I've generally been quite disciplined about food, save a few short periods in my life. My uncle (US Colonel retired) drove in to us, that you should not eat anything after your dinner in the evening, and as a family that meal should be as close to 5pm as makes sense.
So in a way he was pushing a small form of intermittent fast.
In the last decade+, living on my own, I have scaled that back and back. My view being if I am disciplined at home (~80% of my consumption) I can eat whatever I want at whatever time I want when out.
Then the last 2 years+ during covid, with little else to do, activity wise, I began to focus more on fitness and diet. It felt natural to move my dinner up to 4pm and no food after that save some popcorn with Olive Oil and cayenne pepper. Then I moved it to 2pm for my last meal. I am up at 5am and my habit is to have coffee and breakfast as soon as I get up so my eating window was 5am-2pm and that is what it remained.
Recently I had been
reading and watching
videos about the health benefits of driving your body into Autophagy.
Fasting or intermittent fasting ('IF') was not something I ever planned to do. Any 'IF' i did was simply an attempt to be more disciplined in calorie intake.
But over the last 3 months, for my first time, I set clear goals on IF, again with the goal of promoting Autophagy and not for diet considerations.
So here is the plan: (again when out socially none of this applies)
Stage 1:
- 3 months of strict IF schedule of 20:4 schedule, meaning I only eat food in a 4 hour window
- Eating window is from 10am -2pm (breaking my breakfast habit was challenging but easier than I thought. I had about 3 days hunger pangs but that was it)
- No food whatsoever outside that window, but i can have
Bullet Proof Coffee when I wake up which really does take the edge off any hunger due to its high fat content
Stage 2:
- another 2 months where I go add going Keto. My main goal of going Keto is to add a period of no carbs, especially sugars to my fast. Once upon a time I had no sweet tooth whatsoever by my marriage changed that due to my wife loving sweets and always having abundance in the house. I have continued the habit of always having something around and desiring something after my dinner. I want to end that craving. So while
Ketosis is not a goal I am chasing, ...why not?
Stage 3 :
- return to a more normal (for me) eating schedule of a 16:8 IF, where I will have an 8h eating window (6am-2pm) which is now a natural window for me to eat anyway.
And as mentioned if I am out socially or have anyone over, or am traveling, I do not follow this at all. That ~20% of time I can splurge or eat whatever i want.