and fasting became something that didn’t bring me pleasure, but it was more like a torture and a test for my strong will. Gradually, I introduced a breakfast back in my day.
I will write a couple posts about fasting and I will write about the mistakes I made and what I intend on changing this time.
What made me give IF another try?
For the past year, IF wasn’t a part of my life. My schedule was such that I had to be in the gym before 7 a.m. I don’t have an opportunity to eat around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. and that is why I had breakfast at 05:30 a.m. This didn’t make me feel good.
I am not hungry during this time, but if I don’t eat, I am starving around 08:30 a.m. If I don’t eat, I can’t focus on training with client. I feel a lack of strength and energy. If I eat at 05:30a.m., my body is once again giving me a sign that it doesn’t need food that early. For some times, I ignored these signs. Then, I decided that this was a sign for change. My body was giving me a cue that I was stuck in one place for a long time and that it is time to change my diet. As it often happens, every time when you wish for something, signs start popping in your life, events and opportunities that allow you to walk on a new path that will lead you where you want to be.
That’s how “by chance”, articles and books about fasting started appearing in my Facebook Newsfeed; I started meeting people who shared with me their success stories with IF. That’s when something clicked in my mind and I decided that it was probably the moment to give IF another try.
This time I was one step ahead – I had my previous experience, I have learned my lessons from the mistakes I made and now I could try again, with a different, better approach.
For the past month I’ve been on IF, and this time I am once again on the 16/8 hour protocol.
In this post I will talk about IF as a whole and in my next posts, I will talk in detail about everything. I will share my observations, opinion and the way I feel, the hardships I face and the benefits I notice.
Why did I choose fasting?
1.I am keen on evolution as a source of what is best for the human body
Fasting and evolution: Fasting has been a normal state for our ancestors. They did not have food throughout the whole day. Usually, the first part of the day was for hunting and the feasting was through the second part of the day.
2.As I always say, I love freedom. Fasting frees my mind from thinking about when I should have breakfast, how am I gonna feel and if I have enough time to eat.
3.I think that a person needs way less food, than we are used to believing.
I like it how fasting educates patience and humble. When you have this approach to your nutrition, you realize that you do not need to eat every time when you feel hunger. You realize that you do not need to spend your whole life with the feeling of being full. You realize that sometimes not burdening your body with an external source of energy, gives it the opportunity to use its own. You realize that it is stupid to overburden your body with digestion all day long and that when you free it from this task, it can focus on more constructive processes – processes that will help you achieve your goal.
4.Fasting doesn’t interfere with my goals of having an athletic, lean body – i.e. fasting doesn’t harm my workouts, neither eats my muscles.
I will dedicate a whole post to the myth that not having breakfast, leads to your body eating your muscles and that fasting and increasing muscle mass are two incompatible things.
I will just say that catabolism is a result of anabolic activity and anabolism, on the other hand, a result of catabolic activity. In other words there can’t be anabolism or an increase of muscle mass, without having a catabolic activity beforehand. The body always strives for balance and every time an activity goes to an extreme, the body activates its opposing force, in order to compensate. Do not worry, even if you don’t get it, I will make sure you understand it in my next posts.
5.Fasting is not hard. It is a normal state of the body. If you give it a thought every one of us is doing it to some extend – every time when we sleep and when we do not eat from night until morning, we are fasting.
6.I haven’t noticed negative consequences on women from fasting
I think that the negative part of fasting, comes when you don’t stick to the protocol the right way. As it is with other diets, the problem is not in the diet itself, but in the way we follow it.
Still, I will say that fasting is not appropriate for pregnant women, so if you are pregnant, just get more information about IF, but don’t skip a nourishing breakfast.
In the comments below, you might leave your questions – your doubts, problems and so forth- and I will make sure to answer them.
