Note from Gin: Barbara Mudd is a member of the Delay, Don't Deny: Intermittent Fasting Support community on Facebook. Barbara is brilliant when it comes to encouraging others, and we can't get enough of her wisdom in the group. Now, with no further ado, let's hear from Barbara!
-------------------- We understand where you’re coming from. We lived there too. The constant measuring. The counting of calories. Obsessing over macros. Dissecting recipes. Analyzing labels. The fervent journaling. The stress. The cheating. Feeling like a failure. Self-loathing. Binging. Despair. Building up the strength to TRY it again. SO STRESSFUL. And that was your LIFE. Your insulin was out of whack, your cortisol was through the roof, but your weight was steady as a rock. Yep. Its enough to make you justifiably nuts. THEN you end up in the DDD group. And it’s different. Everyone’s hanging loose, laughing, evidently shrinking away as they speak, posting pics of food you haven’t allowed yourself to eat since 1972, and they’re telling you to CHILL. Be at peace. WTH?? And maybe you even forgot how. How can you relax?? What if you eat too many calories and gain 18,000 pounds? What if you eat too few and go into (gasp) starvation mode? What if you don’t eat enough protein and your muscles start wasting…? What if you eat too much fat and have to go directly to jail, do not pass GO, and do not collect $200? What if your window is too long? What if its too short? What if you just don’t like black coffee, dammit? What if you get (double gasp) HANGRY???? What if ….what if….what if….. ??? Its enough to KEEP you nuts. And it will if you let it. But here’s a thought: What if all that worrying, attention, obsessing is a BIG part of the problem? **What if us trying to micromanage what is supposed to be an easy, natural process, is the biggest reason for its very malfunction?** Not just because it keeps your cortisol elevated which is going to make it harder to lose weight….but because it is literally counter-productive. People were of normal sizes until the government (don’t get me started on snack food and pharmaceutical lobbyists) started stepping in and telling everyone HOW and WHAT to eat. People were healthier then. Stronger. Less food obsessed. More in tune with their bodies. I want to be like them. I have lost 55 pounds in 5 months and I truly believe that the biggest part of WHY is that I made the decision to do this and RELAX; to relinquish control back to my body. I keep it loose and easy peazy. I follow only one simple principle: I fast clean until I decide to eat. That's IT. My decision to eat is dictated by the events in my life. If it’s a regular day, I eat once around noon. If there’s a party, celebration, special occasion—then there’s no restrictions, I simply enjoy the event. Guilt has no seat at my table. I don’t count hours. Couldn’t care less if I fasted 22 hours yesterday and only 20 today. I don’t watch a clock and white knuckle it 30 more minutes until my window opens. My body unmistakably TELLS me when my window is open; it’s when my thoughts suddenly turn strongly to food. I don’t count calories. I truly don’t believe that they have much to do with weight loss as evidenced by my own journey. I eat until my body tells me it’s had enough. Some days that seems to be a lot. Sometimes, its ridiculously little. That’s OK. I don’t count macros and dictate to my body how much of what its going to have. Who am I to decide that? It has different requirements, different days. I have NO idea what my body is doing that day and what it needs--- it could be healing, it could be rebuilding, it could be eliminating unwanted structures, it could be breaking down a tumor…. I let my body tell me what it NEEDS and I feed it accordingly. Adopting that one simple principle has set me free from food obsession and endless hours of guilt and uncertainty and worry. It’s taken huge loads off my mind. It has unbowed my shoulders and straightened my back with relief from that heavy load of erroneous Western Medicine Guideline data that led me to obesity in the first place. I am finding balance in life from refusing to micromanage my body any longer. My body is in charge of fuel regulation now. I can already tell you that it’s doing a MUCH better job of it than I ever did. I should have retired that position LONG ago. So please, consider stepping out in trust. I KNOW, you’ve been mislead, so many times before…..but this isn’t a diet. There are no supplements. We’re not trying to sell you a damn thing. These aren’t nutritional guidelines. We won't make you get a club tattoo. We have no ulterior motives. <3 This is an invitation to initiate the healing process that will bring you back into alignment with your body, and will hopefully lead to your decision to Get Out Of Your Body’s Way and let it lead its OWN fuel regulatory process. <3 They say “misery loves company”. That may be true. I don’t know. But Peace and Freedom definitely love company and WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN US. <3
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We had an interesting discussion in our One Meal a Day Facebook group last week. In the intermittent fasting world, rumor has it that a certain fasting guru recommends against a daily eating window approach if you are trying to lose weight. The thinking is that over time, your body will adapt to the plan. If this happens, your body may decide that you have reached a state of energy balance, and therefore your body will happily settle at that point. In the diet community, we call that a plateau, and it is something we all dread.
First of all, I want to let you know that plateaus DO happen in any weight loss plan. So--of course, you should expect to hit plateaus along the way. In fact, understand that weight loss is rarely linear. Expect to see your weight zig-zag in an up, down, up, down pattern over time. The general trend should be down overall, but it will never be straight down. This is why I suggest weekly averaging in my book. When you compare your weekly averages, you can see the overall downward trends that can be masked by the daily fluctuations. Either weigh daily and only compare the weekly averages or stay off the scale and trust the process. But--what about the body adapting to your plan so that weight loss really does stop? Can we prevent it from happening? This is such an important point to understand. When you follow an intermittent fasting lifestyle using the strategies I suggest in Delay, Don't Deny, you don't have to worry so much about your body adapting. If, however, you are a rigid meal-timer or a careful calorie/macronutrient-counter, that can actually be a problem. Let me explain why. The body absolutely can adapt to anything you do that's the same day-in and day-out. If you eat the same exact number of calories, as an example, or always eat a small meal in a 30 minute eating window, then YES! Your body can adapt to that pattern of intake. Your metabolic rate can adjust to match what you are eating, and your weight loss may come to a halt. HELP! How do you keep your body from adjusting to your plan? Good news! You absolutely CAN apply some strategies to keep your body from adapting to a specific level of caloric intake. And more good news! If you are listening to your hunger and satiety signals, and adjusting your intake based on those signals, you are already on the right track. I don't eat the same way every day, and you may notice that I don't ever suggest that YOU should eat the same way every day, either. In fact, I say over and over again that you should learn to listen to your body and adjust intake as needed within your daily eating window. Even though I generally eat "one meal", it's not ever the exact same size, the exact same length, the exact same macronutrients--it's not even always at the exact same time. NOTHING is the same about it from day to day. Some days, I actually eat TWO meals. On vacation, I may even eat THREE meals. It is important that you learn to listen to your body, and don't be overly rigid in your intermittent fasting lifestyle. Don't schedule a rigid window that is exactly the same every day. Don't count calories or macronutrients so they are precisely the same every day to hit some artificial or predetermined calorie or macronutrient target. Don't aim for some sort of dietary perfection where you can never relax and enjoy life. THAT is a bad idea. Instead, be more flexible. Listen to your body. Eat more some days. Eat less some days. Vary your window length. Live your life. One day your body may be satisfied with a very small amount of food. STOP EATING. Trust those satiety signals. The next day you may need a longer window because you are hungrier. EAT MORE. Trust that you needed more, rather than beating yourself up because you are "weak" or some-such nonsense. Take a day off for a special occasion. Live a little when life allows. This is not a rigid plan--it's a lifestyle. And now you should understand this point: making the lifestyle rigid and diet-like is actually counter-productive to your goals after all! It's both as simple and as complicated as that. Will you plateau and stop losing? Yes. At your body's ideal weight. Eventually. In a few years, maybe. I assume so, anyway. Even 2 years into "maintenance," I am still slowly losing, according to my changing size. Am I losing scale weight? Don't know. Don't care. I don't weigh. My clothes are looser and my body is still changing. I just had to put some pants away that I wore last spring and now they are too big. When you do reach "your ideal weight," expect weight loss to stop. Who decides that you are now at your ideal weight? Surprise! It's not your conscious brain. It's your body. When your body decides you are at the ideal weight for the way you are living your life, you should stop losing weight and you will be at a permanent plateau. If you are lucky, it will be at a weight that your conscious-self also thinks is your ideal weight. If so, you have achieved weight loss Nirvana, which is when you feel good at your current weight, and your body is also happy to maintain that weight. Remember: if you enjoy this lifestyle, then simply relax and enjoy the journey. You won't lose all of the excess weight quickly. You may get to a point, like I have, and stay at approximately the same size for 2 years, with a very gradual loss of extra fat over time. Eventually you should get closer and closer to your ideal weight, and your body will decide when you are there. Not you. It may be higher or lower than you thought it would be. Mine is actually lower than I thought it would be, according to my what my body has decided. And I'm not mad about it. It's time for all of us to make a (late) New Year's Resolution: 2017 is the year we take intermittent fasting mainstream! It's time for us to all rise up together and let the world know that we are NOT crazy, and we are actually on the forefront of a great health and wellness movement that should be sweeping the world! It's time to educate our friends and family about the benefits of intermittent fasting!
We may feel like early-adopters, which is far from the truth; fasting has been around for all of human history. Even though people have been quietly fasting for years (the practice has been around for decades, centuries, and even thousands of years), we still have a lot of work to do to convince the modern world that intermittent fasting is safe, and actually a very healthy practice. So, let's get started! Whether you are an experienced or new intermittent faster, you've gotten the speeches from well-meaning friends and family members: "You are putting yourself in starvation mode!" "Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" "You must eat 6 small meals per day to keep your metabolism from shutting down!" And then your well-meaning friend tells you about the fantastic new diet plan that is guaranteed to work, and all you need to do is eat seaweed before every meal, or do a superfruit juice cleanse known only to the lost tribe of the rainforest, or some other nonsense. Because of all of the push-back, many intermittent fasters are hesitant to share their lifestyles with anyone. Some people even allow themselves to be talked out of trying it, because it can be really hard to stand up for what you believe in the face of criticism. That stops today! I promise you this: it's a lot easier to live an intermittent fasting lifestyle if you can do so openly, and when you don't feel like you need to hide it from others. The important first step is to educate yourself on the benefits of intermittent fasting, because if you have any nagging doubts, you won't be able to defend the practice. Read, read, and read some more, until you are confident. Watch videos. Listen to podcasts. The information is out there, if you look for it. Of course, I think you should read Delay, Don't Deny, and also encourage your friends to read it; but there are many other sources of information that can teach you about the health, metabolic, and weight loss benefits related to intermittent fasting. So, let's get educated! Many of us begin intermittent fasting for weight loss, but IF is about so much more than just weight management. Even if you never lost a pound, I am convinced that IF is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body. Over the past year, the biggest news in the intermittent fasting world was without a doubt the announcement of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine. As written in the press release, Yoshinori Ohsumi "discovered and elucidated mechanisms underlying autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components." What stimulates autophagy? Fasting, of course! Rather than try to explain all of the benefits of autophagy myself, I am going to share some links that will take you to videos and/or well-written and easy to understand discussions about autophagy, so you can learn about it yourself. Click here to view a video that explains the process and benefits of autophagy, even though it is a bit dry and science-y. The article available here explains many of the benefits of autophagy in straightfoward terms, and this is a powerful quote from that article: "Autophagy is a process of cellular recycling that effectively removes old, damaged, and faulty equipment in our body, potentially stopping cancer, insulin resistance, diabetes, infections, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, inflammation, and even aging." WOW. Who wouldn't want those benefits? With a list like that, I think you would have to be crazy NOT to try intermittent fasting, personally. You can read Dr. Fung's take on autophagy here, on his blog at Intensive Dietary Management. (His explanations are always my favorite.) Dr. Mercola discusses autophagy here, and there is also a short video with his article about the process. Notice that I led with the health benefits of intermittent fasting, because I want you to have that first and foremost in your mind. IF is healthy, and fasting has powerful anti-cancer, anti-Alzheimer's, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging benefits. Even if you never lost a pound, it is worth doing for the health benefits alone. BUT--is it crashing your metabolism, as critics warn? Are you putting yourself in danger of slowing your metabolic rate, resulting in long-term damage to your metabolism and eventual weight gain? Fortunately, the answer is NO. This study is often cited by intermittent fasting experts, and I included it in Delay, Don't Deny, as well. From the study: "Resting metabolic rate (kJ/min) was significantly increased after 36 h of starvation...but was not significantly different from the 12 h value after 72 h." Don't be alarmed by the use of the word "starvation" in that quote, because they are referring to periods of intermittent fasting from 12 to 72 hours in length. Nobody ever starved to death in 12-72 hours (though my cat often thinks he is going to starve to death if he can see the bottom of the cat food bowl.) When you analyze that quote from the study, you see that they found that metabolic rate INCREASED after 36 hours of fasting, and at 72 hours, the metabolic rate wasn't lower than the metabolic rate measured after 12 hours. Metabolic shutdown? Clearly not! On the contrary--at the 36 hour mark, metabolic rate was UP. Take that, "you're going to shut down your metabolism" naysayers! This article does a nice job summarizing much of the thinking surrounding intermittent fasting and metabolism. Of course, as usual, the most entertaining analysis of intermittent fasting and metabolism can be found on Dr. Fung's blog at Intensive Dietary Management. His classic post is found here (with an accompanying photo of George Constanza, in all of his glory), and Dr. Fung explains how IF not only protects your metabolism, but it can also help reverse metabolic damage brought on by following calorie-restricted diets in the past. This is really important to understand: not only are you NOT tanking your metabolism through IF, you can actually repair damage brought on through other dietary approaches. Keep in mind--this isn't always a fast process (fasting pun, right there...) If you have been following a restrictive diet long-term prior to starting an IF regimen, expect weight loss to be slow or nonexistent for awhile. You could even gain weight at first, until your body has a chance to heal metabolically. No one wants to hear that, but you should be aware of the possibility if you are a long-term dieter. To summarize: 1. Fasting is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body! As we discussed, fasting stimulates autophagy. This is how your body naturally takes out the cellular trash, and the more I read about it, the more I believe that it's one of the most powerful things you can do for your health. 2. Intermittent fasting is great for your body metabolically. Rather than slowing your metabolism, which we find in diets that promote long-term calorie restriction, IF has metabolic benefits you miss out on when you follow typical diet recommendations. (I'm looking at YOU, "eat less/move more"...) You can even repair metabolic damage brought about by long term restrictive dieting through fasting, though it takes time. It's important for you to realize that intermittent fasting is not some radical new fad diet that is here today, and gone tomorrow. It's an ancient practice that is seen all around the world and in every major religion. In intermittent fasting, you're not being asked to go 40 days and 40 nights without food; with most intermittent fasting plans, you are eating until you are satisfied every day, and most people find that it's a lot more enjoyable than trying to eat tiny meals spread throughout the day. Once you adjust, it's actually easier than typical diet plans. This is one of those things that most people don't believe until they try it for themselves. Now that you understand how many benefits are associated with intermittent fasting, you should be confident in your lifestyle choice. Once you are confident, you shouldn't hesitate to share it with others. I genuinely believe that we owe it to our loved ones to let them in on our secret, so they can experience the benefits of intermittent fasting for themselves. Direct them to this blog post, or to Delay, Don't Deny. Together, we can spread the word and make 2017 the year that intermittent fasting goes mainstream! |
Author
Gin Stephens lives in Augusta, Georgia, where she has been following an intermittent fasting lifestyle since 2014. In addition to writing the #1 Amazon best-seller Delay, Don't Deny and the follow-up book Feast Without Fear, Gin is host of the Intermittent Fasting Stories podcast and co-host of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, along with fellow intermittent faster and author, Melanie Avalon. Check out www.intermittentfastingstories.com and www.ifpodcast.com or search for the podcasts through your favorite podcast app. Archives
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