Two Months into my Intermittent Fasting Experiment - Here’s What I Think
Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist, doctor, or medical expert. These are my experiences and thoughts, not a suggestion for anyone else. If you’re into Intermittent Fasting, talk to a nutritionist or a doctor if you have questions and/or want to start a new lifestyle safely.
If you know me, you know I’m an experimenter. I love trying new trends, new “rave” diets, new workouts, new hair and skin products… you name it, it’s probably sitting in an online cart somewhere waiting for me to pull the trigger and create my newest obsession.
Y’all. I rolled my eyes at Intermittent Fasting for MONTHS. I hate restrictive diets, anything that requires counting… and don’t even get me started on KETO.
One evening, driving home, listening to my favorite podcast (The Dr. Gundry Podcast), I heard from the infamous biohacker, Dave Asprey. I rolled my eyes at this guy, too. I see you, Dave. Selling all your name-brand products, making money off of people with this so-called “perfect” and “healthy” lifestyle. If you haven’t noticed yet, I love rolling my eyes at things before actually being informed about them. With no other choice, and no other podcast calling to me, I decided to give this guy a real listen. I was CAPTIVATED.
The Intermittent Fasting Method that Dave proposes is the “Bulletproof” method. You’ve probably heard of this if you’ve ever Google searched “keto” or “fasting”. Personally, I’m not a fan of the mainstream Keto diet that people are promoting currently, where you try your best to stay in Ketosis forever (this is not safe or healthy btw), so I almost rolled my eyes AGAIN when he mentioned it, but then he said something that I had been hearing, but hadn’t really LISTENED to. Ketosis is not a state that you should strive to be in all the time. It is a state that your body naturally enters after a period of fasting (intended or not) that you can benefit from if you come in and out of it regularly. Now, I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, so I’m not going to try and go into the details about metabolism, ketosis, and what physically happens to your body when you come in and out of this state, but you can read about it in Dave’s newest book, Fast This Way. Or, you can talk to your doctor about it! Basically, during a regular eating window, if you are eating balanced carbs, fat, and protein (eating normally), you are burning carbs for energy. If you are in Ketosis, consuming a limited intake of mostly fats, you are burning fat for energy.
The most interesting thing I learned about fasting in this 30-minute podcast was that fasting is not just depriving your body of food for the physical benefit and weight loss. It literally gives your body time to get into autophagy (self-cleaning mode) and RESET. It’s kind of like when you leave your laptop on for months at a time and it gets slower and less functional when ideally, you need to power it down every night for the best performance.
Here’s the thing. I have a problem with constant food intake. I eat when I’m bored, I eat when I’m watching TV, I eat until I feel uncomfortably bloated and then I eat again when that finally goes away. I have a habit. I am not eating food for energy, I just WANT to eat. Yes, I am an active fitness instructor, and I don’t eat ridiculously unhealthy, but I am kind of a living vacuum for snacks. I am tired all the time when I eat like this. My workouts suffer, I get brain fog and I just feel weighed down. What I was looking for was less of a “diet” and more of a sense of control over my eating habits and the way I felt.
As I was listening to this podcast episode, I started realizing that this guy wasn’t selling a diet to lose weight and become some glamorous, skinny version of yourself… he was selling a mindset, a mental shift, and an approachable breakaway from the “grazing” lifestyle that had not been serving me. Fasting at its core has nothing to do with diet. In its original form, it was religious, spiritual, and mental. Okay, I can get behind that. I’m in. After getting home and sitting in my car to finish the podcast episode, I decided that I had nothing to lose, so I was going to give this a real try. And here is what happened.
First, I bought Dave’s newest book, Fast This Way, on audible and I just listened. I listened to the history of fasting, the mental and physical transformation of Dave’s life, and the method that he created from his experiences and a little trial and error. Here’s the gist; True OG food fasting = nothing but water, tea, or coffee for a set period of time. AKA no calories. Bulletproof fasting = periods of high fat intake and boosted ketosis for set periods of time with intervals of “normal” eating. During your eating windows, you can eat whatever you want, or you can take your journey further and work on consuming an anti-inflammatory, anti-aging diet. That part is really up to you.
My journey is set to the 16:8 fasting routine. This means you fast for 16 hours, with an 8 hour eating window. Pretty straightforward, right? Your eating windows can be whatever time you want them to be, so I couldn’t make any excuses that my busy schedule wouldn’t work with this. I chose the traditional timetable of fasting from 8 pm to 12 pm and eating from 12 pm to 8 pm. I’m not often hungry in the mornings and I am usually active, so having a full stomach does nothing for me.
WEEKS 1-2; The bulletproof method suggests starting your morning with a Bulletproof Coffee. And before you go rolling YOUR eyes and thinking I’m trying to sell you something, just hear me out. You can make your own bulletproof coffee without buying ANYTHING that is actually “Bulletproof” branded. Bulletproof Coffee is Coffee, 1-2 tbsp of clarified butter (ghee), and 1-2 tbsp MCT oil combined in a blender. Is anyone reading this a friend of mine? I NEVER drink coffee. I hate the jittery ascension followed by the heavy crash and honestly, it usually makes me MORE tired. I was READY to try this method, but I was not yet sold on coffee, so I looked for workarounds for this. Turns out there are some. Over the first week, I replaced coffee with green tea and raw Cacao.
I started my first day with the Raw Cacao variety since I’ve been drinking Cacao in the AMs for years and this made me feel safe! I had never added butter or MCT oil to this (I usually added collagen protein and mushroom powders with a coconut milk base). The first thing I got excited about was that when you add ghee and MCT oil to hot cacao water and blend it together, it froths up and creates a nice little chocolate latte thing. Okay, this I could get behind. Day 1, was interesting. I was not hungry or “rumbly” after my little high-fat beverage until about 11:45 pm. I honestly think this is because I spent my first day THINKING consistently about when I could eat and whether or not I was going to get hungry and die before my eating window came around. Spoiler: I didn’t die, my blood sugar didn’t drop and I had more energy than I normally do.
This general outcome was consistent for the first 2 weeks that I did this. Consuming high amounts of the right fats during my fast turned off my hunger and boosted my energy until right around the time I had set aside to eat.
Here are the good things that happened during those first 2 weeks:
I felt insanely in control of my cravings and my food intake. Having my set windows turned off my constant grazing habit and empowered me to just eat when I was actually hungry.
I had a ton of energy and even after breaking my fast, I wasn’t immediately falling into a brain fog like I usually did after lunch.
I consistently woke up without being bloated and in a better mindset to do something productive. (What else was I going to do I didn’t eat first-thing after waking up?)
My cravings shifted. After long windows of eating nothing, I often didn’t crave straight-up junk when it was time to break my fasts. I felt like fasting actively killed some of my worst cravings since I was forced to power through them. And to be real, during my fasts it didn’t feel like “powering through”.
I got a lot of productive things done. It’s crazy what you’ll get done when you aren’t existing in a constant state of “what am I eating next and when am I eating it”.
Here are some of the not so good things that happened:
I am a morning fitness instructor and I learned VERY quickly what dinners agree and don’t agree with being active in the AM during a fast. If I ate all the way to the end of my window at 8 pm, went to bed at 9:30 pm and then taught at 7:30 am class…. that was not fun. Alternatively, when I finished dinner around 6 pm, went to bed at 9:30-10 pm, and taught that same class I had way more energy. This trial and error period wasn’t fun when I had physical commitments.
If I got bad sleep, fasting was not as straightforward and easy. It is insanely difficult to be an active person in the morning if you are fasting on a night of poor sleep. I have since learned that when this happens, I adjust my morning beverage and add protein to it, technically breaking my fast, but giving my muscles a boost and not totally wasting my workout.
I can’t be OCD about fasting. If I have poor sleep, I need to eat later because life happens, or I am just feeling drained and extra tired, I need to lose my fasting window for a day or so. And this is FINE. I get very stuck on organization and schedules, so this is hard for me to do.
Sometimes it’s annoying with a social life. If your friends want to get dinner at 8 pm… ya gotta make that decision, or you can just be real with your friends and ask for a 6 pm reservation. The same goes for breakfast dates. Bye.
WEEKS 3-4: So, after 2 weeks of a great experience with this new fasting lifestyle, I went on vacation. Now, this is something that you should absolutely do if you are living that Bulletproof lifestyle. It’s okay to not plan your fasts and let yourself be spontaneous with your eating habits on a vacation. What I did though, was completely go wild. Sure, I ate breakfast daily, but I ate things that ALREADY make me feel like crap on a good day. I had alcohol, which again, makes me feel like crap on THE BEST day. I ate from 8 am to 11 pm. I went all out with no shits given for 4 days. Mistake.
When I got back into my normal routine and picked up my 16:8 fasting schedule again, I felt AWFUL. Workouts were insanely hard, teaching was even harder, I forgot cues, I couldn’t think of words, my speech was CRAZY and I felt like an explosion had gone off in my body and everything was just swirling around inside me while I stood still. This is what I had expected when I first started fasting. I almost stopped for good, but deep down I really felt like it was my habits the weekend prior and not fasting that was hitting me so hard.
Intermission BULLETPROOF COFFEE: Somewhere within these two hard weeks, I decided that I was going to give the official Bulletproof Coffee a try. How much worse could I feel, right? And by now, I had read two of Dave’s books and there was so much praise for this beverage that I couldn’t NOT try it. You honestly, need to read his books, do some research on mold toxins and take a dive into some nutritional articles for the WHY behind this, but this coffee did not make me feel anything like I was used to. There is a difference between locally sourced, well harvested, and kept coffee, and Folgers. Sorry not sorry to call out cheap coffee, but there’s a reason it’s cheap (“ehem”… Starbucks is not exempt from this shit coffee list btw). Coffee also hits differently when it is blended with ghee and MCT oil. I’m not a scientist. I’m just a real person, and It’s just a different feeling. Just like that, I was a coffee drinker. What?? I started out with local brands that seemed to be thoughtful about the quality of their coffee. And now, of course, because I’m just LIKE THAT, I use the Bulletproof brand coffee beans in my Bulletproof Coffee. I don’t get any sort of praise or recognition for promoting this brand. I just like it. It just feels different. Also, no. I am not addicted to coffee. This is another way that I find Bulletproof to be different. When I don’t want coffee for a day, I don’t drink it. I do not wake up a “Zombie”. I don’t crave it and I don’t feel tired at the end of the days that I do drink it and it “wears off”. I don’t even notice a “wearing-off” period. Skeptical? Give it a try!
WEEKS 5-8 - I’m almost at the end of my 2 month trial with this Intermittent Lifestyle and here’s how I’m feeling NOW. My days are up and down depending on how active I have to be for my job as a fitness instructor. Some days, I am EXTRA tired when I have to teach an AM class and some days I feel like I have more energy than ever. For a while, I was confused and assumed that maybe I was pushing my body too hard with morning classes. A bad morning for me felt like I was doing a heavy sprint when I simply held high plank, forgetting what I was saying halfway through sentences and overall, physical and mental slowness. This concerned me, so I dug a little deeper. What I’ve been seeing is that my energy levels correlate directly to my sleep quality the night before. I’ve been using a sleep tracking device for almost a year now and I took a real hard look at it over the past month. My Whoop tells me my sleep quality, breaks down each sleep stage, and lets me know how many times I wake up during the night. If I have a sleep recovery score of 50% or less, my energy suffers. Makes sense, right? And what does this have to do with Intermittent Fasting?
Look, we can’t always have complete control over the quality of sleep we are getting, so I had to adjust my IF rules to fit MY needs. This is what really made all the difference. My number one tip if you try this lifestyle out is to really avoid being overly routine with it. IF does not have to be the same every day. Your eating windows can shift, your fasts can be longer if you’re feeling super refreshed, or shorter if you are feeling overexerted and need recovery. Here are some changes I made to my IF schedule over the past few weeks :
If my sleep score is below 50% or I just FEEL drained when I wake up, I add collagen protein to my bulletproof coffee or “bulletproof beverage” in the morning. If I feel EXTRA tired, I just have a light breakfast and call it a regular day. LISTEN TO YOUR BODY.
If I wake up feeling extra refreshed and have a great sleep score, I skip the caffeine. It is still addictive, and if I don’t need it, why drink it?
I feel better when I stop eating around 6-7 pm and get to bed between 9:30 and 10 pm.
Sometimes I have days where I eat whatever I want whenever I want, and that’s fine.
Hydration is so important. I drink at least 64oz of water a day.
Here is how I feel overall on the Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting lifestyle:
I have more overall energy. Since starting IF, I rarely have mid-afternoon crashes or feel like I need any sort of nap. (yes, even when I drink coffee).
I’m not “suffering through” my fasting periods. I really am just NOT hungry until around 11:45-12 pm.
I’ve almost forgotten what “the bloat” feels like. Unless I make the choice to eat foods that I know I react to during my eating window, I very rarely get bloated.
If I sleep terribly, fasting will be terrible. You are not meant to fast in a poorly recovered body/brain. I eat food with no shame when I am not at my best.
Aesthetically, my abs are more visible. This I believe is primarily because of bloat relief. I am not doing IF to lose weight.
I feel mentally clear and more productive. It’s funny how when I’m not spending my days solely focused on what I’m eating and when… I get more done…
Overall, would I recommend Intermittent Fasting? Yeah! I’m all about trying new things and seeing if they work for me. Please do your research and thoroughly inform yourself on Dave’s WHY behind the bulletproof IF method before you try this. Let’s not jump straight into, “okay I’m just not going to eat until 12 tomorrow!”. When it comes to food and nutrition, it is so much more beneficial to know why you are trying this, what benefits you are getting and what the risks are.
Got additional questions? Comment below and I’ll fill you in!