Over on The IF Life blog, Mike OD suggests that those living a fasting lifestyle take one ‘up’ (non-fasting) day each seven to ten days. He thinks this will signal the body that there is no danger of starvation, and help prevent the build-up of Alpha-2 receptors on fat cells — the kind that make it hard to lose that fat.
From a psychological point of view, I don’t like that idea. First, I’m not sure why it is called an ‘up’ day, but it makes it sound like the rest of the days must be ‘down.’ I know how most people think about food, and I’m sure that for all too many folks an ‘up’ day would soon translate into a reward — which, again, makes all the other days seem somehow inferior. If you stick to the arduous fast for a full week, you reward yourself with an ‘up’ day.
If that is how you feel, you will never keep up with the fasting regime for the rest of your life — which is what the goal of a good fasting lifestyle should be. There are two broad categories of intermittent fasting — those whose fast includes calorie restriction, and those who fast but make no effort at restricting calories. Some people think that fasting with calorie restriction can be a permanent lifestyle, but I doubt that will work for more than a tiny minority of people. Instead, I think a calorie restricted fasting regime is a good temporary solution to help you lose weight more rapidly than you otherwise would. Perhaps if that is your goal, you may want to build in occasional reward days to help keep the weight-loss from plateauing out.
Once you are at or near your ideal weight, however, the less rigorous — and much less difficult — calorie unrestricted fast is your best choice for a permanent lifestyle. And if you follow a schedule that suites your lifestyle, you will be eating as much as you want half of every day — as we do on our 23/25 fast — so every day is an ‘up’ day. So long as you eat a normal, healthy diet, and get a reasonable amount of exercise, fasting will help you maintain your ideal body weight, while still reaping the health benefits attributable to caloric restriction.
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On Wednesday we will be going to Colima for a few days, traveling by bus. This will be our first major break in routine since starting the fast. I must admit, we live a very routine life, and have the luxury of doing the same things at the same times (because we want to, not because we must). I work on-line, so in fact we can be very flexible with our schedule, but we prefer to follow a predictable, enjoyable routine — broken only occasionally by circumstances. Once during the first month of our fasting regime, and once this month, we went to parties, which required minor adjustments. Two other times we went on car trips to nearby places, which meant I had to skip my wine (both were breakfast days), but no other difference, since we took food with us to eat. So this is the first major change of routine, and I’m interested to see how we will deal with it.
The trip begins while we are in the end stages of a fasting period, so we are not supposed to eat anything until between 2:00 and 3:00 pm — when we will be on a bus somewhere between Guadalajara and the city of Colima. I’ve suggested Isabel carry some sweet snacks in her purse, since she sometimes feels dizzy or weak if she exerts herself too much toward the end of the fast. Myself, I’m content to wait until whenever we get into Colima to eat, since the last time we were there I had a very tasty sandwich in the bus station, and so can look forward to another of the same. Our destination is another hour beyond the city, but still in the state of Colima, near the coast.
Obviously, my next post will be after we return on May 4th, and I’ll let you know how we fared. I can appreciate the fact that for many people, such trips and other schedule-changing circumstances are almost constant events (I lived like that when I was younger) — so it may be easier for me to recommend means of dealing with such a lifestyle while maintaining a fasting regime after we go through this experience. I’m looking forward to it.
A note about weight, as someone asked (off-line). We only weigh ourselves about once per week — any more often is too subject to fluctuations to have much meaning. We only report our weight on this blog once per month. Our last weigh-in shows we continue to lose weight, though we each have had one week (and different weeks for each) when our weight went up instead of down. Unless that sea-food from the coast creeps up on us, we expect to report lower weights for this month than last, though perhaps not as low as they are now … before the trip.
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