Day 3 - first fast

Woke with my arm feeling better but knew it would be another day without weight training. This meant nailing the nutrition, water and getting to bed early.

These things are actually more important than the exercise and is where the results mostly come from. You absolutely CANNOT out-train a bad diet! 

It really helps cutting all junk out, even just for 7 days, to enable your body to get rid of the toxins that it has locked inside extra fat cells, yuk! This image below helps to explain.


 












Getting to bed early, ie 10-10.30pm on as many nights as you can, allows your body to get the rest and repair it needs, and your hormones to do their job properly. It also makes you feel more alert and refreshed the next day and less chance of you giving in to sugary comfort food when you are tired.

Meals:

Intermittent fast followed by 2 meals low carb. No starch.

There's a lot of new diet books out now about fasting, the 5 2 diet being one of them. Now I haven't read it but I still think that many still don't focus on eating good quality and real food that mother nature intended. There seems to be a general, eat less on 2 days but you can still eat what you want. It's never going to work as well as proper fasting on a cut out all crap week!

I have learnt to do an intermittent fast of 17 hours. This means no food, only water and herbal teas. Best done dinner to lunch, if I eat my dinner at 7.30pm I then 'break' my 'fast' at 12.30pm the next day.

I find the best meal for me to have before a fast is a high protein meal with heavier meats such as steak, loads of green veggies and some fats like olive oil on the veg or half and avocado. These types of meals keep me fuller for longer and more satisfied. If I have chicken or fish for example, they fill me up at the time, but I am hungry quite quick the next day.

Now I wouldn't recommend you try fasting if your diet isn't currently very healthy. The withdrawal you will get from not eating for a while will actually be sugar gremlins screaming and toxins trying to be released, as your digestive system will finally be getting a rest. This leaves you with the impression that oh my god I couldn't possibly go without food for even a couple of hours!! I used to be like this.

But, I learned that when our bodies are nourished with real food, cravings go away, you don't have to eat as often as your body is satisfied so doesn't send out signals to 'eat'. When you eat crap food your body will continually be sending you these signals as you won't be getting the vitamins and minerals it so desperately needs! It's best to clean up your diet before attempting fasting.

So, I broke my fast today with a green smoothie like yesterday.

But, I drank it a bit too quickly as I was in a rush, so a few hours later I arrived back home hungry. Eating fast and in a stressed state means you do not absorb all the nutrients. Now being too hungry is when danger eating normally occurs. But I stuck to real food.

I ate a handful of cherry tomatoes with some hummus. Then had salmon, veg and coleslaw.

Need to have something a bit more adventurous tomorrow I think, to break the 'protein and veg' samey meals. 

Time to wade through my recipe books! :)

Was under on my water today so need to nail that again tomorrow. Only managed 2.25 litres out of my 2.7. Nearly there but not quite.

So, onwards and upwards! Another fast tomorrow!

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