Intermittent Fasting: Starving, But Make It Mindful and Beneficial

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Let’s start with a confession: I didn’t plan to start intermittent fasting. I just woke up late three days in a row, realised I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and thought, “Wait… what if I monetise this suffering?”

That’s how all great wellness trends begin, through accidental laziness.


How’s it work

So here’s how it works you’ve got options too:

  1. Time restricted eating: You don’t eat for 16 hours, then you do eat for 8. Simple, right? Except that during the 16-hour window, you start getting abdominal cramps cause your bodies fighting with your mind and it’s got as much restraint as a child in a toy shop.
  2. Alternate day fasting: One example is 5:2 fasting, also called twice-a-week fasting. This means you eat very little (20-25% of your energy requirements) or if you’re crazy it can be nothing two days a week. The other five days you eat a typical amount of calories.

You start saying things like, “I actually feel sharper when I don’t eat.”
Don’t lie. You feel hollow and slightly aggressive.

Kidding aside, intermittent fasting isn’t as easy as it looks. But there’s a simple trick to make it easier; let sleep do some of the work. If you’re trying the time-restricted eating approach, just align part of your fasting window with your bedtime. For example, stop eating at 8 p.m. and start again at noon the next day. You’ll spend a good chunk of that time asleep blissfully unaware that you’re technically “fasting.”


The Science (The benefits)

Benefits:

  • Improves insulin sensitivity, when you fast your insulin levels decrease. Lower insulin levels make stored body fat more accessible as an energy source
  • Helps you burn fat
  • Weight loss – through reduced calorie intake and promotion of fat loss
  • Triggers “autophagy,” which is when your cells clean up their internal mess (digestion of the old damaged cells) like tiny microscopic housekeepers
  • Improved Heart Health – Some studies show it improves blood pressure, reduced LDL (“bad”) cholesterol reducing the risk of heart disease. 
  • Brain Protection – it may protect brain cells from damage and plaque buildup associated with neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. 

This is comforting, in a masochistic way. Like knowing that even though you’re hangry, your cells are thriving.

And you know there’s that extra benefit of being able to smugly brag to your friends “I’ve got self control, have you?”


The Eating Window

When your fast ends, it’s a sacred moment.
You feel reborn. Enlightened. Ferally focused on food.

You tell yourself you’ll start with something wholesome, avocado toast, perhaps, or a poke bowl, but five minutes later you’re inhaling a burrito the size of a toddler and whispering, “balance.” Trust me this is a very realistic possibility… even a probability.


The Spiritual Takeaway

Fasting makes you more mindful, mostly because you spend the entire fasting period thinking about food 😝.

You start analysing the meaning of a pretzel. You develop opinions about toast. You smell someone’s lunch from across the building and begin to see colours more vividly.

But it is truly spiritual putting the super powers aside, in fact it’s prescribed in many religions Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taoism just to name a few….


The Ending

At the end of the day, intermittent fasting is likely beneficial for you and has that extra spiritual goodness. It’s a little bit science and a little bit self-punishment.

“Do I feel better? Sure.
Do I miss breakfast? Constantly.
Will I stop? Absolutely not! I’ve built my entire identity around it now.”

Because if there’s one thing fasting teaches you, it’s that hunger fades…
…but the desire to tell everyone you’re intermittent fasting?
That lasts forever.

And remember it’s not just your ego but your health you’re putting as a priority. And the old ticker will thank you for that.

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