I started intermittent fasting to heal my gut because I suffer from a bit of anxiety and a lot of anxiety manifests in relation to health. If you don’t already, check-in with your body and pay close attention to what is happening within it. More often than not, our body gives us signs of things before they get too bad or go completely haywire. I am very aware of what is happening with my body. I pay attention to my bowel movements and specifically how many times I go a day and what they look like. That is an area of concern and focus for me because a lot of people in my family died of cancer. I feel like your internal health has a lot to do with everything. I initially started intermittent fasting because I wanted to clean out my gut.
I suffer from lactose intolerance and harsh stomach pains. There are times when I would go out to dinner with Scott and before we even finished eating I would complain about my stomach hurting. I tried various things like cutting foods out but I would still have similar stomach experiences. On top of that the only way, it seemed, for me to keep a six-pack was for me to literally eat very small amounts of food because I had to always monitor what my stomach felt like.
Intermittent fasting is an effort for me to figure out what’s going on with my stomach. There is a large portion of the day where you don’t eat and that to me became an opportunity. It meant a large portion of the day I wouldn’t feel like my stomach hurt. The other opportunity intermittent fasting afforded me is an ability to figure out if what I’m eating is hurting my stomach. For context, last year, I went on a mostly vegan and about 25% pescatarian “diet”. I don’t typically eat badly but have still experienced these stomach issues. After seeing such great results with intermittent fasting I decided to take on the challenge of the 24 hour fast.
Here is the play by play of my second 24 hour fast:
My second 24 hour fast was very different from my first. A big difference between my first and second fast was the time I started the fasting. I started fasting at 4:30 pm vs. midnight as I had done the first time. Right out the gate, it was much smarter for me to do that because I was able to eat during the day when I’m expending the most energy, at least for my mental space. I ate at 4:30 the first couple of hours were a little bit tough because I was busy with the kids and I didn’t have that last final “shabang” meal to get myself in a mind frame. I actually looked at the clock at 4:38 pm and I was like “fucccccccck”. I immediately started to pound water. I felt zero pain in my stomach because I started to flush out all the toxins or anything that I had eaten. I was actually a little tired because the boys were crazy and we went out but once they went to bed I just found myself peeing a lot. So then I continued to empty my bladder and I started watching Game of Thrones because I wanted to watch something that is going to take my mind off of wanting to eat at 8:00 at night. That’s when I usually have my last meal. Then, I immediately got sleepy but not sleepy as in exhausted, sleepy as in my body literally wanted to go to sleep. I don’t usually go to bed until 11 o’clock because I would eat late and want my food to fully digest. I was fighting sleep because I thought “you shouldn’t be getting sleepy at this moment”. Then I thought about it more and realized, I finished eating 4 hours ago and my body is used to you going to sleep after that. I slept amazing that night, it was incredible, I woke up and had more mental clarity than anything. I was able to play tennis and my game was on point. Tennis is a lot about point construction and staying in the points and mentally I thought I was really good. I’m able to have black coffee which is great but I think some of the key points in my stomach felt great, my sleeping was amazing, I had mental clarity and I didn’t feel a lack of physical energy. Also what started to happen is I started to feel what it is like when my body would go into the deep freezer.
I love a great analogy and I have one that I believe perfectly breaks down what is happening while intermittent fasting:
With intermittent fasting, what is happening is you basically have two freezers. You have the refrigerator in your kitchen and the deep freezer in the basement. Once the refrigerator in the kitchen is empty then instead of running to the store and filling that backup and eating what you do, you go downstairs to the deep freezer. Your body starts to burn fat and starts to go into ketosis. That’s when our body becomes a fat-burning machine and the second 24 hour fast I really connected to that.
For more information on intermittent fasting follow @melissamade on instagram.
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