Is fasting strict?

Want to tell me something? Send me a text!

I used to think that I can’t do fasting because it is so strict.

Now I love it because it is so flexible I eat whatever I want whenever I want it and I also fast at least 18 hours a day. Listen here to find out exactly how flexible it can be.

You can learn more about how flexible it is on Jackie's podcast here.

Jackie from Intermittent Fasting Foodie has inspired me to try OMAD or eating one meal a day and i am loving it so far!

Gin Stephens is the other awesome lady who inspired both of us, check out her book Delay, Don't Deny and her other book Jackie from Intermittent Fasting Foodie has inspired me to try OMAD or eating one meal a day and i am loving it so far!

Gin Stephens is the other awesome lady who inspired both of us, check out her book Delay, Don't Deny and her other book .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey guys, how's it going?
It's Friday here and I wanted todo some shout outs.
I wanted to say hi to all of youlistening from these places.
So my mom, my mom is listening.
So you're number one here on thelist, mom, London, Ontario.
Hi to people from Tempe,Arizona.

(00:22):
Hi to you from Stockholm.
Hi to people from Coventry.
Hi to Puerto Vallarta.
Ooh, lovely.
Hi to people from Calgary.
Woo-hoo.
This is where I'm at, Calgary,Alberta, Canada.
Hi to people from Connecticut,Mansfield Center.

(00:42):
Hi to everyone from Denver,Merida, Yucatan.
Wow, a couple people fromMexico.
Awesome.
And, of course, hi to you fromFrankfurt, Mexico.
Main Hesse.
I'm not sure how to pronounceit.
Frankfurt.
So thank you guys all forlistening.
There's a lot more of you, butthis is just kind of the top.

(01:04):
the top list.
So I'm so happy to have youhere.
And I am going to tell you moreabout fasting.
If you're really, if you're kindof curious about it, this is
what keeps me doing it rightnow.
And this is what didn't work forme previously when I tried
fasting and it is flexibility.

(01:25):
So Thanks to Jackie, and I'vereferenced her in my other
episodes, and I'm going to linkher in this episode, but thanks
to her, I now can reallycustomize it and practice being
flexible, even though my mindreally wants to solidify

(01:46):
everything once and for all andjust say, this is how we're
doing it forever.
Done, decided, certainty, andmoving on.
But As life is, nothing everstays the same.
And I keep learning about mybody, about how my hormones are
working through my cycle, abouthow I can work around my family,

(02:08):
et cetera, et cetera.
So I keep having to readjust andto be flexible.
with my fasting.
And I want to tell you about itbecause previously when I've
tried fasting, the way that Iwas introduced to it was super
rigid.
And if you have experienced thatas well, if you've seen people

(02:30):
talk about it online or anywhereelse, you maybe have noticed
that the way that the fastingoptions are presented is always
in these super specific numbers,first of all.
For example, they would say youcan fast for 16 hours and eat

(02:50):
for 8.
Notice how it's just like not16.05 or not 16 hours and 30
minutes.
It's like 16.00 and then 8.00,right?
So Just my personality perceivedit as if it has to be that

(03:11):
rigid, and of course it doesn't.
And it seems silly to realizethat now, and it seems obvious
to me, but it wasn't back then,for many years actually.
And so that's what really, Icouldn't really stick to it
because...
I never took the chance tocustomize it to myself, to

(03:34):
listen to my body and eat whenI'm hungry and stop when I'm
full.
And so whenever I would do it,it didn't feel good.
I was always trying to fitmyself into this mold.
And so if you are like that, Iwanted to just kind of share
with you some of the differentthings you know, variety,

(03:54):
different days of fasting thatI've had over the last bit and
just give you an idea of whatflexible kind of fasting
schedule looks like.
So for example, I'm just goingto pull up my schedule.
So today I've only fasted for 13hours, which is Very little for

(04:18):
me.
I would like to get in moreabout 16 to 18, 19 hours.
But again, as I said, I havebeen experimenting.
And actually what happened thisweek is that one day I had a
lunch, like a late lunch, but Ididn't have a big enough lunch
to sustain me.
So I ended up being reallyhungry by the evening, which I

(04:41):
normally don't get.
If I get a good lunch, like Ireally feed myself well, I am
good.
I'm set.
So I didn't do that that day,and then I was hungry.
So then it kind of affected therest of my day.
So I ate late one day, and thenthe next day I was more hungry,
or I tried to fast later.

(05:01):
And so one day was 13.
Yesterday was 13 as well.
Before that, I had 22 hours.
So that was a long fast for me.
And I think that's after thatone, I didn't feed myself
properly.
So the day before that, I had 19hours.
The day before that, I had 17hours.

(05:23):
And these are all like roundedup numbers.
But in the reality, they werelike 17 hours and 22 minutes or
19 hours and...
well you know 10 minutes or nineminutes whatever they're like
totally random times because Iagain do it approximately and I

(05:43):
decide to break my fast when itworks for me and I was just
actually talking to my mom aboutit and she's been doing that for
many years actually already hermy dad and that's exactly how
she does it she approximatelyeats her first meal around 10,
11, or 12, and then her secondmeal around 5, 6, or 6.30,

(06:08):
around like that.
That's when they eat.
And so I feel like such a winnerjust discovering this now, being
this flexible, but I could havejust copied my mom and have done
that, tried that earlier.
But of course, we all have tocome to it on our own time, and
that's why it works when itdoes, because we have to
experience it on our own, at ourown time.

(06:29):
So And then on the weekend, Ihad a 16 hour fast, 18 hour
fast, 20, 21, 20, 20, 20, 18,16.
So as you can see, every singleday, my number varies.
And that's so awesome.
And that just, that I have tokeep reminding myself.

(06:50):
And so I'm sharing with you thatthis is a lifestyle and we can
be flexible with it.
So even if I say one meal a day,It can be a four hour stretch
where you eat, right?
It doesn't have to be a, youknow, sit down, eat and be done.

(07:11):
Or it can be a six hour windowon the weekend or eight or
longer if you need to, if yourbody's telling you.
Or if you've had a full weekendfull of eating, you can really
enjoy a 22 hour fast like I didon Wednesday, right?
And that could feel really good.
So, so far, I've done now 49days of fasting, which is a lot.

(07:36):
But what I'm finding ismentally, when I do a longer
fast, I really, really do enjoyit.
I feel good.
I love knowing how my body'srepairing itself, how it's
burning all the extra fat, howit's resting and all the things.

(07:56):
And Sometimes I don't even wantto eat because I'm like, I'm
feeling so good.
It feels a shame to eat.
But I do eat because I don'twant to overdo it.
I don't want to go too far.
But often what I've noticed isthat after a long one like that,
I do want to eat more for thenext day.

(08:20):
So that day I eat, but then thenext day again after a fast, I
want to eat more.

UNKNOWN (08:26):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (08:26):
And whether it's mental kind of scarcity or
whether it's my body is justactually trying to, you know,
get more food.
That's what I've noticed withmyself.
And I am trying to honor that.
I'm just saying, OK, if you wantto eat, eat.
But I do love, again, how.

(08:47):
We can have the best of bothworlds where we get that awesome
fasting window, where we get torest and burn the extra fat and
heal, and then we can reallyfeast.
And that's the other book.
I actually now remember thetitle, as I didn't mention in
the other one.
I linked it.
The book is called Fast, Feast,Repeat.

(09:09):
And I love it because I love theword fasting because I associate
that with...
a rest from eating, using up allyour stored energy.
And I love the feasting becauseI really do want to feast.
After I've been fasting forhowever hours, I want to just

(09:33):
eat all my favorite foods andthe bread and the cheese and the
veggies.
I do usually start it with theveggies and the meat and And
then dessert at the end.
And I love my tea.
I love tea with lemon.
Or I actually made ablackcurrant jam recently.
My friend and I went to a farmand I bought some frozen berries

(09:56):
there.
And I made black currant jam.
So this was huge when I waslittle, when I was in Russia.
And we had black currants, Iremember, and that's just a
taste of my childhood.
So if you're Russian, you knowwhat I'm talking about.
If you're not, I can't tell you.

(10:17):
It's very yummy.
So I made that jam, andsometimes I mix it in with tea.
And I also put it on bread withbutter.
Oh my God, that's delicious.
So back to the fastingflexibility.
This was the missing piece forme to get to from not fasting to

(10:38):
fasting.
It really, really, really helpedme to...
to fast as long as I have, 49days.
That's a long time.
And I feel my body changing.
I feel my waist shrinking.
And I've also been, you know,building muscles.
So I feel my body changing fromthat.
So I feel my body changingshape, not necessarily as much

(11:02):
weight, but my bum is gettinglike firmer and my waist is
getting smaller.
So I remember my personaltrainer telling me that that's a
good thing.
You know, we're burning fat hereand then we're building muscle
there.
So the flexibility, yes.

(11:23):
If you are on the fence and wantto try it, if you are curious
about the health benefits, thereare numerous, numerous, numerous
health benefits available.
And there's many, many differentstories.
Actually, I would just recommendyou go listen to Fasting Foodie
podcast.
And she interviews people likeyou and I who fast and they tell

(11:49):
their story of fasting and theirlife and how they came to it and
their progression.
And I love listening to that onebecause they share all their
stories and they're alldifferent stories.
And the benefits are alldifferent and how they came to
it is all different.
But they all share the same loveof fasting and of food.
And that just makes me feel likeI belong to a vast community of

(12:13):
fasters.
And it is normal to fastbecause, you know, when I look
around people I know in everydaylife, not many people fast.
I don't know why.
anyone actually who fasts in myeveryday life, but I do know in
that community and vastcommunity all over the world is

(12:33):
a lot of people are fasting andenjoying the benefits.
So I would highly recommend yougo check out her podcast.
So flexibility is something thatcan really serve you.
And I know even some people whenthey fast, their one meal of the
day is in the morning.
Okay, other people have heardthey do two meals a day.

(12:56):
One lady does morning and lunch.
This one lady actually I do knowone one mom from school I met
her a while ago, and she Didn'tcall it fasting.
You know what she said?
She said, I just eat once a day.
And she was actually kind of shyabout it.
Not really wanting to share itbecause it's not really that

(13:20):
well spread yet.
I guess it's not, you know, somepeople may be concerned about
her health.
But she said, yeah, I am not abig eater.
I just eat once a day.
And she was eating about 3 p.m.,3 o'clock in the afternoon.
And she looks and lookedfantastic.
And And I said, you lookamazing.
Like she looked healthy.

(13:41):
She looked like a healthy weightand not overweight and just
healthy.
So there's just so manydifferent options that we have
to choose from.
We can eat one meal in 10minutes one day.
The next day we can eat, we canstill have like a shorter eating

(14:04):
window of two hours.
And that could be after 18-hourfast.
You know, the next day we canhave a...
big eating window because it'sthe weekend and we want to enjoy
a family breakfast and a lunchand a birthday dinner and then
we Monday we can go back tohaving a longer fast and a one

(14:25):
meal it's so flexible and I justI'm still adjusting to it and I
have to keep reminding myselfthat I will adjust and I will
change my plans and sometimeswhen I'm telling my mom what I'm
doing I go I'm just hungry shegoes well remember you decided
to be flexible she's So justeat.

(14:46):
And I go, yeah, okay.
So I kind of forget that Idecided that.
So it's kind of funny how mymind just wants to pick one plan
and just stick to it.
But the reality requires, youknow, paying attention and
adjusting.
All right, guys, check out allthe links in my notes, in the

(15:08):
episode notes.
And shoot me also a note if youwant to know more.
I would love to chat with youabout fasting.
If you are a faster, I wouldlove to chat with you and find
out your story about it.
And yeah, so enjoy.
Have a great weekend or weekwherever you are.
And I will talk to you in mynext episode.

(15:30):
Bye.
Love you.