I.F. there was a Secret to Weight Loss: You'll get the pun soon.

Just delivering my third child (and last… cross my heart), I couldn't be happier

. She is the perfect addition to our family. However, having three children has done no favors for my body. I have made so many mistakes while attempting to lose weight and being ashamed over the thousands of dollars lost on the “miracle pill/plan/routine/drink/mix” solution. As I am deciding that I am meant to live presently plump, since nothing worked, came a term… Intermittent Fasting. It changed my life and here is the best part… IT COSTS NOTHING!

Now, I am NOT a doctor and in NO WAY want to act like one. I am just going to share my personal experience. If you also decide to take the plunge, always check with your Primary Care Doctor. You picked em' for a reason. Now that's taken care of, let's get to the good stuff.

I found I.F through this amazing co-worker, Alison. We were outside bologna and cheesing (my code word for bullsh**ing) and at that moment, I was sharing how I had tried another dang weight loss program that failed. She looked at me and said something I was not prepared for “Duh! None of it’s sustainable. You want something that will actually work?” Of course, reluctantly I shook my head ‘yes’. She then said “You know how I have been losing weight?” Again, I shook my head to answer getting more and more curious how much this was going to cost me, but she was right, she was looking great and I wanted the secret. “So check this out, it’s called Intermittent Fasting”. I had no idea what it was but as she explained it to me, I thought she was crazy. If you haven’t heard of Intermittent Fasting, ME NEITHER! I had heard of fasting, but only when someone was doing it for religious purposes. Second thought: I LOVE food! I can’t do this! This is why "acquaintances" are popular, people can be nuts! Alison was different though, she is known for being smart, witty and caring deeply for people’s wellbeing. I knew she wasn’t feeding me bologna and cheese. So, I continued to listen. After her justifiably bragging about how life changing it was (seriously, you could tell it was working), she let me go with a promise to check it out.

So, a few busy days later, Intermittent Fasting forgotten, I got on the scale to see what the damage was. It read 201 pounds on my 5’3 frame (not cute). I was eating my feelings, deeply, in a bag of cheddar sour cream ruffles not even a half hour later. I zoned out while watching my Netflix show wondering how in the hell I had let food become my emotional Band-Aid. I kept giving myself excuses like "My Husband loves me for me, why should I change?" or "I just love food, I don't want to die eating like a rabbit. Screw it! YOLO!" (Remember when YOLO used to be cool? Yeah, me neither).

Bottom line… I knew what I was doing. My career had trained me to see through the bull. I was coping with food. I was eating to feel better, end up feeling worse, so I would eat more. I put down the chip bag and started to think about when this had really took effect. During my soul search, I remembered the Intermittent Fasting that Alison had mentioned. I decided to YouTube it. I scrolled through the video’s getting lost in my hope that something would help dig me out of the hole I dug. I landed on a 10 minute video. My finger lingered over the animated educational video as I thought, “Alright, this video has 10 minutes to convince me it will work before I decide I am just meant to be uncomfortable in my own skin”.

That’s all it took. 10 minutes. 10 minutes to make me fall down a rabbit hole of watching videos well into the wee hours of the morning. The more I watched, the more I learned and was captivated about how easy this could be; how much sense it made. Basically, you fast for a certain amount of hours every day, only drinking water, black coffee or herbal tea with no sweeteners, until you open you “eating window”. During your eating window, you eat normally, then close it again only drinking the three beverages listed above. I.F (Intermittent Fasting) allows your body to take a break in digesting foods and assists the overall health of your body while also going into ketosis. Ketosis is where your body starts to eat your stored fat cells for sugar and energy. Dr. Jason Fung, a leader in I.F helped me understand it the best in his book “The Complete Guide to Fasting” (I’ll share the link below). After 16 hours of fasting, your body hits ketosis.

There are different kinds of I.F that you can do. There is the pretty easy 18/6, where you’re fasting for 18 hours, then the eating window opens for the next 6 hours. Legit Tip: Sleeping counts as part of your fast. For example, if I was doing an 18/6, I could eat dinner at 6, finish eating by 6:30, and then close my window for the night. I would then wake up, drink some black coffee or water while continuing with my day until around 12:30 where I would open my eating window for lunch, a snack and dinner, repeat. Other fasts can be 20/4, 22/2 and so on depending on what your body is telling you. That is one of the most important rules to I.F: listening to your body.

I began with the 18/6, my day going pretty close to the one I described above for about a month. The first week ya’all, I lost 10 pounds. I did not change my diet, I continued eating stuff like sandwiches for lunches and snacks, occasionally switching for Casey’s pizza (so good), kept eating what I cooked my family for dinner while still seeing progress. By week 3, I hit the dreaded weight plateau. I knew I had to up my game to get to my goal. I switched to a 20/4 becoming addicted to the visual progress I was seeing and how great I felt. Out of curiosity, I kept a food journal during this time and started noticing, while listening to my body, that my body was phasing out fatty foods and helping me eat cleaner. It was amazing. My moods were even more bubbly than normal, my aches and pains from my auto-immune disease were not flaring and I was so much more clear minded. My Husband also took notice if you know what I mean (winky face). Looking back, I realize it wasn’t because I was “not pretty enough” but how badly I felt about myself affected how much attention I was giving him. Who wants to get naked when they feel like their body rolls where it’s supposed to curve. Not this lady!

I continued like this, eventually phasing up into a 22/2 with the occasional 2 day fast, for about three months. I was on top of the world, but had not weighed since I saw those first 10 pounds melt off. I stepped on the scale and began to cry. I was 163 pounds. I had lost 38 pounds, no loose skin, no bad moods and because I listened to my body… it was sustainable. Bonus, it was free. I was kicking butt until…

A week later, I found out I was pregnant. I was so happy, since I have always struggled to get pregnant (fasting miracle?) but that meant putting my fasting on pause. My beautiful daughter, Grace, is now 5 months old and still booby feeding. So I sit here… eagerly waiting to begin again because three littles has done no favors for my body and I am back to feeling a bit uncomfortable in my skin. However, I want to share my “un-pause” of fasting with you guys’ right here, posting pictures and progress the whole time. I also run a fasting support group on Facebook if you are looking for some extra accountability, that I will start posting on again, called Fasting and Not Furious (I’ll share the link for it below). If you guys want to read Dr. Fung’s book (I would, I still refer to it!! Life changing!) I will post the link below. Talk soon!

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/399399300777440