Here we go! Day 1 of intermittent fasting (IMF)! If this is your first visit to The Diet Oracle, this month we have been taking a look at The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fastingby Jason Fung, MD and Jimmy Moore for June’s Diet of the Month. Today, I will begin a week-long test drive of one of their recommended regimens to see what intermittent fasting is all about. (If you’d like a quick snapshot of the plan I’ll be following, check out my previous post, Intermittent Fasting: Ready, Set, Go!
So, not gonna lie here, I am just a bit nervous going into this. I must confess that I love to eat and am not particularly inclined to miss meals. Aside from an epic stomach flu or routine lab tests, I’ve never really fasted before and am not sure how this is going to go.
Despite this, however, I really am interested to see how Fung’s claims will hold up when taken for a test drive. Since it’s not realistic to think there could be any measurable health changes in just seven days, I’m mostly interested to see how intermittent fasting (IMF) will impact my appetite, workouts, and weight.
When we eat, the complicated process of digestion and absorption kicks off. Food is both mechanically and chemically broken down and then absorbed as it travels along the GI tract. When blood nutrient levels begin to rise, our bodies respond hormonally and metabolically. One particular response Dr. Fung is keen to point out is the insulin response.
From Chapter 1, Dr. Jason Fung acknowledges that the mere suggestion of fasting sounds crazy to most people. Starvation?That’s your recommendation?? In the opening pages to The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting, Fung argues that starvation and fasting are two entirely different things. While starvation is involuntary and typically due to a lack of food, fasting is a choice to abstain from eating for a period of time.
Though humans have historically fasted for religious reasons, Fung argues that living in a constant state of feast, feast, feast (with no famine) has wreaked havoc on our health and that a return to periodic fasting may offer the solution.
Though there are countless diets out there with complicated rules and restrictions, fasting is simple and straightforward. As opposed to most diets that have a laundry list of things to do, fasting is about what not to do. The authors explain that this is part of the beautiful simplicity of a fasting regimen. You need not fuss over food lists, measuring portion sizes, cooking and clean up, packing special meals, and other tedious tasks that often go along with dieting. Rather, all you have to do is abstain. Furthermore, fasting regimens can be as flexible as necessary. Fung emphasizes many times over that there is no single right way to fast and that a person should experiment to see what works best for them.
The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting by Jason Fung, MD with Jimmy Moore
For most Americans, fasting conjures up images of deprivation and the devout. From Jesus to Gandhi, fasting has been used to draw one closer to God or to make a social statement. It’s serious business because humans like to eat, drink, and be merry. Skipping meals? Not so much.
So a diet book that actually recommends fasting as a means of wellness is a bit jarring to some. After all, we are constantly being told by various health experts that eating regular meals–especially breakfast–is essential to a balanced diet and maintaining a healthy weight. Some even go so far as to say we should be eating every couple hours, claiming this keeps the metabolism humming and burning away calories. Dr. Jason Fung, however, would disagree and argues in his book that fasting is actually the key to effective and sustainable weight loss.
Losing weight can be tough and everyone tackling the scale needs support and encouragement along the way. Having someone cut through the confusion and hand you a solid action plan doesn’t hurt either. Though I’ve had a lot of people tell me they know what they should be doing to lose weight, getting it done is another matter. Even armed with clear information, it can be hard to actually apply that knowledge come dinnertime.
While many of my strategies and tips at The Diet Oracle will apply to any number of weight loss plans, I really want to help you where the rubber meets the road. I want you to feel confident that you can follow your plan and get results. With all this in mind, today I am launching a new feature at The Diet Oracle called Diet of the Month.
Each month I will take an in depth look at one particular diet; I’ll cut through the fluff to give you the ins and outs, plus valuable tips to achieve the best results possible! You’ll get a front row seat as I not only discuss the plan and all it entails, but also live it for seven days. That’s right. For an entire week, I’ll be taking the diet for a real world test drive. I’ll follow the eating plan and log every bite, time my meals, do the grocery shopping, and test the recipes…all while juggling the obstacles and obligations we all face from day to day. You’ll get to see whether the diet might be a good fit for you and what sort of results you could expect. Not a bad deal, right?
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