In this video, you'll discover the top ways that you can make intermittent fasting easier.
Intermittent fasting doesn't have to be hard.
Just because you're making it hard for yourself, it does not mean that you're getting any better
results.
The truth is, I've done intermittent fasting myself for a long period of time.
I've helped a lot of people implement intermittent fasting, and so I've uncovered a lot of different
tips and tactics in order to really help skyrocket intermittent fasting and make it so much easier.
So, stick around to the end of this video so that I can teach you these strategies as
well.
But before we get started, I'm Dr. Zyrowski and welcome to the channel.
If you're new to the channel, it's a pleasure to have you here.
Be sure to subscribe, hit that notification bell, and join our notification community
and I'm going to help you excel your health and your life.
Now, the truth is about intermittent fasting is it's different for everybody.
The people I work with in many cases are obese, they're overweight, they have Type II diabetes,
they have a lot of other health complexities going on, so intermittent fasting can be a
real struggle for them.
So, I teach them how to make it easy.
Now somebody who's healthier, it may be something that is just easier in general, but still
these same tips here are going to make it easy for everybody.
So, let's go ahead and dive right in.
First thing I don't want to talk about is drinking enough water and making sure that
you're staying hydrated.
That's one of the top things that you can do while intermittent fasting.
Here's where the problem lies is that when somebody is intermittent fasting all night
long, essentially you're not drinking any water during this time.
As you're not drinking any water and then you don't eat breakfast in the morning, you
forget to wake up and drink some water and then you go into that fast and then you haven't
drank water in a long period of time - many, many hours.
Now, a lot of people actually will confuse that thirst for hunger and then they'll just
be like crazy in their mind about getting some food because they think they're so hungry.
Well, in fact, they're just actually thirsty.
Now here's the thing too.
If you're not staying hydrated, you'll be fatigued, your brain won't be as sharp, you
won't feel as well.
So, we want to make sure during this time that we're staying hydrated because it's going
to help with hunger and also just help keep us energized.
And it's going to make you feel a lot better.
This is a very common problem that many people fall into.
Next on our list is going to be seltzer water.
This is something that makes intermittent fasting so much easier.
Now, first of all, I like to seltzer water just because it's a nice spin off of regular
water.
If you're someone who is eating healthy and you pretty much just drink water all the time,
having something that changes it up a little bit is pretty nice.
And so, seltzer water is nice for that reason during a fast.
But the other reason specifically, while fasting that is really good is because it helps you
be satiated.
It kind of blunts that hunger and makes you feel full.
So, using seltzer water can be something very powerful while fasting.
Now I want to mention here too, that when you get seltzer water, we don't want to get
the ones that have a bunch of flavors in them.
We don't want to get the ones that have artificial sweeteners like aspartame in them because
first of all, those can actually make you hungry.
They can actually kind of kick your metabolism in and go like, Hey, look, you know, this
tasted really good.
Let's get some food going here.
So, they can do that to you.
But the other reason is that a lot of that stuff's very unhealthy.
I mean it's artificial sweeteners, artificial flavorings, stay away from that stuff and
just stick to plain old mineral water.
Next on our list is going to be coffee.
So, coffee is something that is really great when fasting because it helps blunt your appetite.
Now one of the big things that people have a problem with is that they like their cream
with their coffee and I'm not here to call anybody out cause I'm one of those people.
But here's the deal too though, is if we're going to put cream in our coffee, it's going
to essentially break our fast and it's a slippery slope from there because if you're trying
to put a certain amount in and somebody told you that X amount of cream was okay, well
the thing is is that it can be different for everybody and so what we want to do is just
stick to black coffee.
If you want to put some sweetener in it, you can still do that.
Now the sweeteners we like to use is going to be erythritol.
It's going to be a stevia and also monk fruit.
Those are good at natural sweeteners that can give a little bit of a sweet taste to
your coffee but not kick you out of a fast.
Now we also want to make sure that we're staying away from regular sugar.
I mean, I know that for a lot of you that goes without saying, but some people I've
caught putting like honey or some different natural sweeteners into their coffee.
We want to stay away from that altogether.
Next on our list here is tea.
Tea is also very good for blunting your hunger and just giving you something warm to drink
during your fast.
Now, tea pretty much falls into the same categorization as coffee.
We have to be careful with it.
We have to make sure that we're not getting into the habit of the creams and the sugars
and all that stuff because that is breaking your fast and I also want to go back to coffee
for a second and mention if you were drinking a bulletproof coffee, that does break your
fast.
I know that a lot of people argue that topic with me, but you're not going to convince
me that eating like a hundred calories worth of butter in your coffee is not going to break
your fast.
It's going to happen all day long, so we want to make sure that we avoid bulletproof coffee
and bulletproof coffee is not something that is innately bad.
It's just it's going to break your fast.
There's no doubt about it.
Now, focus is the next thing that I like to talk about while fasting because if you were
focused on something, then you essentially find yourself not focused on food.
Staying focus on work, staying focused on the different tasks at hand and making sure
that you're staying busy during that time of the fast is going to make the fast so much
easier for you.
I've worked with many individuals and when they don't have anything going on, let's say
it's their day off work, when they're at home, they have a big time problem with trying to
fast because all the food's there and they have nothing else going on.
And so, they just keep thinking about, Oh man, when, when, when can I break my fast?
When is that hour coming where I get to have my first meal?
And that's all they think about.
So staying focused on something other than food is going to be very important during
this time.
Stay busy and as a result, you'll be able to fast so much easier.
In many cases what I do is I get so wrapped up in my work, I actually forget to eat and
then I push my fast back a little bit further, little bit more benefits come from it, so
I'm not complaining.
Next on our list here is stress.
Stress is a big problem when it comes to fasting.
There's a lot of reasons why.
First thing that's going to happen with stress is that it's going to cause your hunger hormones
to go out of control.
You're going to have the stress from fasting and the stress from work or whatever else
is going on.
And then you're going to think to yourself, why am I even doing this fast?
This is silly.
What am I doing this for?
And it just really kills your willpower.
It makes it very difficult to stay with your fast.
So that's one way stress really affects the fast.
The next way is that people who have a lot of stress in their life, they have a problem
with blood sugar swings.
Typically the stressed out people, they're going into a state of hypoglycemia.
So essentially you wake up in the morning and things are going good and going about
your work and next thing you know, nine o'clock hits and bam, you hit that hypoglycemic pattern
that you do not want to experience.
And you're getting fatigued, you're getting dizzy, you're getting just muscle shaking,
just not feeling well in general.
And so, we want to make sure that we're avoiding this particular pattern.
Some things that you can do to actually reverse this pattern are utilizing things like B vitamins
and adaptogenic herbs are very good for alleviating stress, but also giving your body what it
needs to physiologically fight that stress off.
And typically, what happens as soon as people start falling into those patterns - I've had
a lot of patients that do that.
They fall in that state of hypoglycemia.
We start utilizing these different nutrients and as a result, they kick themselves out
of it and just a couple of days, and it's not a thing, but there's some people who literally
fall into that state of hypoglycemic every time they fast.
And that's not something we want to experience because it is uncomfortable.
And then of course, stress leads into sleep problems.
Now, when you are fasting, you want to make sure that you're getting adequate amounts
of sleep.
This is something that's so important.
People who have problems with sleep have problems with fasting.
First of all, like stress is going to kill your willpower.
Secondly, it's going to set your metabolic hormones into a frenzy.
Essentially, you're going to have that ghrelin hormone just being a nightmare for you and
telling you you're hungry all the time.
And then the other problem with sleep when fasting that we have to be aware of is we
have to make sure that we're getting quality sleep because a lot of times when you have
a lot of stress and you're fasting - and sometimes you may be pushing fasting to your physiological
limits, you're trying to get into the one meal a day category and your body doesn't
necessarily like it - you can have some bad sleep patterns that arise where you're starting
to… you go to sleep at night and you fall asleep well, but then all of a sudden 3:00
AM hits and bam, you're just wide awake and you can't fall back asleep.
And then, in a lot of cases people will go in to look at their alarm clock and go, Oh,
I bet you it's 7:00 AM in the morning or 6:00 AM in the morning, whatever time you get up,
I bet it's time to wake up out of bed.
And then it's 3:00 AM and so that stinks and that is a also a result of first of all, dealing
with a lot of stress and then just fasting.
What we want to do at that point is just kind of step back from fasting.
Do like three meals throughout the day for a day or two and usually that'll fix the problem.
So, stress, sleep, very bad for fasting.
No stress, lots of good sleep will drastically improve your fast and make it so much easier,
so focus on getting good quality sleep.
Use a sleep tracker if you don't have one because that will make sure that you're being
able to chart your sleep and know that you're getting good hours throughout the night and
falling into deep sleep cycles.
Amino acids are something that you can also do in order to drastically improve your fast.
What I found is with patients who have a lot of metabolic issues, utilizing amino acids
while they're in their eating window is really going to help with cravings during the fasted
state.
I want to make sure that it's very clear that amino acids will throw you out of a fast,
so we don't want to consume them while fasted.
You don't want to wake up in the morning and have amino acids.
That's going to break your fast.
Now, if you utilize it while you're working out during your feeding window or if you utilize
the amino acids in your feeding window anywhere, I have constantly found that these people
who are utilizing it just basically don't have the cravings that other people have.
So, I like essential amino acids.
I find they work better.
I'm not talking about branch chain amino acids, but essential amino acids.
Next on our list are going to be electrolytes.
Now, this can be a big problem for a lot of people and I've actually found myself in this
state where I had electrolyte deficiencies and I felt really horrible.
If you have an electrolyte deficiencies, you'll start getting muscle spasms.
You'll just have a lot of general fatigue.
You won't feel well, your energy will be crushed.
The particular electrolytes we want to focus on are going to be sodium, magnesium, and
also potassium.
Those tend to be the biggest ones that show up when somebody is doing intermittent fasting,
low carb, and you're throwing in some exercise and perspiring during that time as well.
So we want to make sure that we're taking in electrolytes, adding in sea salt and all
that is great.
For me personally, I always add in like an electrolyte powder in order to get some good
results and I'll put some links in the description below that’ll give you resources to all
this information I'm talking about.
Multivitamins are also beneficial.
Now, you may not have heard anybody ever tell you, well, take a multivitamin while you're
fasting.
Well, first of all, you want to make sure you're taking it in your feeding window, not
in your fasted window, but the multivitamins just offer a broad spectrum nutrient complex
that is going to just kind of cover all the bases.
That way if you're not getting enough greens throughout the day or maybe you even have
a deficiency you're dealing with that's causing your fasting to go downhill, using that multivitamin
will help just cover the bases and as a result, making your fasting easier.
I've dealt with many people who have some different issues because there are nutrient
deficiency problems and then of course because they're not eating a good balanced diet, which
we'll get to in just a second, so multivitamins really help.
Next thing on our list is going to be sugar free.
We want to make sure that we're going sugar-free during this time.
We want to make sure that during our eating window we are not consuming refined carbohydrates
and a bunch of sugar because it makes our fasting window hectic.
It throws those metabolic hormones all over the place.
Essentially, you're having all kinds of cravings and then of course you're going to wake up
and you're going to have headaches and you're going to have a problem where you're having
hypoglycemic patterns like we've mentioned right here.
We do not want to be dealing with that when we're trying to get a proper fast in.
If you want to make fasting easy, cut out the sugar and it's not just about eating a
diet that has nothing sweet in it.
You can still use your erythritol.
You can use stevia, monk fruit, those same sweeteners, the natural ones that we talked
when we discuss coffee.
Now if you want to learn more about eating a sugar-free diet, go ahead and check out
this video right here cause it's really powerful and we'll set you up on the right track in
order to get results with a sugar free diet.
On our list next is going to be macros.
It's so important.
Two of the biggest macros that I find people have an issue with is getting enough protein
in and eating enough fats.
On top of that, when we look at macros, we also typically see a big problem with people
in their calories because they're trying to restrict, restrict, restrict with the fasting,
they go and restrict their calories down.
Remember that intermittent fasting is not about restricting calories.
It is simply about restricting your feeding window.
So, we want to make sure that if our feeding window is restricted too much to the point
where we are restricting our calories, that we open our feeding window back up because
here's the deal, you will create a problem with unsatiable hunger that you cannot curb
and you also have serious binge eating issues if you put yourself into a state where you're
going and compressing your calories down far too low and not getting enough food for your
body.
You're not getting enough protein, not getting enough nutrients, you're not going to feel
well and it causes big problems.
So, if you want to make fasting easy, here's what you do.
You make sure that you utilize this different information right here and it's going to be
so powerful in order to help you master fasting and doing it with ease.
Put in the comment section below some of your experience with this and give this video a
thumbs up and also be sure to share this video with your friends and check out this video
right here if you want to master fasting.
When doing intermittent fasting or one meal a day, I am a huge supporter of a healthy
diet.
One of the things I see is a lot of these young kids who are getting into intermittent
fasting and one meal a day as a way to stay lean is that they're just eating like garbage.