The Aging Games

Throughout my life I have spent so many years doing all kinds of different diets; Vegan, Paleo, Keto, LCHF, Atkin's, intermittent fasting, etc. One thing they all had in common was that they all failed eventually. First the weight would stall and then slowly start creeping back up again where I'd eventually just give up and start eating the "forbidden" foods once again. What I've learned since completing my first-ever 10 day Water Fast is that whatever you do, the body will adapt so in order to experience change, you need to mix things up a little. I've been doing intermittent fasting for many years, eating within a 6-8 hour window and even though everyone is boasting about the weight loss benefits of IF, I never personally experienced it. So what am I doing differently now? I'm still following a strict Keto diet as I just feel so much better, lighter and healthier, I now know that this is not enough to bring on continued weight loss. So I've dec...

It's been 3 weeks since I've completed my first-ever 10 day water fast , with great success and my weight has been holding pretty much steady since then. I'm sticking to a strict Keto diet to maintain the benefits of the fast and I am a little too obsessively weighing myself every morning. Even though the scale hasn't really moved much in either direction, I did noticed my waist was looking particularly trim this morning. I whipped out the measuring tape and realized that I have lost almost 2 more inches around my belly. Wooohooo! Yes! Happy days! So how does this not show up on the scale? This was a good reminder of how the scale is not always a good indicator of what's actually happening in your body. The pic below is a perfect example of what happened to me a few years back when I embarked on a low-carb journey with weight training, instead of lots of cardio and grazing on "healthy" carbs throughout the day. My weight shot up but my body composition...

Who can relate to this? Waking up thinking about food. What should I have for breakfast? Oh I need to do some grocery shopping. Hmmm that Sunday roast at my Mom's was amazing. I'm salivating just thinking about it. What about lunch? Should I cook something or should we try that new bistro down by the sea? I have friends coming for dinner, I wonder what they'd like to eat? Is Jill still a vegetarian?  Oh the 3 pm blues are hitting me hard. Definitely time for a quick snack. Two minutes after the snack. Why did you eat that? Do you have no self control at all? Seriously, who eats 3 doughnuts and 2 kitKats before dinner? But my blood sugar was so low. It was either that or a siesta and I have so much to do. Yum, something smells good. I wonder what the neighbors are barbecuing. I better get started with dinner then. I'll have to make something different for the kids though. Last night, to my shock, horror and surprise, hubby agreed to do a 48 hour fast with me this wee...

During my 10-day water fast I learned something interesting. Those pesky little skin tags, you know the ones appearing out of nowhere under the arms and other funky grooves in the body, can actually be caused by insulin resistance . Although experts don't yet understand exactly why skin tags develop, they do know that there's a definite correlation between tags and insulin resistance  and diabetes. So what happens during a water fast to make these little soft fibromas disappear? Well, longer duration fasts can dramatically reduce insulin levels in the body and after a few days even I noticed my skin tags disappearing and shrinking. How cool is that? Truly, the benefits of water fasting are endless. Bonus info : Skin tags often appear on women suffering from PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome). Insulin resistance and PCOS usually go hand in hand .

During my research I read about all these people needing little to no sleep while water fasting. Some reported waking up totally refreshed and ready to take on the world after only 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Now this got me pretty excited! What will I do with all that extra time on my hands? I know! I'm going to learn Mandarin. I'm going to write a book. I'm going reorganize my closet and throw away all my fat clothes. But then reality set in. Yup, sure enough I'd wake up around 4 am every morning, but definitely not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I felt more like a dump truck just drove over me. I'd spend the next couple of hours listening to the Complete Guide to Fasting on audiobook, until I'd finally drift off to sleep for another couple of hours. This persisted for a whole week after I broke my fast. But why? Why not sleep like a baby when fasting? Why not sleep like a baby after? I just didn't get it. Then I listened to Matthew Walker (I highly recommen...

Listening to Dr. Fung and Jimmy Moore's podcast yesterday I learned something new. During my 10-day water fast I was quite confident that other than pure water, you can also enjoy some tea, coffee and even bone broth as needed. I would say my fast was a success as I lost more weight than I could have ever imagined, a long-standing shoulder pain disappeared and I feel energized and very confident in this new tool I have at my disposal whenever I need it. However, what I learned from Dr. Fung  is that this flexibility in a water fast is great for metabolic issues and also very helpful in maintaining a longer fast, however, if your goal is autophagy  then you need to fast strictly on water. In what cases would autophagy be important and the ultimate goal in water fasting? I would say for anyone with more serious health issues, which they are looking to resolve. Please keep in mind that longer water fasts should always be done under the supervision of a doctor.

A few days after my first ever 10-day Water Fast I embarked on my first 24-hour fast. Since I've remained in a state of ketosis it was just a natural progression. I wasn't hungry so I carried on without food for 25 hours to be exact. So what exactly is the benefit of doing a short 24-hour fast? As you may have read in my earlier blogs, peak stem cell and growth hormone release takes place after fasting for 72-hours so surely doing anything less than that is just a waste of time. Well, not exactly. A 24-hour water fast can have tremendous cumulative health benefits, especially when practiced on a monthly or even weekly basis. Giving your digestive system a rest  Allowing your body to turn on its self-healing mechanism. Just think of how many hours a day our digestive system is burdened down with digestion every single day. Weight Loss Regularly engaging in a 24-hour water fast can help boost your metabolism, balance hormones and assist in weight loss. Disease Prev...

This is a kind of controversial topic among fasting experts. Some believe that fasting should be a time of slowing down and healing and the body should not be overburdened with exercise or with repairing muscles. I think this type of approach makes a lot of sense to people. On the other side, fasting induces a huge surge of growth hormone release , beginning at around 14-16 hours into the fast and peaking at 72 hours. Many athletes train to take advantage of this period for accelerated muscle growth and improved fitness goals. So what does this mean for the average faster such as myself? My approach was to just listen to my body. On the 3rd day of my fast I went on a hike with a friend and I could feel my body not being in top form and I even felt out of breath at times. It wasn't enjoyable so I listened to my body and cut my hike short. On the 4th day, instead of my regular weight training routine, my trainer and I did some Yoga and stretching routines. It felt amazing and I...

Keeping the weight off after an intense water fast is definitely the goal for many of us. Thankfully, our bodies will be functioning better, our metabolism would have received a boost and our digestion will be working better, but what more can we do to ensure maintenance or continued weight loss? The first thing we should NOT do is just go back to the way we were eating before. Obviously, that wasn't working. We've also learned the hard way that eating less calories and exercising more just slows down our basic metabolic rate, leading to even more gains down the line. So my goal will be to remain in ketosis (fat burning mode) after my fast through a strict ketogenic , high fat diet. I will continue to monitor my ketone levels to keep me on track and I'm also planning on adding a 24 hour water fast each week. I've been practicing intermittent fasting for quite a few years so I will continue on with just two meals a day, eating within a 6-8 hour window daily and fa...