Many of you were following along on the videos I shared in my Instagram stories as I completed a 7-day water fast last week. That’s right, for 7 full days I had nothing but water, black coffee and some pink himalyan sea salt.
I got so many questions and I thought I’d take some time here on the blog and in the podcast to share answers to the most common questions, most especially: is extended fasting healthy?
The big picture point to remember is this: it’s the way you EAT that will drive your health and results, not the way you FAST. So while fasting might be a great option for you to detox or challenge yourself, it’s not the ONLY approach and it’s certainly not for EVERYONE. If you aren’t consistently eating well, work on that first. If you struggle with disordered eating patterns, DON’T FAST! You’ve got to use common sense, friends. If fasting represents an “all or nothing” mindset, know thyself. Don’t delve deeper into a pattern that doesn’t work for you.
Can we agree to be adult and responsible about the approaches we try? Crash dieting doesn’t work. Binge and restrict isn’t a pattern to reinforce. You use your head.
Focus on taking impeccable care of yourself. Okay?
There’s no option to listen to this blog because I cover all the important stuff in the video below and in episode 469 of the podcast. In this video preview and the complete podcast episode I cover:
Does your body go into starvation mode when you fast?
Is extended fasting healthy?
Why 7 days? Can I go for more or less time?
Does fasting damage your metabolism?
Does bone broth or butter coffee break your fast?
Why do you consume salt on your fast? What kind? How do you consume it? How much?
How do you handle moments when you’re really hungry?
How do you feel on an extended fast?
Why should you fast?
Who shouldn’t fast?
Can you workout when fasting?
You can check out the video below but make sure you listen to episode 469 of the podcast for more details! If you have additional questions after the video & podcast, leave them in the comments and I’ll be sure to do a follow up! I’ll be doing a follow up episode (episode 471) on some of the common misunderstandings that surround breaking down protein versus losing lean muscle mass (they aren’t the same thing).
For more resources on fasting, check out the following:
Is extended fasting healthy? Will it put you in starvation mode, lower your metabolism and make you burn muscle? What are the benefits of extended fasting? Who should do it? Who shouldn’t? What are the benefits? How do you do it? What can you eat? What can’t you eat? How long should a fast be? Is 1 day enough? How long do I have to fast to get benefits?
So many questions about extended fasting and we’re tackling them today! Plus, I’ll be sharing details of my recent 7 day fast including why I did it, how I felt, what benefits I experienced, if I’d do it again and how I broke my fast.
If you’re curious, interested or even skeptical, make sure to check out this episode!
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
I spent most of my life on a diet. I was miserable. I was also very fat. I lived in a world of food obsession, always “on” or “off” and never feeling like I had control over food. I never felt amazing. I was always stressed.
Can you lose weight on a diet? Sure! There are hundreds of ways to lose weight. But for most of us, losing weight isn’t the goal. We want to lose FAT MASS (not just body weight) and most importantly, we want to keep it off. Bonus points if we enjoy the process (which is totally possible and a huge part of being able to keep the fat off!)
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
One of the primary reasons diets don’t work (in the long term) is that they emphasize RULES, not TOOLS. The truth is, we live in a world where we kinda like to be told what to do. I can’t tell you how many emails I get each week from someone requesting a shopping list or meal plan.
I think that’s a problem. There’s a reason I don’t provide those things. Could I? Sure! Could I monetize the heck out of them? Absolutely! But they keep us mindless.
Diets & their prescribed rules prevent us from really paying attention our bodies and that’s where change and improvements come from: not in blindly following someone else’s guidelines but leaning in to what works for us, what makes us feel great, and what our bodies respond to.
When we’re always looking to someone else’s rules, there will always be another distraction a second a way, tempting us with a new set of rules and a fresh new start. Someone will always have a new set of rules. This approach has massive built in distractions via the next “shiny thing”.
There’s no restarting when we’re looking for tools to help us understand our bodies better.
You don’t need to restart. You just need to pay attention.
Diets foster an all-or-nothing mindset. With dieting, you perceive that you’re either on the wagon or off the wagon. Dude, there is no damn wagon. And our quest in life isn’t to be “on” all the time. The goal, as I see it, is to feel amazing every day. I know that I can feel amazing while having a couple glasses of wine in a week and enjoying a cupcake every now and again. That’s not a diet. That’s the quest to feel amazing. No diet can prescribe rules that are as effective or as personalized as our own quest to feeling amazing.
Most diets emphasize some variation of “eat less, move more” which completely ignores the reality of how fat loss actually happens in our body. Fat loss is faciliated or prohibited based on hormonal signaling. These signals aren’t controlled by calories. These signals are controlled by what, when & how much you eat. Most importantly: they are different for every single one of us. When I’m working with my clients, I help them understand their unique hormone signals and how to optimize them. We are all getting signals from our hormones every day (hunger, cravings, energy, mood, sleep, skin, etc) and we just have to learn how to work with our bodies instead of against them. Most dieting approaches do not teach us how to work with our bodies. Instead, they want us to blindly follow the rules.
There is so much more to why diets don’t work and I’ve gone into so much detail on how our bodies respond to the eat less move more approach as well as how to begin breaking the chains of dieting and creating a sustainable lifestyle that works for your body. For some of those detailed resources, check out these episodes of the Primal Potential podcast. If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know!
Ready for another Food As Medicine episode? I’m really psyched for this one because I’m VERY passionate about sulfur-rich veggies like brussels sprouts & broccoli. I have no doubt that they have transformed my health.
Today we are talking about everything from skin health to metabolism, detoxification, hormones, arthritis & asthma. Plus, we’ll go into how you can make these veggies super delicious if you’re not usually a big veggie fan.
I am beyond excited for this 2nd episode in the Food As Medicine series of the podcast! Today we are talking about turmeric and it’s active components, curcuminoids.
Curcumin has long been used to fight inflammation but it does so much more than that! We’ll explore the role of turmeric in cell health, inflammation, skin health, depression, cognitive function and more!
We’ll differentiate between turmeric root and turmeric powder, talk about how to identify a quality supplement and I’ll even share a few recipes.
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
