Intermittent Fasting and Spaced Meals

PART I: Intermittent Fasting

“Not one to follow diets or count calories, I do however watch what I eat, and limit processed foods. I haven’t always made the best food choices. Since entering my mid-30s, my body seems to be much less forgiving of snack foods.

Recent studies have found health benefits to fasting, I decided to try it out for 14 days to see if any of the hype is true – from better sleep to a slimmer waistline.

I turned to the 16/8 method of Intermittent Fasting: fast for 14 to 16 hours (most of them while sleeping), and then limit my eating window to eight to 10 hours. I spaced my meals to every four hours throughout the day and cut out snacks, especially ones before bed. I committed to starting my fasting window between 7 and 8 p.m.

Fasting isn’t right for everyone, and if you have chronic health conditions, you should talk to your doctor before trying anything like this.”

Getting Started

“I prepped. I’ve found meal plans and food prep are essential if you want to stick with a healthy eating plan. Over the weekend, I wrote a meal plan for each day, shopped, and chopped. Every meal needed to have protein, unsaturated fat, and fiber, with plenty of fruits and vegetables. For example, lunch might be two slices of sprouted grain bread covered with half an avocado, spinach and two slices of turkey with an apple on the side. For drinks, water or low calorie, non-carbonated and non-caffeinated drinks are recommended.

Dinners needed to be quick, easy, and kid-friendly most nights. We had things like chicken stir-fry, rice bowls, salmon and sweet potatoes or crock-pot chicken and vegetables.”

My Results Are In

“The first couple days I felt great. Then, as my body adjusted and realised it wasn’t getting as much sugar, I felt a little tired. But toward the end of the second week, I felt better and saw results.”

I’m Not Hangry!

“I normally snack on carbs or a piece of fruit, I end up starving about two hours later. I get shaky and a little frantic. Despite spacing four hours between meals during these two weeks, that shakiness never happened. I was hungry by the next meal but just hungry enough to want to eat another large, full meal.”

Learned to Listen to Hunger Cues

“Part of my poor food choices has been because I’m eating out of boredom. Knowing I set a goal and a meal plan made me question whether I was truly hungry when I wanted a granola bar. Listening to my body’s hunger cues made me snack only when I felt I really needed it or when my four-hour schedule was impossible to keep. I made better choices, opting for foods that offer my body more nutrients and maintain blood sugar like nuts, vegetables, and hummus – instead of empty calories like chips or crackers.”

Physical Changes

“Although weight loss wasn’t a primary goal, I did lose almost five kilos and about two and a half centimeters off my waist.”

Better Sleep

“This was a surprise. Most nights I toss and turn for a long time before falling asleep. And I often wake up in the middle of the night. When I stopped eating after dinner, I fell asleep faster and slept deeper than I have in years. More sleep is key to preventing chronic illness and helped me concentrate better during the day.”

Fewer Sugar Cravings

“I love sweets, and when I get hungry, I crave them more. However, when I filled my plate with foods like avocados and eggs, I found I didn’t want sweets as much.”

PART II: Spaced Eating

The meal timing aspect for Keto is skip breakfast, eat 12 noon and 6pm. Worth investigating further if you don’t do breakfast!

I follow a Wholefood Plant-Based lifestyle diet (which shares traits, but also differs from a Vegan diet). I have learnt a lot from the Keto information and have embraced the Intermittent Fasting principles.

Regardless of the underlying motivation regarding how you eat – whether you are improving health, losing weight, or implementing practical steps due to a religious or ethical viewpoint – a diet overhaul means massive changes to the traditional family eating style you grew up with.

The killer of spaced eating: snacking!

The Daniel Diet, Hallelujah Eating Plan, and the health message of Seventh Day Adventist Church, all share a different meal spacing timeframe to the Keto spacing – with a longer interval (6 hours) and virtually no dinner. They advise starting earlier with breakfast early, done at least by 9am and with lunch finished by 3pm (breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper). Optional: a light dinner. No eating after sunset.

My personal menu

Breakfast: fruit, cereal, grains, nuts, and seeds.

Lunch: Start with a raw salad with at least one cruciferous veg (cabbage, kale), olive oil dressing homemade with lemon or apple cider vinegar, herbs (avoid seed oils). Followed by a cooked meal, usually a bean protein and vegetables – red, orange, green – carbs counted in the portion of wholegrains or gluten-free bread, loads of recipes to make your own. Most veggies are full of starch and beat shop bought gluten free bread which are full of preservatives and not good for gut interflora.

Dinner: Toast with soup or a wholefood spread or fruit (double toast in oven for melba-toast).

Research healthy drinks and don’t drink with meals – not right before nor for an hour afterwards. Get 2 – 3 liters spring water daily.

Throughout the week I follow the Spaced Meals routine, and apply Keto’s low carbs high fiber, good fats, no sugar rules and implement Intermittent Fasting principles of no snacking, no night eating, and aim for an optimal water intake, using a Wholefood Plant-Based ingredient selection.

Eating out is a risky business, as I do allow myself to break the pattern for family and special occasions. The result is a few days of pay-back (sinusitis or arthritis pains, fatigue, if I slipped up and ate feta in a salad, or eggs in a baked dish, or a sugary pudding) but its infrequent and the horrible side effects are a strong deterrent.

Tap water is a definite no-no – find some filtration system that works or add Activated Charcoal to your tap water, allow it to settle and pour through a filter.

If you need a health reset as you enter a new phase of your lifecycle, adapting the principles of Intermittent Fasting and Spaced Meals to suit your body and lifestyle may be just what you’re looking for!

Disclaimer: The purpose of article is intended to provoke thought. Always consult your doctor if you have chronic health conditions. Reference: The 14-day challenge account is extracted from an online article written by Trish Chaney www.abbott.com/corpnewsroom/nutrition-health-and-wellness/two-week-challenge–intermittent-fasting.html