Happy Holidays everybody!! It has been a long time since I have posted anything, but this season of over-indulgences, Holiday parties and hangovers seemed like the perfect time to write down some thoughts. The Holidaze is the perfect time to put our “Feast or Fast” lifestyle to good use. In a lot of ways, this season was like every other Christmas where I attempted to eat my weight in Christmas cookies, and drink my weight in excellent wine (my dad always pulls some gems out of his cellar for the holidays). So, what’s the difference this year you might ask? The difference is that while I was eating and drinking like that this year, it was guilt free and not with the thought of “once New Year’s comes I am going to really start my diet”. I enjoyed it more than I have in the past. That is for several reasons: 1. I fasted during the days when I was eating and drinking so much at night and 2. I knew that it will be easier to get rid of that extra holiday weight once the New Year comes around.
One problem with dieting during the holidays is that there are often parties on consecutive days, which I used to use as an excuse to eat as much as I wanted for all of those days. By the end of those days, I would not really be hungry, and not really be full. I would just be eating because it was time to eat or because someone put some food in front of me. Fasting has made me more mindful of my body, my stomach, and the reasons that I put food in my mouth. By fasting and eating only when hungry, it helps to break that cycle of eating for any reason besides true physiological hunger. The night after Christmas and the next day I ended up doing a 22 hour fast because it took that long for me to be hungry again after my Christmas feast.
Since the last time I posted anything, I have really transitioned from being mostly concerned with fasting to now understanding how fasting and a ketogenic diet work together to give me the best results. So that will be the focus of my next few posts for anyone out there still reading: 1. What it means to be on a ketogenic diet and what it means to be in ketosis 2. How fasting can help that happen 3. Why this is the best way to live and to exercise 4. How I have evolved from the fasted cyclist to the keto-cyclist. Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!!
