Skinny days have been an integral part of the Breakthrough Weightloss programme for 15 years. It’s called intermittent fasting these days, and it’s becoming more popular all the time. You can read a lot about fasting on SM, especially the numerous health benefits. I’ll save the list for another article, but fasting does help re-set every aspect of our health.
I’d like to focus on the how, rather than the why today, because fasting can often end up causing more trouble than it solves. It’s clear that fasting helps weight loss, and, over time reduces appetite as well as cravings, but problem comes with when to fast.
If you’ve ever been on a calorie-controlled diet, fasting at the wrong time will trigger your cravings and make evening foraging almost irresistible.
This is especially true for women, (but not exclusively of course), as women do tend to feel their cravings more strongly than men. And this might be part of the problem that women often seem to have with keeping going on intermittent fasting- most fasting information originated from advice on the male health and fitness scene. It’s been passed on to women, via PT’s etc. It’s now a much wider topic discussed by many health experts, but still, the message is that we can fast at any time of the day and achieve the same result.
It might be true for some people, but…and this is a really big but…if we’ve triggered cravings in the past because of cutting calories, we will trigger them if we don’t eat in the morning. The only exception to that would be if we’ve decided to take a whole day off from eating, and have a 24 hour fast. If we eat anything at all after we’ve fasted in the day, those cravings will drive that out-of-control evening foraging, and we won’t be able to control them.
Here’s a simple answer:
Fast later in the day. Your survival system won’t be triggered into sensing starvation that way. It’s dead easy. Just have your last meal as a late lunch. So depending on what time you normally go to bed, for most of us that will be around an 18 hour fast, leaving a 6 hour eating window. That’s plenty of time to raise the fat burning potential of your metabolism, reducing appetite and triggering autophagy -the cell regeneration system that generates long term better health.
You can lose a couple of pounds in a day that way, and will be happily ready for your breakfast the next morning , minus that horrible low-level anxiety triggered by your cravings.
There. Fasting done easily.
Another couple of rules that really help get results are:
1. Lower the carbs on your skinny days, it will ramp up your metabolism even more if you do.
2. Don’t do 2 skinny days together. Space them out during the week, a maximum of 2 is best, so you can regulate your appetite and generate a more sustainable weight loss over time. This helps your body become more efficient at weight loss, which is after all, what we’re looking for isn’t it??
Have you done skinny Days yourself? What benefits have you personally found, if so? I often do 2 a week and I notice my energy levels are a lot higher the next few days afterwards. Skinny days can also help to keep your weight stable, as well as dropping the lbs.
Love x
