Thursday January 20
Post by Ashley
I’ve been reading about intermittent fasting and it’s pretty interesting. I’ve done it for two or three days a week, on and off and it really made me feel great. I was hungry at first but then I got used to not eating after a certain time each day (between 3 and 5:30pm) and got used to going to bed and eating the next morning. Losing weight wasn’t my concern and I didn’t do this with much consistency. I did develop the regular habit of not eating past 5:30 or 6 during the week; mainly Monday – Thursday. This has made me feel amazing. I used to wake up feeling and looking bloated in the morning. I never feel that way when I stop eating early in the evening. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not even that hungry after about 4:00pm, even if I haven’t eaten since noon. Sometimes I have to make myself eat in order to reach my nutrient goals for the day.
Weekends are exceptions. We are so busy during the week we never have time to eat together, so we tend to have nicer, more planned, fun dinners. Even on weekends lately I haven’t been eating as much as I used to eat and so don’t feel as gross in the morning.
Some people are better at eating dinner the night before and fasting through breakfast and lunch the next day. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. I am more of a morning person. My brain works better earlier in the day and I’ve found that if I don’t eat breakfast I get bad headaches and can’t concentrate in class. It may be psychological but I can achieve the same amount of fasting if I skip dinner so it doesn’t really matter. I usually try to fast for 15 hours at a time. So I’ll stop eating at around 4 or 5 pm and won’t have anything except for water (or coffee) for 15 hours. I’m pretty sure anything between 15 and 24 hours constitutes intermittent fasting. I will double check though. Either way, it’s made me feel great and with the 3 pound loss over the last 2 days I might have to experiment with this more consistently. I think Tuesday and Thursday will be good days to do this because I have classes from 4 to later in the evening.
The most important thing that experimenting with IF has taught me is that it’s ok to skip meals. Meal times are largely psychological. I realized that I was eating even though I wasn’t hungry just because it was a scheduled “meal-time”. We’re not going to damage our metabolism by skipping meals every once in a while, or even every other day. In fact, I’ve read a lot of articles that swear IF increases metabolism. Gerard has read, and knows much more about IF than me so I’ll conduct my own experiment and leave the in depth explanation to him when he has a second to write about it.
Next week I will make an effort to fast strictly on Tuesday night, Thursday night and maybe (big maybe) Sunday night. I need to get back to my normal eating habits first, which means no diet ginger ale and boatloads of honey and apples galore just because I’m sick and they make me happy.
Meal Description | Ashley | Gerard |
Breakfast/morning snack | - Coffee – 6:30am - 2 eggs - 2 pieces turkey bacon - 1 apple | - 4 eggs - 3 pieces turkey bacon - 1.5 oz almonds - coffee |
Lunch | - 1 apple - Bowl of chicken soup - ½ cucumber - Coffee | - 8 oz chicken - Veggies - Water |
Snack | - 2 eggs - 2 pieces turkey bacon - 1 apple (I know…3 in one day…my head hurts and I wanted it…) 5:30 | (after class 9:00pm) - 3 eggs 1 egg white - 3 pieces turkey bacon - Diet ginger ale |
Dinner | - 9 oz chicken - 1.5 oz almonds |
Exercise
Ashley | Gerard |
Warm up Stretching, lots of stretching 3 rounds 30 second sprint/30 second rest on stationary bike 10 twisting lunges 5 hand walk stretches 10 push ups 10 GHD sit ups with 10# plate 10 back extensions with 10# plate 10 burpees 7 pull ups 10 air squats 10 jumping lunges Workout 21-15-9 Burpees GHD sit ups Back extensions Time: 7:25 Post workout 2x60 second handstand holds 60 second plank 60 second left plank 60 second right plank Still feeling weak but wanted to do something… | Class until late rolled out and stretched |
Sleep:
Ashley: 12:00pm-6:00am woohoo! Woke up feeling like a human
Gerard: 11:00pm-7:00am
Happy Weekend!
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