I have been intermittent fasting since the start of the year. In January, February and March, thee number of days I did it increased and after intermittent fasting for about 12 days in April, I decided to commit to a specific window for May. If you’re not sure what Intermittent fasting is, I did a post about it here. In the 18:6 window, I eat for 6 hours and fast for 18, tracking my fasts on an app called zero. I usually eat my first meal around 9 and my last around 3. In May, the only times I didn’t fast for 18 hours were once when I ate later than usual for a date night and another time when I had morning cramps and needed to eat before taking painkillers. I fasted for 14 and 17 hours respectively those times.
Okay on to the highlights of my month long experience.
It was easy
This was the scariest part for me. I didn’t want to do a restrictive thing that felt hard day to day because in my experience, that has more long term detrimental benefits. I think what was key is that I experimented with different times and lengths from January to April and the fast I committed to for May was the one that suited me the best.
I didn’t lose weight
I need to get the weight loss out of the way because I know people take interest in a lot of lifestyle restrictions as a way to lose weight. I started this primarily as a way to control the way I was eating with maybe an added weight loss, which didn’t happen.
I stopped bingeing
I think up to about two or three years ago, I imagined bingeing as eating till you felt sick and were surrounded by empty junk food packets and waking up in the middle of the night to ransack the fridge. Basically, a caricature of what bingeing actually is, which I’ve redefined to mean eating large quantities of unnecessary food simply for the sake of eating. So eating a pack of chocolate chip cookies because im bored kind of thing. That has stopped.
I was (and still am) more thoughtful about what I was eating
when you don’t have that much time in the day to eat, you start to think some more about the choices you’re making. For the first time in my life, I started putting cake in the freezer for long term eating rather than trying to get through it in a few days.
I stopped having random cravings
I put this down to eating more real food generally, which i’ve never really been great at before now.
I slept deeper
My sleep is actually really susceptible to my diet. I had great sleep when I gave up sugar for a while one time and when I went keto- basically the moment my diet is free of sugar, I sleep very deeply. Even though my diet hasn’t changed much this time and I still eat sugar, I think the fact that I stop eating so early (around 3 or 4) has had positive effects on my sleep.
I’m still intermittent fasting and I truthfully love it and I see myself doing it till further notice. I think the key for me to consistency is picking what works for you and building in flexibility.