Petra @newmiboYou’ve been fasting for some time but now the holiday season comes, birthday celebrations are here, extra stress at work or some personal problems make you abandon your usual routine. How do you come back to fasting?
Here I offer some suggestions of what you may want to try and also what you should absolutely avoid doing.
MINDSET IS EVERYTHING
Firstly, don’t think of stopping as failing or falling off the wagon. You simply didn’t do it for a few days or weeks, that’s all. Taking a break when on holidays, or for social occasions is perfectly fine and expected.
Look at it this way, when you used to eat breakfast every morning because it was your lifestyle, on the day you skipped breakfast you wouldn’t think of it as failing or that your lifestyle was now ruined.
If fasting is your lifestyle and you don’t do it for a few days it means just that. You didn’t do it.
Dieting revolves around failing and restarting, lifestyle is a matter of doing or not doing it.
RENEW YOUR MOTIVATION
Start by renewing your motivation. Use internal motivation by remembering how you felt when you followed the lifestyle, remind yourself of the successes you’ve already experienced as a result of fasting. Follow it up with external motivation, how are others doing it, how are they progressing, what are their success stories?
COUNT ON YOUR EXPERIENCE
If you had stopped fasting for weeks or months, you may find the thought of IF intimidating. Think of it this way. You have already been doing it. You’ve already gone through the scary path every newbie goes through when you didn’t know what to expect.
Compare these two scenarios; applying for a new job position and returning to work after holidays.
Despite stopping, you’re still in a much advantageous position than ever before, simply because you already know exactly what to do, and how to do it. All you need to do is repeat the steps/routine you used to do.
STEP BY STEP
Once you convince your mind you can implement some practical steps.
Plan your fasting routine for a week; start with a clean overnight fast, then extend it by an hour every day (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ,18) by the end of the week you will have easily reached 18 hours.I promise you this works.
Each day you manage an extra hour of fasting, your confidence will grow and so will your motivation.
ADDING vs TAKING AWAY
If you feel you also need to ‘“come back” to a healthier diet use the same principle. Give yourself a week and each day add something healthy, the key is adding instead of taking away.
If you create a list of “forbidden foods” your mind will suddenly only think about those banned foods. You’ve created the mindset of deprivation. If you however have a list of foods to add to your diet, you have created the mindset of abundance. Your mind will be satisfied.
Once you start adding healthy foods, your body will naturally start rejecting junk food. Your taste buds will start changing together with your mindset.
For example; start by drinking an extra glass of water, next day add a portion of fruit, buy a bunch of avocados, have some vegetables with each meal, eat plain yogurt with fruit as a dessert, include some fermented foods in your daily diet.
By the end of the week you are going to feel completely renewed without the stress and pressure of trying to do it all in one day which will inevitably lead to burn out and failure.
DON’T DO THIS
EXTENDED FASTING
I know this is probably everyone’s first thought, you had an indulgent week so naturally you must restrict now to undo what had happened last week.
Let’s flip it again. If your previous lifestyle revolved around eating breakfast every morning and then for a week you didn’t eat any, would you now come back and ate 7 days worth of breakfast just to make up for the “failed” last week? Read it again and let it sink in.
Lifestyle does not require you to make up for anything. Diets do. We do not diet.
You want to live the intermittent fasting lifestyle with ease not with resentment.
You have done it before you can absolutely without a doubt do it again and better.
