How to Fast and not get Hungry
I am fascinated by the fast. Not the fast car, the fast buck or the fast guy, but simply fasting. The simple act of not-eating. Fasting has spiritual connotations and as a concept is as old as time. To put on hold earthly pleasures for rewards in the afterlife. Or similar.
The first time I fasted was for a charity event called the ‘40 Hour Famine’. It was an Australia-wide campaign where fundraisers went without food for 40 hours. I did this in the 80’s when I was 15 years old, and juniors were advised they could from time to time, sook on a lemon barley sweet. Nowadays the rules aren’t so hard and fast (so to speak) and you can give up technology or talking for 40 hours if you prefer...
I remember those 40 hours with absolute clarity, and the experience affected me for life. In recent years, when I heard more about research done on health benefits from intermittent fasting (basically not-eating from time to time), I decided to try and implement it into my life on a regular basis.
It’s not been without its ups and downs and I’ve learned much about the human body. I’m typing this halfway into a fast and hitting the wrong keys. Low blood sugar levels on fasting days mean motor skills can be affected. Don’t fast and operate heavy machinery! In fact, I usually schedule fasting days when I don’t need to ride my bike anywhere. Low blood sugar levels + a near miss from a car = a shaky cyclist, and best avoided.
Low blood sugar levels can also equate to crankiness and bad temper. You wanna avoid any potentially stressful situations when fasting. Other than being grumpy, and slightly clumsy, fasting can have a positive flipside as well. When you eat less on one day (fasting days are generally 500 calories or under for women, 600 for men) you will find that you need to eat less on the next day. It can in fact reduce your appetite. Personally I feel lighter at the end of a fast day, and sometimes even have brilliant creative ideas.
Fasting is not an easy thing to do. You need to want to do it, otherwise you might end up feeling worse. If you spend the day thinking “I want a chocolate donut” you will make yourself miserable. Instead it helps to look at fast days as days that you’re giving your digestion a break. It is a time when the body actually undergoes self-repair by burning its own fuel (i.e. using fat stores and the associated build-ups in the body). It’s a bit like spring cleaning the body on a molecular scale. There has been a staggering amount of research into fasting and it’s mind-boggling that not more folk pay attention.
My theory for this is twofold. Firstly, fasting is not comfortable, it is making you body use alternative fuel sources to food. Many people cannot cope with the feeling of being hungry, which I totally understand. However if you are one of those people who don’t mind being hungry from time to time, you might want to consider exploring it. Secondly, you need to be quite organised and have any food ready in advance, and consider potentially stressful situations. For instance, I only fast if I have a relatively quiet day, (meaning I don’t fast every week, just when I feel the need).
There are a huge amount of people on this planet with not enough to eat. Many of us have the opposite problem, we have too easy access to plentiful calories. We need to embrace a simpler form of eating and educating our appetite is important to stay healthy. I rarely advocate 5:2 fasting to my PT clients (in fact I only do 6:1, or one fast day a week / fortnight / month), however another form of intermittent fasting is stop eating earlier in the day. Instead of snacking on junk food in front of the tellie at night, resist and go to bed with a not-full tummy. Try to eat half of your food by the end of lunch. Simply by shifting when you eat the bulk of your food to earlier in the day can have a significant effect on body weight and energy levels.
When you’d otherwise be scouring the kitchen cupboards for late-night biscuits, spend that time packing some simple tasty snacks for work the next day. I find not eating within three hours of going to bed is a really easy way to kickstart getting in shape. Even if it’s not seven nights a week, on average is a good place to start. The three evening hours, combined with a night’s sleep should be over ten hours, which means you’re effectively fasting for ten hours a day. And you will enjoy your breakfast! Easy! Fast!
