Unlike the monumental moment when I first read about what the human body shouldn’t be eating for it to thrive which is burned into my memory, I can’t pinpoint exactly when I first learned that we evolved to have periods where we don’t eat at all.
Diving headfirst into the world of alternative nutrition which turned my world on its head and gave me the health state I’d craved for 30+ years led to reading everything I could get my hands on. One of those books must have led me to discovering a book called “Breakfast is Bullsh*t” by KD Joseph. I’ve just done a quick search of my order history and discovered I ordered it on 26th October 2014. So perhaps it was a little before this that the idea of fasting or changing my meal timings was forming and now, I wanted to know more.
By this point I’d given up sugar and gluten and most processed food products and was now at a stable weight for the first time in 35 years, aged 42. I was deep into studying for my Diet and Nutrition diploma, with the syllabus stuck firmly in the existing narrative and me arguing with the tutors about the impact of what the contradictions meant for our biology. I used the information I was supposed to be learning from the course to prove that the alternative (leaving out massive carbohydrate portions) was more in line with what our bodies need to improve balanced health. I like to think my arguments helped me gain the distinction I received.
So now, armed with fasting knowledge I started to implement skipping breakfast.
Now let’s be very clear about fasting or skipping meals, to those who equate it to disordered eating or liken it to an eating disorder akin to anorexia or bulimia. It is not that at all. In those cases, the body is deliberately put into a state of starvation. A state that causes forced and unhealthy weight loss due to its lack of nutrients. Fasting is using the biological mechanism of switching to fat burning as a form of energy. And when food is consumed during the structured eating windows, it has to contain all the building blocks to maintain a healthy body, foods that aren’t stored as fat in the first place.
Back in 2014/15 I was business networking weekly and because they were breakfast meetings it was obvious to the other members that I wasn’t eating. I had more than one heated discussion with fellow networkers that breakfast wasn’t the most important meal of the day. I’ve since learned that it was a religious zealot that came up with the slogan in 1917, working for a certain Mr Kellogg. And it certainly served him well to perpetuate the idea!
While I was understanding more and more that we as a human race evolved to be able to survive long periods of food scarcity and can switch to our unique fat burning alternative fuel (ketones), Dr Michael Mosely was putting the finishing touches on his version of it which he called the Fast 5:2 diet that came out in December 2014.
If I’d discovered that book first, I may well have tried that style of eating. But I preferred my system of practicing fasting daily, so I never had to think about which days were going to be my 2 fasting days. I also didn’t agree with the principle that you didn’t have to change what you ate on the other 5 days. The quality of food and the absence of refined carbohydrates were what had already boosted my health beyond my wildest dreams. I’d found changing what you eat isn’t optional, it is crucial.
Almost 9 years on, with 9 years of further research, study, experimentation and experience and there hasn’t been a day gone by without me practising fasting in one form or another. It is so deeply entrenched that I know I could never go back to eating 3 meals a day. Plus I don’t know how I found the time!
Not eating all the time and eating foods that my body needs, expects and requires when I do eat are both equally as important. You can’t have one without the other to get the best from your body and to live life as you want. A life untroubled by diets and poor life quality going forward into your best years.
If you’d like to get the lowdown on how to lose weight and solve your health issues simply by using your biology to easily implement fasting and changing your meal timings, you can start today by watching the first in the FREE 3-part video course. Watch here.
