I must start off by saying, please consult with your Primary Care Professional, if you have one. The reason being, your doctor should be able to help you find the right dietician/nutritionist and hopefully be able to help you along this journey.

Here is how I started off doing Intermittent Fasting (IF). I started with 12 hours of fasting, which was pretty easy. I like to snack late at night, so that helped me adjust to my new eating times. I would stop eating at ten o’clock at night and would not allow myself to eat again until twelve hours the next day. Most of the time it would be later than ten in the morning. I do want to input that during my fasting time, no matter how many hours I was fasting, I did not eat more than five hundred calories. Now, with these calories, I tried to stay away from processed sugars. What I refer to as processed sugars is: High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, cane sugar, maltitol, artificial sweeteners, and other processed sugars. Okay, so I’m admitting that all I would have is a cup of coffee. However, my coffee consisted of non-dairy creamer and sugars that are of low glycemic index (organic coconut sugar and monk fruit sugar with erythritol). I usually have my coffee before nine in the morning, so near eleven I would start looking to what I would eat for lunch, then eat by noon. My lunch would be a small portion of a heavy food or just a finger food. Then I would not eat again until five o’clock in the evening. My evening meal would be a normal dinner meal and I would leave my eating window open until ten o’clock that night. Now, this is just how I started prepping my body for fasting. If it takes you longer to jump up to the 16:8, then keep taking those small steps towards your goal.

I do want to add, what you eat also plays a role in what you are trying to achieve. Whether you’re doing IF for weight loss or wanting to clean your body. I will tell you that eliminating anything processed (including sugar), meat, and dairy will definitely help start you on a great path. I did not eliminate all of these at once. Doing this is a major adjustment to your body and mind. You may not be the person who can eliminate all these at once, but start eliminating something so you can start detoxing from that. I also want to warn you that you will experience signs of detoxing, and those signs could be headaches, a rash in various areas of your body, fatigue, body aches, nausea, brain fog, and irritability. You may experience sweating, diarrhea, and cold chills. Everyone may not experience all of these symptoms, but the toxins are released through breathing, bowels, sweating, and urine. Your detox may, or may not, be as severe as others. I personally believe that depending on how much detoxing your body has to expel, will be based on the severity of how much the body rids of the toxins.

Another addition to this start is to drink water. I know a lot of people who have problems with drinking water. Those of you with this issue, start with putting fresh fruits or veggies in your water for taste (do not add sugar). I also do not suggest adding any flavoring packets to your water. Those packets have sugar in them and food coloring. I can suggest a flavoring that is sweetened with a sugar alcohol such as Stevia. If you are a person who drinks sodas all day long, cut back to one a day and do this for about three to 4 days then keep decreasing. Your goal is to get your body rid of sugar and caffeine. You can drink green tea, black tea, and black coffee. All of these can be consumed hot or cold and sweetened with local honey or stevia. Hopefully, the teas and coffee will replace the soda caffeine with a natural caffeine to help with the withdrawals.

I know all this may seem overwhelming, but remember, you will have to mentally prepare for all this before you actually begin. If you truly want to improve your health, then you will be just fine. You could see results as early as a week. Keep a track record of the day you began and what you have consumed. It’s always nice to see progress and what you ate to achieve those goals. Also, keeping a food consumption record could help you track what could be aggravating your body. Overall, keeping a good, detailed journal could help you with your new health journey. I, personally, have found whenever I get off track from my diet, my body lets me know.

********DISCLAIMER******** I AM NOT A TRAINED HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL. THIS INFORMATION IS FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND PERSONAL RESEARCH THAT I HAVE FOUND.

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