Alternate Day Fasting - Our experience

Who knew that one of the benefits of fasting, especially Alternate Day fasting, would be Kitchen Freedom. What is Kitchen Freedom you ask? Exactly what it says, freedom from the kitchen. I’ll get into that and more as I take you through our (yes, our) experience with this type of fasting. Don’t worry, there is still a food component to this post, I’ve been on a quest to find some sort of Keto friendly toffee treat and I’ve got a couple of good recipes to share.

Prepare for Alternate Day Fasting

You really need to put some planning into fasting. Especially if you want it to be successful and to get the most out of what fasting can do for you. Here is a great YouTube video on Fasting. I have tried the 16/8 (to some degree) which means that I have not eaten for 16hrs and had an 8hr eating window. I think this is great for maintaining, but not for significant weight loss.

Meal Plan:

I sat down on Saturday and planned out our month. See below, printed this and put it on the side of our fridge. Shopping then became very easy, since I only had to shop for what was on Week 1. So what are we eating? Well, low carb Keto recipes, of course, with a few exceptions since Sebastien (17yr old son) is not following Keto. Sushi, we pick that up at T&T and since I don’t eat that, I grabbed some kebabs for me. I doubled up on the Butter chicken (minus rice, but add Paneer and cauliflower), that way we can have it for lunch on our non-fasting days. The Lasagna is in the freezer already, I doubled the last batch. That leaves Pizza, I have all the ingredients for fathead dough, and it takes very little time to prepare.

Shopping:

With the main items covered and added to my shopping list, that leaves just a few extras that I need, to make sure we can make it through the next few days of fasting. Thanks to Jess over at Keto Rewind, not just for the Alternate Day fasting inspiration but also for some advice to get you through the hunger, including Bubly. I added a case of Lime flavoured to my shopping list! In addition to that, I made sure I had some lemons to flavour my water and some chai tea to get me through the evening cravings.

Time to Fast

day 1: 197.5lb – EATING 12pm to 7pm

We started on the Sunday, by limiting our eating window from 12-7, by we I mean my husband, son and I. My husband did not strictly follow the fasting plan, but he did really limit what he ate. On top of that, he’s running daily, so he needs the extra food fuel. My son, bless him, has decided that we (him and I) should add some physical activity to this fasting plan. I swear he watched Jess’s video and knows that she too, enjoys some physical activity. So, we hopped on the treadmill/elliptical for 20 minutes. Believe it or not, about 10 pm I started to feel a wee bit light headed, which is funny since I had eaten at 7 pm. But my normal feeding habits would include several fat bombs or keto snacks, which I’m no longer enjoying. So I decided it was time for bed. I slept well, no late night wake ups.

Day 2: 195.4lb – FASTING

This was our first non-eating day. I took some advice from some other sources and had some Chai tea, apple cider/lemon/sea salt water (on the fence about this one), water (of course) and coffee (with cream/sweetener, until my order of Collagen arrives). The day actually wasn’t that bad. One early benefit was the realization that the Kitchen no longer ruled me. At one point, near “dinner” time, I said to my son “I should go get dinner started ….. wait we aren’t eating dinner”. That’s when I realized that I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, meal planning, cooking, prepping or just …. grazing. I’ve gotta say, it is a very liberating getting all that time back. Even my son had a benefit, he does the dishes and with no one eating, well, his job was significantly reduced. My husband heated up a small bowl of Butter Chicken (last nights dinner) and he had a couple Peanut Butter Chocolate Fat Bombs. But that was it. I slept well.

Day 3: 193.1lb – EATING 12PM TO 7PM

EATING DAY!!!! OK, so I admit while I’m not “hungry” I was missing flavour. Luckily I was working all morning, so I wasn’t in fact watching the clock. I knew that my lunch was going to be Butter Chicken leftovers and I could literally taste it, hours before I actually ate it. I took advice from several sources and did not gorge my first meal. Limiting my serving to a normal amount. I enjoyed every bite. Then folks. I stumbled. In my head I reverted back to snacking mode. I grabbed 4 pieces of Keto Toffee Crunch Cookies/Crack. Later I slipped back down to the kitchen and had 3 pieces of Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bites. Then, again I had 6 servings (they are the size of a chocolate kiss) of Lemon Cheesecake Fatbombs. At the time, I didn’t think it was that bad, but then I decided to log my macros into CarbManager. Ugh. After dinner, which is Lasagna, I will have gone over my carbs by 1 net carb. *sigh* I had wanted to have some of the cheesecake for desert. Nope. The next eating day will be managed better. I’m almost looking forward to fasting tomorrow.

Recipes

OK, so back to snacks. Here are the two recipe links for you.

Keto Low Carb Pecan Toffee Crunch I made this without the pecans. I’ve posted a video of it on Tiktok. I’ve made it several times, I prefer the harder porkrinds, you find them in the International aisle at Walmart.

@karenleepelletier
Delicious sweet and salty #keto Toffee Crunch Porkrinds. #porkrinds #lowcarb #snack #snackcheck #ketolife #toffee #easyrecipe @planthejourney
♬ Lose Control – Meduza & Becky Hill & Goodboys

Keto Cracker Toffee (Keto Toffee Crunch)

I made this twice, and yes, I should have stuck with the original name. The first time, I over cooked my almond cracker base, not great, but we ate it. the second time was perfect! Here is the recipe for the Cracker Toffee and here is the Tiktok video I made. The first image of the Toffee Crunch is the first batch, note the dark colour of the base. Still good though.