By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Last week, we discussed fatty liver and one of the ways to reverse this condition is to embark on intermittent fasting.
Fasting is any period of time that you are not eating. So intermittent fasting means alternating fasting and eating. Isn’t this how people ate in the past? Our traditional way of eating is we eat 2-3 times a day- breakfast, lunch, supper- or when we are hungry. In between eating meals, we fasted. There was no electricity then so when the sun went down, the only thing to do was “gag-gag-ay” for women in the “obob-onan” and for men, in the dap-ay. Obob-onan is an informal meeting place for women in the village. In those times, we would eat supper at about 6 p.m. or as the sun went down then breakfast at around 6 a.m. as we had to cook with firewood. Many households then even had to pound rice just before cooking. (Newly-pound rice is the best rice.) This means that people fasted for about 12-14 hours every night. Then during the day, they fasted in between meals – 4 to five or even 6 hours. You see, when you are working in the fields, you won’t feel hungry until you accomplished something. Merienda was unheard of then. The amazing thing here is that people in the past had so much energy and were so strong!
How could people in the past be so strong and healthy? There are a lot of factors but in a nutshell, it is because they lived in harmony with nature. Aside from having natural food and drink as provided in nature, they gave time for the food to be digested in the stomach and intestines. That’s how our Creator designed us. When you chew and swallow rice, it does not immediately enter your cells. It undergoes complicated awesome processes inside the body before it gets converted to energy that our body needs to function. Can we redesign our bodies so that we just blend all our food and drink it and it goes immediately to our blood? Fortunately, no. And in fact, many cultures, especially Asian cultures, have studied and harnessed the wonderful effects of fasting thus it is still practiced today for health and wellness in mind, body & spirit.
Dear reader, you can see now that intermittent fasting is not a new concept. It’s in our psyche. All we need to do is rediscover it and claim it. So I was so happy to discover the you tube videos of Dr. Jason Fung on intermittent fasting, fatty liver and many other lifestyle diseases. He is a Canadian nephrologist and functional medicine advocate. I am sharing a lot of his ideas here.
How to start? He says that the easiest way to start intermittent fasting is start with 12-14 hours fasting period. This would translate to “nothing after 6 p.m.” which was popularized many years back. This is sensible because you also need at least 3 hours after supper before you sleep. This is so that you are still alert and your stomach, liver and intestines are alert to digest your food efficiently. You see, if you sleep, your vital organs slow down.
Your breakfast (breaking the fast) will be at 6a.m. or even later. For me, I try to eat after 7 a.m. because nature also dictates that digestion is best after 7 a.m. Of course, when you have to travel to work or school, then you have to eat earlier. By the way, you can drink water or no sugar tea or coffee.
Then cut out the snacks. Snacks were never in our traditional culture, anyway. When one came home from the fields and was hungry and supper wasn’t still cooked, they would eat a banana or boiled camote, whatever natural produce was in the house. If none, then no problem.
When you have successfully hurdled this initial intermittent fasting, you can increase the fasting interval to 16 hours. Some are able to skip breakfast and just have coffee. Others can skip supper. Or just have 2 meals a day, just like the iKalinga’s of old. The important thing here is consistency so it becomes a habit. You can decide which day or days of the week you will skip a meal or even do a 24-hour fast. Choose those days when you are not stressed because stress shoves us to eating unhealthy comfort food.
Dr. Fung mentions the following tips for you have a successful fasting experience:
1. “Ride the hunger waves”.
When you fast, you already know that you will be hungry. For many people nowadays, hunger is a rare feeling because they constantly eat or graze. So be ready to get hungry. Have enough water ready so that you drink water instead. Bear in mind that “if you don’t eat, your body will feed itself from the body fat” and so your hunger pangs will go away after a while. Remember the phrase “nalipasan ng gutom”? That’s exactly riding the hunger wave. Just let it pass and you will be okay. Even seemingly thin people have fats stored somewhere in their body so they don’t have to eat every time they feel hungry. Your body will burn fat from your liver, from your tummy, from your buttocks, etc. This is why intermittent fasting can reverse fatty liver.
2. Stay busy.
Actually if we are busy with things we love to do, we forget about time and we forget to feel intense hunger pangs. So before you know it, it’s past 12 noon. People then had no watches so they did not have to count hours in between meals.
3. Stay away from social media which have advertisements like TV, stay away from shopping, cooking, the kitchen and parties and any place where you may be tempted to eat kasi food is there. I would add here, if you can, stay away from the clock because seeing its 12 noon will automatically switch your mind to eating mode.
4. Don’t do fasting alone.
Do this as a family or group so you also train your kabahay especially the young ones. My daughter and her family eat supper at 5:30-6:30 p.m. so that they don’t have to have afternoon snacks. This has another advantage- their children go to school so they need to sleep early to wake up early.
5. Avoid overeating.
I am guilty of this. When I fast for a longer period, I tend to eat a lot more. The proper thing to do is eat a normal meal after fasting. That way, you don’t return the fats earlier burned. Sayang lang efforts mo kung ganyan.
The bottom line in intermittent fasting is to allow your body to digest what you ate and spend the calories from your food and burn fat. This way, we allow our body to function normally and that spells well-being. Again, this is nothing new. It’s our heritage. Let’s reclaim it! Happy fasting!
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“When you fast, do not look somber as what the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.” Matthew 6:16**
