Actually, that was me...when I first began. I had bought into the idea that you needed to eat 6-7 (smaller) meals/day in order to lose weight or stay lean. Not that that might not work for some, but this is an IF thread.


In other news, I just completed my usual weight training session without any noticeable loss of performance. What makes that newsworthy is I had done so near the end of my (second) 30 hour fast -- and didn't died.

At first I didn't think I had the energy or the willpower to stave off hunger for that long, let alone have the energy to train with weights. But to my surprise, it was much easier than the first time. As I'm typing this, it's been 32.5 hours and I still haven't had anything to eat yet.

The first time I tried this I was as ravenous as a wolf at this point, and counting down the minutes until it was time to eat like a pig. The worst part of feeling like that is you tend to overeat and erase most of the benefits of your fast. I say most, because IF can still offer something no other diet alone can: a clean digestive system. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Thing is, we all need to take our digestive system "off-line" every now and then and give it a chance to do a complete cleansing -- which it can't do if there's always something in your stomach.

It can take 4-5 hours for food to clear your stomach, and average about 30 hours for a total transit. I had a salad and 1/2 chicken breast as my last meal yesterday. Even if you have no faith in IF as an assistant to your diet, at least we can all count on its cleansing capability without argument.

Anyway, just don't try this for the first time when you need to be on-call. Start your fast on Friday or your days off. Some folks (including me) can get pretty grumpy when they're hungry. So first see how it affects your mood a home, then move forward from there. And on that note, I have to go prepare something to eat now. Good luck!