Every year after the holiday I am stuffed, bloated, hung over, and feeling a little demotivated. While we love the colder months for a good bulk; the New Year is a sign to start the cutting season. So how do I stay ready for cutting season? That's right I've never missed one and it all comes from the tried and trued tradition of my annual fast.
Sometimes I will go on mini cleanses or fasts or some restrictive regimen in solidarity with a client. A reason I am able to do this is because I have a lot of practice with fasting. Since the age of 13 I was introduced to religious fasting and took part in my church's annual 21 day fast. I learned about the 3 biblical fasts : Daniel Fast, Complete Fast, and Total Fast. The Daniel Fast is the least restrictive, only eliminating meat. The Complete Fast allows only water. The Total Fast restricts food and water but can only be done a total of 3 days. Other religious fasts include but are not limited to restraining from eating before sun down; eating only one meal a day, can add behaviors such as withstaining from sexual activity, or alcohol.
More importantly, by learning to do religious fasts I learned that what we deprived our body in nutrition is only the tip of the iceberg. Understand, it is of the opinion and practice here at LegitFit LLC that fasting is utilized for habit forming and habit breaking, not for weight loss. Quickly let's go over the negative effects of fasting to lose weight:
Reduced muscle mass - Some people who hop on the scale during a fast may enjoy seeing less pounds displayed. However, remember most scales are just going to tell you what you weigh, therefore if you lose muscle mass you technically weigh less but are at a higher body fat% than before.
Bounce back is intense. Fasting done incorrectly can inhibit the efficiency of the body's metabolism. This means once calories are added back (usually it's not the healthy calories but the stuff we''ve been craving) people can over do it. The metabolism being reduced in speed means the body is not used to processing so much at one time and inevitably the food becomes glycogen for storage. People can gain upwards of 50lbs bouncing back from improper fasting practices.
Negative association with food and eating disorder can alter mental health. Getting into diet is a sensitive and singular experience, however; habits are the culprit not food. If anxiety starts to build up around meal time, please contact a medical or mental health professional. For instance, I am cutting out eating food after 6pm because it affects my sleep. If I were to specify not eating cookies after 6pm it demonizes cookies for no reason, and even if I don't eat cookies I'll have crappy sleep because it's the act of digesting so close to bedtime not the cookie.
Because it is not something that you can make a lifestyle diet, fasting practices will not yield long term weight loss results. There will always be weight gain after a fast, which can get some into a horrible cycle of bingeing and withholding. The body will not trust that routine and each fast will make it harder and harder to achieve any sort of aesthetic goal.
Lastly, just to make sure everyone is on the same page: Fasting is not to be used for weight loss.
With that out of the way, let's talk about what are the benefits of fasting and some of my favorite practices.
Fasting benefits are vast and diverse. Mostly, results of a fast have to do with what is being restricted, what is being implemented, plus the consistency and integrity in the fasting practice. Again, basic fasting encompasses 3 parts; Restriction, Implementation, and Integrity.
Restriction- What habits are being removed and for how long? Setting a period of time for the fast is vital. If looking to get rid of a habit for good, consider a 21 day fast. It takes 21 days to either form or break habits. If looking to remove something but then add it back in later, best practice is to add the habit in slowly and with reduced frequency. Example, I cut out my alcohol intake during my fast with hopes to reduce my alcohol intake overall from day to day, week to week, year to year. Most common time limits for restriction: 1 day, 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, 10 days, 21 days, 30 days.
Implementation- Focusing on what can't be had makes a negative fasting experience and reduces adherence to the fast. That is why it is better fasting practice to break in new habits during a fast. What is it that can be gained out of dropping a habit? What is a goal that could be completed during this time? During the most trying times, redirecting to the habits that we want to start passes the time and in turn interrupts the craving. Fasting from social media? Make a goal to hang out with friends IRL once a week. Quitting excess sugar? Start a new skin care routine. Ditching the coffee? Make a goal to get 8 hours of sleep every night. For every one thing that is being restricted there should be another thing that is being implemented.
Integrity- This is the most important part. Sticking to the set time, restriction, and implementation are the only sure fire way to succeed. Integrity is an intrapersonal skill that improves trust in ability and resiliency. Making and keeping a promise to one's self is much harder than making and keeping a promise to another person or being. Right?! Like I can promise myself to be more patient with my fur babies, but really it's their reaction that keeps me accountable. So when no one is on the plan, how do we keep accountability? Practicing integrity could be about keeping a checklist and reward system. Write down as much of the plan as possible, and keep track of all the milestones. Further, set up rewards that can be earned daily, weekly, and one for the completion of the fast. The reward system helps get back to a baseline that may have been interrupted through instant gratification. For instance, in building wealth it is better to save for a large purchase instead of using the first lump sum available to make the purchase. As the fast progresses integrity strengthens, for our behavior is under a microscope and being scrutinized. Reward the good days and give grace on the bad days. All in all, continue to check in with daily vibrations, energy, thoughts, and finances.
Let's talk about my fast.
I fast for 21 days every year. Over the years; this ritual has kept me from being addicted to sugar, caffeine, sex/ masturbation, alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, and any other sort of chase for dopamine. I like to do it at the top of January right after the indulgent holiday season as a way to interrupt my winter diet and workout habits. Nothing like starting cutting season with some serious cuts!
My Restrictions
I will have none of the following for 21 days: caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, sex, meat, dairy, complex carbohydrates (baked goods and pasta), excess sugar (candy, sweeteners, syrups), social media scrolling, impulse shopping, and usually dating. Clearly some of these things seem more serious than others, but to be honest all of these activities get me caught up in sticky situations. Many of these activities are poor choices to self soothe, some are simply incongruent with my career and lifestyle. Now we've seen how I look and how I move, so I am in no way over indulging the way someone who has addiction issues would. But nonetheless, these things exist in my life and waste significant amount of time.
My Implementations
The easiest thing to implement during a fast is a workout regimen. Where there once were set meal times and happy hour dates, now Every day has a workout maybe 2. Remember, cortisol hits our blood stream when we are operating in uncertainty. So knowing what 2 hours of my day will entail gets me through the day. I have body goals I've set including a reduced waistline and desire to start adding cardio 3X weekly (swimming). For the last month, my bedroom has looked like a disaster zone. I want to clean it up to museum like neatness and develop a system that allows me to maintain. I'll be replacing my 30 min-2 hours veg out on social media with 30 mins of cleaning when I get home from my morning sessions. I desire to increase my productivity during the work day and am promising to eliminate procrastination. My dogs will do 30 mins training instead of the 45 min-90min nap I usually take with them. I'm looking forward to reading at least 2 books during this time since my unread book pile is embarrassingly high. Lastly, I'm going to be doing a very in depth focus on my finances. A big plus to cutting out alcohol, meat, caffeine, excess sugar, and impulse shopping is that I'm going to be saving a crap ton of cash
My Integrity
This blog post is part of my plan to maintain my integrity. When I was growing up, I was taught not to tell anyone about my fast (time of consecration). However; this usually led to questions and people being worried about my wellbeing. Seeing my 115lbs self fast during high school was like watching a phone battery lose its charge. Without proper explanation about why my energy levels were low or why my anxiety levels were high, my friends and teachers thought they were witnessing a break down.
Now, I am not worried about seeming like I'm bragging. In fact, I want to brag. Breaking and forming new habits is hard! Also, I am no longer doing my fast with my church family, but on my own. Something the whole congregation doing the fast was encouraging. Now as a fitness coach, my solidarity is with my clients and gym community. I have people to talk through the journey who will obviously check up on my progress. So yes, enrolling others into my goal helps me adhere to them.
Best Practices for Fasting
Fasts are meant to allows us to dally in discomfort in a controlled and safe way, not to torture ourselves. So it is very important to plan to fail. It's best to be aware of the agenda and schedule during a fast to ensure not to be tempted to break it early. For instance, Look ahead to see if there are any social events on the calendar where social drinking or drug use may occur. If these events do fall during the fast, reschedule or plan to go but only stay for a short time.
Do not eat meals that are meant to have restriction on a whim, plan ahead and have ready and prepped when possible.
The restrictions that have the biggest hold or are engrained in the daily routine need a few warm up days of reduction before full restriction. Nicotine for instance is a chemical addiction and can be supplemented with patches or gum. Allow 5 days prior to the start of a fast to slowly eliminate rather than jumping in cold turkey.
Similarly, bringing things back into the diet and starting certain behaviors again should not begin all at once. This is a time of exploration and a great way to see if what in the diet helps the body run smoothly vs what in the diet causes bloating, acne, weight gain, bad temperment. Break the fast with more broth based meals. With the Daniel Fast, start first by adding in lighter meats like chicken and tuna. Also, only add in one meal with meat each day before going back to eating meat predominant meals.
Depending on the fast, physical activity can be reduced. Restricting alcohol does not require reducing movement. However, doing a Total and Complete fast it is recommended doing light movement like raja yoga or gentle stretching. Even with the Daniel Fast, do not expect to out perform previous personal records in weight or reps. It is important to listen to the body and do not push through feeling dizzy, low energy, or extremely sore muscles.
Fasting can be a great way to start and stop habits. It's certainly not easy, but fasting is definitely worth the experience.
Love this it is really informative