Fasting and Eating Windows
The word fasting used to terrify me. I love my food, a little too much and I believed that reducing your food intake would slow your metabolism down and make your body hold on to fat. I believed I had to eat regularly to stop hanger kicking in and getting jittery and light headed. Little did I know it was because my body was running on sugar and not fat, and I thought I had good diet, low in sugar, healthy and well balanced. I would calorie count so anything low in calorie was good, which meant it would stop me from eating too much fat and I would eat more convenience processed foods.
I would listen to many podcasts where they would be discussing consuming food within an eating window of 8 hours, even if you did not change your diet to be more nutritious you would still see some improvement. I did not want to hear it as eating within 8 hours felt impossible. The more I heard this the more I could feel there was something there but I just did not feel fasting all the time as a woman would be good. We have hormones coming in and out of the body through the month, we need carbohydrates at certain points and fasting all the time would not serve women well. Men are good to fast all the time, men just need to be mindful of training demands as too how much carbohydrates needed. Testosterone comes in every 15 minutes so you guys are good.
As a woman I was reluctant, but then I found some great resources on fasting with your cycle and I was away. I reduced to a 12 hour eating window, then 10 hour and then dropped to an 8 hour eating window and found it to be very easy. I aligned my diet to the recommendation of having a high fat / protein diet during fasting and then the protein would drop slightly when carbohydrates were introduced where needed in my cycle. Alongside a quality high fat / protein or carbs diet (depending where I am in my cycle) I would bring in cruciferous/bitter vegetables and probiotic foods (kimchi/sauerkraut/kefir/fermented foods) to help feed my gut microbiome as well. When you eat what your body needs you do not crave sugar. You will also move over in to your fat burning zone which will eat away at the stubborn fat around your bellies. Women remember it is super important to fast with your cycle, fasting all the time will have a negative effect so you must work with it and vary your eating window. Also bare in mind how active you are or are not, if you train heavy then you may need to adjust the days to suit, this will be for men and women (women your training should work with your cycles as well – adjusting the intensity to suit your hormones and energy). It is all about intuition and eating what the body needs, not what you think you should from outside noise.
Why fast? When our body is in rest mode it can digest food in a calmed state without the constant influx of food which is good for our gut (the second brain). When we are fasted (over 17 hours) our bodies have the amazing ability to self heal, this is where your body will go around and eat up any bad/rogue cells (these can become cancer cells) and any toxic substances that have no use in the body – this is known as autophagy. Fat is the bodies preferred energy source – fat is used to transport fat soluble vitamins around the body and feed the brain. Sugar has been shown to help rogue cells grow and an overload of sugar can cause insulin resistance. Insulin (a hormone) is the bodies ability to mop up excess sugar, if we are not burning this sugar (which normally we are sitting on our bums consuming energy, so that would be a no) then insulin has to work constantly to clear the sugar up, if we do not use it, it gets stored as fat around our organs/waist. If we use insulin too much we cause insulin resistance which is what leads to diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, alzheimer’s, gut issues etc. A lot of the disease we see today is lifestyle induced such as too much sugar, amongst other things play a big part in these problems. As do all ultra processed foods, such as seed oils, hydrogenated fats, glucose syrup, corn syrup, msg, aspartame, sweeteners, to name just a few.
The food we consume is what creates us, eat shit then you will become shit, overload the system and things breakdown. The gut is our second brain and we need to feed this with nutrient dense foods which allows the gut microbiome to flourish. If our gut is not happy then we will start to see a breakdown in the body. This will come out in the body as disease – gut issues, acne, allergies, inflammation, anxiety, depression, autoimmune diseases, asthma, eczema, do you get any of these? If you do then a good place to start is with your lifestyle, diet being the first to address then look at toxic/chemical exposure. This can come in the form of lotions, perfumes, deodorant, cleaning products home and self, make-up, candles, air freshners, laundry detergents, softners etc.
If you want to address any of these issues and lifestyle is not spoken about or asked about then I would recommend speaking with someone who investigates this rather than just hands over pills and creams.
If we look back to when we lived off the land in our tribes, we would always feast and fast. The tribe would go out and hopefully take down a big animal, bring it back to the tribe and eat till their stomachs ached. They would all then sleep it off – rest and digest then go on the hunt again when needed. Between hunts they would eat berries and vegetation so as not to starve but they would not snack constantly of have three meals a day plus snacks or choose to eat vegetation only. Animal meat is needed in the diet for a lot of your main nutrients.
I appreciate there is a lot of information out there and it can be very conflicted, I would highly recommend doing your own research and listening to an array of people to see what is being said regarding diet and fasting. Just remember to check if they are affiliated with any corporation or are peddling their own products to sell. Everyone has to make a living for sure but check where their incentives might be coming from.
- Dr Rachel Brown – metabolic function – the gut/brain connection
- Dr Zoe Harcombe – cholesterol/fat myth buster & nutrition & health source
- Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride – GAPS diet – gut/brain connection
- Dr Sarah Myhill – Paleo / carnivore diet
- Dr Jason Fung – The Fasting Method
- Doc Malik – podcast – Health & Wellbeing – lots of great podcasts to listen to while out walking/driving/cycling