We are down to the last two days of this little intermittent fasting experiment as I continue to follow a plan found in The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day and Extended Fasting and I have to say, it has been quite the experience. Fasting certainly has a way of highlighting little food behaviors that can otherwise easily fly under the radar. And, if you find yourself in an eating rut, fasting definitely makes mealtimes all the more exciting! Though I’ll have much more to say in upcoming posts about my own week-long experience with intermittent fasting, let’s take a look at Day 7 which was another 6:18 eating/fasting schedule and see how that went.

Breakfast: Skipped. Had my usual 2 cups of coffee with half and half. I woke up particularly hungry this morning and found myself really wanting breakfast.

Lunch: Cottage cheese with raspberries and green salad with avocado and bacon. Still trying to follow the book’s nutrition recommendations that emphasize natural fats and unprocessed, whole foods.

Snack: Spoonful of peanut butter.

Dinner: Cheesy Cauliflower and apple slices. I was surprised by how filling this rich cauliflower dish was and couldn’t finish what I’d served myself.

So as mentioned above, I woke up really hungry this morning. Really. Hungry. I wanted breakfast big time. I stuck to my guns though, and I’ve found that if I can get that cup of coffee going first thing, it really does help to get me through that breakfast hour without stealing someone’s toast.

As for the rest of the day, though I enjoyed my meals and was satisfied after eating, I would find myself uncomfortably hungry within two hours. Typically, I like to eat about every four hours–breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, and dinner. So having this near constant feeling of hunger is not the norm for me and puts me on edge, to be honest.

As far as the numbers go, today I got in 1268 calories with 59% (!!) from fat, 20% (!!) from carbs and 21% from protein. Holy smokes, that is a high-fat, low-carb day if there ever was one! And, like every other day so far, I’ve managed to consume an amount of calories appropriate for weight loss without particularly trying. Though I feel super hungry throughout the day, I often end up feeling fuller than expected when I do eat. For exercise, I walked our toddler a couple miles in the stroller and had decent energy for that. I’d definitely say that I didn’t feel as lousy today as I have on other days.

I didn’t hop on the scale today but will be sure to do one final weigh-in to see how my weight has changed over the course of the week. Given how low my caloric intake has been, I certainly expect to have lost at least a pound or two, but it will be interesting to see if there is any additional change due to the low-carbohydrate and intermittent fasting elements of this diet.

Okay folks, one LAST day to go as I take The Complete Guide to Fasting for a little test drive and it will be my final 24-hour fast! Wish me luck and I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow!