How it works is by switching over into Ketosis, fat burning for energy, during the time you are fasting, due to a lack of energy food, from the glucose system, where the body gets energy from food ingested at each meal.

To get your body into a fat-burning state and hence result in weight loss, one would need to fast for at least 12-15 hours and manage portions too. This means that you can use the 12:12 14:10 or 16:8 fasting protocols. I’ve seen over time, the 16:8 method is the most efficient place to start for many.

This model means you fast for 16 hours and eat all your meals within 8 hours. Example windows are 8am:4pm 9am:5pm 10am:6pm and my favorite (that I follow myself) 11am:7pm. What this means is that I have my first meal or breakfast at 11 am, lunch at 3 pm and dinner at 7 pm.

Here’s how to do it for weight loss.

1. Take black tea, green tea, black coffee or water only, all UNSWEETENED during your fasting window. Don’t add any sugar or honey or lemon or you will break your fast
2. Limit or eliminate carbohydrates in your first meal to prevent a spike in blood sugar which could lead to constant hunger and cravings and result in overeating. So have e.g. eggs and a salad, meat and some veggies, beans and kachumbari. Pair this with bone soup or broth for added gut health benefits. You can do without the tea.
3. Have a well-balanced and well-portioned meal at your next meal times. Prioritize your protein, whole unrefined carbohydrates and lots of veggies. E.g. (rice, lentils and salad) (arrow roots, beef and spinach) (potatoes, fish and kachumbari)
4. Do not snack, unless you’re really hungry. If you must, take one whole fruit or water.
5. Eat to your fill, no pressure to finish the plate if you’re stuffed.
6. Stick to the hours- fasting hours, eating window and time between meals.
7. Do this for 8-12 weeks minimum

The post How to use Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss appeared first on Stephanie Mwaura.

He mostly wore a T-shirt, some khaki pants or shorts based on the weather and carried a simple dangle bag, it looked sort of polythene but it was always the same simple bag. He got into the changing rooms and out in less than 15 minutes. He’d walk into the shallow end of the pool and walk his way into the deeper end. You could see him shiver if you looked closely. But once he made it to the deep end wall, he turned and pushed off the wall and started his swim. He started slow but kept moving.

In about 10 lengths, you could see him panting, swimming can be so exhausting you know, especially in those first 5-10 minutes. He took a small break and went on. He’d be swimming back and forth for around 10 minutes in a not-very special way, he wasn’t an extremely great swimmer as you might be assuming. He knew the strokes, yes, the regular kind we all know. Front crawl and breaststroke. You’d be able to tell if he was tired because he would switch to a slow, big glide, low-resistance breast stroke.

After each break, he would then start with some front crawl, big kicks, long strokes, and lots of energy. He did these sets 2-6 times; I guess some days were better than others. After that, he’d walk out of the pool, change and leave. I’m sure whoever he left at home was told ‘I’m off for a swim’ and they probably knew how long it would take.

He did this daily, for many years. He came on days it rained cats and dogs, luckily the pool was covered. He came on days when the sun shone through the cover and made the place a little too warm. He came on days he probably didn’t feel like, on bad days, on good days, on fast-paced days and on slow days, I’m sure he did, even when we couldn’t tell. He came.

A few years in we closed this facility and moved to a new location that didn’t have a pool, I guess that he found another place. My class schedule changed and I was now en route to a client’s session, in the direction of our previous location, during these mid-morning hours. I’d almost daily, as long as I was on that route, see him walking, with the same swimming bag, probably to a new location. I was certain he was going for a swim, but now I was even more excited to see that he would walk to the pool.

One day, it was raining very heavily and he was walking to the pool perhaps, in the rain, with an umbrella and a raincoat. A day I’m sure he was alone in the pool. His tall lofty, slow walk was so familiar that I could see how well his day would go despite the weather. He’d get to his destination, unbothered by the rain, change, wade into the deep end and acclimatize to the temperature, set off for 10 lengths, take a break, go at it again, do some slow breaststroke lengths, achieve his 30-minute swim and walk back home.

This man probably achieved way more than many of our gym members who’d go hard 3 days a week, 3 months at a time, probably in the first quarter of the year, and drop off as soon as life happened until they gathered enough reason to come back. He had mastered the art of showing up, no matter what and doing what’s possible each day. There are days he did 30 minutes and others he did 60. There are days he did a few good laps and others he gave his all. Some days were thoroughly exhausting and others fully energized. I’m almost certain no day was the same.

Consistency seems to challenge each one of us in the fitness journey. We hope to give 150% each day and then life sits in a corner and laughs. We hope to stick to the plan as written and then we lose the plan and for the life of us cannot remember what we are meant to do. I frequently get asked how I’ve managed to stay consistent over the years and my answer is that I’ve shown up. For whatever I had in me on that day. Some days it was 2 stretches, others it was a hike.

Some days it was high-intensity sleeping and a walk while others saw me workout, walk, keep my nutrition in check and even more. Showing up is amazing when you are looking to build consistency. It is when you promise yourself to do what you said you would do, no matter how little that might look. It is giving all your energy to 15 minutes you could afford today because of work and an average good 60 minutes tomorrow because work was less stressful today.

It is meeting your friend for a walk because you haven’t managed to work out today and meeting them was equally important. I can promise you this, showing up will improve your outlook to consistency and deliver more results than you think. SHOW UP, that’s the bulk of the work.

The post Show Up – The Secret to Consistency appeared first on Stephanie Mwaura.

1. Focusing only on the fasting window. Here one is keen on how many hours they didn’t eat and don’t pay any attention to what they eat during the fasting window. E.g. doing 20hours without food and 4 hours of reckless and mindless eating of highly processed low nutrient foods in copious amounts, all because you earned it with the long fasting hours. 

For IF to work, you MUST nourish the body well. Almost to perfection even. You’re eating window is way more important than your fasting window when it comes to what the results for weight loss will be. One must eat highly nutritious food and in the right quantity. Go for carbohydrates that your grandma can recognize, eat good quality protein and lots of fruits and veggies. You must also space your meals right. You cannot eat every hour, the 4-hour rule stays. So, for a 20:4 protocol, you will eat once. There is no medal for fasting hours if you eat poorly when you break the fast. Use both windows to complement each other.

2. Breaking your fast with carbohydrates. I see this so much, especially with highly processed and refined carbohydrates all the time. Think bread, cake, cookies, oats, pastries, chapati, pasta. Liquid calories in the name of smoothies also cause the same effect, sweetened and loaded fruit and veggie smoothies and juices are a huge culprit. Eating this way just off a long period without food leads to a spike in blood sugar and could end up causing you to keep craving carbohydrates throughout the day. Once this happens you will not manage hunger well and may end up eating so much more than you should despite learning and adapting to fasting. This will then mean you are not eating less anyway; you just compress calories in a shorter period of time.

The best way to break your fast is to take protein and veggies first, paired with some bone soup to help your gut. This will keep you full, and manage cravings and blood sugar.

3. Doing IF for weight loss for too long. Weight loss is a destination, not a journey. For it to be effective, it needs to be well structured and planned, consistent and done for a set period of time. Once that time lapses, you need to take a break before you restart. If you achieve your goal before the time lapses, you need to move to a maintenance program after that. The longer you do it, it probably means you are not eating in a deficit, you’re not progressing and results will keep moving further and further away.

Plan ahead- which protocol will you be doing, what will you be eating in your eating window, what time, how many hours do you have between meals and most importantly, how long will you be on IF for weight loss. The sweet spot is between 8-12 weeks after which you go onto maintenance calories for a 2-week break and replan the next season. 

4. Taking your calories so low that the IF starts to have adverse effects on your health. If the fasting window is too long or the meal, you’re having is not nutritious enough to support your existence and daily activities and bodily functions, or a combination of both, then the IF will not benefit you but rather make you feel bad. It may lead to dehydration, chronic headaches, constant fatigue, brain fog, lethargy, poor energy levels, low libido, missing a period, poor appetite, insomnia, health risks, poor gut health among many other challenges brought about by very low-calorie diets. Yes, you want to lose weight, but there is a limit to how low the calories can go. There is a minimum requirement for survival and optimal function and that must be met. 

Adjust the protocol in terms of hours and nourishment even as you maintain lower calories for best results. I for example love the 16:8 model, I am able to keep it consistent while being disciplined with my portions. Ensure the quality of food is excellent, as well as the quantity being good enough to get you results. Fainting isn’t cute please.

5. Overconsuming other peoples’ stories and theories about IF and how they did it, applied it and what worked for them. This can be hearing what someone did and going ahead to doing it, reading on just that and not being objective and then applying things without full consideration

Ensure that IF works for you, you have understood the basics of it and you know what to do for your health, body and goals. Observe how you feel as you go along and adjust it where necessary. Where possible, consult a coach or reputable journals to help you clarify the jargon. It is not the only weight loss nutrition approach you can take.

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