blog series Archives - Cruisin with the Colemans

Heal Yourself: An Intermittent Fasting Life

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

The final post of this intermittent fasting (IF) series is here. It has been a great way to kick off 2021. I have reflected on how far I have come since I started practicing IF two years ago, stayed focused on my 2021 goals, and thanks to your feedback, I know I have inspired a few people. A win all around! If you decide to practice IF, I can guarantee is your journey will not look like mine or anyone else’s journey. Our bodies are precious, unique, and have individual healing needs. Please talk to your doctor, I am a blogger and not a medical professional. Let’s dive into what our IF practice has looked like over the last two years and talk about the changes we made to our practice at the start of 2021. If this is the first post you are reading, I recommend you go back to the beginning of the series so everything makes sense. Click here to go back to post #1.

I love to know the ending of a story first, how about you? If you don’t, skip this paragraph. 😂 If you do, let me tell you the best news of all. Since the start of 2021, which was only eight weeks ago, I am down 17 pounds and four inches in my waist. 17 pounds!! What the what!?!? I was looking at my Facebook memories this morning and saw a picture from five years ago when I was wearing a pair of pants that I can fit into again. What an accomplishment. Next goal: Be able to wear pants I was wearing seven years ago when I was at my thinnest! Ok, that’s a big lofty but I have to have a goal, right? ❤️ Brian is down 20 pounds and three and a half inches in his waist. Just look at these pictures! If this doesn’t motivate all of us, I don’t know what will! We have lost about two to two and a half pounds a week, which is normal for the start of most weight loss regimens. The loss will slow down, I am sure of that and am already seeing signs that the slow down is upon us. The punch line is this is not the start or the end of our story.

From January 1st to March 1st, this is the progress we’ve made by being intentional with our IF practice

Life is a journey and this is simply one chapter, so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves! It has been a long two years of practicing IF before we got to consistent weight loss. When I started practicing IF, I thought it was my miracle weight loss plan. I thought I would lose all my extra pounds in months while enjoying wine, pizza, and burgers. I lost weight in the beginning and I was hooked. At first, I was trying to eat one meal a day but my overconfidence got in the way when I started to randomly, without a lot of preparation or knowledge, trying to go two, three, and even four days without eating. This is typical for me, I get overexcited and overzealous when I start something new. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I burned out fast.

Life is a journey and this is a simply one chapter.

Why did I try going days without eating? Because I was desperately trying to heal my stomach and lose weight. For years, I had been to the ER or at the doctor’s office for excruciating stomach/intestinal pain. I was desperate to heal myself. Fasting helped a lot with my stomach pain but the inconsistency of my IF practice didn’t produce any long-term weight loss.

The theme of our IF practice for 2019 and 2020 was to try it all out, though not intentional. I was going from one meal a day (OMAD) to two meals a day and fasting either 16 or 18 hours while feasting eight or six hours a day (16/8 or 18/6). My body was definitely healing but the inconsistency didn’t help my weight loss. To lose weight, we need to practice IF intentionally which is what we are doing now. The one thing that has been consistent since the start of our practice is that we gave up eating breakfast and we don’t open our “eating window” until after 12 noon most days. This is a huge change for both of us. I have been a breakfast eater forever. I LOVE breakfast! I love all meals, all snacks, and definitely love dessert but that’s another conversation. Haha! Here’s what we’ve learned – breakfast at its root is when one breaks their fast. The first time I heard that my mind was blown! It was around that time when I learned the history of our food guide pyramid and the Kellogg brothers’ contributions to what foods the FDA recommends. Hint: You can blame the Kellogg brothers for grains being at the bottom of the pyramid. You would think science would drive those decisions but instead, money drove them. I would encourage you to do your own research. It will change what you believe about our FDA and their food guidance. You will be completely disappointed in our government. All of the books I have read and referenced in this blog series are listed at the bottom.

The beauty of fasting is its flexibility to the individual and adaptivity to your individual lifestyle. If you go on vacation, have a bad day, work first or third shift, or just need a break, fasting is flexible to when you can eat and adaptive to what comes up in your life. You can’t be in a hurry to lose weight. You may lose fast, or lose a lot at first, or your body may need more time to heal the inside. Many people when they start fasting build up their practice and even though our consistency hasn’t been intentional, we have been building up to where we are today. If you are just starting, fast for an amount of time you are comfortable. Maybe just fast for 14 hours, then move up to 16 hours, and so on.

My biggest suggestions when you are starting out practicing IF would be to (1) eat two meals and don’t snack, (2) fast clean which means only unsweetened tea, coffee, or water (lemon or lime added is ok) when you’re fasting, (3) try to keep your carbs and sugar lower, and (4) take a break or cut back on alcohol because it works against weight loss goals. I am not suggesting going keto, rather I am suggesting you find a regimen that works for you. The bottom line is it easier to fast when your body is not craving foods like carbs, sugar, or even alcohol. If you are fasting for 14 or 16 hours, at least half of that time you are sleeping! If you can work up to fasting 18 hours a day, that would be a huge process but don’t be in a hurry. The goal is to practice fasting forever. This is not a quick weight loss scheme, I can promise you that! Your body may be like ours and have a lot of healing to do before it’s ready to trust you. My body needed to trust I wouldn’t go back to the ridiculous 1,200 calorie diet. Heck, I needed to let go of all “diet” mentalities. Once my mind and body trusted me again, I needed to learn to be consistent and intentional with my IF practice without all of the extremes. Then my body began to heal my menopause symptoms, thyroid, blood pressure, PSOC, etc.

The next thing you should know about fasting is this – mixing up your practice is good for your body as long as you are consistent and intentional. Maybe most of the time you eat lunch and dinner, but sometimes you eat breakfast and lunch. Maybe one month you fast 16 hours a day but the next month you fast 20 hours in a day, again mixing it up. Trust the process which leads me to where we are today.

After two years of unintentionally trying every fasting combination, we have finally found a combination that works for us to start making real weight loss progress. Two years ago we watched a BBC documentary entitled, Eat, Fast, and Live Longer, on YouTube. But it wasn’t until we watched it again this year, ready for a change, that things we learned connected for us. The documentary is about Michael Mosley, a journalist and former doctor, who after receiving some bad health news, tried several fasting regimens to see what worked for him. He is not “fat” but wanted to work on getting healthier (to heal on the inside) and felt that fasting may be his ticket to a longer life. In the end, he determined eating five days a week while fasting (eating 500 calories or less) two days a week was a good regimen for him. If you read Dr. Jason Fung’s books, he talks about alternate day fasting (ADF) where you fast three days a week and four days a week you eat two meals a day. Fung (books are listed at the bottom) talks about ADF being the best for those who are struggling with obesity, diabetes, menopause, blood pressure, cancer, and so much more. To clarify, Mosley and Fung differ on what you eat on your fasting days and I encourage you to read/watch everything that’s out there on the subject.

Brian and I decided to not eat on our fasting days. Honestly, counting calories and only having 500 brought up too many “dieting” issues for me. We do use what Fung calls, “training wheels” on our fasting days. I enjoy dill pickle juice (click for a link to the brand I buy) and we both enjoy bone broth for “dinner” on our fasting days. We also enjoy peppermint tea on fasting days because it’s an appetite suppressant. If you follow Fung’s recommendation for fasting days, keep your salt and electrolytes up to avoid headaches. You can take a pinch of salt under your tongue anytime you need to do so. Here is a link to our electrolytes. We have been adding these drops to our water for years because you lose a lot of salt and electrolytes when hiking, especially in the heat. I would encourage you to work up to ADF so you don’t burn out on fasting. We could not have practiced ADF two years ago. It’s not easy in the beginning and we both still have hard days. We have different theories on why we have hard days, it’s too early for conclusive reasons. It could be because it’s still a new practice, because of a higher carb meal, or maybe we didn’t eat enough the day before a fasting day. However, it’s worth it. My energy level has greatly improved. I only need six-seven hours of sleep now, when I used to need eight-nine hours of sleep to feel good. Don’t misread – I still love to sleep in but I don’t need to in order to feel good! I didn’t know we could feel better than we have for the last two years but we do. Tip: My favorite fasting day ritual is to take a bath with epsom salts, baking soda, lavender oil, and of course bubbles!

Here we are in 2021, Brian and I turn 50 this year. We have seen fasting heal so many ailments that come with aging and being overweight. It was time to try ADF. It was time to be intentional with our practice and we needed to do it together. However, there was no way either of us was ready to start 2021 with fasting 3 days a week. We were coming off the holidays and 2 weeks in the RV with all the food, sweets, and alcohol we needed. 🤦🏻‍♀️ By the way, that is not 3 days in a row of fasting but rather it’s spread out over a week.

In January we started with fasting only on Saturdays while eating one meal a day every day but Sunday. On Sunday we ate two meals a day after a 42 hour fast. By January 22, we were ready to move to fasting two days a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Saturdays were chosen so we can fast together. On February 22, we moved to fasting three days a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and either Saturdays or Sundays. The days will adjust as needed if something comes up. The nice part is when we start camping in mid-March, we are not fasting on our camping days, just our travel day back home. We are just finishing our first week of fasting three days a week, send us good thoughts going forward. We plan to continue this practice until we leave for the summer, then pull back to fasting two days a week while we are on our summer trip.

The next big “test” will be our camping trip in late March. We plan to fast two days that week, maybe just on our travel days. We will enjoy some alcohol that week. We enjoyed a small amount twice in February and will a couple of times in March. The point of not drinking for three months was to assist us in resetting, breaking bad habits, and focusing on our 2021 goals. It’s time to loosen the reins a bit to see the role alcohol will/will not play in our lives in order to meet our weight loss goals.

What’s next for us? To continue to be intentional and consistent with our IF practice. As of writing this, we are less than three months away from leaving on our 70 day East Coast vacation. Summer fun will be here before we know it. My hope is the same as it is every year: Don’t gain weight and have a ton of fun! Since we started IF, we typically only gain a few pounds over the summer and I hope that doesn’t change. I want to be more comfortable in my skin before we leave, take smaller size clothes, be able to wear them comfortably all summer, and feel good in my bathing suit because I plan to wear it most of the summer! ☀️

I will probably write a recap blog in a month or two to update how we are doing. I will certainly come back to this topic from time to time. If there is something specific you want me to talk about, leave a comment. We are planning to start doing some live streams this summer on our YouTube channel where Brian will cook up a delicious meal. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the bell (🔔) to get notified when we post new videos or go live! We will answer your fasting questions, camping/travel questions, or anything else during our live streams. If you want to start practicing intermittent fasting, below are all of the resources I recommend and have cited throughout this blog series. I hope this series has helped open your eyes to what intermittent fasting is and what it is not. The goal is to take care of ourselves because we only get one chance with the body we are given. Live long and live well.

Dr. Jason Fung, The Ultimate Guide to Intermittent Fasting
Dr. Jason Fung, The Obesity Code
Dr. Jason Fung, The Diabetes Code
Gin Stephens, Delay, Don’t Deny
Gin Stephens, Fast, Feast, Repeat
Eve Mayer, Life in the Fasting Lane
Bert Herring, The Power of Appetite Correction
Michael Mosley, The Fast Diet

To go back and re-read post #6 in this series, the lessons we have learned from intermittent fasting, click here. To start the series over again, click here.

*We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

IF Series, Part 5: The World Loves Wine

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

There are a plethora of great quotes about wine and I love them as much as I love deep, old, rich, luxurious red wine. I like my wine to smell good, have long legs, and stay in my mouth longer than my throat. Is it getting hot in here or is it me? I haven’t had any wine in five weeks and it shows in my writing. 🤣 If you don’t know anything about red wine you are probably lost but stick with me and will get through this post together. Wine is a metaphor for life and today I have quite a tasting flight for you.

Just like I had in post #3 in this series, I have a disclaimer: We don’t have an addiction to alcohol. We have traveled the world, and unlike in the US, most of the world takes a different view on alcohol. It’s ok to have a glass or two of alcohol with dinner, maybe have an occasional night with more. It probably is not ok when your body craves it, can’t get enough of it, and you can’t stop drinking when you start. I am not an expert in any of the subjects I discuss, they are merely my life experiences and insights. As I have said previously, I lived with an alcoholic many years ago. The destruction was devastating and I never wish that addiction on anyone. Brian and I know our limits. We consciously take time off from alcohol. For example, we typically take 4 weeks off at the start of the year for a good cleanse during “Dry January” and we are currently on week 5 of no alcohol. What wait? 5 weeks! Crazy Americans! I know, tell me about it or should I say let me tell you about it. Haha!

“[Her] lips drink water but [her] heart drinks wine,”
~ EE Cummings

Did you know there are 463 quotes with the word “wine” in them on GoodReads? 70 countries produce wine. There are over 100 bible verses about wine. Why does the world love wine so much? Maybe it is the fond memories, new experiences, a conversation starter with new people, the diversity of wine, the connection to Earth in the grapes, or that the process of making wine is fascinating. There are many reasons but this blog post is about how it adds to our life and how it doesn’t always help us reach our health goals.

“Beer is made by men, wine by God,”
~ Martin Luther

For me, the bottom is line is alcohol is only a problem when my goal is weight loss. During our two years practicing intermittent fasting (IF), I have learned I can maintain my weight while enjoying life with alcohol in it. Hallelujah! I could never make that statement while on Weight Watchers, following the Biggest Loser plan, or using the MyFitnessPal app. When we lost weight the first time, we were told to eat all of the time, count points, and if I had a glass of wine I gained weight quickly and couldn’t lose it. Besides having to eat tiny, unsatisfying meals 6-7 times a time, not being able to enjoy the finer things like a good bottle of red wine was something I couldn’t live with forever.

Just like with food, I don’t want to feel guilty every time I say “yes” to wine. See part 3 in this series to understand my relationship with guilt and eating. I am trying to rid myself of everything that makes me feel guilty. I don’t want to have to say, “No, I can’t, I’m dieting.” UGH – Dieting STINKS! To me, I don’t want to be remembered as the girl who was always on a diet. Honestly, if I died today, that could easily be the quote on my tombstone, “Michelle: The girl who was never happy with her weight and was always on a diet.” Yuck, yuck, yuck! I want my tombstone to say, “Michelle: She lived life to the fullest and always said yes to new experiences.” As a disclaimer, I will be cremated with my ashes spread on top of a mountain with an amazing view and there won’t actually be a tombstone, so there’s that detail. 😊

2017 – Walking the Camino Frances, living our best life with good food & wine

I believe wine is a metaphor for life. First, wine needs patience. Shouldn’t we all be a bit more patient with ourselves, our shortcomings, and definitely with others? Everyone walking this Earth is on their own journey, doing the best they can, and we cannot rush change. Though I wish we could rush change when it comes to racism and sexism, that’s a topic for another day. We don’t know the burdens other people carry around. If I believed in rushing change, I would have had gastric bypass surgery years ago when the scale read well over 300 pounds. That was a choice I couldn’t make back then, though I am not judging anyone else’s choices. I knew if I would have had the surgery, I would find a way around that tiny stomach and would have gained all of the weight back and more. That’s just me. I don’t do well with “cannot,” rather I need, “yes you can.” I can have wine, pizza, and burgers without someone else or a surgically induced tiny stomach creating limitations. I need to find the patience to create my own limitations. For example, I have decided to break up with wine for 3 months (and all alcohol) not because I need to or someone told me I need to, I want the change to achieve my goals. 2020 was rough, and like most of the world, I consumed more than my fair share of alcohol. So I decided to take a break so I can clear my head, my soul, and my liver. 😊 It’s always better when it’s our choice to make a change. I need to clarify one thing in case you see a post on social media, we will have wine on Valentine’s Day along with a romantic dinner for two. We aren’t monsters. 😂 We enjoy celebrations with wine and I don’t see that changing… ever. The glasses of wine in the photo at the top of this post are from 2019 when we celebrated walking to the end of the Earth together on the Camino de Santiago. You will often see us celebrating accomplishments with a nice dinner and wine.

Moving on, wine is complex and multi-layered. Just like with life, there are so many complexities it can be near impossible to stick with a diet 100% of the time. Which is OK!! Sometimes we need a vacation, a break, a burger, and a beautiful glass of wine. It is why I am no longer dieting – IF is my lifestyle. Sometimes it will be low in carbs and other times high in carbs. I am not changing what I eat rather when I eat and, I believe, that makes all the difference. Before IF, my hormones were so messed up that one week on vacation or even one weekend of amazing eating would throw everything off, and I would not be able to lose the weight I gained. I was in a complex spiral of weight problems and hormone nightmares. Once I decided to never diet again but rather understand the journey I was on more clearly (with the help of a fantastic doctor), change was real. I needed patience, I needed to understand the complexity of hormones, and I needed to work through the layers of misinformation I have put my body through. I have been dieting since I knew what the word meant and my body needed time to believe I would never put it through a diet again! Ever, never. I don’t know if my metabolism will ever be “normal” again but I sure am trying to love myself, my hormones, and my metabolism again. IF is not a diet to me. Like wine, IF can be complex to achieve your goals but it doesn’t have to be complicated forever. The simple side of fasting is: you eat, you fast. The layers that can make it complicated include what your goals are for fasting, how long you fast, what you eat when you feast. That is all personal, is always changing to meet your needs, and most importantly you need to reach to the experts for help. I am not an expert.

Third, a wine needs to be paired well to be at its best. I’m quite lucky to have a partner who jumped on the IF journey with me from the start. I pray you are able to surround yourself with people who lift you up, support you, and encourage your decisions. We all need more cheerleaders and fewer critics. A good marriage is made up of two people who can be completely different but pair well together. Brian and I aren’t always on the same page, aren’t always looking for the same outcome, and sometimes we do more harm than good when trying to achieve a goal. We have a saying that when we are good together, we are unstoppable but when we are in the mood to sabotage, we can be very bad together. 😂 For example, if we are fasting on a random Saturday and I said to Brian (or he said to me), “I really want pizza tonight and some wine,” it would be extremely challenging for either of us to continue to fast. When we are “flexing our fasting muscles,” we are unstoppable but we can just as easily push the other person into the deep end of a deep-dish pizza. 😂 How do we focus on achieving our goals? Boundaries, topics that are off-limits, and forgiveness is a must. Food is an off-limits topic on fasting days. Further, we recognize though we are individuals, we share a home that needs boundaries so what’s in the pantry, the fridge, or the liquor cabinet needs to support both of our goals. It also means we have created a schedule based on how we pair together. Those are just a few of the things that we found have worked. Every couple is different. The ultimate goal is to determine how you pair with the people around you to bring out the best in each other.

Finally, wine has many varieties. Yes, it does and just like with people we come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities. 🙌🏼 You don’t have to like every wine but you can appreciate the differences they bring to a meal. Did you know that wine tastes different based on what food it is or is not served with? It’s shocking how different the same glass of wine can taste with fish, steak filets, or nothing at all. Sometimes it’s amazing and sometimes it’s downright skunky. Wine not only needs to be paired well but everyone has a different palate so the varieties are important for enjoyment. We don’t have to like every person that comes into our lives but we should be kind, fair, and non-judgmental. It is not our job to judge where someone is on their journey, what they look like, or what choices they make. Our job is to support other people and to be an example of kindness and forgiveness. We should appreciate that variety is the spice of life and we all need a bit of spice! 🌶

Do I miss wine when I am cleansing? Sure, when I see it on TV or when I am enjoying a good meal and know what wine would be amazing with it. However, my goals are more important. I can’t always say that because sometimes wine is more important. 😂 It’s a bit easier to take a break from wine right now because of COVID. We are not going out like we normally do and our social life is null and void. For better or worse, this time of COVID has created a space in my life to be more like wine. Instead of drinking wine, I am learning to be patient, I appreciate who I am paired with, and I am keeping my life full of variety with other things I enjoy. Sometimes it is OK to hang out in the wine cellar and wait until it is your time to pop the cork.

Next week will mark 6 weeks on our new IF regimen. I will show you some photos of our journey because we can already see a difference in our bodies! Hint: We both have already lost more than 13 pounds each! I will talk about the lessons we have learned throughout our 2 years of practicing intermittent fasting. Thank you for coming along. Thank you for supporting our journey with your kindness. Subscribe to our blog for notifications each time a new blog comes out.

Be kind to one another. Love yourself. You have one person and one person alone to look at in the mirror for the rest of your life. It’s important to love what you see in the reflection. For better or worse, love yourself more than you love wine. ❤️

To go back and re-read this series from the start, click here. To read post #6 in this series, click here. Want to know more about IF? Something you want to be explained further? Leave a comment! I always welcome topic inspiration.

IF Series, Part 4: The Gym Rat Turns Fat, Again

Posted on February 2, 2021 by Cruisin Michelle

I have always loathed going to the gym. Even though I loved the girlfriends I met and the friendships I made in spin class, I hated the “eat less, move more” bandwagon I was on. I felt like if I didn’t go to the gym, I would get fat. I was trying to earn more Weight Watchers points so I could eat more. Sometimes I would go to the gym twice a day just to earn those dang exercise points. I was desperately trying to be the skinny girl people saw on the outside. But inside I hated my life. I didn’t hate myself, I hated my life at the time. Today I am talking about what has changed since those gym days, how exercise fits into our intermittent fasting (IF) lifestyle, and how we have come to enjoy exercising again.

During those intense gym days from 2010-2016, I was teaching a full day, getting two hours in at the gym, and listening to Brian complain at the thought of having to join me. I may have loathed the gym but Brian out-right despised it. The gym rat life wasn’t for either of us. If you are a gym rat and you are happy, I am happy for you. I am not here to judge anyone else’s journey. Just like with food, we all have to find the exercise that best fits our own lives. I am here today to talk about our journey. Our bottom line: We are the happiest going on adventures in the great outdoors. We love where hiking takes us. We love where biking takes us. We love exercising together.

We can’t hike every day, except in the summer when we find ourselves outside almost every minute of every day. But we also know we can’t keep up with the grand adventures we’ve had in our younger years without exercising throughout the year to maintain our health. We both turn 50 years old this year and we are well aware of how muscle mass deteriorates as we grow older. Just like a carousel, here we are again, learning to find an exercise regimen that works for both of us.

Let me be very clear about one point. I did not gain weight because I stopped going to the gym. I gained weight because I didn’t eat well, my Hashimotos was not controlled well, I was experimenting with new medications, and I entered peri-menopause. My weight gain happened before I started practicing IF. I have not gained any weight since we started IF two years ago. My Hashimotos is currently under control and IF has helped to control my hormone fluctuations during menopause. You can read about our food journey by going back to the start of this series, just click here. Additionally, I have only stopped exercising completely because of injury and I have had my fair share of injuries. ☹️ Since my days at the gym, I had skin removal surgery that took 3 surgeries and a rough healing process. I was thrown from a horse, breaking both my arm and pelvis. I have had surgery on both of my feet from overuse, bunions, and hammertoes. I had to stop running and doing triathlons because my bladder hated all of it. Life has changed a lot since my gym days but my love of being active is greater than ever.

Walking, hiking, and bicycling make me feel invigorated, young, and free from stress. It brings both of us great joy to wander through old towns, climb big mountains, explore quaint villages in other countries, and see all that our world had to offer. We want to live out our favorite adventures for the rest of our lives, and as our tag line says, we want you to take that adventure with us. The gym didn’t bring me joy, sometimes I cried in pain, but seeing a grand vista from the top of a mountain can bring me to tears in a way nothing else can do.

The question is how do we stay active during our busy school year so we can continue to climb those mountains? Honestly, the answer is simple. Do something every day. Sometimes I just work on my balance ($20). Other days I sweat on my spin bike ($500) or walk up a mountain on my treadmill ($900). Sometimes, but it takes a lot of internal motivation, I swing around my kettlebells ($95). I have linked all of my home gym items for your reference, and yes, I spent quite about $1500 on setting up our home gym but it’s still less than 2 year’s gym membership times two people and we bought these items over time. However, I am much happier working out at home and I work out more often than I went to the gym. Earlier, I said you have to find what works for you, this is what works for me. I can work out with or without Brian, at 7 a.m., noon, or 7 p.m. I don’t get distracted by driving past McDonald’s on the way to a gym, talking for longer than I worked out, and nobody has to look at me while I sweat. Oh, and I can watch whatever motivates me on TV and nobody has to see my 80s vibe! 😂

The point is we continue to be active. More importantly, the other point is nobody can outrun a bad diet. I am spending more time learning to eat well, eat less, eat less often, and as a bonus, exercising as I can for the purpose of being ready for our next big adventure and adding to my overall health. I don’t depend on running off calories so I can eat more. I no longer believe in the calories in, calories out mentality. If you want to know what I am talking about, I highly recommend you head over to Dr. Fung’s website, click here. He is the expert on understanding why calories in/calories out is a myth.

Yes, I got a new home gym, and working out on my terms is wonderful. But there is another big change since we started IF. This one may be too much but stay with me. We exercise while fasting. If that surprised you as much as it surprised me two years ago, I get it. The thought of exercising while fasting horrified both of us. But now, understanding the science, we exercise even if we have been fasting for 20 hours or multiple days. We don’t exercise the same way I did during my gym rat days but we do exercise. We have hiked 10+ miles, worked out in our home gym for 60-90 minutes, or enjoyed a good yoga class, all while fasting.

Here’s what we have learned about fasting while exercising: My head is clearer and I can work harder when I exercise in a fasted state. Honestly, my head is clearer all the time when we are practicing IF well! It’s the best feeling ever! Click here for a great article about exercise and fasting. We have been working on building our “fasting muscle” for two years and have built up to what we can do now. We started easy, going for a walk while fasting, then working out a bit hard at our home gym, hiking 10+ miles while fasting, and ultimately hiking much of the Camino in a fasted state.

Historically, people didn’t work out in a commercial gym because they didn’t exist on every corner like a McDonalds. I know commercial gyms have been around since the mid-1800s, but the purpose and accessibility was much different. The average person didn’t need a gym to work out, they just lived an active life. That’s where I am at: We should all want to live an active life full of activities you enjoy doing for the purpose of being able to move well as you age. It shouldn’t be tied to the thought of losing or gaining weight. We manage our weight based on what we eat and when we eat it. We manage our physical health by moving our bodies in a way that makes each person happy. These are two separate ideas and should not be linked together.

Next week I am going to talk about our relationship with alcohol and use it as a metaphor for life. The following week I am going to recap the lessons we have learned from our 2-year journey practicing intermittent fasting. Finally, I will round out where we are today on our journey as I discuss the changes we have made in 2021 and how they are impacting us. Hint: 2021 is going very well even with a few hiccups along the way.

Thank you for coming along on this journey of self-reflection. Subscribe to our website to get notified when we post new blogs. I pray these blog posts help you on your own journey to good health and even better living. Ultimately we have one life to live. The goal should be to live it well.

To go back and re-read this series from the start, click here. To read post #5 in this series, click here.

*We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.