My Intermittent Fasting Diet (Not what you’d expect!)

This post is about my intermittent fasting diet.  

It’s not uncommon for someone to give a quick negative reaction to me stating I am an intermittent faster.  I think the instant idea is that an intermittent fasting diet must be total restriction, all the time!  This simply is not the case.  I eat a variety.  In fact, time is my only restriction.  I share more thoughts on this here, but essentially, I eat all foods that sound good to me on a daily basis.

Let’s Back It Up a Bit

In order to understand how I eat NOW, let’s look at how I would eat growing up.  Everything I share is based on my memory and certainly leaves gaps – but I can only share my POV.  Thankfully, I never felt food insecure.  We always had food to eat.  I truly don’t remember many dinners we had growing up…. but things I remember really loving – canned tamales, canned refried beans, jello cake, corn dogs, going ANYWHERE out to eat, canned soup, mom’s homemade cauliflower soup, pasta salads, sauerkraut, polish sausage and egg noodles and finally, any family gathering.  While I don’t remember a diet culture at all (which I appreciate), I also don’t remember there being any emphasis on a well-rounded diet.

Emphasis on Eating

Going out to eat was a treat and it always felt like such.  I still to this day love going to a restaurant.  Because the experience wasn’t frequent, I wanted to maximize the joy I would get… basically order most bang for my buck.  It was never about balanced meals nor healthy options.  My goal was always get the most enjoyment each meal.

Even when I began working I loved the perk of eating free at the various places I worked…. Especially when I worked at McDonald’s; I would eat my free employee meal at breakfast and buy another meal after work (half-off) for my lunch.  I did that 5-6 days a week and NEVER got sick of it!  The same can be applied to when I worked at an apple orchard (cider, donuts and apples oh my!) or working at Arby’s (I’ll take a beef and cheddar, large curly fries, both Arby’s and Horsey sauce and a Cherry coke – thanks!).

Family gatherings and pot lucks I always looked forward to food being served.  I was usually a frequent visitor to the food tables… snacking the entire time. My cousin once even said to me, “my other grandpa told me ‘We don’t live to eat, we eat to live’ but I thought of you Jackie, you do live to eat”.  I was a bit embarrassed she thought of me that way, but I couldn’t deny there may be a reason.

Old Habits Die Hard

My entire life I have loved eating in frequency and quantity – but I never focused on quality.  It was always about enjoyment.  I am grateful I was never made to feel bad about food choices.  However, I also never had (to my memory) any concern over processed foods, excess snacks, etc.  It probably was less of an issue because I was always thin growing up.

I started having weight issues and dieting just a bit in college; it was never a large amount I had to lose, but dropping weight was really simple if I worked out regularly.  That was all that I needed to do to lose 5-10lbs and stay thin.  Again, my food choices remained a focus on deliciousness.

Once I began having children (22 years old I had my first), my body changed and weight was much more difficult to shed.  I was no longer able to do a 30 minute workout each morning to stay thin.  I did weight watchers to lose weight after each pregnancy.  The amazing thing was YES! I lost my excess weight each time.  However, the issue was burn out.

Decision Fatigue Activated

Sure I can master counting points, it was almost a fun game at first.  It was even easy because even though I love many “junk” items, I also love most fresh produce.   Initially, I would become gung-ho about points, lose all the weight and one day implode because I missed all the foods I was skipping.  At this point I would hate making a weight watcher friendly meal for myself and a separate meal for my family, I was so tired of figuring out points for every. single. food. I consumed.  I no longer wanted to try new recipes, it was too much work to find points and serving sizes.  Restaurants, especially small local ones, are impossible to incorporate because they don’t have to provide nutritional information.

Each time I lost my weight with weight watchers I would get to a point I would believe “I have to either not enjoy food anymore, or be fat”.  Eventually the burn-out would lead to me deciding I wanted to be fat and enjoy food.  I simply missed enjoying food every day.  Once that point was reached, I would unsubscribe to Weight Watchers, delete the app and slowly put my 20-30 lbs back on.  It was most definitely a cycle – highest I ever reached was about 190.   I would get to these high (for me) weights and reach another breaking point of feeling bad physically and emotionally.  That usually led to me signing up for Weight Watchers again.  I never reached obesity – but spent many years going back and forth between overweight or not!

Hallelujah – Freedom Found

It wasn’t until Spring 2020 that I decided to try intermittent fasting as a weight loss tool.  I had done it years before through church for spiritual reasons and remember feeling like the adjustment wasn’t too hard.  But I never implemented it as a lifestyle until I hit another “I need to lose weight” mental break down.  I had already lost a bit of weight through calorie restriction and working out, but it was so difficult and lacked the joy of eating.

My friend knew I was interested in fasting and somehow she was exposed to “Fast. Feast. Repeat.”  She instantly shared about the book with me and that’s when my life changed forever (though I had no clue then!)

I devoured the book and quite quickly moved from an 18:6 window, to OMAD with a minimum 18 hour fast.

I am not giving specifics on my daily schedule, but other posts will share that.  However, I want to focus on the reason my intermittent fasting diet has no restrictions – giving me the long sought after freedom!

New Hope

I was NEVER long term successful on weight watchers because I simply missed eating with freedom.  I have seen the patterns, I’ve seen the cycles and I know long term success wasn’t ever the result of such restriction.  Prior to fasting, I thought it was impossible to enjoy foods daily and maintain a healthy weight.

I realized, through reading, others’ stories and eventually my own experience, that my goal freedom was achievable by restricting when I eat.   As I mastered the fasting, I shed all decision fatigue around food.  No more deciding what’s too much, if I should eat etc (you can watch a video all about that here).

I am able to leverage the benefits of a long fast in between my eating windows, giving freedom to eat foods I enjoy in a restricted timeframe.  The hard thing to understand from an outsider, it’s quite easy to fast once you adjust.  I can usually get from one eating window to the next without stress or white knuckling.  (Read this on clean fasting and the difference it makes!)  Once that ability to fast is mastered, there really isn’t much stress about the diet if you don’t have restrictions.

What About the Junk?!

I still have “too much” sugar in my diet, I still have processed foods, I still enjoy snacking.  However, I allow myself to eat this because of a few things:

Lifestyle

I want Intermittent Fasting to be a lifestyle.  Not lose-weight quickly and almost as quickly gain it back.  I shared earlier that I was plenty familiar with that cycle and have no interest in returning.  I need to enjoy my daily eating window in order to make this lifestyle stick!

Joy

I love making a new recipe that looks delicious.  I get true joy in going to a restaurant and ordering what sounds best.  Having this joy is important to me in my life.  Plain and simple.  This doesn’t mean I seek out “junk” just because I can, it means I am free to make any choice!  The joy comes from both mental freedom as well as actually eating delicious foods.

Changing Palette

I read this is common and trusted it would be true – as you fast your food preferences and cravings change.  I have certainly found this to be true the further I fast.  For instance, pop I rarely have.  When I do indulge, it’s on an infrequent basis – not by restricting myself, I just don’t want it regularly.  I used to drink 1-2 large diet cokes a day from McDonalds!  I also no longer like really powdery chip flavors – such as sour cream and cheddar.  They’re too chemically tasting.  I also used to love the following – hot milk lattes, flavored black coffee, processed cakes (like oatmeal cream pies and christmas trees)… I no longer am tempted by any of them.

I am all for eating healthier; I am trusting my body to keep moving in that direction.  And it’s much easier to not choose pop because I don’t want it rather than I cannot have it.

I’m a Mom

Because I have three children of my own, I want them to see me enjoying all foods!  I don’t want my kiddos to grow up with food issues or a diet mentality.  So I get ice cream when we go as a family, I eat the Christmas cookies we bake together and I for sure am having a giant slice of their chosen birthday cake.  Celebrations are fun and for me usually include food – and I am partaking!

On the flip side of that, it’s also up to me as a mom to raise my children with balance.  We have fruits daily and a vegetable at dinner always.  I am (almost) always eating a vegetable daily – because I expect the same of my kids and it’s up to me to model that.  I have fruit frequently, but I am not as concerned with that being a part of my daily eating window (and my kiddos LOVE fruit.- no convincing needed).

Am I Pushing Junk Food?

Absolutely NOT!  I am not trying to convince anyone to eat a lbs of processed cheese block and wash it down with a fried chicken tender dipped in a chocolate shake.

I am trying to connect with others like me – people who have failed at traditional diets time and time again because simply they missed foods.  Being a “real-world” example of someone who eats everyday foods, everyday could be what makes you see that there is still benefit in intermittent fasting even without a perfect meal plan.

I want people teetering on “could fasting work for me” to see that YES! it is 100% worth trying.  Your diet certainly has impacts, and I could probably shed more weight it I forever ditched carbs and sugar…. but that won’t ever happen long term!

You too can eat everyday foods, everyday and reap the benefits of fasting most of the day!  That’s what I want to share; my success, my imperfect diet and my absolute love of how intermittent fasting has transformed my life.