Intermittent Fasting and How It’s the Most Enjoyable Diet To Enjoy Food

Discover the most enjoyable diet that allows you to indulge in all the foods you love.

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intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is the most enjoyable diet if you want to eat foods that you love. Shutterstock Images

Food is one of the most pleasurable sources known to humankind. It is delicious and shoots off dopamine (a feel-good neurotransmitter) in our brain like fireworks.

Food is meant to be enjoyed not deprived.

Every day people are missing out on one of the most enjoyable sources mother nature has provided for us all to lose weight and look good.

Well, I’ve got some good news for you. With the right diet, food is a vice that you can enjoy while simultaneously crushing your health and fitness goals.

Most people who are trying to lose fat and live a healthier life end up going on too strict of diets. They hop on diets that are rigid and not sustainable.

They may get some results initially, but long-term fall off and revert back to their original body. That’s because as human beings we only have so much willpower before we cave. And when it comes to food, our willpower is frail.

I know mine is. Before I found intermittent fasting, I was lost and confused about what diet to eat. I tried everything from eating small meals 5-6 times a day to low carb to paleo, etc. and just felt completely empty and unhappy.

I was low on energy and didn’t think the results I was getting with my body was worth the effort I was putting in. That is until I discovered one of the best life hacks I have found.

Let’s be honest food is amazing!

Even if you have the mindset for an insanely disciplined diet, is it even worth it?

If you’re anything like me, then I’d say there is no physique in the world that’s worth achieving if you have to give up your favorite foods.

Fortunately, there is a secret diet that will give you the best of both worlds.

The Secret Diet

A diet that will allow you to look good, feel good and indulge in the foods you love. This magical pill is none other than intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting is going for a prolonged period of time without eating. This is your fasting window.

Through intermittent fasting, you can feast and enjoy large meals. That’s because when you are fasting you aren’t consuming any calories.

So when it’s time to eat, the meals you eat have to be bigger in order for you to still hit your body’s caloric requirements. No more famine by eating small unsatisfying meals 5-6 times a day.

Intermittent fasting allows you to eat much larger meals. This will leave you full and satisfied.

Fasting Benefits

Aside from fewer, larger meals, fasting lauds abundant health benefits. Fasting: aides in weight loss, increases HGH (human growth hormone) and increases longevity.

Another benefit worth mentioning is that intermittent fasting saves time. By only eating a few times a day, you no longer have to meal prep and constantly cook and clean. This frees up your time for other things.

How to Intermittent Fast?

There are numerous ways to fast, but the easiest way to intermittent fast is to simply skip breakfast. This makes fasting simple and allows you to not have to stick to a strict fasting window for when you eat.

So you’ll eat lunch and dinner. (A small snack before and after your breakfast is fine every now and then.) That’s it.

Water and Black Coffee

To start your day off, you will consume water. This will hydrate your body from the hydration lost during sleep.

After water, you will sip on some black coffee. (Yes, the coffee has to be black. At least most of the time.) Because black coffee contains no calories, and if you consume a high-calorie coffee, you are technically breaking fast and won’t reap the benefits of fasting manifests.

Coffee Benefits

What coffee does is that it strategically prolongs your fast. It does this by blunting your appetite from the caffeine it contains.

Doing this will make fasting a much easier and enjoyable process. Trying to fast without blunting your appetite is hard.

Another benefit to starting your fast with black coffee is that it increases your focus and energy levels. Coffee contains caffeine and in a fasted state the caffeine hits your bloodstream much quicker. (It’s important to note that decaf coffee doesn’t contain the same benefits since it has no caffeine.)

Coffee has been shown to cast an array of benefits that include:

  • Suppressed appetite
  • More energy
  • Reduced heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes risks

How Long To Fast

Studies show that the benefits for fasting to take place is around the 16 hour mark. That means you have 8 hours to work with to pig-out! So after you eat dinner, you will fast until your lunch meal. 16 hours sounds like a lot, but this includes your sleep which makes hitting 16 hours much easier.

Combining sleep with black coffee makes fasting a breeze. Simply push your lunch back until you have reached around 16 hours of fasting since your last meal at dinner.

Interestingly enough, this is actually how our primal bodies are made. Back in the hunter-gatherer days, we didn’t just wake up and have food to eat.

We spent the day hunting for food so didn’t indulge in food until nighttime. That probably explains nighttime munchies.

Feast Like A King

The thing about weight loss is that it all comes down to calories in versus calories out. It doesn’t matter what foods you consume. To lose weight, you just need to be in a caloric deficit.

That’s the beauty of intermittent fasting. Since you are fasting, you will be able to feast on large meals containing whatever you want. This will still allow you to stay in a caloric deficit of the foods you love.

Eating like a true king

Whether it’s pizza, fries, cookies, donuts, ice cream, chips, or any other mouthwatering foods you’re craving to get your taste buds on, it’s all fair game when you’re fasting. Welcome to the world of fasting!

Now, it’s important to mention that you still want to consume healthy foods. That’s because consuming healthy foods will give your body the vitamins and minerals it needs to function optimally.

I recommend that you eat one light meal containing healthy foods (fruit, vegetables, healthy fats, lean meat, etc.), and one large meal consuming anything. That way you can take in your bodies nutrient requirements while still eating a big meal with all your favorite foods.

As I mentioned earlier, in our primal days, we ate our biggest meal at night, so I recommend you do the same (light lunch, big dinner). I am ravenous at night with the appetite of an elephant, so thank goodness for IF!

Conclusion

Food is one of the most pleasurable commodities our planet has to offer, so why give up on the foods we love just to look good? Through the art of intermittent fasting, we can build an amazing physique and still feast on the food dearest to our hearts. Have your cake and eat it too!

Intermittent fasting is the most enjoyable diet if you want to eat foods that you love.

IF is sustainable, allows you to enjoy your diet, hosts many benefits, and helps you maintain a healthy weight for the long haul.

Bye-bye famine. Welcome feast!

SOURCES

Health Insiders relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations. We avoid using tertiary references. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy.

[1] Ganesan K, Habboush Y, Sultan S. Intermittent Fasting: The Choice for a Healthier Lifestyle. Cureus. 2018 Jul 9;10(7):e2947. doi: 10.7759/cureus.2947. PMID: 30202677; PMCID: PMC6128599

[2] Ho KY, Veldhuis JD, Johnson ML, Furlanetto R, Evans WS, Alberti KG, Thorner MO. Fasting enhances growth hormone secretion and amplifies the complex rhythms of growth hormone secretion in man. J Clin Invest. 1988 Apr;81(4):968-75. doi: 10.1172/JCI113450. PMID: 3127426; PMCID: PMC329619

[3] Poole R, Kennedy OJ, Roderick P, Fallowfield JA, Hayes PC, Parkes J. Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes. BMJ. 2017 Nov 22;359:j5024. doi: 10.1136/bmj.j5024. Erratum in: BMJ. 2018 Jan 12;360:k194. PMID: 29167102; PMCID: PMC5696634

[4] Moro, T., Tinsley, G., Bianco, A., Marcolin, G., Pacelli, Q. F., Battaglia, G., Palma, A., Gentil, P., Neri, M., & Paoli, A. (2016). Effects of eight weeks of time-restricted feeding (16/8) on basal metabolism, maximal strength, body composition, inflammation, and cardiovascular risk factors in resistance-trained males. Journal of translational medicine, 14(1), 290. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-016-1044-0

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Terry Ramos, CPT

As a trainer and writer, Terry, CPT loves changing lives through coaching and written words. Terry's program covers the entire spectrum...

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