Hey friend!  I’m so stoked to be sharing one of my favorite overall health hacks that promotes fat-burning, weight management, detoxification, decreased inflammation, & more — plus, it doesn’t cost a thing! 🙌

Are you getting excited yet??  This powerful, health-boosting phenomenon is called ✨Intermittent Fasting!✨

What IS Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting has to do with the timing of your food intake — and it specifically involves eating during a short period of time, & then fasting (not eating) during a longer period of time, each day.

Ideally, the eating window is about 6-8 hours per day, and the fasting window is about 16-18 hours per day.  Some hardcore intermittent fasters may even cut the eating window down to as low as 4 hours per day (fasting for up to 20 hours per day).

It’s important to note that with intermittent fasting, you’re not necessarily limiting or restricting your caloric intake — you’re simply changing the timing & schedule of your food intake.  

This allows your body to spend more time detoxifying, cleansing, & healing on a daily basis — giving your digestive system a longer rest every day. 😌

Like any healthy lifestyle, you ideally want to be eating healthy foods during the eating window.  But that being said, you MAY even notice some awesome benefits & changes just by changing the timing of your eating & not changing the actual foods you eat.  

(I’m not giving you a permission slip to eat all the junk food you want all the time just because you’re intermittent fasting 😉 — but this just goes to show how powerful this concept can really be!)

If you REALLY want to supercharge your health, lose weight, gain energy, balance hormones, & see the BEST results with your health goals, I’d recommend practicing intermittent fasting AND following specific nutrition principles.  

The Healthy Eating Blueprint goes over some of the most effective nutrition guidelines for overall wellness, weight loss, & metabolic bliss.  Download your free Healthy Eating Blueprint below!

Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

You may be curious as to WHY someone would want to intermittent fast.  I briefly mentioned a few of the powerful benefits earlier, but here are several more reasons why you might want to give intermittent fasting a try, & some of the health benefits you can look forward to!  

Intermittent Fasting:

✅ Increases leptin sensitivity (decreases leptin resistance) — the hunger hormone that decreases your appetite & tells your brain that you’re full.

✅ Increases insulin sensitivity (decreases insulin resistance) — which lowers risk of chronic disease, such as diabetes, & even heart disease & cancer.

✅ Helps with weight loss & preventing weight gain.

✅ Increases human growth hormone (HGH) — which promotes fat-burning, muscle gain, & weight loss.

✅ Promotes detoxification.

✅ Increases fat-burning.

✅ Reduces sugar cravings.

✅ Enhances brain health.

✅ Reduces inflammation & free radical damage.

✅ Decreases triglyceride levels — which decreases risk of heart disease.

✅ Promotes overall health & wellness!

It’s true, my friend! Simply changing the timing of your meals & shortening your eating period each day can result in alllll these fabulous health benefits! 💃🏼

Is Intermittent Fasting Hard??

By now you might be wondering HOW to intermittent fast & make it work with your daily life.  You might be thinking:

• Is it difficult to do??  
• Is it sustainable for my busy life??  
• Is there a certain time of the day that’s best to be eating vs. fasting??  
• 16-18 hours per day seems like a long time to be fasting!  Will I be starving??

I asked myself all these questions when I was thinking about dabbling with intermittent fasting for the first time.  

If you aren’t used to fasting at all, or you’re used to eating something every couple hours, intermittent fasting may take some getting used to at first — but it will become a habit, & your body will adapt to longer periods of fasting.  Plus, out of the 16-18 hours of fasting each day, you’re most likely sleeping for ~8 of those hours anyways — so it doesn’t feel that long.  

You don’t have to be unreasonably strict with it either.  For example, if I’m on vacation, or staying at a friend or family’s house & they’re serving breakfast, or if I’m just hungrier than normal before my typical eating window starts — I’ll eat!  It’s okay to do that. 🙃

How To Intermittent Fast

#Newsflash: Contrary to popular belief & what we’ve all been taught growing up, breakfast is NOT necessarily the most important meal of the day.  And one of the easiest ways to intermittent fast is to simply skip breakfast.

My specific eating schedule typically looks like this: I skip breakfast & start eating anywhere between 11am to 2pm, and then I usually stop eating sometime between 7pm to 9pm.  

I usually have a 6-8 hour eating window each day, but some days I have closer to a 4 hour eating window.  All of my food intake for the day is eaten during that 4-8 hour period.  I usually just eat 2 big meals (lunch & dinner) during this time — sometimes with a snack in between.  

But you could also “graze” throughout the eating window if you’d prefer that over 2 larger meals.  The number of meals isn’t important — as long as you eat all of your food for the day within that short window.

You don’t have to eat between any specific time frame either.  I’d recommend choosing times that work for your schedule & that are sustainable for your everyday life.  

Some people prefer to eat breakfast & skip dinner instead — so for example: eating from 8am to 4pm… but I personally just love eating a nice delish meal with my hubby at the end of the day, so I opt to skip breakfast instead. 👌

There are also other variations of intermittent fasting.  One of the other most popular ways to do it is to have a 24 hour fast a couple times per week.  In this example, you could eat your last meal at dinnertime, & then fast until the next day at dinner (~24 fast) — & do that a couple times per week.

Now that you know WHEN to eat, you might be wondering WHAT to eat during the eating period each day.  I created a Healthy Eating Blueprint to outline some of the most cutting-edge nutrition principles that support overall health, weight management, fat-burning, energy levels, lower inflammation, & more.  Download your free Blueprint below!

My Personal Experience With Intermittent Fasting

Now that I’ve been intermittent fasting for about 6 years (almost every day) — it’s just a part of my daily routine.

It’s not difficult to do, it’s one of the most sustainable healthy habits I have (especially with a busy life!), and I’m not starving or constantly thinking about how hungry I am.  In fact, this way of life is completely second nature to me now — I don’t even have to think about it.

Some of the main health benefits that I’ve noticed over the years of intermittent fasting is that I feel less bloated, have more energy, & it’s easier to maintain a healthy weight. ☺️

Intermittent fasting is also SUPER convenient — which is one of the reasons I love it! 💜 It’s one less meal per day that I have to think about, buy ingredients for, & prepare — which saves a ton of time (& money)!

I’m not saying that intermittent fasting is the “be-all-end-all” solution to lose weight & maximize your health, or that it’s the only type of eating schedule that’s healthy.

But I’m sharing this technique with you because it’s what works best for me personally, as well as many of my family members, friends, & patients. ☺️

Note: Intermittent Fasting Might NOT Be For You If…

While intermittent fasting is one of my favorite overall health hacks & can benefit a lot of people, just like anything else in life, intermittent fasting isn’t right for everyone.

Some people that should avoid intermittent fasting or proceed with caution include people with:

• Gallstone disease
• Hypothyroidism
• Adrenal fatigue
• Eating disorders
• During pregnancy

As always, it really comes down to listening to your body, seeing how you respond, & finding what works best for YOU!

Regardless of if intermittent fasting becomes your new best friend or if it’s just not right for you, the most important thing when it comes to healthy eating is still WHAT you eat, even more than WHEN you eat.

Whether you implement intermittent fasting or not, the Healthy Eating Blueprint will help you eat the healthiest diet possible — supporting your overall wellness & helping you reach your health goals faster.  Download the free Blueprint below!

Tell me: Have you ever tried intermittent fasting?  Are you thinking about giving it a shot?  Leave a comment below!