Why? Getting older also gives you an excuse for acting like a child - you get to ask a lot of questions and besides being annoying at times you get a pass by most people. Using the power of the inter-webs my research led me to intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet.
Using my stoic philosophy of trust but verify, I ventured into the practice of intermittent fasting. This is such a simple lifestyle concept I really had no excuse or obstacle in the way starting and documenting this journey.
The IF premise: completely fast from any food for 16 hours and then only eat during the 8 hour eating window. So you stop eating at 8PM and then your next meal is at 12 noon. Your eating window is 8 hours, from 12 noon to 8PM. So simple.
This became my daily routine. I would arise at 5AM have my morning coffee, attend to business, exercise and then once 12 noon came I would prep and eat my first meal of the day. I would usually have a mid afternoon snack and then eat dinner around 630PM and have one more before bedtime snack. Initially I found this pretty easy to do and it made the most sense to me. After sleeping for 8-9 hours I really wasn't that hungry in the morning and I wanted to do my exercise in a fasted state in order to burn more fat stores. That was the initial premise and it seemed to suit my personal lifestyle just fine. I started this practice about 5 years ago after reading the Warrior Diet. I would just eat breakfast around the lunch hour, afternoon snack, eat dinner, bedtime snack. The problem with that is - my diet sucked. I was eating the standard american diet. As I started to age I started to accumulate FAT and slowly but surely lose strength. Hmm, what the hell was going on?
In 2013 I tried my first Whole30 - nutrition reset and experienced great results. Of course after these great results I went back to my previous eating lifestyle. Basically what I found was my "pill", my drug so to speak - as soon as I started to feel run down, burnt out, fat and losing strength I would do a Whole30 and reset my system. I did seven Whole30's over the next 5 years. Each of them was different in their own way but they always followed the same pattern. Eat well for 30 days, go back to my previous lifestyle - I was on a Whole30 roller coaster. I really wasn't fixing the problem. I also noticed that the subsequent Whole30's didn't yield the same amazing results that the initial Whole30's produced. I started to analyze this phenomenon and what I found myself doing was grinding through the Whole30 then binging on the forbidden fruits until I felt the need to do the next Whole30. The binges were the underlying problem.
During these binges I still practiced IF and didn't have my first meal until 12 noon, the issue came what I ate during m feeding window. I ate the standard American diet. High carb, low-medium fat, moderate protein, and sugar related items. I also drank alcohol during this time, craft beers. While the IF may have slowed the process I really wasn't addressing the cause. In fact I was descending into the abyss.
At first I quit alcohol thinking if I get that out of my system the craving for the refined carbs and sugars would subside. The opposite occurred - I turned into a cookie monster! I still did IF, but my meals and snacks were loaded with refined carbs and sugar. I felt better not drinking alcohol, but I started to accumulate a lot of FAT. knowing that it is impossible to out train (exercise) a bad diet, I planted a flag and decided to go on a Whole30 but stretch it out to 40 days - my religious practice has 40 days appropriately called the great fast so it worked. About half way through this great fast I decided to up the game and extend my fasting window to 18-20 hours. My first meal would now come at 2PM or 4PM. I immediately noticed some differences. I started losing some FAT around the mid-section. I was strict on the Whole30 with the elimination of grains, diary, legumes and sugar, but I also stretched the carbs and protein a little and I didn't monitor the hidden sugars as tightly as prescribed. When I felt "off" I would eat fruit.
As the great fast came to a close I stretched my fasting to 20 hours daily, in fact one day I did a complete 24 hour fast without any difficulty at all. During this time I also started researching the Ketogenic diet. I've heard of ketosis before, remember the Scarsdale Diet from the '70's? It basically was designed to put your body in ketosis. Atkins is another form of a popular ketosis diet. The Whole30 is a form of a Paleo diet with no restrictions on the amount of food and doesn't necessarily drive you into ketosis.
Researching Ketogenic diet was interesting, there is a lot of information available. I like watching YouTube videos and came across some fabulous short videos explaining the diet and benefits. I started studying the information and my eyes opened to a new possibility for me, what if I did IF and switched my diet to Keto eating? what results would I experience?
I am into my second week. I will document the process and write a full report at the end of four weeks. So far I am liking the results.
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