Fatty 1 – Intermittent Fasting – Week 1

So I have finished my first week of intermittent fasting.  So far so good.  It seems to be getting easier as I go along.  So what have I noticed now that I’ve had a week of this under my belt?

1. It’s not as hard as you imagine (at least not as hard as I imagined).  In many ways it is easier to avoid temptation totally instead of incrementally.  Oh, I’ll only have one cookie…scarf, munch, munch.  Oh, how did this box get empty?   It’s much easier to stop when you don’t start.
2. Being hungry isn’t the end of the world.  Do I get hungry fasting?  Yes, but it isn’t really so bad, and it actually doesn’t last that long.  It seems to come and go in little bouts throughout the fasting period.  I’m hungry for a half hour or so, then not for a while, and then a little hunger again, and then it goes away.
3. Food seems to taste more.  I notice, especially with my first meal after the fasting period, that the taste of foods is stronger.  I ate some vanilla pudding that I buy in the cafeteria at work fairly regularly, and all of a sudden it seemed much tastier, more vanilla-y.  I’ve always thought it was sort of a rather bland vanilla, but after fasting it tasted good. I suppose that’s because I’m really hungry by the time I eat, but it is a nice side benefit.
4. I seem to be sleeping deeper.  I often wake up in the middle of the night, and lay awake for an hour or so.  This hasn’t happened the last several days.  It will be interesting to see if that trend continues.
5. I’m not binge eating.  Some concerns people have written about regarding intermittent fasting is that it causes or reinforces binge eating.  That might be true in some people, but I haven’t noticed it.  I definitely eat a bigger meal as my break-fast, but my meals after that are normal.  I also haven’t been overly tempted to binge on junk.  I have been pretty much eating the same things as I did before, just condensed in a smaller time frame.  I’m still trying to eat healthy whole foods, and some chocolate ice cream, and cookie makes it in.
6. Working out seems about the same.  I workout in the morning about half way through my fast period.  It seems about the same amount of effort.  I did have a particularly hard workout yesterday, and the last round was a struggle, but it would probably have been that way even with my customary snack before working out (slice of bread with peanut butter).
7. I could continue this for a while.  It is the easiest diet I’ve been on.  I don’t have to count, or measure, or exclude foods unless I want to.  I love that.

I don’t know yet if I’ve lost any weight.  I’m still holding off on weighing myself until my regular day, which is four days from now.  It will be interesting to see what the results are.  I will post them.