Simple Intermittent Fasting Strategy

If you want to try intermittent fasting, the simplest and easiest way is to start by skipping breakfast. You can do 16:8 or 18:6, whichever way that fit into your daily life.  For example, you would eat only between noon and 6pm or between noon and 8pm. 

If you have been eating breakfast all the time, you may feel missing something in the morning. I can understand this because I have gone through this stage as well. If you want to feed yourself something in the morning, you would need to learn to love black coffee or green tea, or any non-caloric drinks.

I have known 2 Meal Mike for a few years. He is an IF pioneer and I always enjoy reading his posts.  Below is a recent post from him about his "flexible" 2 meal strategy. 

My "Flexible" 2 Meal Strategy? - by 2 Meal Mike

Start the day with black coffee (Americano to be specific).

I eat when I'm hungry (usually around 1-2pm).

I make the first meal lighter and higher nutrient value (which could be eggs/ fruits/ veg/ lean beef and dare I even say liver?).

I let the 2nd meal later on be more flexible and social (so not to feel guilty if I go out and eat some pasta or whatnot).

Of course I adjust as I see fit to my goals, energy level (recovery ability) and lifestyle.  You are free to do the same (as you should find what works for you anyways).

So, what's your plan?

In fact my own fasting strategy is somewhat similar to Mike's. I hope his simple and flexible plan will shed some light when you are planning your two meals for the day.

Are You Stress For Being Invited to Eat?

When I check my FB Group, some of the most frequently asked questions are:

• What if I am being invited to a breakfast meeting?
• What if I am being invited to a lunch talk?
• What if I am being invited to a birthday party over the weekend?
• What if ...

It's true that we need to stay social although we practice intermittent fasting. Should there be any conflict, I would go for the social side. Why? Let's look at the word 'intermittent'. Per Cambridge Dictionary, "intermittent" means "not happening regularly or continuously; stopping and starting repeatedly or with periods in between". As far as we keep the mindset of intermittent fasting, and go fast whenever possible, then we can still meet our goal. 

In fact, I will go on a slightly longer fast if I had to eat heavily for any reason. Please refer to my previous post about my 40-hour fast.

Final note - keep your fasting simple and flexible. 

What To Do After Binge Eating?

Many of us may have experienced binge eating especially during festivals. Chinese New Year is just over. Today is the 9th of January in Chinese calendar. To some of us the CNY mood may not finish until the first full moon festival on the 15th of January. However for me, the heavy eating days are over.

I love festivals, especially Chinese New Year when we can meet family members and friends. However in terms of eating, I am subjected to extreme stress. I generally eat one meal a day (OMAD) if not 18:6. Eating three full meals plus all-day snacks is going to be really difficult. 

Back to the question "what to do after binge eating?" Answer is "fasting".  Depending on individual need, the fasting period can be long or short. Reviewing my situation, I decided to go on a 40-hour fast and have successfully completed. I finished dinner at Thursday ( Feb 7) night, and resume eating on Saturday (Feb 9) lunch. That way I have had a full day of Friday to let my body and the digestive system a good rest. 

For me, a 40-hour fast was not much a challenge as I have over 10 years fasting experience. However for beginners, they may need some support. I have recently joined a group at FB which is called Intermittent Fasting for Women. In fact, there are groups like IF for Men, IF for Men and Women, IF for busy people...and so on. Pick one that you feel happy to join. 

Once you are there, you will find some encouragements such as :

• Just over a week of OMAD & 12 lbs down.
• 1 month in. Down 13.2 lbs. Love this group! So much support and information.
• Successfully completed my first 24 hours fast! Absolutely loving IF!

To be fair, there are negative comments as well. But those are generally from people who needed help. And that was why I joined to group to share my experience. My group administrator does a good job in filtering advertising and scams although they still occur occasionally. I would say my group is widely clean and full of friendly people. 

Enjoy fasting! Join a group or email me if you need support.

Win Weight Loss Battle in Two Days or Two Months ?

I went on a short trip to Thailand with a friend recently in June to celebrate my birthday. After that we both went back to our normal life.

Last week I met my friend again and she was complaining that she was unable to get rid of the extra weight she gained out of the binge eating over the Thailand trip.  I was shocked, as I went on the same trip, ate as madly as she did, but I didn’t have the same problem.  

Now is early September, already two months after our Thailand trip.  She said she worked very hard only to have lost 1 pound.  I did gain some weight as you know it was my birthday and holiday, I just couldn’t stop eating.  But once I returned to work and resume my intermittent fasting (IF) eating style, my weight went back to normal in a few days.

We then discussed the subject of weight loss and I introduced the idea of short term intermittent fasting, quoting myself as a live example of easy weight loss.  But you know what?  Here’s what she said:

    No breakfast – no way!

    No food for 24 hours – I’m going to die of starvation!

I don’t know how hard she worked to lose that one pound.  But if she applied any of the IF methods, losing one pound was as easy as breathing.

Weight loss seems to be more of a mental battle than a physical one. Sure there are some hunger cravings to deal with every now and then, but 90% of the battle is in your mind. If you can win the battle in your mind you can also win the battle around your waist or butt (or wherever you store your fat).

The most important thing you can ever do to lose weight is to re-program the way you think to believe that not only fasting is for some people, but that it’s possible for YOU.

Whatever thoughts you hold in your mind will become reality regardless if they are positive or negative.

As in my friend’s case, it’s up to her to struggle or to change her mind to learn to accept that fasting can help to lose weight. And if she doesn’t believe she can fast, she’s never going to take action to win the weight loss battle.

If you have positive thoughts about fasting weight loss…All you need is a plan.

If you want to look at the skip breakfast plan, take a look at Mike O’Donnell’s website; he calls himself 2 Meal Mike.

If you want to explore the 24-hour fasting plan, visit Brad Pilon’s website; his plan is called Eat Stop Eat.

You can also read my previous article about the 5 Intermittent Fasting Windows that Produce Great Results.  If you are willing to try any of the IF methods that I suggested, then you are on your way to build a new lifestyle for yourself.  

My friend has been brainwashed that breakfast is the single most important meal in a day, she’s not willing to give up breakfast in any case. But she can still try the 5:2 method. Remember where there is a will, there’s a way! It all depends if she has a will to lose weight.

I must say IF is not for everyone. If you are willing to make little changes in your eating habit to acquire big changes in weight loss results, IF is another tool in your fitness tool box.

How You Can Workaround Fasting Windows and Make it Work for You

I have introduced 5 popular intermittent fasting windows in my last post. How about my personal fasting windows? It’s time to show how I workaround my fasting windows and make it work well for me. Here is a live example of how I manage my eating schedule. The main theme is – to keep it simple and flexible. I have a food diary to record my every single meal detail. As someone who eats mostly one meal a day, what to eat, where to eat and with whom to eat are very important to me. 

Without prejudice, I have picked a week from my food diary for demonstration purpose. I have drawn up a table to indicate my eating schedule for the first week of August in 2018. For the 7-day period, I have had 7 full meals and 3 light meals. And there are also a few sessions of 24-hour fasting. *Note, my light meal can me as light as a fruit or some steamed vegetables, just to add some more fiber to my daily diet.

You will find that I’m combining two of the mainstream intermittent fasting patterns – 2 meals and 1 meal a day. My preferred option is one meal (dinner) a day. But as a matter of fact, I had to do it flexibly.

The big picture is: keep at least two 24-hour fasting windows in a week. That's it. Make it simple and flexible. Never fix a day and do it on an unplanned and natural manner. If you keep your eating schedule too rigid, you will have no fun, and somehow will affect your social life.

As for myself, my preferred one meal option is to have dinner only. But you will notice I have had all the 7 full meals at lunch hour, because I have to workaround my fasting window flexibly to accommodate the business and social requests during lunch hour. So if I have a full meal for lunch, I will have no dinner or light dinner.

Will you pick any of your 7-day periods and review your eating schedule? See if you are able to skip one or two meals and still manage to keep your business, social and family lives in balance?  If so, then you are on the starting point to manage your own intermittent fasting windows. If you don’t have a food diary yet, then set up a simple one and review it after one week. 

Anna's Thought Today:

Make fun by fasting, enjoy eating while losing weight! 

5 Intermittent Fasting Windows That Produce Great Results

I’m guessing you want to lose weight easy and simple. However many weight loss programs have a lot of rules and complexities.

Intermittent fasting keeps things simple, and it has become a very popular eating pattern to lose weight. As the author of this blog ‘Simple Life Weight Loss’, I’m here to share my fasting experience as well as provide the useful information to get you started.

This article looks into some of the most popular intermittent fasting windows that have been producing outstanding weight loss results. In fact, I myself rotate among these various fasting windows and obtained great results.

Weight loss comes down to energy in versus energy out. To lose weight, you need to spend more energy (calories) than you intake. This can be done by eating less, moving more or a combination of both. Here’s how intermittent fasting comes into the picture.

Intermittent fasting is the art of arranging your 24 hours between eating and fasting. Let see how we can play around with the fasting window to acquire weight loss and other health benefits. Don’t forget, I’m going to keep things simple for you.　

The Art of Eating Less – 5 Effective Ways of Intermittent Fasting (in short - IF)

Below I have detailed 5 of the most popular ways to do intermittent fasting. All of them can be effective, but which one fits best will depend on the individual.

1. The 16:8 Method: Fast for 16 hours each day (2 Meal Solution)

The 16:8 method simply implies a daily eating window of 8 hours and then fast for the rest 16 hours.  In fact, you can make variations according to your own preference, like 18:6 or 20:4. As far as you keep a fasting window between 16 and 20 hours a day will be fine.

This is technically the easiest way of doing intermittent fasting. This method of fasting can actually be as simple as not eating anything after dinner, and skipping breakfast.

You can drink water, and any other non-caloric beverages during the fast, and this can help reduce hunger levels.

It is very important to eat mostly healthy foods during your eating window. This won't work if you eat lots of junk food or excessive amounts of calories.

I eat this way myself and find it to be easy, natural and 100% effortless. However this is not the only way of IF that I do. I actually combine all the 5 types of IF styles depending on my daily schedule. Continue reading, and you will see.

Anna’s comments: If you are a beginner, this is the easiest option to start with. In a nutshell, simply skip breakfast and that’s it. 

If you want to explore this option further, I would like to introduce Mike O'Donnell, aka 2 Meal Mike, author of 2 Meal Solution and the website The IF Life. Mike is one of my most respected persons about intermittent fasting. He is very passionate, knowledgeable and resourceful about intermittent fasting. He used to sell his eBook 2 Meal Solution, but I just realized that he is now offering it for free. So please visit his website or simply click this link to download: 2 Meal Solution. 

2. The 5:2 Method: Fast for 2 Days Per Week

In a (low calorie) nutshell: you fast for two days and feast for five. On the fast days you eat no more than 600 calories (500 for women) and on the feast days you can eat whatever you like. It's simple, flexible (any two days which are not consecutive are fine) and effective … and fun, because the feast days are carefree and there's always another one to look forward to at every hungry, fasting moment.

For example, you might eat normally on all days except Mondays and Thursdays, where you eat two small meals (250 calories per meal for women, and 300 for men).

Anna’s comments: The 5:2 Diet involves eating 500-600 calories for two days of the week, but eating normally the other 5 days. Try not to over eat on the eating days hoping to compensate on the shortage. Remember our objective is to reduce the overall calories intake.

If for any reason you are unable or not willing to give up breakfast, this 5:2 method is a better option over the 16:8.

3. The Eat-Stop-Eat Method: Do a 24-hour Fast, Once or Twice a Week

Eat-Stop-Eat involves a 24-hour fast, either once or twice per week.

For example, if you finish dinner on Monday at 7 pm, and don't eat until dinner the next day at 7 pm, then you've just done a full 24-hour fast.

You can also fast from breakfast to breakfast, or lunch to lunch. The end result is the same.

Water, black coffee and other non-caloric beverages are allowed during the fast, but no solid food.

The problem with this method is that a full 24-hour fast can be fairly difficult for some people.

However, you don't need to go all-in right away, starting with 14-16 hours and then moving upwards from there is fine.

I personally do this occasionally. When I'm forced to binge especially during business lunch/dinner, work travel, offsite and festivals, I will add a few sessions of 24-hour fasts and then resume my normal one meal day.

Anna’s comments: This method is introduced by fitness expert Brad Pilon, and has been quite popular for many years. Eat-Stop-Eat is an intermittent fasting program with one or two 24-hour fasts per week. Do it when it fits your schedule. If you want to explore this option further, take a look at Brad Pilon’s website. 

4. OMAD Method: One Meal A Day

OMAD stands for One Meal A Day, and it is literally that you have one meal each day. Having to wait 24 hours each day to eat your daily single meal is somehow difficult. But I have been on this way of IF most of the time. However if I had to eat (such as business lunch or someone buys us afternoon treats), I will switch to the 16:8 style, i.e., eat around lunch hour (12-1pm), and then dinner at around 8pm.

Some people may think that it is important to get all the nourishment needed on a daily basis to be packed into one huge serving of food. NO, I personally never do this. One meal is one meal, one normal meal. Try not to over eat, instead, eat what you love to eat and at a comfortable portion. In order for your body to rest while you sleep, early dinner is better than late. 

The great thing is that the next morning, you’ll be completely energized having digested and processed all the food you took in while resting.

5. Spontaneous Meal Skipping: Skip Meals When Convenient

I like this idea very much. I learnt it from Kris Gunnars at HealthLine.

I would say this is a simple combination of all kinds of IF. You don't actually need to follow a structured intermittent fasting plan to reap some of the benefits. Simply skip meals from time to time, when you don't feel hungry or are too busy to cook and eat.

The human body is well equipped to handle long periods of famine, let alone missing one or two meals from time to time.

So if you're really not hungry one day, skip breakfast and just eat a healthy lunch and dinner. Or if you're travelling somewhere and can't find anything you want to eat, do a short fast.

Skipping 1 or 2 meals when you feel so inclined is basically a spontaneous intermittent fast.

Anna’s comments: A very “simple” and "natural" way to do intermittent fasting is to simply skip 1 or 2 meals when you don't feel hungry or don't have time to eat. Just make sure to eat healthy foods. 

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

Intermittent fasting is not something new. If we look back at our ancestors thousands of years ago, they had to hunt for food, and there was no guarantee on the food availability. So it is safe to say that we can survive without food for a short period of time.

There are a lot of people getting great results with some of the above intermittent fasting methods. If you decide to give it a try, then there are a few things I’d like you to keep in mind:

1. Eat healthy foods, avoid junk food.
2. Adjust your eating window and get a good balance within 24 hours of the day. Make yourself feel comfortable, life is to be enjoyed! Hence DO NOT kick off too rapidly. Start off slowly, discover and adjust what does and what does not work for you. Remember you are going to develop a new lifestyle, that you should enjoy the everyday journey and that you should take control of when and how to make things change for you.
3. Have a mindset of developing “healthy lifestyle habits”. You would need to make a few small changes to your daily routine – but in the end, it will be worth it.
4. The idea is that you are able to lose weight in a way that is sustainable for the rest of your life. Not just something that you do for a few weeks or months and then fall back into your old habits. The answer is “intermittent fasting”.

How to Make Tea-Sangria

My fasting journey began with juice.  Juice fasting has been quite a hot topic nowadays and there are even books on this subject. I am happy to promote this way of fasting as well. But when I ask people if they drink juice, there are lots of hesitations. Namely I get answers like “Sugar from fruit makes me fat,” or “it’s just too much sugar.”

The argument that the sugar in fruit (fructose) makes you fat is weak at best, however I can see how some people find the sugar content in some of today’s juices to be way too high.

If that’s your concern, I have a suggestion for you – Tea-Sangria. In fact, I didn’t invent this recipe, I learned it from Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat. I have subscribed his newsletter, and found this Tea-Sangria is easy to make and yet healthy and yummy.

Here is the easy fix from Brad.

Brad’s simple solution for enjoying juice in the summer: Tea-Sangria!

First, mix one cup of the juice of your liking with one cup of water.

Next, boil water and make two cups of either green tea or white tea (let it steep for a minute or two).

Then, mix the 2 cups of tea with the juice/water mix, add lemon slices, lime slices, some blueberries and lots of ice.

Wait for it to chill and enjoy.

You get all the health benefits of tea and juice at only 7-10 grams of sugar per glass!

Why Short Term Fasting Works Well For Women

There are many weight loss programs out there but men and women may not experience the same results.  Some programs work better for women such as short term fasting.  In the first instance, let’s don’t be afraid of the word ‘fasting’, as we are not talking about fasting for a week or longer.  It is a matter of extending the time in between meals which won’t be a big deal to most people.

When man and woman get married and moved in together, both living busy lives, eating out is kind of unavoidable, may be 2 or 3 times a week.  At home they may cook relatively healthy meals and generally eat breakfast and dinner together. 

This somewhat normal life in time will make a difference between man and woman in their body weight.

After a few years of marriage, most men may remain similar in weight but women may put up 15% or even more in weight. Why does this happen?

The answer is simple, women usually put on weight because of eating too much.

Most women may not agree with this. But let's look at it this way. Do wives eat almost everything in the same size servings as the husbands? 

When they would go to the restaurant and order the same meal, men didn’t get the ‘Big Guy’ serving size, while women got the ‘slim girl’ serving size…both plates looked identical. 

When husband made them healthy omelets, he didn’t make one for himself then a half an omelet for the wife, he simply made two omelets.

This is the plight of women.  

Most serving sizes in restaurants are too big for the average man, let alone a woman who is 4 inches shorter and 40-60 pounds lighter.

And, for the most part, when eating at home people usually don’t ‘downsize’ the portion sizes for the smaller person.

Even if we tried, we generally end up at some middle ground that is still a little too much for an average sized woman. Let say a man stands 6’2” weights 200 lbs and his wife stands 5’6” weights 135 lbs, both eating the same amount of food day in and day out.  The weight problem will bother the woman much faster than man.

This is why short term fasting works so well for so many women. It gives them a chance to play a little catch up. Or more correctly to play a little ‘fall behind’.  Allow an extended gap in between meals, such as 12 hours or 18 hours, once or twice a week.  In fact there are many variations in doing short term fasting and that women can try and work out a way to tie in to their lifestyles.

Short term fasting allows woman to eat at a restaurant without having to leave 1/3 of their food on the plate.

When eating at home with their family, they don’t need to cut their chicken breast in half and giving it to the dog.

It is a dietary custom/portion size equalizer.  If you want to find out more about short term fasting, there is an ebook called Eat Stop Eat fully focused on the topic.  

How to Break a Fast

Breaking a fast is as important as the actual fast. So here are my tips on breaking a fast.

First, let’s look at the word BREAKFAST, it means to BREAK a FAST. It’s rare that someone will get up in the mid night to eat, no matter which diet plan they are following.  As a matter of fact, we all undergo a mini-fast during the night. Some health rules suggest that we should eat breakfast like a king. But isn’t it really healthy by breaking fast with a big meal? NO.

If you want to eat something in the morning to cheer up your day, you do not need to eat like a king.  I believe only people in the food industry will encourage to eat big breakfast. Eat something light, yet something you love to eat. Of course if your job requires a lot of body energy, then a bigger breakfast may be necessary.  Make your own sensible judgement.

Breaking a fast with care and in a really healthy and safe manner

Though breaking a fast has to be careful, it doesn’t need to be fancy. You may find tons of break fast tips over the internet. What’s the best to do?

Let's talk about how to break your fast in various occasions.

Breaking A Short Fast – 30 hours and below

A typical 30-hour fast would be eating lunch at 1pm – fast – dinner at 7pm on the following day. If you are fasting for 24 hours or so, there is not much you need to do. The process is just like skipping one meal or two. Any normal person can do this without problem. And if you have successfully built a flexible intermittent fasting (IF) habit, you don't really need to care about breaking a fast. As far as you don't overeat in any meal, you are fine. 

Breaking A Longer Fast – 30 hours and beyond

What you would really need to care about breaking a fast is when you fast for 30 hours and beyond. If you fast for two days and beyond, you would need a little more care. The longer the fast is, the more care and time you would need to break your fast. A good rule to follow is that your first meal after any long fast (30 hours and beyond) SHOULD NOT be a heavy full meal.

Break Your Fast With An Appropriate Mindset

Be sure to develop an appropriate mindset in breaking your fast. If you thought that you've been in a 'food prison' and wanted to eat all the best foods on the planet once released, then you will tend to break your fast with a big heavy meal which could be dangerous. I’ve heard of an extreme case that a 40-year old died by breaking his 31-day fast by eating several beef sandwiches. 

If you consider your fast as a project that will help develop a new eating habit or lifestyle, you are likely to break your fast in a more sensible way. Your digestive system is in an inactive mode during fasting. Give it a grace period to wake up and re-perform its digestion work gradually. The longer your fast is, a longer grace period is required.

How I Broke My Six-day Fast 

Browsing through my fasting diary in March 2006, here was how I broke my fast. I remember at that time I had no guidance. However out of common sense, I knew I should go on something light. I had a bowl of congee for lunch and orange juice for dinner and water for the rest of the day. That worked fine for me. For the rest of the month, I continued with light lunch and juice dinner. I had a miracle feeling that I didn’t need three meals a day any more, while still feeling energetic. I then gradually developed my flexible IF lifestyle through now. I was happy to eat in a completely new schedule. 

Eating less has been my health bible, and also part of my simple lifestyle.

Top 10 Intermittent Fasting Tips

Looking for some fasting tips to kick start your fasting weight loss program? Here are some of my personal tips that I want to share with you. This blog is meant for experience sharing, so what I write is based on what I did.  

1. Identify the tips provider. This is very important, especially when you are looking for some information which might have an impact on your health. Many give warnings and horror stories about fasting had actually never fasted. Best to look for tips from someone who has the real fasting experiences.

2. Open-minded. Forget about some eating rules that you might have been told a million times, such as breakfast is the single most important meal in a day, eat breakfast like a king, eat 6 to 10 small meals in a day is completely necessary to lose weight…and so on. Food companies brain-wash people with these rules so they will get more sales. Research reports supported by food companies or restaurants always ask you to eat more for all kinds of reasons. If they ask you to fast, then they will be out of business soon.

3. Stick with short term intermittent fasting. Researches have proven that short term fasting does not slow down the metabolism or cause any physical damage. You won't even lose an ounce of muscle while losing weight. If you want to find out the scientific facts, I would encourage your reading Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat. 

4. Do not binge on food. This is one of the most important fasting tips I would ever give. Short term fasting is a good opportunity to start off with healthy eating habits along with losing weight. Eating crazily before and after will destroy your fasting effort and can be dangerous. Read more about breaking a fast. 

5. Start slow, work progressively. Try skipping breakfast to begin with. Extend your fasting window gradually until you feel comfortable doing a full 24-hour fasting. For beginners, you may find it hard to go through your first or second attempt of 24-hour fast. You may feel irritated, experience headaches and feel a little of hunger. Believe me, the more fasts you do, the less these problems will bother you and you'll feel better. 

6. Start with juice fasting. If you have no fasting experience and want to give it a try, go for juice fasting first, as it is easier than water fast. Also juice fast provides most of the nutrients and calories that solid foods provide. Apart from this, it gives you some tastes in your mouth which will provide some kind of satisfaction. You just give your body a chance to experience a period without solid food. 

7. Keep busy. Food is sometimes a psychological need rather than a physical need. To withstand hunger, simply don't think about it. Do something (non food-related) that engages and therefore distracts you as much as possible. 

8. Keep silent. Seek support only from people with fasting experience. If you tell everyone that you are fasting, you're sure to receive discouraging comments such as people warning you that you will pass out at any moment and starve to death. As for myself, someone even satirized me of saving food money by fasting. 

9. Keep fasting simple and natural. Stick to juice and/or water. Forget about supplements, vitamins, protein drinks, adding egg white powder or mineral salts to your water…and any other fancy little things to complement your shortage of food. If you do all these, you are not dedicated to fasting and I'm sure you'll quit pretty soon. Eat normal in between your fasting days. 

10. One slightly longer fast per month. While 16-24 hour fasts are easy to do, try to include one slightly longer fast such as 30 hours once a month. For example my 30-hour fast looks like this: breakfast on day 1, dinner on day 2. That way I'm still eating everyday. However you can opt to do dinner on day 1 and breakfast on day 3. Do it when you feel comfortable and your schedule permits. 

You may find lots of other fasting tips. Even real fasters may have different views. For instance, some even don't consider juice fasting as a real fast. After all, there isn't a single fasting bible that has been approved by all. Make your own sensible judgement as to follow fasting tips that sound sensible and work well for you. 

I wish you best.

How To Make Fasting Weight Loss Work For You

Want to do fasting weight loss? If so, you’ve made the right choice. 

Let me clarify. I mean short term periodic fasting. It is very often referred as intermittent fasting (IF). 

Fasting may sound scary in the first place. I understand how you feel. If you’ve been on 3x, 6x or 10x meals a day for years, fasting could be something beyond imagination. However if you understand what fasting is and how it works, fasting weight loss is not scary at all, and yet very effective. In fact, I am eating EVERYDAY.

Why Not Fasting To Lose Weight

Few people will tell you that fasting is a healthy act. Why? Because there are many people who want to make money from people who want to lose weight. Cereals companies advertise heavily by promoting how important breakfast is; diet programs and recipes producers want to sell more of their products. Not to mention the luxury gyms want to recruit more members in order to charge them expensive fees.

99 doctors out of a hundred will not suggest fasting weight loss. Their license which they spent years of hard work to acquire will be challenged. 

So why am I here to talk about fasting weight loss? 

Well, because it works. 

Why Fasting Weight Loss?

A fast cleans up the body. If you bath once a week, you may spend an hour in bathing. If you bath everyday, it may be just a matter of minutes. Fasting works in a similar manner. Prolong fasting cleans up your body, your colon and your bloodstream; short term intermittent fasting can do the same.

A Clean Body Needs Less Food. If your car engine is clean, the same amount of fuel will let you run more mileage; in other words, you need less fuel to run the same mileage. Our bodies work similarly. Food is absorbed and utilized better in a clean digestive system. Your clean body will need less food to run. That is common sense. We don’t need research reports, surveys or clinical tests to prove that. But food is delicious, eating is enjoyable. Meeting friends and eat together is something most people enjoy doing. How to get a good balance between food, social life and a healthy digestive system? We need to give this a careful thought.

How To Make Fasting Weight Loss Work?

First, review your eating habit. Today, we have a world of chronically tired, sick, rapidly ageing, overweight and mentally clouded persons around us. Unfortunately they are still being told to eat more often. Or eat like a king over breakfast, like a queen over lunch and so on. Well, eating 3x, 6x or 10x a day is your choice. Have you made the best choice? Review your eating habit and see if there is another way which might be better for you.

Second, learn to control food desire. Fasting on a periodic basis allows you to gradually gain control over your appetite. Learn to control your desire for food. When you successfully merge short term periodic fasting into your life, you will not feel hungry when you end your fast. You are not hungry, but the desire to eat is there. There is a big difference between actual hunger and desire for food. 

Prepare for a Lifestyle Change

Your appropriate mindset determines your success, not only on weight loss, but almost anything in life. Prepare your mindset for a lifestyle change. This is the ONLY way any type of permanent weight loss becomes effective. You must have a change of thought pattern and a change of lifestyle. If you go back to your old destruction way of eating, you’ll soon gain back the weight you lost through fasting.

Intermittent Fasting Benefits – Weight Loss and Many Others

I’ve enjoyed fasting benefits for many years. 2018 marks my 12th year of intermittent fasting. To review my IF lifestyle in the past 12 years, I must say I have changed a lot – mainly eating habit and appearance. If I were to name the most significant fasting benefits, I would say bloating relieve and natural weight loss. 

Road to Intermittent Fasting

My road towards IF was relatively short as I didn’t go through any experiment stage. Though I have been suffering from digestive problems for 17 years, I kicked off my fasting out of an overnight decision. Once I see the benefits, I had never looked back to my old ways of eating throughout these years.

My fasting window is averagely 24 hour, as I target one meal a day. If I eat dinner tonight, I won’t eat until next day’s dinner. In between I had some drinks such as water, fruit juice, coffee or tea and I don’t care about decaf or not. In some occasions, due to social/ business commitments, I eat lunch following the previous dinner, my fasting window was much shorter. Nevertheless I try to maintain the 24 hour window about three to four times a week. For beginners, my suggestion is to start slow. Try it once or twice a week and when you see the benefits, move on progressively.

The Fasting Benefits I’ve Seen 

According to Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, periods of fasting have been associated with being more alert, ambitious, competitive, and creative. As for myself, below is the list of benefits that I have personally enjoyed.

1. Bloating relieve. Though it is still bothering me occasionally, but I feel far better than before.
2. Natural weight loss. This came naturally and steadily. I lost six pounds in the first week and progressively up to 20 pounds in six months.
3. Improved mental clarity. My job is very hectic and I have to manage multi tasking almost everyday, however without a problem.
4. Improved workout performance. I do lunch hour swimming during weekdays. I’m not an Olympic swimmer, but I recon my speed had improved.
5. More energy. I used to feel tired most of the time. After I started doing daily workout plus intermittent fasting, somehow I realized my energy level was greatly improved. Now I can swim without food before or after.
6. Improved appearance. I had to wear tight underwear in order to fit into my Chinese traditional night gown ‘cheung sam’. Now I don’t need it any more.
7. Food tastes better. When I had no food for a period of 24 hours, I really enjoy and respect each meal. I’m amazed that food tastes much better than before when I routinely fed myself three meals a day.

Any Disadvantage About Intermittent Fasting?

Yes, if I were to say, there is one. I spent some extra money due to IF.

Some people thought I should save money by eating less. Well, the money I spend on food does not relate to the amount I eat; it relates to what I eat. Like three meals a day can be bread and butter; one meal a day can be Kaiseki. I spent extra money in buying new clothing as I am now two sizes smaller. I really look odd if I continue wearing my old clothing.

Learn More About Intermittent Fasting 

Flexible IF is increasing in popularity.  If you ever wanted to venture into intermittent fasting, Brad Pilon has written a best-selling e-book Eat Stop Eat and he will walk you through ‘why’ and ‘how’ to do IF. You would need to pay a little fee for this book, but you will then become a registered member and can log in to Brad’s website to see any updated version of the book, and download any associated free items.

Simple Life Weight Loss

The beauty of fasting for weight loss is simple and easy. As Brad Pilon said in his e-book Eat Stop Eat “There are no phases, no point systems, no weighing foods, and most importantly no foods that are ever off-limits”. Is this simple enough?

In additional, the simple benefits of fasting are saving money, saving time and saving energy. You no longer have to continuously plan your day around the timing of your next meal, and you may be “resetting” your body’s expectation of when and how much you are going to eat.

Of course you don’t have to spend time to shopping at the supermarket and cooking in the kitchen. All these will enable extra time for your doing things you like, or things you normally don’t have time to do. At least taking the shopping and cooking time for a little rest is not bad at all!

And in terms of easy, there are less rules and guides and things you must do when you practice short term fasting. When it comes to diet rules, less is more. The simpler and easier these rules are, the higher chance for success, that said, you will be able to develop your new long term lifestyle if there are fewer rules to follow.

Simple Life Weight Loss

Less is More!

Overcome Binge Eating By Fasting

Binge eating is somehow unavoidable in life. For a period of time, I cannot refuse binge eating.  This used to be a big problem for me, but not now. When I failed to manage my lifestyle for some reason, I just keep eating if I had to. However fasting could easily help overcome the eating problem and bring me back to the right track. I think it may have happened to anyone with fasting experience.

When people are having fun, celebrations or festivals, they eat. Eating has been a major part of our social lives. When you go through internet searches, there are lots of recipes for festivals and parties. Indeed, food is for enjoying, so when I have to eat, I simply eat. I won’t make myself stressful by eating, when I have to eat. 

Festivals and business trips are the two occasions when I cannot stop binge eating, especially during company offsites. During offsites, colleagues are usually punctual going to coffee break, to lunch, to tea break and to dinner, although not necessary punctual when starting a meeting. There are people with a glass of drink or something eatable in their hands whenever I see them. In order not to single out myself, I may grab a glass of drink, and keep foods to breakfast, lunch and dinner only. Even so, the amount of food I eat is about 3 times more comparing to my normal days.

I used to have a dilemma of loving to eat but afraid of bloating, indigestion and gain a bigger belly. Of course, this dilemma does not exist any more. When I resume fasting, my life goes back to normal.

We have a recent offsite to Bangkok. I have been busy eating for a continuation of five days. I felt overloaded, to be honest. Immediately after the trip, I went on a 36-hour fast and had a simple meal the day after and then I continued with my normal one-meal day. Yesterday at the gym, I didn’t notice any weight gain. Once I go back to work, resume daily swimming and intermittent fasting, I’m not afraid of gaining weight.

So have you been binge eating over Easter weekend, Halloween or Thanksgiving? Don’t worry. Simply overcome binge eating by fasting.

BTW, have you downloaded the free e-book The Modern Diet Review? It reviews and compares several weight loss methods including Low Fat, Balanced Nutrients, Cleansing, Low Carb, Intermittent Fasting (IF), Blood Type and Detox. It’s interesting to know that people on IF manage to keep their weight off by adding in a fasting day when they felt like they were starting to over eat and gain a bit of weight. Well that was exactly what I did. And I must say this works out very well.

If you want to take a look, I have the author John Barban’s permission to give away this e-book to my readers for free. Right click this link and choose 'save target as' and download The Modern Diet Review. It’s just a 24-page short e-book which you may finish reading in about 30 minutes. 

Enjoy reading and happy fasting.

My 24-Hour Diary of Intermittent Fasting

Have you ever tried or heard of a 24-hour fasting concept? This is what we call intermittent fasting (IF). If you do some internet research, you will find many ways of doing IF, such as alternate day fasting, 2 meal a day and many other models.  In terms of a full meal, I will only have one per day. However I occasionally add a small breakfast or mini snack as I wish.  

I have been having this ‘eat once every 24 hour’ lifestyle in the past 12 years and have been doing well. But please do not follow my pattern if you are a beginner.

You may wonder how my life is and how I can survive by eating only one meal a day. My work life is extremely hectic and work hour is very long. Once I’m at my office, I keep multi-tasking throughout the day. By way of professional background – I have been in the executive search business for the past 19 years.

Here is a report on one of my typical working days while practicing intermittent fasting.

08:00 Wake up and a brief visit to the bathroom. I don’t need an alarm clock, because the sun and my body logic wake me up naturally on time.

08:05 Calisthenics at home for 20 minutes

08:25 Prepare to go to work

09:00 Arrive at the office. Make a cup of tea at the pantry – no solid food. Start a day’s busy work

12:00 Swim at the Island Shangri-La pool for 30 minutes as this pool is just opposite to my office

13:30 Arrive at the office, feeling groomed and energetic as to continue with my heavy workload for the rest of the day. Make a cup of tea at the pantry – no solid food. 

18:00 Make sure today’s work are done and prepare for tomorrow’s.

20:00 (may be later) Go home. My work hour is very long. I move to live nearby my office, so I can save transportation time. If time permits, I’ll do some simple cooking at home. Otherwise I’ll eat when I walk home. As this is the only time I eat in a day, I will look for a reasonably nice restaurant where I can sit down and enjoy a meal relaxed and peacefully. I have no restriction on the type of food, but generally a set dinner.

21:30 Evening activities at home. Multi-tasking among watching TV, taking phone calls, checking private emails and updating my blogs. iPhones nowadays make me work 24/7 which I don’t really appreciate, but cannot survive without it.

00:00 – 08:00 Sleep

You may notice I go do swimming during lunch hour without eating before and after. In fact I have been doing this since 2006. Yes, I don't need to constantly eat to have energy. The beauty of intermittent fasting is not only to help lose weight in the short term, but it is a long term lasting way to help me stay fit and healthy. 

How does my daily schedule compare with yours? In fact if your schedule is heavier than mine, and still want to try intermittent fasting, I would suggest your starting with skipping a meal or a breakfast. See the results and move on gradually.  Give it a try and develop a style that you feel comfortable with. No worries, skipping a meal is no big deal, any normal adult can do it. Change of lifestyle is the major concern. If you have a good start, you will soon develop a new and healthy lifestyle that you will love to stay with.

Simple Life Weight Loss

Bear in mind, the simpler your lifestyle is, the easier for you to stay long with it. So try to make weight loss as simple as possible. 

In terms of simplicity, intermittent fasting just reduces the total calories intake. There are no phases, no point systems, no weighing foods, and most importantly no foods that are ever off-limits. Simple enough?

Simple Cooking at Home

You may wonder if I eat big meals because I eat only one meal a day. No, my meal portions are absolutely normal.  Below is a sample of my home cooked simple meal. I may add a fruit and a cup of tea to wrap up the meal.

 My most favorable home cooked dish – ham and vegetable risotto.