Intermittent Fasting For Beginners

Intermittent fasting for beginners has two rules for success: (1) Make fasting pleasurable and NOT stressful. (2) Keep fasting simple and NOT rigid.

From an experienced faster’s standpoint, I have a few suggestions for beginners. You may want to do intermittent fasting (IF) for two reasons – weight loss or health or both. In any case, it’s good to observe these two formulas:

More rules = more complicated = low chance of success

Less rules = less complicated = high chance of success

According to Brad Pilon, a nutrition professional, a 24 hour period off of eating is very healthful, it helps you reduce calories without sacrificing what you like to eat on your non-fasting days, and maybe even more importantly it stimulates your body to produce more growth hormone. Yes that’s right growth hormone, the same one you hear about the celebrities talking to ‘stay young’. Growth hormone has many anti aging benefits, and one of the most interesting being fat burning! For more information about IF benefits, visit Brad Pilon's website.

How to do Intermittent Fasting?

In an ideal situation, 2 sessions of 24-hour fasts in a week will be good enough to produce significant health and weight loss benefits. However for beginners, I don't think you should jump start with a 24-hour fast, unless you are absolutely sure that you can do it.

There is no standard rule of doing IF. You are the rainmaker. Try it out and make it work for you. Let simplicity and flexibility be your fasting motto. Don’t make it stressful for yourself.

As a beginner to practice intermittent fasting, I would say ‘clear your mind from any other weight loss methods and focus on IF’. This is your first step towards IF success. Think how many times you’ve been told that breakfast is the most important meal in a day or you need to eat 6 to 10 small meals a day in order to lose weight. I’m not saying these rules are wrong. If these rules work for you, stay with them. But if you are setting your feet onto the route of intermittent fasting, better put these concepts aside at least for the period you are trying out IF.

Having your IF mindset ready? Then begin with ‘skip meal’ and see how your body responds. I would say this is the simplest and easiest way to begin your intermittent fasting journey.

Pick a day to try skip breakfast. Have fresh juice, water or tea instead. No coffee please. If that works out fine, try ‘skip lunch’ and move on progressively. A 24-hour fast shouldn't be difficult for any normal healthy adult. One useful tip is not to think of food. Avoid social talk at the pantry over lunch hour. Go out for a walk or do some simple exercises.

You can also explore these IF options.

• Condensed eating window, e.g. eat ONLY between 11am and 5pm;
• Skip meal on an unplanned basis, as far as it is natural and not interfere your daily work;
• Early and late, i.e. skip lunch;
• One meal a day, ideally dinner only when you are relaxed and really have time to enjoy food.

For more ideas of how to skip meals and arrange your fasting window, check out 2 Meal Solution. You may even enrol their FREE e-course to learn more about IF.

To repeat, fasting has to be pleasurable and not stressful. Don’t press hard on yourself. Be flexible. This is very important. Don’t upset your boss when you are called upon a business lunch by telling him that you are fasting. Do it as you see fit and your schedule permits.

Once you find a way that works for you, I'm sure you'll love it and stay with it. And you don't have to worry about weight loss again in the long term.

Happy fasting!

Anna

Intermittent Fasting Success Report - Tips For Beginners

Overcoming Binge Eating By Fasting

For a period of time, I failed to overcome binge eating by fasting. I think it may happen to you even you are an experienced faster like me.

Chinese New Year holidays were just over here in Hong Kong. I just couldn’t resist eating. Food is for celebration and festival is for family members, relatives and friends to get together and share fun. If I refuse to eat, I’ll make myself extremely unpopular. I used to have a dilemma of loving to eat but afraid of bloating, indigestion and gain a bigger belly. Of course, this dilemma does not exist any more. When I resume fasting, my life goes back to normal.

From CNY eve on Feb 2 through Feb 6 (day 4 of CNY), I have been busy eating for a continuation of five days. I felt overloaded, to be honest. On Feb 7-8, I had only one meal of regular portion. That fast was around 42 hours and I had two meals on Feb 9 and then I continued with my normal one-meal day. Yesterday at the gym, I didn’t notice any weight gain. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I’m extremely disciplined on work days but not on holidays. Once I go back to work, resume daily swimming and intermittent fasting, I’m not afraid of gaining weight.

So have you been binge eating over Easter weekend, Halloween or Thanksgiving? Don’t worry. Simply overcome binge eating by fasting.

BTW, have you read the book The Modern Diet Review? It reviews and compares several weight loss methods including Low Fat, Balanced Nutrients, Cleansing, Low Carb, Intermittent Fasting, Blood Type and Detox. It’s interesting to know that people on IF manage to keep their weight off by adding in a fasting day when they felt like they were starting to over eat and gain a bit of weight. Well that was exactly what I did.

If you want to take a look, I have the author John Barban’s permission to give away this ebook to my readers for free. Right click this link and choose 'save target as' and download The Modern Diet Review. It’s just a 24-page short ebook which you may finish reading in 15-30 minutes.


Enjoy reading and happy fasting.

Anna

Intermittent Fasting Success Report -

Overcome Binge Eating by Fasting