Intermittent Fasting

It's 9am on a Thursday and I'm finishing up a weekly intermittent fast (IF).  What is intermittent fasting you ask?  I'd say "it the greatest thing since sliced bread", but since sliced bread isn't so great for you... I won't.  How about, it's the greatest thing since low carb diets.  Truly, it is.  Many of us put a negative connotation on fasting, think it's hard, inconvenient, or even unhealthy for the average "gym rat".  But quite frankly, nothing could be further from the truth.  With that being said, let's dispel some myths.

1. Fasting is Hard.  For your body, fasting is not hard.  In fact, it's quite easy.  Your body knows exactly how to deal with a period of time when no food is entering your mouth.  The hard part is the mental aspect of fasting and your current addiction to carbohydrates (especially wheat).  Too often in America, we look at food as a drug... something that makes us feel good, pass the time, prevent boredom, sometimes even exalt.  The truth is, FOOD IS NOURISHMENT.  That's it.  Food is there to nourish you.  If you rely on food for anything more than that, you've created an idol of it.  You've put it in place of prominence where it doesn't rightfully belong. (Of course we do this for many basic needs:  shelter, money, etc.)  Now that being said, there are foods that make fasting harder.  Wheat, for example reeks such havoc on your metabolism and brain chemistry that eating it before a fast is a ticket to failure.  If  you truly want to try Intermittent Fasting (IF), try eliminating wheat from your diet first.  Trust me, it will go a whole lot better than you think.
2. Fasting is Inconvenient.  No it's not.  Being uncomfortable is inconvenient.  You can find time to not eat.  With IF, it doesn't matter what time of day you choose to fast, and it's not required to fast for an entire day.  You need a minimum of 12 hours; ideally 14-18 hours; no need for more than 24 hrs.  If you eat Dinner at 6pm, you could feasibly consider fasting until 7am.  Not hard nor inconvenient.  Wait until noon, and you'll really see the benefits.  However, If your lunch is a giant plate of pasta after your fast... well, you missed the point.  Which brings me to...
3. Fasting is Unhealthy.  I usually hear this from the gym rats who have been sold on the idea that we need to eat every three hours or graze all day in order to keep our metabolisms up.  Not true.  Now, you can graze all day, and your metabolism will stay up because of it (because you're having to metabolize food into energy ALL DAY LONG).  Unfortunately, as fun as grazing is, our bodies aren't designed for it.  We're designed to go long period of time without food.  I mean, really do you think our ancestors sat on their bums and just ate all day?  (Actually, Egyptian royalty did, and thanks to their mummification process, we can see they were chock full of heart disease and other chronic lifestyle diseases that plague our nation).  We get plenty of calories in our Standard American Diet (SAD).  Taking a break from it for 18 hours isn't going to hurt anyone... I promise.  In fact if you eat a nutrient dense/ calorie rich diet full of fruits, veggies, fats, and proteins with little to no calorie rich/ nutrient poor grains, you won't even see a drop in energy when fasting.

Try it... You won't regret it.  Want more info, find it here. And if you're new to fasting, there's one rule.  Water, water, and more water.