I’ve done all the fasts from intermittent fasting, to alternate days to 72 hours water only, to 1 week this, to 1 month that…. and I have come to the following recommendation.
Like with everything in the self-care arena, serious wellness enthusiasts like myself are looking to incorporate anything beneficial to your temple for life. working out is for life, good food is for life and so shall be our fasting regimen.
The clear winner with some adjustments is what they call intermittent or 16:8 fasting, which in a nutshell means you will have your very first meal of the day at noon at the earliest.
Why is intermittent fasting the best method to fast?
The goal of any fast is to give the intestines a break so they can perform self-maintenance. Obviously, if you stuff yourself 24-7 your gut will never ever have time to clear stuff out and therefore you’ll have an accumulation of all kinds of different stuff inside you, which leads to weight gain and health complications. So cultures and people have always been practicing some sort of fasts in different ways, yearly, monthly, weekly, whenever…..
As mentioned earlier, when something is good for your body, I will make it part of my life forever, and so have I done with intermittent fasting with minor adjustments to fit my body type. I am naturally slim and I am not trying to lose weight but gain weight. My self-care workout routine is a minimum of 4 days early morning workout and I have a naturally high metabolism. According to those facts I adopted the “after-workout” exception to my intermittent fasting schedule. Only on days after early morning workouts am I not fasting for the simple reason of my belief in nutrition immediately after a workout. I can feel my body restoring much faster and better the sooner I get something in my stomach right after, which is usually a shake.
Now, if you have some extra pounds on you and trying to lose some of that, then obviously the “after workout” exception shouldn’t be adopted unless it’s protein-based nutrition for purely muscle building.
In conclusion, my favorite way to fast is intermittent fasting because it gives you the benefits of fasting daily and forever instead of once a year or just occasionally after you remember that a fast is way overdue. Just make it a part of your life and forget about it.
Daniel Florian
