Intermittent Fasting
Flying by the seat of my pants is the essence of my game.
I’m very into trying new things, sometimes studying up a great deal, and other times just jumping in.
Take bowling (my new favorite sport) for example. I started bowling and was doing pretty well until I watched some instructional videos and everything fell apart.
Upon returning to my original techniqueless technique I am bowling better again.
Around a year ago I became interested in the Keto diet. I did my share of half-assed research, bought a bag of almond flour and gave it a shot.
At first things went well, but I live near the best ice cream in the world (Mitchell’s) and my Keto diet soon morphed into the Keto-Ice Cream diet which isn’t as effective.
Intermittent fasting is something you hear a lot about in the Keto world. The idea is to put 12-14 hours between your last meal of the day and your first meal of the day following.
I have always loved breakfast. Eggs rule. So does bacon. And toast. And cereal. And any of the many other breakfast staples I could list. Pancakes for lunch? It just doesn’t sound right.
Breakfast wasn’t my real problem though.
My issues arise between the hours of 10pm & 1am. The children are asleep, often the wife is too, leaving me and the kitchen all by ourselves. And I have yet to mention that my daughter is into baking.
Late night is rough for sugar eaters.
Let me lay out the scenario.
Between my living room and my bedroom are two doors. The first of them, to the left, leads to the kitchen, the second, on the right a little further along, leads to the bathroom where my toothbrush patiently waits.
Start scene: I rise from the couch ready to go to sleep and move toward the bathroom. But the gaping maw of the kitchen beckons. Just a spoonful of ice cream the mind suggests; a half a cookie; a piece of chocolate?
And I turn left. Oh the pain. I always turn left.
So I took the proverbial step back to assess my situation. I get up early (around 6) usually drinking coffee and having breakfast by 7 and then on to the rest of my day. That usually put 6 to 8 hours between my last and first meal.
For what it’s worth I knew that my late night eating is much harder to resist than not eating breakfast… so I gave up breakfast and began the journey to intermittent fasting.
It has been revelatory. I don’t eat now until noon or even 1pm. I still drink a cup of coffee in the morning which some might not recommend but so far it is working for me.
Sometime around 10am I become ravenously hungry for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes before it passes.
At noon I eat.
The main benefit of this latest of many health and body experiments is insanely improved digestion. I can’t say that my digestion has ever been really bad but until I started intermittent fasting and stopped eating for 12-14 hours each day I didn’t have anything to hold up for comparison.
Without getting graphic let’s just say that my bowels have been the greatest beneficiary of intermittent fasting, the latest fad of the month that I might just stick with.