- I'm hungry.
(upbeat electronic music)
So for those of you that don't know,
intermittent fasting is when you fast
for certain parts of the day or certain parts of the week
and then you only eat during designated windows.
I have heard of this diet here and there.
I feel like it happens a lot in LA.
I've never wanted to try it
because the idea of fasting doesn't really appeal to me
but I went home for Christmas recently
and ate myself stupid.
So when I did a little digging on intermittent fasting
I was like maybe I could try this for a week
to try and like snap myself back into eating healthily.
So the one I am going to try is called
the 16/8 method and it means that you are fasting
for 16 hours of the day and then you eat
in like only an eight hour window.
You can choose the window and I have chosen
to start eating at 12 noon and finish eating at 8:00 p.m.
I've heard of people that like literally
do like full days of fasting which to me is like too much.
So a lot of people try this fasting stuff for weight loss,
I'm not going to do it for that.
I'm just curious to see if this is a way to like
make myself become more healthy.
Because, you know, if you're only eating
in an eight hour window you can track
what you're eating a lot better.
You aren't gonna start eating late at night
'cause I do that a lot,
I'll be like it's 11 p.m., let me eat a cake.
So some of the other possible health benefits
are it may reduce what's known as bad LDL cholesterol,
blood triglycerides and it also may reduce
the risk of diabetes.
Unfortunately, there are also some drawbacks.
People might end up consuming more than
they usually eat in their eating windows
to compensate for that fasting.
I need to make sure I'm not eating
more than I usually would and I also need to be cognizant
of what kinds of foods I am eating
in the eight hour window.
Because if I eat nothing but Big Macs
obviously that's not going to make me feel good.
This intermittent fasting doesn't actually
suggest exactly what you should eat.
It's not a diet of like certain things.
All right, so I start tomorrow for seven days.
Let's see how hard this is.
So it is day one of the challenge
and I have just cycled into work.
So not only have I not eaten
but also have expended energy.
I'm so used to having a coffee
when I get into work and maybe a banana.
But I can't even have a coffee,
I can't have milk, because it has calories in it.
But apparently I am allowed just like black coffee.
I hate black coffee, I think it is the most
disgusting thing ever known to man.
But it might be better than feeling hungry.
It also might not work because it's just gonna be
like dark acidic liquid.
So I just walked into the canteen
and there are bagels everywhere and my first thought was
oh, I'll just have that for breakfast,
and then realized I can't.
I put Splenda in it, I don't know if that's allowed
but it has no calories, so I guess it's okay.
I just, I can't handle black coffee just straight.
(dramatic music)
Actually that's not too bad.
I think the sweetener really helped.
So about 15 minutes after I had my lovely black coffee
I got crazy indigestion!
So that was fun.
Well in true Chloe form it is day one
and I've already messed up.
It is an hour after I've supposed to have
started eating and I just grabbed a banana
from the canteen because I don't have lunch with me yet.
So I am off to find lunch.
I had a meeting at the time I was supposed to eat
and I just didn't realize or think about it.
So I ended up getting some soup
and to be honest I haven't even finished
all of it and I'm so full.
I don't know if it's 'cause like I haven't eaten in so long
that your stomach kind of shrinks?
It is 7:05.
I have 55 minutes to eat this
I just got it Grubhubbed, oh (chuckles),
I just got it Grubhubbed because to be honest
I am quite jet lagged.
It's just like a shawarma wrap
which I guess isn't the healthiest thing in the world
but I feel like I wanna kinda like ease into it.
I just can't quite go cold turkey.
But this is definitely not that bad
there's vegetables in it and it's quite small so, good.
So I didn't find the night of day one too hard
probably just because I fell asleep really early
'cause I still had jet lag.
I did, however, wake up in the night
a bunch of times feeling really hungry
which was kind of annoying.
But I don't know if that was my body trying
to readjust back to the time zone
or whether it was this challenge.
This morning I got up fairly early, 'cause of jet lag,
so that's more time for me to not be able to eat
before I am allowed to eat.
The thing I am more worried about is tonight
because, as it's the weekend, I'm going out.
And I meeting a friend I haven't seen in years
and so I want to be able to have a few drinks
but I can't meet her 'til 7:30 and my cutoff is eight.
I'm like doing chores around my house
and I just constantly keep catching myself
thinking oh I'll just grab something to eat,
oh I'll just grab something to eat,
and then realizing I can't.
It's finally lunch time!
I have a chicken salad that I have
attempted to wrap into a pita.
It is falling out everywhere.
It's massive.
So after my giant chicken salad,
I had such a craving for something sweet
probably 'cause I had just been eating (bleeps)
for two weeks, so I found this.
I'm going to eat one chocolate coin from England.
So I was pretty proud of myself Saturday night.
I went to see my friend,
and I didn't eat or drink after 8:00 p.m.
It's Sunday and I'm going on a hike with my friend.
This is the first time I have worked out
before eating on this diet.
And that actually works for me usually.
Because when I work out in the mornings
after eating, I feel really nauseous,
so this actually might be a good thing.
I felt good on the hike and then I felt good
for some time after the hike,
but then I had to go get groceries and do some errands
that I didn't really calculate into my day.
I think I need to be better at time planning
with this challenge because it's now one o'clock,
and I haven't eaten yet.
And I'm pretty hungry now.
I'm like starting to feel a bit weak.
It's time to eat and I made myself a salmon salad,
so that's pretty healthy!
It's Sunday night and I'm going to trivia
which I do quite a lot on Sundays.
It is at 6:30, so I technically could eat
while I'm there or drink.
But I've been snacking all afternoon
and I just don't feel hungry.
So I don't know whether to just like eat for the sake of it
because I'm worried I'll be hungry later
or just like not eat.
Trivia being at 6:30 and something I do a lot,
totally works for intermittent fasting
if I wanted to carry this on as a lifestyle.
So really it's only Friday and Saturday night
that seems to be an issue.
So I did end up getting quite hungry at trivia,
so I ordered some shishito peppers.
So I didn't feel too bad about that
because it was before 8:00 p.m.
And then we lost trivia,
we came six out of seven, not great.
It is Monday morning, and fun times, I'm a little bit sick.
It's kind of been coming on slightly over the last few days,
but I thought it was just like nothing.
Apparently it's something, so I'm working from home today.
I can't imagine that it's this challenge
that's made me get sick.
It's just a sore throat and a little bit of a cold.
Like it's nothing horrible.
I was on a plane and they're like, you know,
breathing grounds for bacteria.
But it could also be me screwing with how I eat, I guess.
We'll never know!
I will say, the one thing I've noticed the most
is I am so not bloated which is really nice.
'Cause over Christmas I was just stuffing myself
full of food that was like stodgy.
Obviously I don't know yet if this is really something
that is something that I can continue
and whether it's even worth continuing.
It's like an hour later and now I'm really hungry.
It's still two hours until I can eat.
So, you see I'm chewing
'cause I'm going to eat multivitamin gummies.
Not plural, just one.
'Cause there's sweetener in them and no calories.
But they're like food!
It seems like a very unhealthy thing to do.
It's finally lunchtime!
And I have the weirdest lunch ever
because I really couldn't be bothered
to cook anything intense.
Veggie sausages and peas.
The night of day four was pretty easy
'cause to be honest I was just sick and wanted
to go to bed early, so I didn't really
get a chance to feel hungry.
Hello, I'm still a bit sick, so I'm working from home again.
I really want some tea.
I think mainly 'cause my throat hurts, I want some hot tea.
So I dragged myself out of my apartment
and I got my tea in a reusable mug.
So, side note, save the planet.
This is mint and citrus,
so hopefully this will make my throat feel a bit better.
Great, it's time for lunch now.
My little walk has caused me to become hungry.
I really totally can't wait for lunch.
I will be honest, it's kind of annoying.
Tea did make me feel a bit better.
The thing I've realized about this week
is that I haven't been drinking coffee,
which I'm pretty addicted to it,
So I thought, that would be a really big deal
or that I'd continue to drink black coffee
but I just like hate it so much.
It gave me such bad indigestion
that I just like didn't want to touch it again.
And the tea thing is a much healthier substitute,
so I think that's something I should consider
going forward is just drinking tea in the mornings.
I busted out my salmon salad for lunch again
and then towards the evening time
I had a real craving to bake.
So, so far I've been pretty good
at not eating too much crap.
I've eaten a couple tiny chocolate bars
here and there 'cause I brought a bunch
of candy home from England.
But because I'm a little sick
and because this challenge is a little tough,
I have decided to make healthy cookies.
I looked up a recipe and it involved
a lot of coconut product.
We have coconut flour, coconut sugar, coconut oil.
They're done!
They look like (bleeps),
I had to smash them down with a spoon.
These are ready with 25 minutes to spare
until I have to stop eating.
So, I've already eaten my dinner.
(cookie crunches)
For a really ugly cookie these are not bad.
This is the latest I've been able to stay up
this whole challenge.
And I'm hungry.
It is Wednesday morning and I am feeling much better,
so I'm off to work.
I will say I woke up really hungry today
since I couldn't eat at the time I wanted last night.
You know I realized it's actually so nice
to wake up and not feel like full and bloated.
I have got a habit of eating quite late at night
and drinking wine quite late at night,
and I feel like I usually wake up just a bit like lethargic,
and still full, and bleh.
So I do think that is a healthy part
of this intermittent fasting even though I do think
in general it might be a little bit restrictive.
The daytime was the same as it kinda has always been
which is me getting hungry about an hour before
I'm allowed to eat and getting kind of annoyed.
But then the evening came.
I'm on my way to happy hour to meet a friend
and I am a little bit nervous,
so I'm going to eat lots.
I can like, you know, eat some happy hour food
at like seven or whatever and then hopefully
by eight when my friend like wants to go to a dessert place,
I can just say no.
So, they had nothing healthy on the menu,
so I have a giant pizza, which I feel slightly bad about.
And I love wine, so I also have that.
But I'm not eating after eight.
Yeah that was famous last words
'cause I definitely drank after 8:00 p.m.
I feel really bad about last night!
And I've woken up having two glasses of wine
and feeling a little bit hungover which really sucks.
I'm off to work and I'm probably gonna just get tea
right away because apparently now I just like tea a lot.
Got my tea!
It's my last meal.
I'm at a ramen place with my friend.
- I'm ready for some ramen before 8:00 p.m.
- I'm pretty excited to get this done, honestly.
I think ramen's fairly healthy, right?
It's here!
- Yum.
So the week was over and I had done the challenge, yay!
I do feel like intermittent fasting
can really work for certain people.
I think that for me I didn't really see the benefit
of not eating in the mornings
but I did see the benefit of not eating late at night.
So that is a healthy habit that I want
to continue with moving forward.
(upbeat music)