posted on April 17, 2019
Today’s food log includes:
And that’s it!
Yes, this is a little untraditional for a “food log,” but I think it’s good to look at some of the stranger things we do in the name of health. I am a big proponent of intermittent fasting, though today’s sparse diet comes for a different reason. I’ve written about dealing with some health issues recently, and Tuesday morning I have another round of testing that requires 24+ hours of a clear liquid diet. So here I am, with my (fourth) coffee, typing away.
Even when I’m not prepping for fun medical procedures, I do enjoy intermittent fasting (or IF for short). What that typically means is picking a cut off time for eating at night and then not taking in anything but the aforementioned water (often with salt) and black coffee until my fasting time is up. That can be anywhere from 12 hours (an easy place to start!) to 20 hours for me. So basically, I try to stop eating at 9pm, then don’t start eating again until 9am on a normal day, or all the way up to 5pm every once in awhile (but know that I eat some epic meals on those 20 hour days).
Why practice fasting? I’m not doing this for weight loss reasons, though many people do! It’s also a useful reminder: sometimes we feel hungry, but skipping a meal every once in awhile (barring special cases like diabetes and hypoglycemia) isn’t going to kill us. It’s okay to be hungry sometimes! But primarily, fasting is a way to give my digestive system a bit of a break from having to process food – something that I have come to relish while I deal with these medical issues. There are of course tons of other benefits (there is a lot of interesting research showing that fasting beyond the 16 hour mark can increase autophagy, your body’s process of recycling old, damaged cell components), but this has been my focus.
So that means most mornings look like this: I start out with about 32oz of water with some himalayan sea salt (full of minerals) and lemon juice, then just black coffee and more water until that fasting period is over. Since I’m trying to maintain or even regain some weight, I generally manage to squeeze 4-6 meals into my eating window. More about that in a future post!
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