Hello everyone! I’ve been part of the Facebook page and have watched videos and read things on the forum for a little while, but I’m now finally starting to participate. I’m so inspired by all of you, and I’m excited to continue to learn and grow as I join with you more.
A little background - I’ve heard about intermittent fasting before, and I fast for religious reasons about once a month for 24 hours. In April I decided I was tired of eating and living the same way so I researched and learned a lot more about IF. I have PCOS and have had a hard time regulating my hormones. In the past, I’ve taken metformin, but my doctor hasn’t prescribed it for me since having kids and I wanted to try to regulate my hormones without medication instead of always relying on it. So, I decided to start alternate day fasting, as I’ve read that helps the most with insulin resistance. I did 16:8 for a week or two to prepare myself, then did ADF after that. I did pretty good with it the first 2 weeks, but then I started feeling like on my eating days I should, and could, eat whatever junk food I wanted, and sometimes would choose to just not fast because I was stressed and wanted to eat. (I should add, my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in May, so it’s been a few tough, emotional months). I’ve been happy when I’ve fasted, but unhappy with my diet still, so now I really want to start focusing on that.
The main reason I started fasting was because I wanted to overcome the food cravings I had and better recognize physical vs. emotional hunger. It turns out most of the time I eat it’s because of emotional hunger! I also wanted to use fasting to regulate my hormones, as I said earlier. As I’ve been fasting and learning more my list of reasons to fast has gotten longer and longer. I’ve struggled with mental health most of my life, and I know that cutting out sugar, processed foods, etc. will help me feel better, so I want to use extended fasts to kind of jump start and motivate myself to reset my diet. Really, I’m going to use the month of July as a fasting month to reset quite a bit in my life. I’ve done quite a few 36+ hour fasts in the last few months, my longest fast was 64 hours. I want to do longer fasts.
My plan is to do a 72 hour fast this week (started 6/29 at 6:30 pm, will end 7/2 in the evening or 7/3 in the morning). My husband’s family will all be in town for the 4th of July so we’ll celebrate with them, then I want to fast for most of the month. I’m debating between doing a 21 day fast 7/6-7/26 or doing a 5 day fast, refeed for 2 days, 7 day fast, refeed for 3 days, and finish with a 10 day fast. I have the rest of this week to decide, so I’ll keep this journal updated.
Sorry this is so long! If you read it, thank you!