How To Do Intermittent Fasting Properly

Want to know how to do intermittent fasting properly?

The first thing you need to do if you wanna know how to do intermittent fasting properly is you don’t start with intermittent fasting.

There are levels to this.

What I mean by that is if you’re someone who’s got really bad eating habits, if your diet is complete trash, then you need to fix that first.

And this isn’t even about whether you should do paleo, zone, keto, should you do if If It Fits Your Macros or IIFYM, or should you go vegan? No. You need to stop eating like an asshole first.

If your idea of a daily diet is you start the day by eating breakfast cereal or stopping by your closest drive thru. Then you eat out for lunch. And then you order take out on your way home. Then you need to start with that.

You’re not a light switch. You’re more like a radio knob. What I mean by that is if you’re at a 10, you need to work your way down to a 9. Then an 8, and so on.

Like I said, there are levels to this.

In terms of what that looks like, if you’re someone who eats chips, cookies, candy, then you need to replace that with healthier alternatives. Nuts, cheese, and even some seasonal fruit are perfect examples of this.

If you have no choice but to eat out then you need to start making better decisions. Maybe skip the fries and order a side salad. Skip the bun. And do you really need to supersize your meal?

If you’re somebody who drinks 3-5 cans of coke a day, then maybe start by replacing that with diet coke. And diet coke is still not the greatest but again, you have to start somewhere. And then you slowly want to wean your way off of it. Bring it down to two cans a day, then one. Then replace it with club soda instead or something like Zevia.

If you’re somebody who snacks all day, you eat 6 meals a day or more, you need to cut that down to 5. Then 4, and then 3, and just eat like a normal human being.

A lot of people struggle mightily and fail when they’re trying to figure out how to do intermittent fasting properly because they find out about it, so they do it. But they still have the worst eating habits.

They’re extremely addicted to food. they’re extremely addicted to sugar. Their insulin levels are all jacked up. Then they do intermittent fasting and they get really hungry. They get headaches, they get hangry, they have the worst time doing it, so they quit. They feel like a failure and say that it doesn’t work for them.

Great job, Sherlock.

Here’s the thing. If you just do the things I mentioned above and get to a proper baseline, you’re going to be pleasantly surprised how good you’re gonna feel, how much more energy you’ll have, and how much weight you’re going to lose.

Only then should you even start thinking about intermittent fasting. That’s step number one.

Now, once you’ve made those changes comes the next level. In this video, I’m going to show you how to do intermittent fasting properly step-by-step.

Picking a fasting schedule that fits your lifestyle.

Look at your schedule.

Do you have kids? Do you make food for your kids? Are you single? Do you need to have to have a sit down meal with your family? Do you work during the day or you work at night? Are you on shift work? Do you not work at all? What kind of work do you do? Do you do physical labour? Are you the type of person who loves to go out on weekends?

Once you evaluate those things, then you need to look at where you can fit intermittent fasting to your schedule. This is important because you want to schedule your fast around your life, not the other way around. You want to turn this into a lifestyle. This isn’t something that you do temporarily. That is a very important concept you need to grasp if you want to know how to do intermittent fasting properly.

For a lot of people with a 9-5 job, skipping breakfast is usually pretty easy. So if you do that, you’ll just have lunch and dinner. And if you eat those two meals within an 8 hour eating window, then there’s your 16 hour fast.

Speaking of a 16 hour fast. In my personal honest opinion, the 16 hour fast is the bare minimum if you want to know how to do intermittent fasting properly.

Some people might say that a 14 hour fast also works. Yeah, maybe. But you’ll most likely get slower results.

But again, there are levels to this. It’s better than nothing. But if you want to see results, the 16 hour fast is your bare minimum. And ideally, you’re only eating two meals within your 8 hour eating window.

At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. If you eat 6 meals a day, and you go down to 3, you’re probably going to lose weight. If you go down to two, you’re gonna lose even more weight. And even if you eat the same amount of calories in those two meals as you normally would when you eat 6, it’s still going to have a positive physiological response in your body. Because you’re moderating your chronically high insulin levels.

Remember, high insulin from eating too much refined carbs and sugar and eating too frequently blocks fat burning. That’s why intermittent fasting for fat loss works extremely wellbecause it moderates your insulin levels. Only then are you able to tap into your fat stores and burn it for energy.

Now, the good thing about intermittent fasting is its flexibility. Listen, if you get invited out for brunch, or breakfast, then go for it. You can always adjust your eating window.

Now, I want build on that idea of flexibility in that there’s this thing called “life” that happens. You have weddings, birthdays, celebrations, thanksgiving, Christmas, your dog’s birthday, and so on.

The good thing about fasting is that it’s okay when those things come about. It’s okay to have a “cheat meal” here and there. Especially if you plan for it.

I believe in the 90/10 rule when it comes to achieving long term sustainable results. 90% of the time, you’re following an intermittent fasting schedule. You’re eating whole, mostly unprocessed, nutrient dense foods. And then 10% of the time, when “life” happens, you’re okay. You can enjoy yourself guilt free. You can even call this your re-feed day if you will.

And having that type of flexibility increase adherence drastically. If you want to know how to do intermittent properly, this is how. The best diet is the one you can stick to. If you’re following a diet that doesn’t allow for life events to happen, you’re doing it wrong.

Is it better to fast 7 days a week? Absolutely. Will you still get results if you fasted for 6 days and had a cheat meal with the other one day. Absolutely. But it’s still better than not fasting. Again, there are levels to this.

What are you allowed to drink while intermittent fasting?

I’m going to give you three things: water or club soda or seltzer water, coffee, and tea. That’s it. If you can’t drink your coffee black, you can put a teaspoon of heavy cream in your coffee and it’s not going to be the end of the world. But that’s it.

The three things I just mentioned have little to no calories and it doesn’t interfere with your fast. It doesn’t trigger an insulin response. And once you trigger an insulin response, you’ve just broken your fast.

And I always get asked these questions, “Can I drink this, or that during a fast? Can I drink Powerade zero or gatorade zero?” The answer is, no.

The whole point of intermittent fasting is taking a break from eating and drinking liquid calories. It’s not a matter of finding out what you can get away with.

That’s another thing that I want to mention is that some “experts” out there push artificial sweeteners during a fast and I’m not really a big fan of it.

A lot of people are severely addicted to sugar. Trust me, I know. This is because I used to be one of those people.

If somebody wants to make a major lifestyle change, you need to put that person in  the best position possible to succeed.

Think about it this way. Giving someone artificial sweeteners is like telling a recovering alcoholic that it’s okay to drink just a little bit. How do you drink that’s going to go?

How to do intermittent fasting properly: Make other lifestyle choices that compliment intermittent fasting.

First, let’s talk about exercise.

Some people are probably rolling their eyes right now because they hate going to the gym or whatever. Then don’t. And we don’t need to get into a discussion about what the best workout is for fat loss.

I always say that the best workout is the one you enjoy doing. If you go to a 6am Spin class for example just for the sake of working out. But you hate waking up at 5 am and you hate sitting on a stationary bike, it’s only a matter of time before you quit.

Listen, if your baseline is you haven’t worked out in years and your only form of physical activity is walking to the fridge, then the best workout that you could do is to just go for a 10 minute walk every day and build on that. Then you want to work towards getting 10,000 steps. Do you know what I mean?

You cannot go through life and expect to be healthy if you don’t do some form of exercise.

If you do cardio, that strengthens your heart. And your heart can pump more blood in your body. If you do resistance training, it improves your mitochondrial density. Your body builds more lean muscle mass and you get stronger bones which is a very important marker when it comes to lifespan. Building lean muscle mass also improves your insulin sensitivity. It also increases your metabolism and if you’re trying to lose weight, increasing your metabolism is one of the best things you can do.

That’s why it’s important to pair intermittent fasting with exercise. And yes, you can exercise while you’re fasting. There’s actually a lot of research out there that fasted training helps you burn even more fat.

We evolved as human beings to move. Otherwise you’d be a tree. And again, there are levels to this. Some form of exercise is still better than no exercise when it comes to improving your health.

Remember, intermittent fasting is for fat loss. Exercise is for building muscle and improving your cardiovascular health. You can’t just fast and expect to build muscle. It doesn’t work that way.

Next, make sure you’re getting adequate sleep every night. And this should be a dead giveaway but getting a quality 8-9 hours of sleep every night is extremely important when it comes to maintaining your overall health. I’ve literally never met anyone who complained about getting a good night’s sleep.

Make sure you’re managing your stress levels. Chronically high stress levels is a secret killer when it comes to your weight loss progress because of your elevated cortisol levels from it. Chronically elevated cortisol results in chronically elevated insulin levels. As mentioned earlier, high insulin levels blocks fat burning. And I don’t even need to explain that last part about stress. Stress eating is a big problem for a lot of people.

So as you can see, intermittent fasting has tons of benefits but it’s not the be all end all. If you want to know how to do intermittent fasting properly, you need to establish a proper baseline first when it comes to your diet and eating habits. You also need to make the proper lifestyle choices so you can really maximize your results and reap all of it’s amazing benefits.

As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!

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