#3. you ate the abandoned quiche

[fierybud]

[cloversreblogs]

Brass in the grey - Chpt. 7

Previous chapters (AO3 only): 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 /5 / 6

Links: FFN.net, AO3, Wattpad

Read on Tumblr: X / 8

Francis goes out for a walk and reflects.

Pairing: FrUK

Genre: Modern AU, Artists AU

Chapter rating: T

Chapter warning(s): strong depiction of depression and questioning self worth

Francis stared down at his quiche and lentils as Gilbert blabbered on. (Something about a virus on his company’s computer software) He stuck a fork into the quiche and bit into it. It lost a bit of the flavour from the previous day, though he could still taste a tinge of refrigerator and the tomato’s zing.

“So yeah!” Gilbert slammed his fork down onto the table, jolting Francis awake. Gilbert rubbed his temples. “Ugh… Jesus fuck.”

“Oh, and my the way how was your day?” He added in while he took a bite out of his quiche. “Any luck at finding another job or…”

Francis waved the fork in a gentle dismissal and put on a smile. “Haven’t really been searching lately. I’ve been busking as a hobby for a while now.”

“Ah. Cool.” Gilbert was still clearly thinking about the virus, sure, but the dismissive tone still stung.

“Hey Gil? I know that...” and then Antonio began to talk words of encouragement with Gilbert.

Francis fiddled his meal around with his fork. He had tried to spend the afternoon writing music pieces, but gave up. He kept on messing up the technicals-- the key of the piece, the bars, and especially the quavers-- as well as the fact that it took too long, anyway. It was a wonder how there are people who could remember how to properly do all these yet still create masterpieces like nothing.

Meanwhile, he could barely even transcribe melodies. Such a shame. And he had spent so much on music theory back at uni as well.

By then, he had noticed that Antonio started to talk to Gilbert. Gilbert seemed to be in a better mood already.

“Ah, yeah, that’s actually a pretty good point. Thanks!”

“You’re welcome! Anyway,” Somehow, the rest of Antonio’s words seem to blur up after that.

Somehow, a sinking feeling reawakened within his chest while he saw Antonio and Gilbert chat. He stood up.

“I’m just gonna go out for a bit.” Antonio glanced towards Francis, a concerned expression appearing onto his face.

“Now? But it’s so late!”

“I’ll be back soon.”

He grabbed the keys, his coat, and went out.

--------------

The cold London air blew as his breath turned to smoke in the cold night.

Francis wandered around the park as the sound of the city played in the background. Everything was so different in the park at night.

There would’ve been so many sounds in the day. In the night, it was so quiet that the wind seemed loud. Even with the blowing wind, the empty rustling of the leaves and litter, and the distant car honks which filled the silence, without the sound of people, it was just… empty.

The night dyed everything in the park into a stale slate grey, where the city lights couldn’t reach. The ruby and amber shades of the trees, the sky unlit of stars. Even the small circles of light around the lamp posts just dyed things an almost bleached white.

He sat onto a bench lit up by a lamp post, and listened to the empty rustling of the leaves.

Walks usually cleared his head. The cold air chilled his lungs as he took a deep breath in, and turned his breath into smoke in the lamp’s light.

He had taken more walks in the park, in hope of that it would clear a solid weight that lied in his chest. And for a split second, it disappeared.

Who was this? He wouldn’t take long walks in the park at night. He wasn’t the type who embraced solitude. So why? Why was he doing this?

He hated it.

Everything he loved was tainted with grey when he was like that. It was this weight that knotted deep in his gut, this vacuum of a despair. It ate everything around him, like a black hole. Even the sound of the leaves crackling under his boots were muted.

Was he useless?

He wasn’t a creator, but instead a performer. One who was not capable of deep thoughts.

A chain of bad luck plagued him when he first arrived in London. Abandoning a job opportunity for a drastic change, being held back from success while his friends flourish…

Being jealous of other’s peoples’ success instead of being proud like how he would had, should had.

What was wrong with him? He was just getting sad and depressing at other peoples’ milestones as a result of this!

Seeing the world through rose coloured lenses does not help with that, a voice in his mind told him.

Was it even helpful to see the good in things when everything around was crumbling apart? Would it be helpful to pick up the pieces even when you knew that the rest would come down anyway?

He busked not because he loved performing. He busked to seek self validation.

So selfish.

Why was he so selfish?

He snapped himself out of his thoughts. No no, he busked because he wanted to do something useful with his talents while still technically helping people.

See? A selfish need for self validation.

He did it because he was bored.

That was it. That was the reason why he should do what he did. Because he was bored.

He stopped himself right there.

When had he become so… needy?

Selfish. Needy.

Where would he be without his friends? Why was he being so selfish while he was having everything served on a silver platter?

Not everything.

He wasn’t that dependant. He still went out, lived his life.

Lived his life ignoring his problems, pretending that they would go away by themselves.

Wait, no no, that was the problem. He was so… negative.

A negative air had started him wherever whether he wanted or not. It unconsciously played in his mind whenever he saw someone else succeed, whenever he was alone, while talking to people sometimes, even.

He was not himself.

Was this a new Francis? Was this who he was now? A self decaptrative, selfish, ungrateful fake?

Perhaps it was best to hide all this. Perhaps it was best to continue pretending that all these problems were gone. After all, what if he did tell anybody this?

Everybody would see who he was; a deadweight, a fake only pretending to care about other people for the sake of manners.

That, or they’ll feel sorry for him, care for him even more, to the point of poisoning and ruining other peoples’ lives, further proving that he was just needy, selfish, and useless.

Everyone around him were so, so much better than him. Antonio could choreograph dances, Gilbert’s coding was the backbone of softwares, Arthur could create stories...

What could he do? Play the saxophone? It took him hours to transcribe a melody, let alone write one.

He sighed. They deserved so much better.

His eyes started to feel dry. He yawned.

What time was it?

He cursed when he realised that he had left his phone at home. See? you couldn’t even remember to bring it.

More thoughts spun around his head as he went back to the apartment. He took deep, controlled breaths in, and breath by breath, he felt the cold London air chill his lungs. Breath by breath, the weight of the vacuum shedded off of his chest.

The brief feeling of weightlessness was a point of relief. And for while, he just walked.

His life spiralled down that far down when he came to London.

Should he return to France? If he returned to France… no, he could not just go back to France. Antonio and Gilbert chose to move to London with him. It wasn’t….

Was it fair?

His mind wandered: what if he did go back to France?

He thought back to his mother and Lisa. Paris always reminded him of them when he thought back. Paris probably had less careers anyway; he should already be replaced in his previous job. What use was it to go back?

Before he knew it, he was in front of the apartment door. Based on how dark it looked on the inside, Gilbert and Antonio had probably already gone to sleep.

He fumbled out the keys, and unlocked the door. As the door creaked open, as he had expected, the dark, empty living room greeted him back.

He sighed. It was probably very late already.

Closing the door behind him, he left the keys on the top of the table, and went to the bedroom.

Sure enough, Gilbert and Antonio were fast asleep in the top bunk bed and the sleeping bag. He climbed into the lower bunk, closed his eyes, and drifted into an empty sleep.

[you-me-and-jermaine]

I’m gonna need you to fully power that down

We landed in Joburg and headed back to our first Airbnb, where this journey all began 3 weeks ago. We got an apartment in the same building, a few doors down, so we were familiar with the area. We dropped off our stuff in another stunning penthouse, and headed downstairs for a light lunch of ostrich carpaccio, springbok egg rolls, and half a roasted butternut squash stuffed with spiced vegetables. We had almost finished our drinks when all the power turned off. Wahhhh? Apparently it was a scheduled blackout for offloading, and power wouldn’t return for 4 hours. So we did the only thing you do when the power has gone out. You buy a couple bottles of wine, grab a deck of cards, and head to the roof. We got decent into a game of 509 rummy as the sky shifted and gave us another spectacular sunset. The game was abandoned as we started talking to two other dudes up there having a drink and enjoying the sunset. Both men were from the area, and told us crazy stories of their partying antics. Apparently the legal drinking limit in South Africa is 1.5, which is a little frightening, and their stories were wild and highly irresponsible. We parted ways with the gentlemen and hopped an Uber to dinner, Moyo, an African restaurant near the zoo. It was dark when we got there but the restaurant is surrounded by big trees and plants, making you feel like you’re in the middle of a jungle. We ate crocodile pastry pies, worms in a tomato sauce, springbok carpaccio, curried lamb, chicken, and braii. The malva pudding she drenched in whiskey and set it on fire, which was cool, but fuck is it hard to eat cake drenched in whiskey. We called it a night after, and headed home for our last Africa sleep.

Yesterday we slept in, and then tried to get breakfast, but the power was out once again. I had found what looked to be an amazing restaurant on the other side of town, so we piled into the Uber and headed over. Boy am I glad we did. We came across the cutest neighborhood, full of shops, bars, and restaurants. Had we known this place existed, we would have stayed here the whole time! Happy we had a few hours to explore. For lunch we had grilled smoek, a South African fish, ostrich patties, and pork belly. Plus springbok shanks and an ostrich burger stuffed with bobotie. And malva pudding! It was an excellent last meal. Then we wandered around, buying souvenirs, and slowly making our way a few blocks to do a final Woolworths trip. We stocked up on cheese and crackers and snacks for the plane, then ubered to the Airbnb, collected our things, and said goodbye to Africa. Currently I’m 30,000 feet in the air on the way to Los Angeles, where we’ll catch our final flight back home. This trip was incredible. It was a dream. It’s overwhelming how insane and beautiful it all was. And how fast it went. 23 days, 10 flights, 10 hotel/Airbnb/accommodations, a shit ton of wine (at $8/bottle, who’s saying no?), and so much great food. Food eaten on this trip-

Warthog, Kudu, Impala, Ostrich, Boerewors , Springbok, Crocodile , Malva pudding (cake with custard in and on it), Vetkoeks, Biltong (beef jerky), Bobotie (a meat quiche), Venison/ostrich/tuna/springbok carpaccio, Hake fish and chips, King klip fish strips, crawfish tail (giant!), Kabeljou fish, Peri peri chicken livers, Matumbu (intestines), Madura (caterpillars), Worms

I’m incredible sad to be leaving, but so happy this adventure happened. I will be looking for any excuse to get back to Africa.

[jesseneufeld]

Intermittent Fasting (and Feasting) At the Holidays: 6 Ways to Do It

The holiday season is notorious for unwanted weight gain. Although the average weight gain isn’t all that high—1 to 2 pounds—the real danger is that people rarely lose the weight they gain during the holiday season. So, if you go through ten holiday seasons, you’re looking at a very realistic and permanent gain of 20 pounds.

But it’s not just the weight you gain. Even if you manage to avoid gaining any weight, the onslaught of sugary foods you’re not used to consuming will play havoc with your blood sugar and insulin levels, leave you bloated and fatigued, and generally make what should be a joyous time a sluggish, low-energy one.

Imagine having your full measure of energy over the full holiday season. Imagine putting on a Santa suit and clambering around on the roof and shimmying down the chimney, giving your kids a real show. (Not recommending this literally of course.) Imagine enjoying the winter weather, rather than holing up indoors with a box of cookies waiting for it to pass.

One thing I like to do in suboptimal food conditions is use it as an opportunity to fast. If I’m traveling and my choices are airplane food or McDonald’s, I simply don’t eat. If I’m at a hotel where the idea of a complimentary breakfast bar consists of bagels, orange juice, and those tiny boxes of cereal, I don’t eat. Quite honestly, the holiday season is one big block of suboptimal food conditions.

Sure, it’s delicious. Sure, some of it is even nutritious, if we’re talking roasts and gravies and veggies and large crispy birds. But the quantity of food we consume and the frequency at which we consume it—combined with the prevalence of delicious treats and the “emotional” context—makes for an impossible situation. It really is the perfect scenario to pack on some mass—or the perfect opportunity to employ an intermittent fast.

How should you do it? Are there any tips, tricks, or strategies particular to the holidays that make fasting easier and more effective?

Skip Breakfast

Breakfast around the holidays can get quite ridiculous. How many of you have done this or know someone who has done this: having pumpkin pie/a half tin of Danish butter cookies/big bowl of mashed potatoes for breakfast? Even if no one is digging into the leftovers (although a turkey leg is a nice way to begin the day), you’ll see the likes of pastries, quiches (heavy on the crust), bagel spreads, pancakes, and waffles, etc.

So, just skip it, particularly when treats abound and beckon. You’ll avoid the problem entirely, give your digestive system a rest, keep the fat-burning going, and make any subsequent feasting later in the day more rewarding and less damaging. Have some coffee and cream instead. Heck, you could even whip the cream if you want to feel like you’re having a “treat” with everyone else.

Don’t Snack

Snacking kills during the holidays. While in more normal times I recommend against constant or absentminded snacking, at least then it usually just means a handful of nuts, a few pieces of jerky, a cup of broth. During the holidays, snacking means candy, cookies, and pie. There are mountains of junk almost everywhere you go and dozens of evangelists scurrying around foisting it on you. I don’t see it because I move in a curated culinary environment at my places of residence and work, but back before I went Primal, I can remember the ubiquity of treats during the holidays. If you’re the snacking type, you’ll likely make some bad choices.

Simply “not snacking” doesn’t sound like much of a fast, but going those 4-5 hours between meals can allow you to slip into a mild “fasted” state multiple times per day.

Don’t Nibble As You Cook

Whoever’s in charge of cooking the myriad holiday feasts and meals needs to understand how to handle themselves behind the stove. Quality control is one thing. Checking how things taste is understandable and necessary. But that’s not what gets you into trouble. What gets you into trouble is the constant nibbling and gnawing and chomping throughout the cooking process.

Spoonful of gravy here. Handful of mashed potatoes there. Oh, how’d that turkey skin turn out? Gonna have to try that. Oh, I wonder how it tastes dipped in the gravy. Boy, that dark meat sure is looking nice. Hmm, does the breast look a little dry to you? I’m going to try it. Now with some gravy and cranberry sauce—yeah, that does the trick.

By the time dinner is served you’re 800 calories deep, and you’re not even very excited about eating more (but you still do). Imagine if you’d fasted during the 4-5 hours you were preparing dinner. Not only would dinner be more satisfying and taste better, you wouldn’t have spent 4-5 hours in “fed mode.” Rally others to do the sampling. It’s never too hard to find takers.

Make Fasting a Tradition

Our success as a civilization rests upon our traditions. Heck, the Primal Blueprint is about respecting the oldest human traditions around, the “informal” and natural ones established by hundreds of thousands of years of hominid evolution. And yes, specific traditions can become outdated or run counter to currently accepted modes of thought and behavior, but the idea of tradition—a foundational behavior whose utility and importance has been tested through time—remains essential.

If you don’t have any traditions of your own, if they’ve been lost or ground down to pathetic shadows of their former selves, what do you do? You make your own. Fasting is a good choice, and it’s one that many other populations and cultures have performed. Pick a time frame—maybe a single 24-hour fast every Saturday, or “fast before each big holiday feast,” or “skip breakfast the week before each major holiday”—and suggest to everyone that the entire family get on board.

Do Leangains Style Fasted Training

Skip breakfast. Train around midday, lifting hard and heavy. After training, break the fast. Eat your last meal by 7 or 8 P.M. Aim for a 16-hour fasting period and an 8-hour eating window. Fast every day, train every 2-3 days. There’s even a book if you want more details.

This intensive method of fasting and training allows you a little more leeway with the food choices when you do eat. Much of what you eat will go toward repairing and rebuilding what you’ve broken down during training, and the everyday fasted periods will help you minimize fat gain. It can be quite intense, and people may have disparate responses to the rigidity of the schedule. If hard boundaries work well for you, if you like establishing rules and then sticking to them, this is the holiday fasting method for you. If you’re more fluid and balk at hard lines, you may have trouble. Women may have more success using 12-14 fasting windows.

Pair Your Dietary Transgressions With Fasts.

Are you the type to really go all out during Thanksgiving—dropping the Primal guidelines and just going for it? Mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, that weird sweet potato dish with marshmallows on top, pumpkin pie, the works? A one- or two-day fast right before or after the meal can mitigate the damage of the meal.

Even if there’s not much of a physiological benefit other than reducing your calorie intake to balance the overindulgence, the psychological boost we get from not eating will stave off the potential guilt of abandoning the Primal guidelines. I don’t support guilting or shaming ourselves because of what we eat, but I know it does happen. This can be a powerful antidote.

Whatever You Choose, Stick To a Schedule.

Once you figure out which fasting plan seems to work for your holiday situation, stick with it. Skip meals if you like, but try to eat at roughly the same time each day. This conditions your body to expect food (and get hungry at the right time, not before), and it improves the metabolic response to eating.

This applies whether you’re fasting in the morning or at night. In one recent study, the authors actually tested the effect of breaking your eating habits by separating overweight women into habitual breakfast skippers and habitual breakfast eaters and then having them either skip breakfast or eat breakfast.

Habitual breakfast eaters who skipped breakfast experienced way more hunger at lunch, had worse blood lipids, and higher insulin levels. They had worse blood lipids and their insulin skyrocketed. Habitual breakfast skippers who skipped breakfast experienced none of these deleterious effects.

Meanwhile, habitual breakfast eaters who ate breakfast were more satiated at lunch. They had better blood lipids and normal insulin levels. Habitual breakfast skippers who ate breakfast were still hungry at lunch. Eating breakfast didn’t inhibit their regular lunch-time appetites.

Regular eating schedules also improve insulin sensitivity, increase energy expenditure, improve fasting lipids, and result in the best metabolic effects.

Fasting isn’t a magic bullet. IF won’t fix all your metabolic issues and counteract every cookie, cake, and slice of pie you eat during the holidays. But it is a strong bulwark against the worst of the holiday excesses.

Are you going to fast this holiday season? Have you used IF in the past? What do you do to get through the holiday season without unwanted weight gain?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

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References:

Yanovski JA, Yanovski SZ, Sovik KN, Nguyen TT, O’Neil PM, Sebring NG. A prospective study of holiday weight gain. N Engl J Med. 2000;342(12):861-7.

Thomas EA, Higgins J, Bessesen DH, Mcnair B, Cornier MA. Usual breakfast eating habits affect response to breakfast skipping in overweight women. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2015;23(4):750-9.

Farshchi HR, Taylor MA, Macdonald IA. Beneficial metabolic effects of regular meal frequency on dietary thermogenesis, insulin sensitivity, and fasting lipid profiles in healthy obese women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;81(1):16-24.

Pot GK, Almoosawi S, Stephen AM. Meal irregularity and cardiometabolic consequences: results from observational and intervention studies. Proc Nutr Soc. 2016;75(4):475-486.

The post Intermittent Fasting (and Feasting) At the Holidays: 6 Ways to Do It appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Intermittent Fasting (and Feasting) At the Holidays: 6 Ways to Do It published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[fishermariawo]

Intermittent Fasting (and Feasting) At the Holidays: 6 Ways to Do It

The holiday season is notorious for unwanted weight gain. Although the average weight gain isn’t all that high—1 to 2 pounds—the real danger is that people rarely lose the weight they gain during the holiday season. So, if you go through ten holiday seasons, you’re looking at a very realistic and permanent gain of 20 pounds.

But it’s not just the weight you gain. Even if you manage to avoid gaining any weight, the onslaught of sugary foods you’re not used to consuming will play havoc with your blood sugar and insulin levels, leave you bloated and fatigued, and generally make what should be a joyous time a sluggish, low-energy one.

Imagine having your full measure of energy over the full holiday season. Imagine putting on a Santa suit and clambering around on the roof and shimmying down the chimney, giving your kids a real show. (Not recommending this literally of course.) Imagine enjoying the winter weather, rather than holing up indoors with a box of cookies waiting for it to pass.

One thing I like to do in suboptimal food conditions is use it as an opportunity to fast. If I’m traveling and my choices are airplane food or McDonald’s, I simply don’t eat. If I’m at a hotel where the idea of a complimentary breakfast bar consists of bagels, orange juice, and those tiny boxes of cereal, I don’t eat. Quite honestly, the holiday season is one big block of suboptimal food conditions.

Sure, it’s delicious. Sure, some of it is even nutritious, if we’re talking roasts and gravies and veggies and large crispy birds. But the quantity of food we consume and the frequency at which we consume it—combined with the prevalence of delicious treats and the “emotional” context—makes for an impossible situation. It really is the perfect scenario to pack on some mass—or the perfect opportunity to employ an intermittent fast.

How should you do it? Are there any tips, tricks, or strategies particular to the holidays that make fasting easier and more effective?

Skip Breakfast

Breakfast around the holidays can get quite ridiculous. How many of you have done this or know someone who has done this: having pumpkin pie/a half tin of Danish butter cookies/big bowl of mashed potatoes for breakfast? Even if no one is digging into the leftovers (although a turkey leg is a nice way to begin the day), you’ll see the likes of pastries, quiches (heavy on the crust), bagel spreads, pancakes, and waffles, etc.

So, just skip it, particularly when treats abound and beckon. You’ll avoid the problem entirely, give your digestive system a rest, keep the fat-burning going, and make any subsequent feasting later in the day more rewarding and less damaging. Have some coffee and cream instead. Heck, you could even whip the cream if you want to feel like you’re having a “treat” with everyone else.

Don’t Snack

Snacking kills during the holidays. While in more normal times I recommend against constant or absentminded snacking, at least then it usually just means a handful of nuts, a few pieces of jerky, a cup of broth. During the holidays, snacking means candy, cookies, and pie. There are mountains of junk almost everywhere you go and dozens of evangelists scurrying around foisting it on you. I don’t see it because I move in a curated culinary environment at my places of residence and work, but back before I went Primal, I can remember the ubiquity of treats during the holidays. If you’re the snacking type, you’ll likely make some bad choices.

Simply “not snacking” doesn’t sound like much of a fast, but going those 4-5 hours between meals can allow you to slip into a mild “fasted” state multiple times per day.

Don’t Nibble As You Cook

Whoever’s in charge of cooking the myriad holiday feasts and meals needs to understand how to handle themselves behind the stove. Quality control is one thing. Checking how things taste is understandable and necessary. But that’s not what gets you into trouble. What gets you into trouble is the constant nibbling and gnawing and chomping throughout the cooking process.

Spoonful of gravy here. Handful of mashed potatoes there. Oh, how’d that turkey skin turn out? Gonna have to try that. Oh, I wonder how it tastes dipped in the gravy. Boy, that dark meat sure is looking nice. Hmm, does the breast look a little dry to you? I’m going to try it. Now with some gravy and cranberry sauce—yeah, that does the trick.

By the time dinner is served you’re 800 calories deep, and you’re not even very excited about eating more (but you still do). Imagine if you’d fasted during the 4-5 hours you were preparing dinner. Not only would dinner be more satisfying and taste better, you wouldn’t have spent 4-5 hours in “fed mode.” Rally others to do the sampling. It’s never too hard to find takers.

Make Fasting a Tradition

Our success as a civilization rests upon our traditions. Heck, the Primal Blueprint is about respecting the oldest human traditions around, the “informal” and natural ones established by hundreds of thousands of years of hominid evolution. And yes, specific traditions can become outdated or run counter to currently accepted modes of thought and behavior, but the idea of tradition—a foundational behavior whose utility and importance has been tested through time—remains essential.

If you don’t have any traditions of your own, if they’ve been lost or ground down to pathetic shadows of their former selves, what do you do? You make your own. Fasting is a good choice, and it’s one that many other populations and cultures have performed. Pick a time frame—maybe a single 24-hour fast every Saturday, or “fast before each big holiday feast,” or “skip breakfast the week before each major holiday”—and suggest to everyone that the entire family get on board.

Do Leangains Style Fasted Training

Skip breakfast. Train around midday, lifting hard and heavy. After training, break the fast. Eat your last meal by 7 or 8 P.M. Aim for a 16-hour fasting period and an 8-hour eating window. Fast every day, train every 2-3 days. There’s even a book if you want more details.

This intensive method of fasting and training allows you a little more leeway with the food choices when you do eat. Much of what you eat will go toward repairing and rebuilding what you’ve broken down during training, and the everyday fasted periods will help you minimize fat gain. It can be quite intense, and people may have disparate responses to the rigidity of the schedule. If hard boundaries work well for you, if you like establishing rules and then sticking to them, this is the holiday fasting method for you. If you’re more fluid and balk at hard lines, you may have trouble. Women may have more success using 12-14 fasting windows.

Pair Your Dietary Transgressions With Fasts.

Are you the type to really go all out during Thanksgiving—dropping the Primal guidelines and just going for it? Mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, that weird sweet potato dish with marshmallows on top, pumpkin pie, the works? A one- or two-day fast right before or after the meal can mitigate the damage of the meal.

Even if there’s not much of a physiological benefit other than reducing your calorie intake to balance the overindulgence, the psychological boost we get from not eating will stave off the potential guilt of abandoning the Primal guidelines. I don’t support guilting or shaming ourselves because of what we eat, but I know it does happen. This can be a powerful antidote.

Whatever You Choose, Stick To a Schedule.

Once you figure out which fasting plan seems to work for your holiday situation, stick with it. Skip meals if you like, but try to eat at roughly the same time each day. This conditions your body to expect food (and get hungry at the right time, not before), and it improves the metabolic response to eating.

This applies whether you’re fasting in the morning or at night. In one recent study, the authors actually tested the effect of breaking your eating habits by separating overweight women into habitual breakfast skippers and habitual breakfast eaters and then having them either skip breakfast or eat breakfast.

Habitual breakfast eaters who skipped breakfast experienced way more hunger at lunch, had worse blood lipids, and higher insulin levels. They had worse blood lipids and their insulin skyrocketed. Habitual breakfast skippers who skipped breakfast experienced none of these deleterious effects.

Meanwhile, habitual breakfast eaters who ate breakfast were more satiated at lunch. They had better blood lipids and normal insulin levels. Habitual breakfast skippers who ate breakfast were still hungry at lunch. Eating breakfast didn’t inhibit their regular lunch-time appetites.

Regular eating schedules also improve insulin sensitivity, increase energy expenditure, improve fasting lipids, and result in the best metabolic effects.

Fasting isn’t a magic bullet. IF won’t fix all your metabolic issues and counteract every cookie, cake, and slice of pie you eat during the holidays. But it is a strong bulwark against the worst of the holiday excesses.

Are you going to fast this holiday season? Have you used IF in the past? What do you do to get through the holiday season without unwanted weight gain?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

References:

Yanovski JA, Yanovski SZ, Sovik KN, Nguyen TT, O’Neil PM, Sebring NG. A prospective study of holiday weight gain. N Engl J Med. 2000;342(12):861-7.

Thomas EA, Higgins J, Bessesen DH, Mcnair B, Cornier MA. Usual breakfast eating habits affect response to breakfast skipping in overweight women. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2015;23(4):750-9.

Farshchi HR, Taylor MA, Macdonald IA. Beneficial metabolic effects of regular meal frequency on dietary thermogenesis, insulin sensitivity, and fasting lipid profiles in healthy obese women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;81(1):16-24.

Pot GK, Almoosawi S, Stephen AM. Meal irregularity and cardiometabolic consequences: results from observational and intervention studies. Proc Nutr Soc. 2016;75(4):475-486.

The post Intermittent Fasting (and Feasting) At the Holidays: 6 Ways to Do It appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

[watsonrodriquezie]

Intermittent Fasting (and Feasting) At the Holidays: 6 Ways to Do It

The holiday season is notorious for unwanted weight gain. Although the average weight gain isn’t all that high—1 to 2 pounds—the real danger is that people rarely lose the weight they gain during the holiday season. So, if you go through ten holiday seasons, you’re looking at a very realistic and permanent gain of 20 pounds.

But it’s not just the weight you gain. Even if you manage to avoid gaining any weight, the onslaught of sugary foods you’re not used to consuming will play havoc with your blood sugar and insulin levels, leave you bloated and fatigued, and generally make what should be a joyous time a sluggish, low-energy one.

Imagine having your full measure of energy over the full holiday season. Imagine putting on a Santa suit and clambering around on the roof and shimmying down the chimney, giving your kids a real show. (Not recommending this literally of course.) Imagine enjoying the winter weather, rather than holing up indoors with a box of cookies waiting for it to pass.

One thing I like to do in suboptimal food conditions is use it as an opportunity to fast. If I’m traveling and my choices are airplane food or McDonald’s, I simply don’t eat. If I’m at a hotel where the idea of a complimentary breakfast bar consists of bagels, orange juice, and those tiny boxes of cereal, I don’t eat. Quite honestly, the holiday season is one big block of suboptimal food conditions.

Sure, it’s delicious. Sure, some of it is even nutritious, if we’re talking roasts and gravies and veggies and large crispy birds. But the quantity of food we consume and the frequency at which we consume it—combined with the prevalence of delicious treats and the “emotional” context—makes for an impossible situation. It really is the perfect scenario to pack on some mass—or the perfect opportunity to employ an intermittent fast.

How should you do it? Are there any tips, tricks, or strategies particular to the holidays that make fasting easier and more effective?

Skip Breakfast

Breakfast around the holidays can get quite ridiculous. How many of you have done this or know someone who has done this: having pumpkin pie/a half tin of Danish butter cookies/big bowl of mashed potatoes for breakfast? Even if no one is digging into the leftovers (although a turkey leg is a nice way to begin the day), you’ll see the likes of pastries, quiches (heavy on the crust), bagel spreads, pancakes, and waffles, etc.

So, just skip it, particularly when treats abound and beckon. You’ll avoid the problem entirely, give your digestive system a rest, keep the fat-burning going, and make any subsequent feasting later in the day more rewarding and less damaging. Have some coffee and cream instead. Heck, you could even whip the cream if you want to feel like you’re having a “treat” with everyone else.

Don’t Snack

Snacking kills during the holidays. While in more normal times I recommend against constant or absentminded snacking, at least then it usually just means a handful of nuts, a few pieces of jerky, a cup of broth. During the holidays, snacking means candy, cookies, and pie. There are mountains of junk almost everywhere you go and dozens of evangelists scurrying around foisting it on you. I don’t see it because I move in a curated culinary environment at my places of residence and work, but back before I went Primal, I can remember the ubiquity of treats during the holidays. If you’re the snacking type, you’ll likely make some bad choices.

Simply “not snacking” doesn’t sound like much of a fast, but going those 4-5 hours between meals can allow you to slip into a mild “fasted” state multiple times per day.

Don’t Nibble As You Cook

Whoever’s in charge of cooking the myriad holiday feasts and meals needs to understand how to handle themselves behind the stove. Quality control is one thing. Checking how things taste is understandable and necessary. But that’s not what gets you into trouble. What gets you into trouble is the constant nibbling and gnawing and chomping throughout the cooking process.

Spoonful of gravy here. Handful of mashed potatoes there. Oh, how’d that turkey skin turn out? Gonna have to try that. Oh, I wonder how it tastes dipped in the gravy. Boy, that dark meat sure is looking nice. Hmm, does the breast look a little dry to you? I’m going to try it. Now with some gravy and cranberry sauce—yeah, that does the trick.

By the time dinner is served you’re 800 calories deep, and you’re not even very excited about eating more (but you still do). Imagine if you’d fasted during the 4-5 hours you were preparing dinner. Not only would dinner be more satisfying and taste better, you wouldn’t have spent 4-5 hours in “fed mode.” Rally others to do the sampling. It’s never too hard to find takers.

Make Fasting a Tradition

Our success as a civilization rests upon our traditions. Heck, the Primal Blueprint is about respecting the oldest human traditions around, the “informal” and natural ones established by hundreds of thousands of years of hominid evolution. And yes, specific traditions can become outdated or run counter to currently accepted modes of thought and behavior, but the idea of tradition—a foundational behavior whose utility and importance has been tested through time—remains essential.

If you don’t have any traditions of your own, if they’ve been lost or ground down to pathetic shadows of their former selves, what do you do? You make your own. Fasting is a good choice, and it’s one that many other populations and cultures have performed. Pick a time frame—maybe a single 24-hour fast every Saturday, or “fast before each big holiday feast,” or “skip breakfast the week before each major holiday”—and suggest to everyone that the entire family get on board.

Do Leangains Style Fasted Training

Skip breakfast. Train around midday, lifting hard and heavy. After training, break the fast. Eat your last meal by 7 or 8 P.M. Aim for a 16-hour fasting period and an 8-hour eating window. Fast every day, train every 2-3 days. There’s even a book if you want more details.

This intensive method of fasting and training allows you a little more leeway with the food choices when you do eat. Much of what you eat will go toward repairing and rebuilding what you’ve broken down during training, and the everyday fasted periods will help you minimize fat gain. It can be quite intense, and people may have disparate responses to the rigidity of the schedule. If hard boundaries work well for you, if you like establishing rules and then sticking to them, this is the holiday fasting method for you. If you’re more fluid and balk at hard lines, you may have trouble. Women may have more success using 12-14 fasting windows.

Pair Your Dietary Transgressions With Fasts.

Are you the type to really go all out during Thanksgiving—dropping the Primal guidelines and just going for it? Mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, that weird sweet potato dish with marshmallows on top, pumpkin pie, the works? A one- or two-day fast right before or after the meal can mitigate the damage of the meal.

Even if there’s not much of a physiological benefit other than reducing your calorie intake to balance the overindulgence, the psychological boost we get from not eating will stave off the potential guilt of abandoning the Primal guidelines. I don’t support guilting or shaming ourselves because of what we eat, but I know it does happen. This can be a powerful antidote.

Whatever You Choose, Stick To a Schedule.

Once you figure out which fasting plan seems to work for your holiday situation, stick with it. Skip meals if you like, but try to eat at roughly the same time each day. This conditions your body to expect food (and get hungry at the right time, not before), and it improves the metabolic response to eating.

This applies whether you’re fasting in the morning or at night. In one recent study, the authors actually tested the effect of breaking your eating habits by separating overweight women into habitual breakfast skippers and habitual breakfast eaters and then having them either skip breakfast or eat breakfast.

Habitual breakfast eaters who skipped breakfast experienced way more hunger at lunch, had worse blood lipids, and higher insulin levels. They had worse blood lipids and their insulin skyrocketed. Habitual breakfast skippers who skipped breakfast experienced none of these deleterious effects.

Meanwhile, habitual breakfast eaters who ate breakfast were more satiated at lunch. They had better blood lipids and normal insulin levels. Habitual breakfast skippers who ate breakfast were still hungry at lunch. Eating breakfast didn’t inhibit their regular lunch-time appetites.

Regular eating schedules also improve insulin sensitivity, increase energy expenditure, improve fasting lipids, and result in the best metabolic effects.

Fasting isn’t a magic bullet. IF won’t fix all your metabolic issues and counteract every cookie, cake, and slice of pie you eat during the holidays. But it is a strong bulwark against the worst of the holiday excesses.

Are you going to fast this holiday season? Have you used IF in the past? What do you do to get through the holiday season without unwanted weight gain?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

References:

Yanovski JA, Yanovski SZ, Sovik KN, Nguyen TT, O’Neil PM, Sebring NG. A prospective study of holiday weight gain. N Engl J Med. 2000;342(12):861-7.

Thomas EA, Higgins J, Bessesen DH, Mcnair B, Cornier MA. Usual breakfast eating habits affect response to breakfast skipping in overweight women. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2015;23(4):750-9.

Farshchi HR, Taylor MA, Macdonald IA. Beneficial metabolic effects of regular meal frequency on dietary thermogenesis, insulin sensitivity, and fasting lipid profiles in healthy obese women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;81(1):16-24.

Pot GK, Almoosawi S, Stephen AM. Meal irregularity and cardiometabolic consequences: results from observational and intervention studies. Proc Nutr Soc. 2016;75(4):475-486.

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