For the past 4 months I’ve been doing intermittent fasting and only then I’ve realised i really am not a breakfast person. We are all different and in our differences lies our needs. There are people who cannot function without eating first thing in the morning; one of my sisters is like this. Whereas I, for example, can skip breakfast and can go straight to lunch. I don’t know if my body adapted to this way of eating or if I my body was designed to do this and I just needed to try it to see.

After waking up I try to hydrate and one way of me doing this is having warm water with apple cider vinegar. Though I don’t always accomplish this especially when eating unhealthy food in which my healthy habits go out of the window. I can then last until around 11-12 or sometimes stretch to 1-2 depending on how busy my morning is.

I had an epiphany during my intermittent fasting journey that if go to bed with a full stomach, I wake up hungry the next day and vice versa. I was really amazed at this and I am thankful to have taken intermittent fasting as a way to maintain health and get to know my body better. I guess I hadn’t realised before because I was constantly snacking and wasn’t giving my body break to listen to the cues.

What I love about intermittent fasting is that it’s a lifestyle rather than a diet and can be followed no matter where you are and what you’re doing. Whereas, dieting can sometimes limit you to choose certain foods, therefore, giving up and bringing back bad habits.

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting is a way of eating by refraining from food for some hours and eating the rest of the hours during the 24 hours. You can choose your fasting and non fasting hours according to your ability. You can always start small and work your way up slightly to avoid a shock to your body. The cool thing about intermittent fasting is that the sleeping hours are also counted as you fasting hours.

There are different methods of intermittent fasting some of them are mentioned below:

• 16/8 – You fast for 16 hours and eat for 8 hours
• 5:2 – You fast for 2 days out of the week eating below 600 calories and you eat normally the rest of the week.
• OMAD – This stands for ‘One meal a day’ – You eat one a meal a day as the name suggests in a space of about 1 hour and you fast the rest of the 23 hours. Many people decide to eat 1000 + calories in one sitting but I personally do not like this concept. This is because if we are fasting for a long period of hours when breaking our fast we should treat it as having one meal rather than trying to compensate for the fasting hours. Many Muslims in the month of Ramadan prefer to eat this way though they have at least few hours until the next fasting hour begins and are advised to eat a pre dawn breakfast by Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him (pbuh) even as little as having 1 date/glass of water (more on this is mentioned below).

Benefits of Intermittent Fasting 

• It’s doable and we do it all the time but increasing the fasting hours maximises the benefits.
• It’s convenient
• It improves digestion – when we give our body a break from digesting food it focuses that energy on restoration/healing, therefore, gaining optimal health
• Increases energy
• Improves clarity
• Promotes longevity
• Reduces insulin resistance
• Prevents against neurodegerative diseases such as alzhiemers
• Strengthens immune system
• Lowers bad cholesterol
• Reduces aging
• Spiritual growth – increases your connection with God (If this is what you’re looking for)
• It’s a lifestyle rather than a diet
• Encourages good eating habits
• Boosts weight loss – gives you slow and steady results which is good for overall health.
• Reduces appetite
• It disciplines you – to only eat when hungry
• Reduces snacking – If you’re snacker like i was.
• It teaches you to be more mindful with food
• keeps your sugar cravings at bay
• It teaches you the difference between hunger and thirst – This is a big lesson I’ve learned.
• It gives your brain a rest from thinking about food all the time (if you’re a foodie like i was) and you can put that energy into something else that you love.
• It’s a hack to holistic health
• And more….. the benefits are endless.

How to start your intermittent Fasting journey

Instead of diving deep into it and binge eating during your eating window it’s better to start small in order to ease into it slowly. So if you normally have breakfast early such as 7am maybe start with delaying it by 30mins to begin with and after few days try 15-30mins and continue doing this until you find a comfortable rhythm. Some people advice to have bulletproof coffee first thing in the morning to give you energy and keep your hunger pangs down until lunch time. Bluetproof coffee is made by adding a dollop of grass fed butter or coconut oil into your cuppa.  Though this works, I personally do not like the idea of having fat in my coffee (I’ve tried this before so I am speaking from experience). However, if this is something that you’d prefer to do then, by all means, start with it until your body gets used to eating late into the day.  I personally just either wait it out until around lunch time or have celery juice. Oh my, celery juice is a life hack! but it’s another post for another day. Let me know if you want me to write about my experience with celery juice.

One of the 5 pillers of Islam is fasting. Fasting is a God given tool to heal us physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Fasting allows us to empathise with the poor (the reason why Allah prescribed us Muslims to fast). You cannot fully empathise with someone unless you’ve walked in their shoes. Fasting allows us to voluntarily do this yearly in the month of Ramadan for 29-30 days depending on the moon.

O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you that you may become righteous.

Surat al-Baqarah 2:183

Fasting increases righteousness/mindfulness. Muslims fast from dawn to dusk from:

• Food and drink
• Sexual intercourse
• ill action/speech

Fasting isn’t new in Islam or other religions. In Islam in particular as well as fasting the month of Ramdan yearly Prophet Muhammad pbuh use to fast other times also such as twice a week (Monday and Thursday) which is similar to 5:2 mentioned above.

It makes me proud as a muslim that I had access to this incredible beneficial tool long before science found out its benefits and I am glad to have started incorporating it in my life. In doing intermittent fasting regularly, I intend to follow in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad pbuh. There is so much to say about intermittent fasting but I’ll leave it here. If you want to know if any of these claims are correct, see it for yourself. You have nothing to lose but a lot to gain.

Did you enjoy reading this? if so leave a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Peace be with you