As you can see, Intermittent Fasting has so much to do with what you’re eating during the day! In this chapter, I want to talk about what exactly you will be eating, your calories, and ways to make eating fun on this diet.
We came up with an amazing mantra in the last chapter about how to eat in between your fasting times.
Eat Larger, Healthier Meals Less Often
Yep, we’re going to kick a lot of eating myths right to the curb. Myths about three meals a day, myths about small portion sizes, myths about eating the wrong things, myths about eating the right things, and myths about calories or calorie counting 먹튀검증커뮤니티.
Intermittent Fasting is about four huge eating concepts:
~Eating in a small, specific window of time, within 8 hours or less
~Eating healthy meals that contain proteins, carbohydrates, and fats
~Eating fewer meals, usually two or even one a day instead of three a day plus snacks
~Eating to meet your calorie requirements
We’ll go over each one of these in-depth in this chapter, starting with calories!
Calories and Intermittent Fasting
Calories were discovered by Nicolas Clement in 1824 as a unit of heat energy. But nowadays, we think of calories as the basic unit of how food will burn as fuel in your body.
What is your recommended daily calorie intake? In other words, how many calories does your particular body require to maintain that balance your own body is looking for?
To find out how many calories you need to eat, just go to an online calorie calculator. You will fill in your information, including your age, your current weight, and your height. You will also provide your current level of weekly exercise. This is to determine whether you’re burning more calories than you currently take in.
You know calories because they’re listed on food packages or you can Google them, right? Most of us who’ve been dieting for some time actually have a pretty firm grasp of how many calories are in fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, and grains. No biggie there.
For women, the average amount of calories is about 1800 per day. That depends on many factors, but it is a nice round number and a good place to start. That’s your base level.
Did you know that you can actually eat more calories and lose more weight just by adding Intermittent Fasting?
Whoa! That’s pretty life changing.
Let’s take an average 1800 calorie day. You split up your calories throughout the day, eating several hundred for breakfast, several hundred for lunch, some for an afternoon snack, several hundred for dinner, and the rest in the evening. Even though you’re proud of yourself for getting in a lower calorie diet, you’re running into several problems:
~Lower calorie foods just don’t fill you up and satisfy your hunger, so you feel pretty ravenous throughout the day.
~You’re not eating a lot of calories, but you are eating frequently.
You’re not eating too many calories, but you are eating too often!
On the Intermittent Fasting eating plan, you can eat up to 2000 calories per day in a shorter eating window ? and lose weight faster!
Yes, it’s absolutely true.
How is that even possible?
It’s because of how your body processes the nutrients from your foods. We talked a lot about nutrients back in Chapter 3, and the three main nutrients are fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.
Your body actually prefers if you consume lots of these nutrients in one sitting. We’re talking 1000 calories in one meal. In our modern era, it’s almost unheard of to try and eat so much in one meal unless you’re trying to gain weight. But you split up all of those 2000 calories into just two meals a day, at 1000 calories each, and get rid of all snacking in between. You eat those two meals within a 6-hour window. Then, you fast the rest of the time. You’d actually feel incredibly full longer, you’d meet all of your calorie requirements, and you’d lose more weight because you ate enough fuel and nutrients to not just sustain yourself during the fast, but increase the rate at which that fat from your adipose cells are burned.
Pretty incredible, huh?
It’s still a good idea to get your base calories for your body type and fitness level, just to give yourself a baseline number. But you can safely stick to a 2000 calorie diet on the Intermittent Fasting plan ? and still drop those pounds.
Losing weight is NOT just about cutting calories!
That is the standard conventional wisdom, but we have much more scientific evidence to back up our claims and provide you with all the information you need.
Cutting calories is also NOT the only possible way to lose weight. If that were true, then every single person who ever ate fewer calories would automatically start dropping the pounds. That would be a magical weight loss fantasy indeed! But that’s not what is happening.
Thankfully, more and more women are waking up to the fact that simply cutting your calories doesn’t work for weight loss. This is one of the many reasons why Intermittent Fasting and the Keto Diet have suddenly jumped in popularity.
You are free to eat up to 2000 calories a day, and still lose weight.
Okay, So What Should I Be Eating?
Well, just because you can eat 2000 calories per day doesn’t mean those calories should come from junk. We want to eat healthy! Intermittent Fasting is all about eating windows, which I’ll talk about below. But before we get there, let’s talk about exactly what kinds of foods you should be eating. Remember that you can eat up to 2000 calories, so we’re not dealing with restrictive diets.
We’re dealing with healthy, balanced diets. Diets that contain healthy amounts of those three awesome nutrients we were talking about earlier:
~Carbohydrates (starches and sugars)
~Proteins
~Fats
So, a healthy diet would include healthy amounts of each of those three nutrients. While you have a lot of leeway here, the percentages that I have personally used in the past are:
~Carbohydrates ? 40% of daily total calories
~Proteins ? 30% of daily total calories
~Fats ? 30% of daily total fats
This means that on a 2000 calorie diet, you’d be eating 800 calories of healthy carbohydrates, 600 calories of healthy proteins, and 600 calories of healthy fats each day.
You have a lot of flexibility here ? an entire grocery store’s worth, actually!
There are a number of diets out there to choose from, like Atkins, the Paleo Diet, or the Ketogenic Diet, which is discussed in depth in Chapter 10. You could even go vegetarian or vegan if you like! Again, Intermittent Fasting is more about when you’re eating your calories, not so much exactly what those calories should be.
However, common sense tells us that calories from fried foods aren’t the same as calories from organic chicken. Eating 2000 calories in larger meals is not a carte blanche excuse to just go crazy. Healthy is key. There are good and bad carbohydrates, good and bad proteins, and good and bad fats. You want to stay away from the bad kinds and choose the good kinds.
Speaking of grocery stores, let’s go shopping and take a look at each of the food groups to see which foods fall under the healthy category.
Vegetables
The produce section has some wonderful options to get in your healthy carbohydrates. You can’t go wrong with leafy greens like Romaine lettuce, fresh baby spinach, and kale. They make a great base to salads. You can also eat onions, tomatoes (although they’re a fruit), broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, green peas, fresh green beans, bell peppers, beets, Brussel sprouts, carrots, squash, zucchini, eggplant, and asparagus. Starchier veggies like potatoes, sweet potatoes / yams, and turnips have higher carbohydrate counts if you’re watching those numbers.
Fruits
Many diets, especially the Keto Diet, advocate a very low carbohydrate gram count that doesn’t include hardly any fruits. But fruits are high carbohydrate foods with lots of natural fructose, which can convert to glucose and provide great energy for your body. Excellent healthy fruits include apples, oranges, bananas, berries, grapes, pineapple, lemons, limes, and melons. Avocados are popular, too.
Eggs & Dairy
Dairy foods provide proteins, some lactose (milk sugar), and good fats, too. Try to get dairy products either organic or grass-fed, since those are the healthiest and provide you with the best protein sources. Milk, cream, real butter, cottage cheese, cream cheese, plain unsweetened yogurt, goat cheese, and other types of cheeses will give you yummy calories. Whole large eggs are a versatile food that also have plenty of good fats and proteins.
Meat & Fish
It’s perfectly fine to get all of your calories from non-meat sources on a vegetarian diet with Intermittent Fasting. But you can also get your proteins from sources like chicken, turkey, beef, ham, high quality bacon, lamb, fish, and seafood like clams, shrimp, scallops, crab, and lobster. Buy good quality meat and fish. They’ll provide plenty of proteins and the good kinds of fats to meet your calorie requirements.
Carbs & Grains
The carbohydrate category is one of the more controversial, because those carbohydrates from flours, sugars, and starches convert right to glucose in your body. On the Keto Diet, your carbohydrate count is 25 grams or less. But if you’re following an Intermittent Fasting plan with more carbs, then you can increase the count. Don’t go overboard in this category, though! You want some good fats and proteins, too. Examples of great carbs that have plenty of fiber and give you long-lasting energy include oats, barley, quinoa, lentils, beans (kidney, cannellini, navy, black beans), brown rice, wild rice, chickpeas, and bran. As for breads, you can get whole wheat, rye, pumpernickel, or sprouted grain. Try to keep your corn, white rice, and white flour consumption to a very small percentage of your carbohydrate intake.
Herbs & Spices
Herbs and spices have their own very low carbohydrate counts because of the plant sugars. They add their own unique and amazing flavors to the above food groups. You can change up cuisines and eat different kinds of dishes. You can find fresh herbs and garlic in the produce section, but you should also stock plenty of dried herbs and spices, too. One fun thing about cooking is getting to try a new herb or spice you’re not familiar with. Herbs and spices pack a punch with flavor that excites your taste buds and turn healthy ingredients from blah to blasting.
More Healthy Foods
There are hundreds of other healthy ingredients that you can add to your cupboards, fridge, and freezer. You can try the different types of nuts and seeds. There are many healthy condiments like olive oil, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, Dijon mustard, low sugar barbecue sauce, full fat mayonnaise, and hot sauce. Black coffee and teas can be mixed with cream. Some Intermittent Fasters stock baking ingredients. It’s up to you whether you’d like to have sugars. Remember that they convert to glucose and become stored in your cells.
Treats
Yes, you can have some treats on this diet! Dark chocolate is yummy, and so is a glass of wine. Many ice cream brands are pretty healthy, so look for ones that are just milk, cream, sugar, and natural ingredients. Even pizzas and French fries have healthy versions. Whatever your personal indulgence is, keep note of it. You don’t have to write it off completely. Just have a tiny portion of it with as few artificial ingredients as possible, factor in the calories, and only have it occasionally, like once a week. This is not a meal plan about deprivation.
Any Off-Limit Foods?
While it’s more important when you eat in between your fasting times, there are certain foods you shouldn’t be eating on this diet. That is because they’re just plain unhealthy! They are made in a laboratory, so that makes them stuffed with artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors, and preservatives. These chemicals are the bad kinds of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. They’re not all natural straight from the ground or the animal.
Avoid:
~Boxed pastries and baked goods
~Margarine in any form
~Canned soups
~Canned meals (Chef Boyardee, etc.)
~Boxed meal kits
~Frozen boxed lunches or dinners
~Frozen breakfast foods
~Frozen pizza
~Kids’ lunch packaged meals
~Grocery store packaged foods
~Pre-packaged sauce mixes
~Dried soup mixes
~Potato chips
~Cheesy crunchy snacks
~Bagged microwave popcorn
~Cheese crackers
~Any packaged salty or cheese snack food
~High sugar coffee drinks from Starbucks or other coffee shops
~Soda, even if it says zero calories
~Energy drinks
~Sports drinks
~Alcohol, unless it’s the occasional glass of wine
Most of these are pretty self-explanatory as to why they are on the naughty list. They’re packed with nasty ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and manufactured items like partially hydrogenated oil, aspartame, xylitol, and dextrose. Not to mention the ridiculously high amounts of sodium, caffeine, and sugars.
Yuck!
Honestly, anything packed with seventy ingredients you can’t pronounce is not good for your wonderful body. Stick to an eating plan that works for you, incorporates at least 90% good, healthy ingredients, and provides you with those amazing carbs, proteins, and good fats.
Your Eating Windows
The Intermittent Fasting plan focuses more on WHEN you eat! We’re going to squeeze all of your 2000 calories into a shorter period of time than the average day. Most of us begin eating in the morning, and we don’t pay attention to the clock. We might have our last bite or two very late at night.
That’s not going to work with Intermittent Fasting. Your diet is not just dependent upon what you put in the grocery cart.
It’s about the clock, too.
So, the maximum amount of time you should be eating for weight loss is a 9 hour daily window. A minimum time is about 5 hours, but that’s only if you are doing one meal a day (OMAD), which I will discuss in more detail below.
You get a lot of flexibility with choosing how long your eating window is.
Eating Window Examples:
~Eating window of 9 hours, fast for 15 hours, repeat
~Eating window of 8 hours, fast for 16 hours, repeat
~Eating window of 7 hours, fast for 17 hours, repeat
~Eating window of 6 hours, fast for 18 hours, repeat
~Eating window of 5 hours, fast for 19 hours, repeat
You can see that your eating windows and fasting times keep repeating, over and over, on that cycle.
Which one is best for you? I personally have found the shorter eating windows of 6 or 7 hours to be the most effective for weight loss. I am just not hungry in the morning, so my eating window starts at noon and stops at 7:00 pm each day. I eat all of my 2000 calories within that time frame. I eat 30% of my calories at lunch at 12:00 pm noon, and then have a 70% calorie dinner at 5:30 pm. I like to eat a lot at dinner! Once that clock hits 7:00 pm, I stop for the day.
That is how an eating window works.
The 8 Hour Eating Window and the Hunger Hormone
Remember back in Chapter 3 I mentioned the hunger hormone, called ghrelin?
Well, it turns out this hunger hormone lives on its own natural 8 hour eating window every single day of your life.
Ghrelin levels are pretty low even after you wake up, those levels peak at noon, and then those levels steadily decrease throughout the day, corresponding with a smaller peak around 8:00 pm at night. Sound familiar? You are definitely your hungriest at lunch time, throughout the afternoon, and at dinner. Millions of people skip breakfast not necessarily because we’re trying to, but because those ghrelin levels are low. We’re simply not hungry!
These ghrelin levels also give you the most perfect 8 hour eating window between 12:00 pm and 8:00 pm. Pretty neat, huh? It’s like you were biologically designed to have this 8 hour eating window. Your ghrelin hunger hormone levels certainly support it. This is an eating window that works with your body, rather than against it.
The only rule of thumb when it comes to finding the best eating window of time, is that your last meal should occur about two to three hours before bedtime. Eating windows of time last around six hours, which gives you eighteen hours of fasting. So, for example, if you go to bed at 11:00 at night, your six-hour feeding window could be between 3:00 pm and 9:00 pm. That’s the latest it could be. This is a perfectly fine Intermittent Fasting eating schedule.
Here are some possible examples:
~Have a full time nine to five job? Try an eating window between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm. Take in most of your calories at breakfast and then the rest at a noon lunch time.
~Work a late shift? Schedule your feeding window between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm, in the middle of the day before your shift starts.
~An early riser? Then your eating window can be between 5:00 am and 11:00 am. You’d take in all of your calories in the morning.
~What about the night owl? Your eating window is shifted to later in the day, starting at 3:00 pm and ending at 11:00 pm. If you have a very late bed time of 1:00 in the morning, this would be a great time for you.
Spend some time looking at your weekly schedule to find the best times that work for you.
Splitting Up Your Calories in the Eating Window
The percentages of calories that you’re consuming at each of your meals in your eating window is really important. Consistency is key on the Intermittent Fasting plan, so whatever calorie percentage template you use, please keep repeating it for each of your eating windows.
You get several options here of how many meals you’d like to have. I started out with three meals per day within a 9 hour eating window. That was because I wasn’t sure if I would be ravenous with having to fast for the other 15 hours. I also was still locked into the mindset of ‘three meals a day is normal.’ In fact, I was more used to eating six meals a day, because I ate smaller portion sizes and just grazed all day! That is not a meal plan for weight loss ? that’s a meal plan for weight gain!
So, on the Intermittent Fasting eating plan, you can cut back from three meals a day to just two or even try one meal a day (OMAD).
Sample Templates: 8 Hour Eating Window with Three Meals a Day
This is an excellent beginning sample template for starting out with Intermittent Fasting and getting used to the whole process. It’s also perfect for women who are in college taking classes, women who work full time, and women who would like smaller portions rather than eating two larger meals per day. For the times, you can definitely move your eating window to be earlier in the day or later in the day.
Your schedule could look like this:
~Meal 1 is between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, when you eat 30% of your calories.
~Meal 2 is between 3:00 pm and 5:00 pm and that is when you eat another 30% of your calories.
~Meal 3 is between 6:00 pm and finishes before 8:00 pm, when you consume 40% of your calories.
This template is really balanced.
You could still follow this template with the exact same number of meals, but only the calorie percentages are switched.
~Meal 1 is between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, when you eat 30% of your calories.
~Meal 2 is between 3:00 pm and 5:00 pm and that is when you eat another 20% of your calories.
~Meal 3 is between 6:00 pm and finishes before 8:00 pm, when you consume 50% of your calories.
For busy moms with families when dinner is the biggest meal of the day, this template would be ideal. You would have a large dinner with your family in the evening.
Do you work a later shift or have more time earlier in the day to get in most of your calories? If you are a breakfast lover within your 8 hour eating window, then check out the following meal plan template:
~Meal 1 is between 6:00 am and 8:00 am, when you eat 60% of your calories.
~Meal 2 is between 10:00 am and 11:00 am and that is when you eat another 15% of your calories.
~Meal 3 is between 12:00 pm and finishes before 2:00 pm, when you consume 25% of your calories.
Notice that I also moved the eating window up to starting at 6:00 am instead of 12:00 pm? That is the power of eating windows. You can start them at any time you want. The important thing is to stop all food consumption at the end of the eating window and fast until the eating window starts again tomorrow. You can have water, but that’s it. No other calories!
All of these meal percentages were for 8 hours. You can certainly shorten the time frame down to 7 hours and use the same percentages.
Sample Templates: 8 Hour Eating Window with Two Meals a Day
Now that you’ve gotten an idea of what exactly Intermittent Fasting looks like on a three meal a day plan, we are going to stick with the same eating window time of 8 hours. But this time, we will reduce your meals from three to two. This also changes the calorie percentage. You will consume more calories per sitting. Many of us skip breakfast, so eating just two meals a day comes naturally! I’ve eaten two meals a day for years, and I feel so much fuller and so much better. Think back to 30,000 years ago. Our ancestors could probably only eat once or twice a day, because the rest of the time was needed for actually hunting the food! It is very natural to eat just two meals a day.
For an 8 hour eating window, your schedule could look like this:
~Meal 1 is between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, when you eat 30% of your calories.
~Meal 2 is between 6:00 pm and finishes before 8:00 pm, when you consume 70% of your calories.
I call this the Dinner Lover template! If you love to have a sit down supper with your family in the evening, then you would try this template. Keep in mind that a two meal a day plan does not provide any calories for snacking in between meals. You are consuming all of your calories within two meals, and in two meals only.
What about if you need to or want to eat the vast majority of your calories earlier in the day? You could definitely do that in your 8 hour eating window.
~Meal 1 is between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, when you eat 70% of your calories.
~Meal 2 is between 6:00 pm and finishes before 8:00 pm, when you consume 30% of your calories.
Don’t forget that you could move your eating window earlier, to consume that 70% of your calories starting at six in the morning if that fits in your schedule. If you do that, you would plan your second meal so that it stops at 2:00 pm.
Sample Template: 6 Hour Eating Window with Two Meals a Day
The longer you fast, the more weight you will lose. So, many women love to increase their fasting times, shortening their eating windows to 6 hours instead of the usual 8. You will gain more and more benefits from fasting from longer periods of time. In a 6 hour eating window, you really only have enough time to enjoy two large meals. You can split up the calorie percentages to have it be either top heavy (most of your calories in the beginning) or bottom heavy (most of your calories at the end).
Check out this sample 6 hour eating window with two meals:
~Meal 1 is between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, when you eat 70% of your calories.
~Meal 2 is between 4:00 pm and finishes before 6:00 pm, when you consume 30% of your calories.
This is the top heavy version, where you have a huge lunch. Would you rather have a huge dinner? That is great, too! You could reverse the calorie percentage for your 6 hours:
~Meal 1 is between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, when you eat 30% of your calories.
~Meal 2 is between 4:00 pm and finishes before 6:00 pm, when you consume 70% of your calories.
As with the 8 hour eating windows above, you can move this eating window to be earlier in the day or later in the day. Just make sure that you are finishing your meals before the end of the 6 hour eating window and that you are having your last bite at least two hours before bed time.
One Meal a Day Intermittent Fasting – OMAD
Now, we get to the pinnacle of the amazingness of Intermittent Fasting, and that is consuming just one meal a day (OMAD for short). Yes, that is right ? you would eat all 2000 calories in a single sitting. But that also means it is your only meal that day, and you are not to eat any other calories and have no other foods until you break your fast tomorrow to eat your 2000 calories again. So, it is more difficult than simply reducing meals or playing around with calorie percentages like in the above sample template meal plans.
However, there are some awesome perks to eating OMAD:
~You can eat your OMAD whenever you want ? have fun picking the time that works best for you
~Forget planning multiple meals ? now you can just find about 1 hour each day in which to eat. That’s it!
~You only have to cook once a day, for just one huge meal
~You will feel like an Olympic athlete consuming that many calories in a single sitting
~You will greatly simplify your grocery shopping and meal planning
~After you have eaten your OMAD, you don’t have to think about food the rest of the day
With OMAD, the ratio is 23:1. So, you are fasting for about twenty-three hours and only eating for one hour. Eating just once a day is extraordinarily beneficial for women who have very busy lives, who travel frequently, who are stay at home moms, who have a full college course load, who are high performance athletes, and for any woman who would love to just eat all their calories in one huge sitting. It’s like having your own personal banquet each day!
There are some tips to eating OMAD, because of how your body processes those key nutrients. If you are doing OMAD specifically for weight loss purposes, you would want to try and reduce your carbohydrate count down to about 15% of your daily calories or less. That is because the less glucose you consume, the fewer grams turn into glycogen and the more fat is used as fuel from your adipose cells. You might also want to try the full Keto Diet, with is extremely low carb counts that kick your body into ketosis much faster and use up that stored fat for ketones. Read about the Keto Diet in Chapter 10.
The other tip to eating OMAD is to ease into it slowly. This is not an eating plan about deprivation. 2000 calories is a lot to consume in one sitting! But the other twenty three hours of fasting is a long time. So, go easy on yourself. You are used to eating multiple meals a day, so there is an issue about changing your mindset, too.
The third tip? Keep that huge meal stuffed full of good, healthy nutrients. When eating just once a day, you could be tempted to just binge on one type of food. But you want to be sure you’re getting enough variety. This is not an eating plan that will work if it becomes boring! Change up your flavors with each of your single meals. You will deeply enjoy eating and fall in love with this meal plan.
Difficult fasts don’t equal better results if you’re feeling deprived. You don’t get bonus points for starvation or deprivation. You just feel deprived.
So, find an eating window and a meal plan that works for you!
Eating by the Calendar and the Clock
Your eating window is as unique to your lifestyle as you are! That’s because it starts with your weekly calendar and how you can find the best time each day in which to eat your meals. In the 30 Day Challenge chapter, you will actually get to sample multiple types of Intermittent Fasting schedules. It’s more about when you eat, as long as what you eat is healthy.
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