Mastering Intermittent Fasting: An Essential Guide from Leyland

Many folks in Leyland have tried intermittent fasting as a way to manage their weight or support healthy insulin and cholesterol levels. However, most don’t stick with it long enough to see real benefits. The good news is that there’s more than one way to succeed at intermittent fasting—and the efforts are worth it.

Keep these do’s and don’ts in mind as you incorporate intermittent fasting into your lifestyle.

What is Intermittent Fasting?

First off, let’s ensure we understand what intermittent fasting is. Put simply, intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that cycles between eating and fasting each day. The idea is to go longer periods of time, say, 16 hours (a lot of which take place while you’re sleeping), without eating. This allows your body to tap into stored fat for energy and supports healthy blood sugar levels.

With that in mind, let’s start with some essential tips to help you get the best results from intermittent fasting:

Do:

• Start Slow: You wouldn’t jump straight from being a couch potato to a marathon runner. The same principle applies to intermittent fasting. While going cold turkey works for some, we recommend starting with small, more achievable goals, like not snacking after dinner or eating breakfast an hour later. Gradually work toward a longer fasting period as your body adjusts.
• Pick the Right Schedule: Many find the best results with the 16:8 method, which means fasting for 16 hours between dinner and your first meal the next day. For example, eat all your meals between noon and 8 p.m., then fast until noon the next day. Feel free to adjust your fast start and end times to work best with your lifestyle. If you need to eat earlier, try starting your fast at 5 or 6 p.m.
• Be Flexible: If a 16-hour fast isn’t feasible, cut back to 12 or 14 hours. The trick is to find a fasting length that is doable long term. Try as many schedules as necessary to find the one that you’ll be able to maintain.
• Stay Hydrated: It’s important to give our bodies breaks from food, not water. Our bodies work better when we stay hydrated. Plus, drinking plenty of water helps us feel fuller and stave off cravings.
• Eat Wholesome Meals: However long your eating window lasts, make sure to fill it with fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, lean protein, and fiber. Fueling your body with wholesome foods not only helps you get the nutrients you need each day but also makes it easier to go longer periods of time without food. Reduce foods that are high in sugar and simple carbohydrates as they often leave you feeling hungry an hour later and can lead to cravings at inconvenient times.
• Keep an IF Journal: When you’re first getting started, keep track of the foods you eat, the different schedules you’ve tried, and how you feel each day. This will help you determine what is and isn’t working so you can build a long-term plan customized to your needs.

Now that you understand what you should do, let’s look at some common intermittent fasting mistakes to pin down what you shouldn’t do.

Don’ts:

• Binge During Your Eating Window: Just because you fasted for 16 hours doesn’t mean you get a free pass to eat everything in sight for eight hours. The food you eat still matters, even though you’re consuming it in smaller amounts of time. Focus on the wholesome foods mentioned above and try to avoid high-calorie foods that aren’t filling.
• Don’t Swing to the Opposite Extreme: Be careful to avoid not eating enough. Intermittent fasting isn’t a diet but rather a time-based eating pattern that allows our bodies to tap into stored fat for energy, rather than relying on a near-constant supply of carbohydrates.
• Don’t Give Up Too Soon: To start to see the benefits of intermittent fasting—and there are many!—you’ll need to stick with it for at least 30 days. Once your body is accustomed to its new time-based eating schedule, you’ll really start to see results. If you’re finding intermittent fasting too hard, try fasting for a shorter amount of time rather than giving up altogether. And who knows, after you’re used to fasting for 12 or 14 hours a day, you may be able to bump that window up to 16 hours without too much trouble—and maximize the benefits!
• Don’t Expect Perfection: You don’t have to be perfect at intermittent fasting to succeed. A bad day will not erase any progress you’ve made. A late-night dinner with friends won’t set you back indefinitely. Interruptions are a regular part of life, and your eating habits will be affected occasionally. The key is to aim for consistency rather than perfection. As long as you’re intermittent fasting correctly most of the time, you’ll be succeeding.

When Willpower Isn’t Enough

Let’s face it: when it comes down to it, willpower alone may not be enough to maintain intermittent fasting long term. But with a little help, it becomes much more doable. Two Unicity products—Unimate and Balance—work together to help you extend the time between dinner and your first meal the next day.

• Unimate: This yerba mate drink contains up to 10 times the amount of chlorogenic acid (the feel-good, “get-up-and-go” component) found in a premium cup of coffee. It boosts the mood and supports mental stamina, focus, and motivation. It also helps fend off cravings and reenergize between meals.
• Balance: This pre-meal drink includes a patented fiber matrix with bioactive plant compounds, polysaccharides, and micronutrients. The fiber matrix is designed to ease some of the impacts that excess carbohydrates and cholesterol can have, and the soluble fibers help curb your appetite.

We call these two products + intermittent fasting the Feel Great program because, well, people feel great when they stick to this method. Learn more about Feel Great and see how it can help you get the most out of intermittent fasting, without making you work harder for it.

Whether you’re in Leyland or anywhere else, stick to these tips, and you’ll be well on your way to mastering intermittent fasting and feeling the benefits in no time.