7 Day Trendy Diet: Intermittent Fasting
Exploring Trendy Diets One Week At A Time
Hello everyone, for the last quarter of the year I am trying a new diet each week for 7 days to test my emotional and psychological reaction to different dieting lifestyles. I understand the average diet does not take physical effects for 3 weeks to 90 days, but as a foodie, I want to explore how different people eat food on a day to day basis.
My second mission is to test the “wellness” placebo effect. The illusion that changing their diet made a person’s emotional well-being change. Some people report that as they change their diet their focus and motivation has changed. I have yet to find that after losing weight in the past. For week one I tried the gluten-free diet.
Intermittent Fasting Diet: A diet that involves cycles and periods of eating and fasting. There are multiple models ranging from not eating to eating like eating one day and not eating the other day. Some people chose not to eat every 6 to 8 hours. Musicians might even consider this diet the tour diet or the “starving musician diet” since you sometimes skip meals due to travel deadlines, budgeting or working so hard you forget ot eat. I decided to do my intermittent fasting in the following way. ”
Sunday: Eat at 2pm then not eat until 930 pm , woke up at 10 am with fasted cardio.
Monday: Eat at 945 am then eat at 11pm ( Recording music makes a musician become a starving musician literally.
Tuesday: Eat every six hours so I ate at 9am, 3pm, and 9pm.
Wednesday: Ate every five hours ( I sorta cheated here it was my birthday), Eat at 830am, then eat at 1pm, then I ate at 4( half a cookie to be exact from Panera), then ate again at 730.
Thursday: Eat every 8 hours, ate once at 8am, then 4pm, then 12pm.
Friday: Eat every 12 hours ( ended up being 13) ate once at 8am, ate again at 830 ( had feast of Szechuan at Han Dynasty in Philadelphia with friends).
Saturday: Eat every four hours, I ate at 10,2,skipped 6, and then ate at 9,and did some snacking at a party.
Between fasting, I kept myself feeling full by drinking water and one coffee a day.
Did you feel like you were going to die? This sounds hard.
Shockingly, I did not feel death, but there was one day where I completely couldnt handle it ( that was my birthday). So of all the diets I have cheated the less with this.
Did you eat unhealthy during your refueling phases?
I didn’t because I knew if I would eat low quality food not only would I gain weight, but my energy levels would not be as sustained. So I made so I would eat a large sum of quality foods. Example I would have a breakfast that would include oats,bananas,strawberries,blueberries, a protein bar, a bagel and turkey sausage. With two glasses of water.
Were you able to workout?
I was able to be very active and if anything I drank twice the amount of water I usually drink.
Did you do any snacking?
There were some days I snacked ( 4 out of 7 days) but I made sure the snacks were under 500 calories and I only snacked once a day. An example would be a KIND bar.
Why I tried it: Intermittent Fasting is becoming a trend, so I thought to give it a try.
How much did this diet cost on my weekly grocery budget? This only cost me 20 dollars since all I did was refuel my refridgerator with general items.
Did I cheat?
I cheated once which was on my birthday, instead of waiting a minimum of six hour between meals, I ate half of a birthday cookie my boss gave me. I did it all for the cookie.
Would I do intermittent fasting again? Were there any alternatives that stood out?
Probably not, despite losing 1.5 pounds it seems pointless.
Side note since doing this journey I have lost a total of seven pounds.