Gearing Up for the January Challenge Next Week

What if this year you made a New Year's Resolution that you actually kept--for life? Why you should consider hopping on the January challenge.

Are you ready to take a big leap?

The January challenge will focus on relaunching the person who has tried fasting for health and/or weight loss in the past but hasn’t been able to stick with it and meet their personal goals.

On False Starts

When you listen to people tell their fasting stories on podcasts such as Gin Stephen’s Intermittent Fasting Stories or Graeme Currie’s The Fasting Highway, one common thread is that many people try fasting and fail a few times before finding their stride and finally making fasting a permanent part of their life.

In this race, the prize goes, not just to the person who figures it out on the first try (and there are a few who do that), but also to the person who keeps trying until it finally sticks.

Both myself and Gin Stephens, author of Fast.Feast.Repeat, dabbled in fasting for several years before we finally figured out how to fast for results and make it a permanent part of our lives.

My biggest mistake from 2018-2022 was that I thought I didn’t need to read any books about fasting. This is ironic since my personality is to get hooked on a topic and then read every book in existence on that topic.

But I also like to be challenged when I read, and I hate being underwhelmed. So I imagined that fasting was so simple—you just don’t eat for a specified period each day—that why would I need to read a whole book about not eating?

Wow, was I wrong! What I didn’t know was the science surrounding fasting is incredibly fascinating and one of the least underwhelming topics I’ve ever read about.

My guess is I will read about fasting and ketogenic therapies and their potential for healing the body (Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, cancer, mental health, migraines, brain fog, ADHD) for the rest of my life and never, ever get bored.

Here’s the second thing I didn’t know: that understanding the science about why fasting and reducing carbs works was the key to me finding success. This knowledge is what transformed me from someone who dabbled in fasting on and off with no real success to someone who can’t imagine daily life without it and who doesn’t ever want to stop.

My third mistake: I needed marching orders to stick to instead of trying to intuit my way along. Food intuition comes later after some major hormonal shake-ups have taken place in the body.

But in the beginning, success rides on being willing to submit yourself to a hard plan that doesn’t feel intuitive at all!

You have to blindly trust the process.

Someone outside yourself needs to give you the plan. Your food intuition is broken. You can’t feel your way through this one.

After I finally figured all this out the hard way, I decided to start writing about fasting and coaching so that others could jump straight to success and skip the fumbling part.

In summary, here’s why it took me so long to find fasting success. I had:

1. No clear marching orders

2. No clear idea of the science behind the benefits

3. No clear idea of how IF would transform my health

4. No clear idea of how necessary weight loss was for my overall health and well-being

5. No clear idea of how good I’d feel after the adjustment phase

6. No clear idea of how much more I’d enjoy food

These are the things I hope to clarify for you in the January challenge.

I’m seeing tremendous results for people I point in the right direction with marching orders. They are skipping the floundering stage and jumping straight to success.

For example, on December 24th I got together with a gal who was in-town visiting family here. We had gotten together in July twice when she was in town, and I had given her fasting instructions, very similar to the Three Week Challenge.

After our July meeting, she texted me every now and then telling me her success but I didn’t need to do anymore coaching. She is now down 31 lbs and feeling amazing.

Her husband started fasting in August and is now down 86 lbs in five months! I had never met him before, so the other day I got to see him as well and hear him talk about his experience.

He never feels hungry! This husband/wife team talked about how much they love OMAD (one meal a day) and how they always break around 4 pm with a cheese flight (what could be better?)

But this couple may have floundered for years and given up. They had heard of intermittent fasting but had no clear direction. Having clear instructions made all the difference.

Find A Buddy

Consider asking a buddy to partner with you on the January Challenge. This can be tricky as bringing up about weight loss may be a sensitive topic. But it works to bring it up with someone who has confided to you over the years that she’s looking for a way to be more healthy and lose some weight. That person won’t be offended.

Also, if you ask them to do it along with you, you’re not pointing them out in need of change from the position of having it all together. Instead, you’re saying you need to change and you want their support. You’re in it together.

This buddy system can even work for people who have little weight to lose. This is because your body has a healthy set weight that it wants to be at. There’s little danger of someone becoming underweight while fasting.

Therefore, one of your friends or family members who doesn’t need to lose weight could do it with you for the health benefits. Consider asking them.

Discover Your “Why” Along the Way

Weight loss coaches often encourage people to identify their “WHY” before they begin a program. This is a great idea for people who can easily come up with a good reason. But for others, the reason emerges over time.

This is how it happened for me.

I originally dabbled in IF only because I wanted to lose weight. But in January of 2022, I got serious about my “why” when I realized I had type 2 diabetes. I knew I had to either change or begin a lifelong journey of serious health problems and a pile of prescription drugs.

Furthermore, my “why” became that I wanted to prove to the medical community and the world that diabetes is reversible through diet without drugs.

That was a very solid “why,” and it caused me to launch into the research phase of how to make fasting work. But even after identifying my “why,” it still took me six more months to find a fasting protocol that worked for my body and my extreme insulin resistance.

Now, two years after I first determined to change, my “why” has grown so much larger. It has grown in ways that I could never have anticipated before starting.

This is the reason that if you feel somewhat fuzzy about your “why”— you’re groping around trying to figure out why you want to do this—that’s okay. Start anyway. Don’t wait to come up with the stellar “why” to end all “whys.”

If you feel a little embarrassed about the fact that vanity is 90% of your “why” and health is only 10%, don’t let that hold you back from starting.

As Gin Stephens always says: “People come for the weight loss but stay for the health benefits.”

Don’t navel gaze and overthink the purity of your motives. Just do it.

Your “why” may start out as something as superficial as having clothes in the back of your closet that you’ve saved for decades and want to fit into them again. Maybe you want to look good at a wedding or on a vacation. Maybe you have a high school reunion coming up.

Those aren’t the best reasons to continue for life but they’re great reasons to get your foot in the door.

This is because you’ll likely find along the journey three or four additional reasons that end up being so much more important than why you started.

And that’s okay. It’s okay to discover the true reasons along the way. You may even discover that the biggest reason you keep going is so that you have the credibility to help others.

It’s Okay to Have a Vain or Even a Lame Reason for Starting

Here’s why: true humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. (I heard someone recently say that C. S. Lewis may or may not have said that; but if he didn’t, he should have. 🤣)

If you fast simply to look better and end up being successful, you will likely think about yourself less.

When I was 45 lbs heavier, I spent a lot of head space thinking about how I looked. “Ugh, everything looks bad on me, nothing fits right, everything is so uncomfortable, etc.” Even though all these thoughts were negative toward how I looked, I was still constantly thinking about how I looked.

Now that I am a healthy weight, I rarely think about how I look. My mind has moved off of myself.

This may surprise you. When people first lose weight, they’re super excited to fit into small clothes and excited to wear things that they don’t have to hide in. They do think about how they look.

But eventually, we just stop thinking about how we look and stop thinking about ourselves so much. We take the focus off of ourselves and our little problems.

Whereas I used to walk into a room and be conscious of looking heavy, I now walk into a room and simply don’t think about myself at all.

Watching Your “WHY” Morphe to Health

I only set out to reverse my diabetes but along the way, I stopped migraines, healed my interstitial cystitis (bladder inflammation), have much fewer colds and cases of flu, have way more energy, sleep better, enjoy food more, am free from food cravings, have a much clearer mind, and have discovered so many fascinating things about the way the human body heals itself.

I never could have brainstormed all those things ahead of time if someone would have told be to identify my “why.”

You may be in this same position. You may have a vague notion of why you want to start fasting—you find yourself snacking more than you like, making the wrong choices, feeling controlled by ultra-processed foods, unable to say no to sugar, and just feeling out of control.

For some people, they don’t even have all that much weight to lose but they have a vague feeling of being unwell.

Perhaps you feel tired in the afternoon, have achy muscles, get sleepy after you eat, don’t sleep well at night, need carbs and caffeine as a constant pick-me-up. These things are all difficult to identify because if they’ve been coming on so gradually, you might not remember feeling a different way.

I get small glimpses now of how I used to feel constantly, and I can’t believe how terrible it was.

I made the mistake about a month ago of eating a bakery muffin first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I do have such treats on occasion, but I’m normally very careful to have plenty of protein and fat first.

On this particular day, I met a friend for coffee and pastries were the only option. “It’ll be fine,” I thought.

I did not feel fine.

I had a minor headache plus a feeling of lethargy and brain fog. I didn’t feel like doing anything and my limbs felt heavy. I just wanted to sit around, snack on carbs, and zone out. It was miserable.

The next day I did some extra fasting and was back to feeling normal. But this experience made me so glad that sitting around all day and vegging out is not a temptation that I regularly face.

I’m reminded that we are told to pray: “Lead us not into temptation.” If we’re tempted to be lazy, it’s still a sin to indulge the temptation. But if I can help get people to the point where they feel so good and full of energy that being a couch potato isn’t even a temptation, then they are being given the tools to do the right thing.

I remember that I used to feel lethagic all day every day. I ate carbs constantly, not merely because they tasted good, but because I was trying to self-medicate lethargy. However, I never would have been able to articulate that until I felt something different until after I changed.

I would have never gone to the doctor and said, “I feel tired all the time, my muscles ache, and I my mind is in a fog.” I thought that was what happened in your forties.

The muscle aches were a real thing. My muscles starting at my neck and down to my lower back hurt all day every day even if I didn’t do any physical work. I thought that is normal. Now it’s gone.

I got this note from a lady I coach who’s a school teacher:

I hit the three month mark about a week and a half ago. As of today, I’ve lost 30.5 pounds and 12 inches total (8 of those inches around my belly… new jeans are now a necessity!)

All through last year my feet were in agony all day every day, no matter which shoes I wore - swollen and so very painful. All swelling is completely gone, no pain at all, and I’ve noticed less stiffness in joints that gave me problems for years.

This young lady is in her twenties! How sad to think of her facing the rest of her life with feet that ached every single day.

But I seriously doubt that was her main reason for beginning fasting. She probably didn’t know fasting would help that, and I certainly didn’t promise any such results. We were both pleasantly surprised.

Perhaps she had vain and superficial reasons for starting. It doesn’t matter. She started and now she’s found a new “why” to keep her going.

You also do not know how different you will feel until after you break through. This is why I see value in giving people marching orders and asking them to autopilot-it for a while instead of putting too much of the burden of the motivation and the “why” on the person.

What Most People Need to be Successful is Momentum

Momentum comes from going into autopilot and doing a thing. And sticking to it for a good while.

Have you ever given fasting the good ole’ college try?

Once you start, you don’t need to be aware every moment of exactly why you’re doing the thing. Some of the reasons may slip your mind and will suddenly seem less important than they did on January 1st.

This is the problem with leaning too heavily on your “why” for motivation. When you're adjusting to a new lifestyle and in the hardest part, your “why“ can seem pathetic. It actually might be pathetic.

Don’t overthink it.

Do the thing anyway.

You have nothing to lose if you stop overthinking it and trust someone else who's gone on ahead of you. I’m not asking you to trust in me alone. But listen also to the 300+ testimonies on Gin’s podcast, the hundreds on Graeme Currie’s podcast—hundreds of people claiming that IF radically transformed their lives.

So make the January challenge your autopilot. Submit yourself to something hard that you might not fully understand.

In one of my all-time favorite books, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, Rosaria Butterfield says that we often can’t understand why we should do something God is asking of us until after we obey. If we wait to obey until we understand God’s reasoning, we will never obey. If we obey first, we come to understand the reason he asked something the obedience later.

Butterfield says,

I’ve discovered that the Lord doesn’t change my feelings until I obey him (page 24).

Fasting is like this. You will understand how it works and why it works later. You will understand all the reasons why you need it later. You will understand all the ways it will help you later. Your feelings will come along later.

(Giving up artificial sweeteners is like this too. Although I try to convince people of the harms by citing research, the real benefits of giving them up become the most clear to the person after they’ve done it. Until then, the reasons may allude them.)

We’ve all made a zillion New Year’s Resolutions in the past that we’ve never kept. But what if this year, you did something that radically changed the trajectory of your life? What if this change had ripple effects that you could never dream of right now? You’ll never know unless you try.

The January challenge launches in one week. Get prepared!

Leslie

[This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not designed as a substitute for medical advice or to treat, diagnose, or cure a medical disease. Talk to your doctor before beginning any dietary changes or starting fasting, especially if you are on medications for diabetes. Fasting while taking certain medications such as Metformin and especially insulin can lead to dangerously low blood sugars. If your doctor does not support fasting, search for a physician who will support your fasting journey. Fasting is not recommended for those pregnant, breastfeeding, or for children and teens still growing and developing. For those with diabetes, personal fasting coaches are available through TheFastingMethod.com. I receive no compensation or ad revenue for anything in this newsletter including links to books, videos, websites, coaching services, podcasts, or supplements.]