Fasting Motivation: There Are Two of You

One of you wants to lose weight and get healthy, and one doesn't give a rip and just wants to eat all the things. The person who wants to get healthy better learn how to trick the other one.

Fasting Motivation: There Are Two of You

Have you ever noticed there are two of you: the one who desperately wants to lose weight to get healthy, and the one who doesn't give a rip about health and just wants to eat all the things. The one who wants to get healthy needs to learn how to trick the one who wants to eat like there's no tomorrow.

This truth is why Intermittent Fasting (IF) can be so wildly successful for so many people. You get to live out both of these personalities.

We've all had the experience of locking up that crazy, over-eater person for a period of time while following some calorie-restricted diet. The problem is that sooner or later, she escapes; when she does, it's like a Cookie Monster version of the Incredible Hulk. The one of us who wants to get healthy cowers under a desk while Cookie Monster Hulk undoes all the hard work of our previous months.

Enter the miracle of IF. Now, we get to switch between these two conflicting desires during different parts of the day (or for alternate day fasters, every other day.) And because our overeater self is only cooped up for only short periods of time, when she emerges after a day of fasting, she's only a tad pent-up, angry, and ready to go on a bender.

After I’ve been fasting for a good length of time, I eventually become hangry and cranky, and I sometimes think: "That's it! I've had it with this depriving myself business. I just want to eat all the things." Then I say to my overeater-self, "That's fine. No problem. In just a bit you get to eat as much as you want as long as you start with protein and veggies, and avoid sugar and highly processed carbs." I'm hungry enough that I'm willing to make any bargain. We shake.

When my eating window opens, I eat all the high-protein things and enjoy them like the best food I've ever tasted. I hardly miss the carbs. By the end of each meal, I'm pleasantly full and quite happy. My crazy, over-eater self is now tamed and mild. In fact, she's lazily snoozing away, not soon to be roused. My wanting-to-be-healthy self can then declare tomorrow another fast day, and the other self doesn't even notice until it's time to eat again. And so the cycle continues.

Here’s what happened when I learned how to trick that overbearing cookie monster:

First picture taken July 20, 2022 just before I started ADF on August 1st.

Second picture taken 2 weeks ago. Eight inches gone from my waist and down 40 lbs.