It’s late this Saturday night as I write to you all! I just downed a pint of “keto” cookie dough ice cream, and now my belly is full and I’m regretting my life decisions. Might as well learn from this slip-up, and what better way to learn than to write about it?
The past few weeks, I’ve been playing around with fasting. I read the book “Fast Like A Girl”, which talks about the myriad health benefits of fasting and the ways in which women specifically should adopt a fasting regimen and time it to her menstrual cycle. I took naturally to intermittent fasting– 16 hours fasting followed by 8 hours of feasting. Typically, what this means is that I don’t eat my first meal until 12pm or 1pm, and finish my last meal at 7pm or 8pm. I teach morning fitness classes and have gotten used to working out on an empty stomach, so that’s not an issue for me.
What happens when I’m hungry, though, is that I crave calories. Whatever the source. Including empty calories from alcohol. I’ve had a problematic relationship with alcohol for a long time, and when I’m not careful, I slip up on my sobriety. I really shouldn’t be drinking at all on the meds I’m on, but the past couple weeks, I’ve drank nearly every day of the week. Part of this is influenced by the friends I surround myself with, but upon further thinking, I believe the fasting is a contributing factor to my relapse into drinking. I once worked with a chemical dependency specialist who told me that you crave alcohol when you are hungry. Your body wants calories, and alcohol has tons of it.
Another reason I drink when I’m fasting is because I tell myself, “I haven’t eaten all day. I have a gigantic buffer that will allow me to down two drinks and still be in a caloric deficit.” Which may in fact be true. But what of the quality of the stuff you’re ingesting? I need actual food, nutrients, protein– not brain poison– to be fueling my body.
And thirdly, I tend to get drunk faster when I’m drinking on an empty stomach. I like the feeling of being buzzed and heady. I think we all do, to a degree. So I drink when I’m fasted. I reach the buzz faster.
Knowing all this about my drinking patterns, I hereby commit myself to sobriety, starting tomorrow. As far as fasting goes, I think I initially lost some weight while on the IF regimen, but the heavy drinking and late-night snacking this past week kind of undid all the progress I made in the beginning. That’s another thing– I’ve been trying to do one or two meals a day, but I always end up going to bed hungry, which leads me to munch on a plate of snap pea crisps before bed.
Fasting was a fun experiment, but I think I’m gonna hop back on more of a normal diet. I’ll eat no less than two meals a day (OMAD certainly wasn’t working for me), and in between, I’ll fuel myself with protein-rich snacks. I’ll drink lots of water and stay away from alcohol. For real, this time.
Goals for this coming week:
- three meals a day
- last meal at 7pm
- first meal no later than 11am
- no drinking
- stay keto
- hydrate with lemon water
- saturday is my only cheat meal of the week
- if I must do OMAD, keep it to Sunday
There we go! Course correction, implemented. I’ll check back in with you next week to let you know how this new diet plan works!
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