Intermittent Fasting Follow up
It's been three weeks since I started intermittent fasting and thought it was a great time for a follow up on how I've gone and what I've noticed in the last three weeks.
As discussed on my initial article on 12 January, there are a couple of different ways to do intermittent fasting, I have chosen to do the 16:6 version, meaning I fast for 16 hours and have a 6-hour eating window.
My eating hours are from 10am to 6pm. Which works for me as I've never really been able to eat straight away from waking up in the morning. I generally need to allow my body to wake up before I start to feel hunger.
In the three weeks I have lost between 2 to 5 centimetres across my body, and honestly it didn't feel like I was trying to lose weight, just not eat outside my eating hours.
My energy has been really great, I've not been tired or run down as I have found happens so easily on other types of diet plans.
During the fasting period I haven't felt the need to eat, the trick here is making sure you eat enough during the eating hours.
My water intake has gone up so my skin is flushing toxins, that is starting to calm down in week three however there are still toxins being pushed out through my skin.
The interesting thing I've noticed is my eating hours naturally have started to decrease in the last week I've not broken my fast until 11am.
Here are some tips on how work with this style if intermittent fasting.
Keep your water intake up during the fasting period.
Be flexible with your eating hours. By this I mean adjust them to meet what is going on in your life. Take meeting friends for dinner, so you're not meeting until 7pm and you're eating hours are 10am to 6pm. Calculate the 16 hours from your last meal. You meet at 7pm sit down and finish eating by 8.30pm. Fast until 12.30pm the next day.
Also calculate your last soda or alcoholic drink too, this counts as part of the eating window.
Make sure the meals you eat during the eating hours are well balanced and nutritious meals so your body is getting everything it needs to replenish.
Get plenty of rest and let your body repair. If you're not getting the right amount of sleep for your body, then it won't be able to repair what it needs to from the day.
I'll stay on this style of intermittent fasting for at least another 3 weeks, making it 6 weeks in total, and then switch to the 5:2, eat for 5 days and fast for 2 days to see what the difference are between the two styles.
For more information on intermittent fasting please refer to my previous article https://newhopewellbeing.com/blogs/news/intermittent-fasting