What to eat after fasting for 24 hours? No, you don’t need to fast!
Do I fasted last Sunday … here’s my experience and a lesson:
Lesson: Play around, experiment, and test health advice out for yourself. Including the health advice I give you!
Experience: Overall good. Had dinner on Saturday and then didn’t eat Sunday until late, when I got hungry late in the evening.
I also learned something important for the next time I fast. Next time I fast I will eat breakfast and then not eat for 24 hours.
What health advice have you recently tested on yourself?
What to eat after fasting for 24 hours commentary:
I was at an event up in San Francisco when my friend told me he had lost a bunch of weight.
I had just met this guy at a TEDx event, so I didn’t know him when he previously was at a higher body weight.
But perhaps because I met him at TED, or perhaps because he was an engineer who liked science …
I trusted his opinion that when he said, I lost weight using THIS method, I became curious.
So then my friend said he just simply started fasting.
And I had heard of fasting before.
I had read of a guy who studied rats.
And this scientist would compare rats who fasted with normal rats.
And the rats who fasted had better blood pressure, aged slower, and looked better in old age.
In rat years I suppose.
So now my friend is saying he lost a lot of weight fasting. He comes from a science background and I met him at TEDx.
He says read “eat stop eat”.
So I did.
And I really liked the book.
The author of the book is highly qualified to comment on this topic matter.
In the book he breaks down many myths about fasting such as:
- fasting will make you lose muscle mass
- fasting will deprive your body of nutrients
- fasting is a horrible experience
- fasting has no benefits
And long story short, I read the book and became convinced.
Now, onto my experience about fasting and learn what to eat after fasting for 24 hours
I started off by applying the basic principles in the book.
This is a useful guideline for whatever health information you are trying to follow.
Try what they recommend, but don’t get believe too firmly in their advice.
For me, I started out by eating dinner on Saturday and then not eating all of Sunday.
However, I read Eat Stop Eat rules wrongly.
I thought they said to not eat for 1 full day, which they did.
I interpreted this to me skip all of Sunday. However, they really meant 24 hours.
So since I last ate on a Saturday at dinner, then my next eating time period would be Sunday evening, 24 hours later.
And my fasting experience was quite pleasant up until about the 24 hour mark.
And this is where listening to your body is highly important.
Because the rules (even though I misinterpreted them) were too strict for me.
But here’s the key.
I did what my body told me.
I did what I felt was right.
I felt like I gave this plan a sincere shot, and that the complete plan wasn’t meant for me.
I did not, I repeat, I did not beat myself up for feeling like a failure.
I did not guilt trip myself.
I did not label myself as weak or anything like that.
Because my mentality on the outside was that I’ll try.
And I did try.
And then I so I tested fasting out.
And what did I learn? I learned that going over 24 hours didn’t feel good to me.
So I was relieved then when the guidelines in the rules actually were recommending 24 hours.
It was sort of like my body knew all along!
Now was I too hungry? No.
In fact I had a pretty normal experience.
It wasn’t that fun.
It wasn’t that bad.
It was pretty normal.
I am going to try to continue fasting because of the medical benefits that I believe now.
I also will continue to fast because I see it as in alignment with my personal values.
However in terms of what to eat after fasting for 24 hours…
This is one more important principle.
I am modifying fasting to make it work for me.
One thing I like in Eat Stop Eat was the emphasis on modifying fasting to work for you.
This is crucial!
For any type of health advice:
- diet plan from the dietitian
- meal plan from the nutritionist
- workout schedule from the personal trainer
You have to be able to take their advice with a grain of salt so that you can modify their advice according to your personal preferences!
For me, instead of eating dinner and then fasting …
I will eat breakfast and then fast. Or eat some of these other foods.
This way the most difficult parts of the fast at at the end, when I am asleep.
Other people say that the beginning parts of fasting are the most difficult, and if that’s you, then perhaps you want to aim for eating at dinner and then fasting, so you are sleep during the beginning most difficult parts.
Just research your foods and you’ll be fine.
What do you think?
