Taking a Break from Intermittent Fasting

I practiced intermittent fasting and prayer for 14 months.  I loved every minute of it.  I loved the peace, the discipline, the spirituality, living in the moment, experiencing more gratitude and more.  It's been an honor giving money to the poor through the fast offering. My family and I donated last year in March to Rising Star International, an organization in India and donated again this year in March.  We now sponsor three beautiful little girls who we love and hopefully someday will get to meet. This is all possible because of fasting.

Working on the cover for my next book, an historical fantasy called The Stolen Bible.

Another wonderful benefit of intermittent fasting is weight loss.  

I’ve lost 30 pounds and have been able to keep the weight off (something that is huge for me); however, my body has grown accustomed to daily 16 hour fasts and I’m no longer having weight loss results.  To my disappointment, I’ve learned I can’t eat whatever I want during my 8-hour eating window. I am taking a break from fasting for now.  This was difficult at first, but I’ve learned so much about myself and food, I’m applying what I learned while I’m on medifast for the next 90 days. My goal is to take off the next 20-30 pounds and then use IF to maintain my weight loss.  Trust me, I’d rather be intermittent fasting then using medifast, but medifast is a form of fasting that works for me. At this point, losing the weight is something I’m ready to do. In 2013, I wrote about my experience losing weight with medifast. You can read about that here. 

So, how did all this idea transpire?  About 6 weeks ago, I was at a Sunday dinner with my extended family.  We have so much fun together and there was much laughter and interesting discussion.  Somehow, we started talking about me and fasting.  I told Derek, my brother Tadd, his wife Heather and my sister Becky how for months I haven’t lost any weight, how I put in such effort every day, but still struggle with healthy food choices, how I want to exercise more, but struggle with the time commitment. Before I knew it, I was feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders.  I started crying and my husband and my siblings rushed to my side.  I didn’t realize how much I was struggling, but it was at this point they all unconditionally offered their support.  As a team, we decided it was time for me to try something else.  Medifast is not an easy program, but I’ve lost weight on it before.  Tadd pointed out I have incredible self-discipline and after intermittent fasting for over a year, medifast would probably be easier then what I’d been doing.  We all got a good laugh out of that. I never considered myself somebody with lots of self-discipline, but I can see his point.

Intermittent fasting has changed my life. Without it, there is so much I would have never learned or understood. Now, when I discuss intermittent fasting, please know I’m referring to it in the past tense, to my 30-day or year-long fast.  I wanted to share this latest update because I’ve been so public about intermittent fasting.  With prayer and intention, here’s to the next phase of my journey.

I'm not promoting medifast, I'm just happy to know with a lot of self-discipline, I can see some weight loss results again.