My ‘intermittent fasting’ dates back to my early twenties. I would go out, have a few too many units, and end up eating some kind of late night meal. I always remember it being Chinese food. After stuffing myself, I would show myself mercy and call it a night.
The next day would always present its challenges. The one constant was that although I was happy to drink plenty of water and coffee, I never felt like eating. I’m sure the 3AM dumplings had something to do with it. I would eventually get around to eating at dinnertime, usually around 7PM, and this was often a healthy meal (by the standards of the weekend). Do the math on my eating schedule, reader, and you see the framework for intermittent fasting. Over the years, I slowly expanded this post-hangover approach to regularly include a few fasting days per month.
I stopped recently, a predictable consequence of reconsidering habits in other aspects of my life. For example, my exercise habits changed as I started listening to my body and responding to its signals, and perhaps this prompted me to consider the same approach at the dinner table. One thing about fasting is that since you don’t eat when you are hungry, you always resume eating when you are (really) hungry. I started by responding to the hunger criteria alone and my fasting stopped almost immediately.
