I thought I'd chime in as I've been doing this for a few years now. I.F is not for everyone but there are some great principals & lessons that I learned from changing my lifestyle and doing this. See what I did there???? I said lifestyle because that is pretty much what this has been for me but it's also a dangerous game this whole fasting thing and some people, me included are doing some real strange things out there that isn't particularly healthy for me. Even with me practicing this after a while I needed to speak to some friends because of me being a recovering addict, having seen friends suffer with eating disorders & spending time with these good folk who suffer, I was worried that I too had developed one. My brief story I used to be overweight for my height and I set out to change a few years ago. I shed over 25kg over a period of around 6 months. I set out to try fasting because I saw my friend Tommy Huynh's transformation happen and I was real curious & inspired by it, also...... my girl at the time broke up with me and I wanted to bone loads of girls seeing that I was now single and morally allowed to use Tinder Oh... and ride bike harder, faster, more often & for longer..... I wanted to drop lot's of body mass because I was fat & those were my motives. Tommy follows the OMAD (one meal a day) lifestyle & he eats like a whole chicken in a salad as a meal, it's a large meal but he is a beast and trains pretty hard and that what works for him. This looked waaay too hectic for me to follow so I thought I'd just do a 16-18 hr fast period being mindful of good nutrition to keep me sustained during rides and life in general. With practicing I.F I soon started changing the way I saw food especially because I often go out riding during the fast period. I started looking at food as fuel for the body and I started eating for purpose rather than enjoyment or gluttony. I still binge every now and again but I do it when I know I have a big pedal coming up the next day so I can burn it all, no problem. Right at the start I was eating plant based because my ex was vegan and I thought I'd just carry on with that after we split.I like to Keep It SImple & after a month or so I found it was too hectic and I was bonking. I became conscious of what I was putting in and with plant based I found I was eating way to many starches and there was no proper balance, I needed to eat all the time and to get balanced was making life too complicated for me especially when travelling often. It wasn't working for me so I switched to pescatarian which was a little less complicated but over a period of 2 months I switched over completely to eating whatever as long as it's a wholesome balanced meal and within my feeding times. Breakfasts are always pretty much the same, even now.... it's oats, fruit, yoghurt and the rest of the day depends on what I feel like again as long as it was balanced but I riding a lot so I burn loads of calories. I dropped from 85 to 74(my target weight)& I felt a difference in performance. I did a trip to the states and during that 3 week period and not really fasting, just riding everyday and I dropped from 74 to 68 on the "american road diet" which was mostly pretty non nutritious. When I got to 68 I felt so good riding that I thought, "Hey, maybe 65 would be better". I just got caught up in the whole thing now. I dropped to 65 very quickly, like a week, because from all the repetition and knowledge gained during my journey I was so in tune with how my body works & reacts That it's super easy for me to shed. I soon did another 3 week riding trip away and even though I was eating a lot during the time away I wasn't really keeping an eye on the scale and my caloric intake to burn was not Balanced. I came back weighing under 60kg. last time I weighed in that region I was plugging myself with as much drugs as i could get my hands on. That got me thinking that maybe this game I'm playing ain't too healthy so I need to get back up to a respectable weight class. I spoke to some friends and I settled 63kg which is pretty much what I easily maintain now because one year later from that event I am so aware of both sides. Good and the bad. So why do I still fast after all that? Well, I fast now but I'm not the strictest faster out there, Weekdays I fast while on weekends i fly with the birds. When I travel I don't really fast because I burn too many calories for me to eat that much in the window period & I'm so used to it that I can monitor and maintain mass super easily. It's taught me discipline, and I am now very aware and conscious of caloric burn to intake with food. After all that I learned even more about balanced and it's constant work. I don't think I felt more alert while I was fasting or performed better because of the fast itself. I feel that's all due to mass loss & nutrition & because of that I don't eat much junk foods at all. It just makes me feel lethargic. To drop mass is easy but to keep that mass off is where it used to be tricky with all those diets and all. That's where this helps me with maintenance.
