nutrition

Super healthy foods you simply must eat every day
If you’re a complete newbie to the healthy lifestyle like I was a few years ago, not to mention that I was super fat as a kid, there are two pieces of advice that helped me the most to start taking care of my body better.

The first one is go for a type of exercise you dislike the least. That helped me go from hating exercise, to being okay with it, to loving it a few years later. By using the search mode principle, I found some exercise I was okay with it, and then continued from there.

The second advice is: add a few healthy foods to your diet, to slowly start transitioning to a new healthier lifestyle. Luckily there are a few types of foods that are super healthy, tasty, don’t need lots of preparation and are inexpensive.

These foods will provide you with the perfect package of micronutrients – antioxidants, fiber, vitamins, minerals and other healthy nutrition properties.

Even more importantly, they will trick you into slowly starting to love healthy food instead of junk food. Here are super healthy foods I eat almost every day (at least 4 of them in a day):
- Berries
- Avocados
- Nuts
- Broccoli
- Olive oil
- Green tea
Blueberries or any other type of berries

Number one on the list are blueberries. Berries are a type of fruit that contains the lowest amount of sugar and high amounts of antioxidants, fiber and vitamins A and C. Next to that, they are delicious and don’t need any heavy preparation.

You just wash them a little bit and enjoy their superior taste; or you can add them to many other foods like yogurt, oatmeal, on top of protein pancakes, and so on.

Blueberries are great for your brain and prevent memory loss, they help prevent urinary tract infections, and are generally delicious for your health. The only downside is that they aren’t the most inexpensive food, but they’re absolutely worth the cost.
- Every day, eat a small cup of blueberries as a snack
- Sprinkle a palm of blueberries on some of your favorite dishes
- When it’s hard to get fresh blueberries I use frozen ones, which is not ideal, but still an option
- Alternatively, you may go for raspberries, goji berries, acai berries or blackberries (but those cost more)
Avocado

Avocados are considered to be one of the best superfoods. They contain lots of healthy fats, soluble fiber, vitamin E, folate and potassium. They help keep your blood sugar levels stable and your eyesight sharp.

The downside is that they have a very specific fatty taste, they’re rich in calories and they can be a bit expensive if you go for the organic ones.

I don’t like them so much that I would eat them alone or in a salad, but I eat them daily in a smoothie that I make for myself. Well, to be completely honest, my girlfriend makes it for me.
- Avocados are a great basic ingredient for a smoothie
- You can also add them to a salad or make yourself delicious guacamole sauce
- Just eat them in moderation, since they’re packed with calories
Nuts

Nuts are a great source of healthy fats, they taste delicious and serve as a very handy snack. They help lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raise “good” HDL cholesterol, they’re generally considered as one of the best brain foods (trail mix) and you can take them with you everywhere you go.

There are many different types of nuts – almonds, walnuts, pistachios, almonds, brazil nuts, cashew, macadamias, and so on, so your taste buds will never get bored.

As you probably know, nuts are considered to be allergenic food, so be careful about any potential allergic reactions. Peanuts are the most delicate ones, because they aren’t even technically nuts. And most importantly, don’t eat too many of them, because they’re rich in calories.
- Eat a handful or 20 – 25 nuts every day as the perfect snack
- Try different types of nuts and find the ones that work best for you
- Always add a few of them to your favorite smoothie, together with chia and flax seeds
- If possible, buy organic nuts, but don’t eat too many of them if you want to lose weight
Broccoli

The two foods I used to hate the most are broccoli and olives. I was flicking olives off my pizzas and I thought to myself: who eats this weird green alien tasteless vegetable or whatever the hell it is. Today, broccoli is my number one favorite food. I couldn’t survive without broccoli now.

If you’re wondering how I started liking broccoli, it’s simple. For a week or two, I forced myself a little bit to eat it, and then your taste changes. You can really reprogram yourself quickly for whatever you like. We’re able to adjust really quickly (especially your brain), the only unfortunate thing is that we usually adjust to worse habits.

But now back to broccoli. It contains sulfur compounds, which help fight cancer. It’s rich in protein and antioxidants. It contains a lot of vitamins A, C and K as well as folate. You can steam broccoli really fast to use it as a side dish, add it to a salad or make a soup out of it.

It keeps your tummy full for a long time. Already by only looking at a nice piece of broccoli, you immediately know that it’s super healthy.
- To every main meal, add broccoli as a side dish
- You can make a fast and easy delicious broccoli soup a few times per week
Olive oil

Olive oil is packed with healthy fats. It helps lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raises “good” HDL cholesterol. Olive oil keeps your artery walls smooth and cholesterol-free, and it’s also rich in antioxidants. I use exclusively organic cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil.

For cooking, I use coconut oil, and as salad dressing I always use tons of olive oil. If I somehow don’t eat a salad in a particular day, which rarely happens, I eat a small tablespoon of olive oil or flax oil. My girlfriend is always surprised at how fast I can empty a big bottle of delicious olive oil.
- Add a little bit of lemon and tons of olive oil to your salad
- Eat a tablespoon of olive oil with your lunch
- Only adding olive oil to your diet is far from as healthy a lifestyle as many imagine, but it’s one small step towards it
Green tea

Green tea is an extremely healthy and tasty beverage, filled with antioxidants and just a strong enough stimulant to wake you up and brighten your mood without messing with your sleep pattern, as long as you don’t drink it in the afternoon or before sleep.

Studies show that green tea helps fight heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and keeps your gums, teeth and bones healthy.

Green tea also helps burn fat and improves physical performance. Green tea has also been shown to improve blood flow, lower cholesterol and help with other health issues. There are mixed opinions regarding coffee, but everyone agrees that drinking green tea is very beneficial to you.
- Drink only water, fresh-made mild lemonade, green tea, green drink, nothing else
- Drink one cup of your favorite green tea between breakfast and lunch, and one between lunch and dinner but not after 4 or 5 PM, if you want to get quality sleep. Green tea may interfere with absorption of some minerals, especially iron, so drink it between meals instead.
My super healthy food pack for 2 days.

Other super healthy foods

There are many other healthy foods I eat almost daily. I eat different kinds of seeds, lots of eggs, oatmeal, quinoa, yogurt, tons of green veggies (salad, kale or spinach), a piece or two of seasonal organic fruit, and some types of beans and lentils.

I add cinnamon to some foods and to lemonade. Sweet potatoes are also considered to be a nutrient-rich food, but I don’t eat it since it’s not popular in my country. I also take a few core supplements daily with one of my main meals.

But these are add-ons. The first step you can make is to add the six mentioned foods to your diet. When you go grocery shopping, just add them to your cart without even thinking. Most of them don’t need much preparation and you can consume them immediately. And all of them taste delicious.

Homework
For one of the snacks during a day, eat a palm of blueberries and nuts.

With one of the main meals, eat a cup of broccoli as a side dish or add it to a salad.

For a salad always use olive oil or eat a small spoonful of it during lunch.

Between meals, make yourself a green tea or two.

Make yourself a delicious green smoothie with avocado, seeds and a few green veggies. Just don’t add too much other fruit in it. This takes the most effort, but it will also benefit you the most.

From this point on, slowly improve your diet by removing juices, sugary food, fried food and so on, step by step. But first learn to love a few super healthy and super delicious foods.
Add these things to your shopping list and start eating them daily or almost daily. Your body and your brain will be super grateful to you, your mood and your energy levels will improve including your overall health.

It really takes zero effort to add these things to your diet, and they do taste delicious. If not for the first few times, then after a week or so. Bon appétit. Enjoy there super healthy foods every day.
Tricks to eat less that will help you lose weight without any suffering
There is a very important fact in the fitness and weight loss industry, emphasizing that you can never out-train your diet. Your losing weight goals are 80 % done in the kitchen and 20 % done in the gym.

Regular exercise is absolutely important and you have to do it if you want to be/look fit and gain some muscles, but for losing fat, an elaborate diet is what counts the most. There is some simple math behind it.

Here’s how many calories you burn (rough estimate) in 30 minutes of exercise:
- Walking: 150 kcal
- Weight training: 220 kcal
- Cycling: 250 kcal
- Swimming: 300 kcal
- Running: 300 kcal
And here are the calories in some relatively small meals and snacks (again, only rough estimates):
- Egg: 80 kcal
- Banana: 100 kcal
- One slice of pizza: 240 kcal (yes, one slice)
- Snicker’s Bar: 250 kcal
- Big Mac: 563 kcal
You can eat a Big Mac in 3 minutes, and then you have to go running for an hour to burn it. If we take a step further, 7,700 calories are roughly 1 kg of fat together with water (or 3,500 kcal equals 1 lb of fat). So if you eat 500 calories over your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), you will gain 1 kg of fat in two weeks.

Now, there is a lot of debating going on out there over how accurate these calculations are, but at the end of the day, if you eat more than you burn, you get fatter and if you burn more than you need, you lose weight. It’s a simple rule that can’t be avoided. And it’s much easier to dam up calories than trying to burn all the excess you consume with exercise.

It’s so easy to eat 500 calories. It’s so hard to burn 500 calories.

The main problem is that when you start to exercise, your appetite goes up. That’s why many people get disappointed when they start to take care of their bodies. They feel much better after exercise, they put in the hard work, but their appetite also goes up and consequently they eat much more and don’t see fat loss as quickly as they would desire.

And even if you stuff your face with healthy food, you gain weight. If you want to lose weight, you simply have to curb your eating appetites. There is no other way.

Tricks to eat less

If you want to lose weight, you have to control how much (quantity) and what (quality) you eat. You do that by making smart big and small eating decisions.

Big smart decisions are the decisions of how you design your eating pattern in general – the number of meals you eat, what time you eat them, the typical meals you like and their size. You have to know your macros and how you will meet them. Besides that you have to know your body very well and how it resonates with different diet approaches. You do that by testing.

Small smart decisions are all the small things that prevent you from eating that one banana or chocolate bar too many per day. They’re small tricks that help you keep the discipline and really stay within the bigger plan (macro calculations, eating pattern). Small decisions are the details you have to be careful about. As they say, God or the Devil are in the details. Diet is no exception here.

Now let’s look at 15+ tricks to eat less that will help you eat less in order to lose weight and be healthier. If you are prone to overeating as I am and your body weight fluctuates like the tide, these tricks may actually change your life.

How to lose weight? Portion control, portion control.

Be smart about shopping

There is a saying that fitness professionals repeat over and over again: “5 minutes of willpower in the grocery store is much easier than a week of willpower in the kitchen”. Make sure you aren’t hungry when you go shopping, and buy only healthy food.

Have a list of things you need to buy and don’t get tempted to buy anything that will lead you to a temptation later on. Have a rule to not have junk food or sweets at home at all!

Skip a meal or do intermittent fasting

One great way to eat less is to skip meals. If you ate too much at your last meal, skip the next one. From time to time, skip breakfast or dinner for a few times in a row. Not eating after 6pm at all may also help you a lot.

As an alternative, you can also do intermittent fasting and introduce periods in your days when you don’t eat at all. Test a few different approaches to skipping meals and find the eating pattern that works best for you.

Brush your teeth

When you crave a snack in the evening, go and brush your teeth. It’s a signal to your brain that the time to stop eating has come. Your hunger can go away like that. And if you are a little bit lazy, you know that after eating, you’ll have to brush your teeth again, and who wants to do that?

Drink plenty of water

If you get really hungry, drink lots of water. Well drink lots of water anyway, but when you are hungry, drink it even more. It can also be with a few drops of a freshly squeezed lemon.

Just know that if you do it before sleep, you will go to the toilet several times and that may disturb the quality of your sleep. Drinking a glass of water before every meal can also help a lot. As mentioned the good news is that drinking water is extremely healthy for you anyway.

Always have broccoli in your belly

Organic broccoli is the most awesome and healthy green food in existence. You can see how healthy it is even by only looking at it. Half a kilo of broccoli only has 170 kcal and 15g of protein.

And trust me, you feel very full after eating 0,5 kg of broccoli. If you’re feeling hungry, just eat some broccoli. Make sure you always have some broccoli in your stomach. It’s that simple.

The hunger test

Imagine a really healthy food you like, without sugars or fats (fruit doesn’t count, except for avocado). Preferably a green vegetable – broccoli, spinach, salad, whatever. If you feel real hunger, you’ll have no problem eating your favorite green vegetable.

But if you just go “no, no”, I want pizza, a chocolate bar, French fries, chips or whatever, you’re probably not really hungry. It’s emotional hunger.

If you are really hungry, slice some carrots and pickles and eat them with some hummus. No? Then you aren’t really hungry.

Go for a walk

Feeling super hungry? Distract yourself with a productive and healthy activity. Go for a walk and eat something healthy when you come back. Sometimes distracting yourself works.

Just make sure that you don’t overeat after you finish with the selected activity. There is a thin line when you go too far with hunger and you just want to eat everything afterwards.

Eat slowly, especially when you cheat

This is the hardest one for me, but it does wonders. There is a thing called mindful eating. It means that you eat really slowly, paying full attention to the food. You do slow bites and try to engage yourself in the eating activity with all of your senses.

When you do that, not only do you eat more slowly which is super healthy, you usually also eat less. You pay more attention to when you’re really full.

There are a few tricks you can employ to eat more mindfully:
- Closely examine every bite of food before you put it in your mouth – texture, color etc.
- Keep switching the spoon from one hand to the other or eat with your non-dominant hand
- Take a few bites with your eyes closed
- Eat with chopsticks
- Make sure you take one bite at a time
- Take a break during your meal
- Chew 25 times every bite
- Be thankful for the meal before you start eating – say a prayer or just think about how lucky you are
The signal to your brain that your stomach is full comes with some delay, so eating slowly helps that the signal doesn’t come too late, when you already eat twice as much as you should.

Always put your food on a plate

To better control how much you eat, always put your food on a plate. Never eat out of a bag. Never just take food out of the fridge and put it in your mouth. And never do it above the kitchen sink, stuffing yourself with fruit, for example (like I do sometimes and my girlfriend doesn’t like it).

On second thought, don’t just put food on a plate. Prepare it. Slice it, cook it, decorate it, whatever. Give yourself time to play with the preparation and while you do it, think about a reasonable portion size.

Always put your food on a plate and always eat only sitting at the table with no exceptions. Especially don’t eat in front of a TV. Eating in front of the TV is the opposite of mindful eating. You get lost in a TV show and just eat and eat, with no idea of how much you ate.

Using smaller plates may also be used as a psychological trick to not put too much food on a plate and to see small portions as big enough.

Under 200 calories snacks

Always have a few “healthy snacks under 200 calories” with you for an emergency if you are really hungry or your sugar levels drop. Never wait until you’re extremely hungry and then eat twice as much as you should.

Instead control your appetite with small non-caloric healthy snacks. Examples of those kind of snacks are:
- Small banana with a few almonds
- Greek yogurt with a piece of fresh fruit
- Carrot with hummus
- Cup of blueberries
- Avocado
- Cucumber salad
- Olives and a few slices of cheese
- Apple
- Shrimp cocktail
- Protein bar
Tracking calories

The number one thing weightlifters and gym rats usually regret is not paying more attention to their diet when they started exercising. Most weightlifters claim that tracking calories changed their life and the speed of progress.

Tracking calories significantly helps you stay within your macros (protein, carbs, fat, fiber, vitamins, minerals intake), stay in a moderate deficit (if you are cutting) or surplus (if you are bulking), and it always gives you a chance for a second thought over whether you should eat something or not.

Now, I don’t track my calories daily, but I have a big spreadsheet with all the calculations for my typical meals that I usually eat in a day. Since I like to simplify my life, I have a few typical meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, and I have a standard meal plan for high-carb and low-carb days.

I know exactly when I overeat, and I try to balance that by skipping meals. Going through the macros of my typical meals really opened my eyes as to why I had such big problems losing weight. Because food contains so much more calories than you think.

It’s so easy to overeat. A good rule that can help you eat less is: don’t put anything in your mouth before you log it.

Get enough sleep

Getting enough quality sleep is very important for your health in general. A lack of sleep causes stress, puts additional pressure on your body, you usually feel hungrier and it messes with your self-discipline. So if you want to eat less, go to bed early and make sure you get enough sleep.

If you stay up late, you will want to eat more, especially unhealthy snacks. Who likes to cook at midnight? If you’re tired because of a lack of sleep, you will want to eat even more the next day.

Because your self-discipline will be poor, you’ll have no problem eating lots of unhealthy food. You have to be smarter than that. Get enough sleep and your appetite will go down.

Your picture on the fridge

You can also go a big step further to stop yourself from overeating. You can take a photo of yourself in a swimming suit, nicely showing your excess of fat. Make sure that the picture is as unattractive as possible. Stick a photo of you clearly showing the excess of fat to the fridge and it’s going to be a nice reminder to walk away.

Make yourself a cup of green tea

Interestingly, I often overeat because I feel a lack of energy. I want to operate at 100 % capacity all the time, which is ridiculous. My underlying assumption is that if I eat more, I’ll immediately have immediately more energy. It doesn’t work that way, except maybe with sugar, but soon a sugar crash comes and that makes you even more tired.

If you’re like me and you want to eat only because you’re tired, get yourself a cup of green tea or coffee instead, if it’s not too late. A piece of dark chocolate also picks me up nicely and the desire to overeat slowly goes away.

Many people also reported that a chewing gum helps a lot when they’re hungry. Find one caloric acceptable snack that picks you up when you’re tired. Assuming you are already following a healthy diet throughout the day.

My wrong underlying assumption is that I will have more energy if I eat more. What are your false assumptions and beliefs?

Wire yourself to enjoy hunger

If there is one thing I hate, it’s being hungry. Nevertheless, I try to rewire or reprogram myself not to hate it. Much like I hate hunger, I also used to hate broccoli and olives, and now I love them.

Fasting has always been an important part of a healthy lifestyle and even spiritual life. There are many physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual benefits of fasting, if you do some research on it.

With intermittent fasting, I’m slowly learning to love being hungry and enjoy it. I focus myself on feeling light, I can feel how my discipline is building up, and at the end of the day I am very proud of myself for having stayed in a caloric deficit.

If you learn to enjoy hunger, you can always control your portions and how much you eat throughout the day.

Minus 20 % rule

A good trick you can use that will help you get in that 500 kcal deficit is to serve yourself 20 % less food. When you have food on a plate, cut away 20 % and throw it away, give it to your dog, share it among others or whatever. At every meal, prepare yourself a full portion and then cut off 20 %. Be proud of yourself when you do that.

If your TDEE is 2500 calories and you do that, you will eat 500 calories less. A 500 calories deficit every day will lead you to losing 2 kg (4 lbs) in a month. That’s the healthy limit of losing weight.

When you do the “minus 20 % rule” just make sure you don’t add additional meals to your eating pattern or somehow else compensate for the food you cut off.

Eat foods that fill you up first

As we said, drinking a glass of water before a meal may help you eat less. Similarly, you can eat a salad or a soup before the main meal. They are both light in calories and fill your stomach quite a bit. Foods with lots of protein and fiber also keep the hunger away for longer.

Avoid empty calories

Last but not least, avoid empty calories at all costs. Empty calorie foods are all foods that contain high amounts of calories and sugars, but have zero nutritional value (protein, vitamins etc.).

They are also very easy to consume as main meals or snacks, and you can almost eat unlimited amount of them. One bite like that too many and you can already be in a caloric surplus. Make a rule to simply not eat foods and drinks with empty calories.
- Drink water or herbal tea instead of juices, sodas and other sugary drinks
- Don’t eat fast food at all, or only do it on rare occasions
- Drink alcohol in moderation
- Be really strict about how much sweets and desserts you eat
- Watch out for unhealthy salty snacks like chips and pretzels
People really use these tricks to eat less

You may be thinking that this all sounds nice, but these eating tricks are only in magazines to entertain people. That isn’t true. Go to the gym, talk with athletes, join online health and fitness communities, and you will soon realize that people who are fit or lost weight really employed these kinds of tricks. They work, you just have to do it.

I do most of them and they help me lose weight nicely. So pick a few tricks to eat less you like the most and start them doing immediately. Don’t wait for tomorrow or next Monday, don’t wait for the next summer or the perfect moment, do it with your next meal.

Your next meal is an opportunity to make smarter eating decisions and to be more kind to your body. Just do it and good luck. Now you know all the major tricks to eat less.
Easily lose weight with intermittent fasting
I love to experiment with different diets and eating patterns. In the past 10 years, I’ve been vegetarian, vegan, fruitarian, high fat raw eater, and I also followed macrobiotic, paleo and keto diets just to name a few. I experimented with all different kinds of variations until I found my perfect diet and eating pattern. Well, it’s not perfect since I am continuously improving it, but you get the point.

Even though I can easily adjust to a different kind of diet and stop or start eating certain types of food, I hate being hungry. I really do. If I don’t eat when I’m hungry, I get moody, my energy levels get low and it’s really a special kind of torture for me. I feel like I’m going to die. It’s probably because hunger is closely connected to feeling unsafe, and eating is one of the most primal needs.

You can easily guess then what my initial thoughts about fasting were? Well yes, something like in spite of all the big benefits of fasting, there is no way I’m starving myself. Luckily, my experimentation nature and curiosity are much stronger than any fear, negative feeling or any displeasure or dislike.

A few months ago, a friend mentioned intermittent fasting to me. Intermittent fasting is a light version of real fasting and starving yourself, but more about it soon. It sounded like a good idea, and even if my body, emotions and mind were kind of protesting hard, I decided to give it a try. Only for a few days, to see how hard it is for me to follow and what the results are.

I lost 3 kg (6.6 pounds) and almost 2 % of body fat in the past two months and I love it.

That was a result exclusively from intermittent fasting and switching from car to bike. My training levels stayed pretty much the same (excluding bike rides). Intermittent fasting definitely works for me, so maybe you should also give it a try. In this blog post, I will explain the basics of intermittent fasting and you can then decide if it’s worth trying or not, or at least research it more.

What is intermittent fasting?

Intermittent fasting is a cycle between a period of fasting and a period of non-fasting. It’s not about which food to eat and how much, but when you eat; or even more importantly, when you don’t eat. You have a strict timeframe for eating and when you don’t eat anything (not a single thing), you only drink water. There are many different types of intermittent fasting, to name the most popular few:
- Leangains: Fast for 14 hours (women) or 16 hours (men) and eat in the 8 or 10 hour time frame
- Alternate day fasting (ADF): 24 hours of fasting followed by 24 hours of non-fasting
- Eat-Stop-Eat: You fast for 24 hours once or twice per week when it suits you best
- The Warrior Diet: You fast for 20 hours every day and eat one big meal, like cavemen did
- The 5:2 Diet: On two non-consecutive days you eat 500 calories, on other days you eat normally
- Spontaneous meal skipping: You skip a meal when you feel like it or after overeating yourself
There are numerous other combinations and variations. When you are in the non-fasting period, you can eat only one or two big meals or many smaller ones, you can enter the non-fasting state in the evening or in the morning, there are many variations.

There is no other way to find the best one but by experimenting. You have to find the pattern of eating that best suits your lifestyle, the one that your body gives the best response to and, even more importantly, the one you can really follow. That’s what I did.

I tried to fast for one whole day. Several weeks. No go, I became very moody and the only thing I could think of was food. My productivity and happiness dropped to zero. Then I tried the Leangains method and surprisingly, it was hard for me only for the first two days.

I accommodated the diet a little bit to my previous knowledge and my individual situation. Eating late is not good for me because of the acid reflux, and I do gain weight faster if I eat at night. So I decided to fast from at the latest 5 pm. It’s also easier to fast if you include sleep time in the fasting period. So I stop eating at 4pm or 5pm and eat breakfast the next day at 8am or 9am. Many people prefer to skip breakfast, but that’s what works for me.

I also know that eating big meals isn’t good for me. I tend to overeat and my stomach doesn’t feel well if I eat really a lot at once. So I eat several smaller meals during the non-fasting period, ideally every 4 hours, which makes 4 meals. I also have high-carb, mid-carb and non-carb days, depending on whether I’m training or not.

The main secret to why intermittent fasting works

There are two main theories for why intermittent fasting works. The first one is that in the fasting state, your body starts to burn fat because it lacks nutrition (energy) from food. The second one is simply because you consume fewer calories (assuming you don’t eat like a pig when you aren’t fasting).

You can find the second argument for nearly every diet, since the theory behind is that the only thing that matters when it comes to losing weight is that you mind the calorie intake. Nevertheless, let’s look more closely at both arguments.

The fast state

These are two states your body can be in. The first one is the fed state, and it starts the moment you are eating all the way until the food is digested. Digesting and absorbing food can take hours. The digestion time depends on what you eat, but it’s obvious that digesting a steak takes much longer than digesting a piece of fruit.

The second state is the so-called fasted body state. When all the food gets digested, your insulin levels get low. You enter the fasted state 8 to 12 hours after your last meal. Since there is no food to digest or absorb and your insulin levels are low, the body start to burn fat.

You enter the fasted state 8 to 12 hours after your last meal.

The main challenge in the whole picture is, of course, that you shouldn’t put any food into your mouth for 14 (women) or 16 (men) hours or even more if you want to get your body into the fasted state. That rarely happens if you are eating based on the standard eating pattern with several meals from breakfast to dinner. So you have to change your eating pattern to not eat for a longer period of time and that usually means skipping breakfast or dinner.

Eating fewer calories

You can find many arguments online that fasting really doesn’t work because of the fasting state your body is in but simply because you eat less, which equals to less calories. From my experience, you do eat less when doing intermittent fasting, because you simply can’t eat so much food in a shorter timeframe. If you eat the same quantities, you have a feeling like you’re constantly eating.

If you want to lose weight, you have to consume fewer calories than you burn.

The best answer to the question why intermittent fasting really works is that it doesn’t matter. Based on research, (controlled) fasting has a positive contribution to health. Calorie restriction also makes you healthier, if done in the right way. On top of that, you are losing weight. If it works, it’s better to practice it than to argue why it works or doesn’t. And if it doesn’t work for you, you move on.

Nevertheless, the harsh reality fact is that if you want to lose weight, you have to consume fewer calories than you burn. That’s why we say that you can never out-train your diet. There is no other way. And if intermittent fasting can help you eat less, excellent.

General benefits of fasting

As mentioned, there are many benefits to fasting. Let’s look at the major ones.

Fasting has an extremely important positive role in dieting, health and well-being. Regular fasting doesn’t bring only weight loss advantages, but also many other benefits to the body, mind, emotions and spirit.

Research has shown that fasting improves your blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and inflammation. It can also reduce chronic diseases, increase longevity, help with brain health and anti-aging, all that mainly because of adaptive cellular responses to handle stress better.

You learn to manage hunger more properly and practice self-discipline with fasting. Since I’ve been performing intermittent fasting for the past few months, I must say that I’m also managing hunger better. You learn to control your primal impulses better.

Usually I would go crazy when hungry. Now I only go half-crazy.

The truth is that there is probably no better alternative to practicing self-discipline than dieting. You have full control over it. It’s connected to your most primal needs and motives. It’s connected to your resistance, basically. You can experiment a lot with it (in a safe manner, of course). In general, fasting is a great way to strengthen your self-discipline.

With fasting, you simplify your life. With fasting, you can simplify your life to a great extent by eating less frequently. You don’t eat breakfast or dinner, so it’s one less meal to cook or buy. You have to worry less about food and you have more time for other things. If you combine fasting with simplifying your meals, you may get even better results.

Other recommendations for when you fast

When you’re fasting, make sure you only drink water and non-sugared herbal tea. Really don’t consume anything, not even a small bite of an apple or any other snack. It’s not that hard once you get into the rhythm. So the first recommendation is: don’t cheat and don’t lie to yourself.

Other recommendations when you’re fasting:
- If you are doing anything more extreme, consult your doctor or a certified nutritionist. Especially if you have a medical condition or if you’re pregnant, talk to your doctor.
- Drink plenty of water. Never forget to drink enough water.
- Test your limits. Try to not eat for one more hour after your fasting period is over. Just to challenge yourself and practice self-discipline.
- If you want your muscles to grow, eat enough protein. You can find many online resources on how many proteins to eat. Proteins will also give you a feeling of being full for a longer time.
- When you aren’t fasting, eat healthy. Eat tons of green veggies, a moderate amount of fruit, complex carbs and many healthy fats. Avoid sugar and unhealthy fats. Don’t stuff yourself like a pig eating for the last time. Manage your emotions.
- That will accelerate your metabolism, you’ll lose more calories and thus your weight loss progress will be faster. Not to mention that you will feel much better.
- Don’t change your diet if you are burned out, stressed out or lack sleep. Absolutely sort that out first, otherwise things will only get worse.
- Measure your progress. Buy yourself a smart scale, mark on the happiness index how you feel every day, pay close attention to your body and the results you’re getting. You want to follow the philosophy of validated learning to see if something works for you.
- Listen to your body. Learn to love your body, listen to it and never go against yourself. I’m still learning how to do that.
The first few days may be tough, but you can do it. I believe in you.

Homework

Give the intermittent fasting a try

If you are trying to lose weight or improve your overall diet and health, I suggest you try the intermittent diet. First, get madly educated. Here are some resources you can begin with:
- Nerd Fitness – A Beginner’s Guide to the Intermittent Diet
- Bodybuilding.com – Intermittent Fasting: Science and Supplementation
- Precise Nutrition – All About Intermittent Fasting
- Roman Fitness System – Intermittent Fasting 101
- Muscle for Life – The Definitive Guide to Intermittent Fasting
- The Number One Secret to Superhuman Willpower – This article describes the benefits of fasting in general with all the links to scientific studies (in most cases). They include stronger willpower, better confidence, improved brain function, better clarity and direction, better overall health, improved motor skills and the quality of sleep, superior productivity and energy levels, stronger emotional stability, deeper life inspiration, better appearance, faster learning and, of course, weight loss. In the article, you can also find good advice on fasting in general, not necessarily intermittent fasting.
- Reddit Intermittent Fasting Community with people sharing their troubles and experiences
After getting educated, give it a try. As mentioned, the first few days are the hardest, but then it gets much easier. Give it a try, measure your progress and if it works, persevere, if it doesn’t, pivot to something else. Search and experiment and you will find things that work best for you.

Even if you don’t decide for a regular fasting lifestyle, at least skip a few meals the day after you’ve overeaten. That may someday lead you to try intermittent fasting.
Biofeedback
In its broadest sense, biofeedback is an important and popular trend that can help you stay healthy and have a better quality of life. When I talk about biofeedback, I’m talking about using or being connected to electrical devices and sensors that help you to receive information (feedback) about your body (bio). That’s the simple reason why it’s called biofeedback.

Having information about your current state of the body can help you take action and achieve the health result you want more easily, for example reducing the pain and stress level or enhancing your physical performance. The greater the awareness you have of your physiological functions, the easier you can manipulate them and take the right actions. The actions you can take are most often closely connected to changes in your thoughts, emotions and behaviour. In other words, you apply data about your body processes to your personal development plan.

Most frequently, biofeedback is connected to measuring brainwaves, heart function, breathing, muscle activity and skin temperature using sensor modalities like EMG, EDG, EEG, PPG, ECG, REG, HEG, and so on. But since biofeedback is such a cool buzzword, I also use it for simpler body measurements with devices you can afford. With more and more smart and wearable devices on the market, you can measure, observe and take note of many different body functions at home without any professionals.

Basic biofeedback

With more and more smart devices, sensors in your mobile phone and different applications, you can measure many variables of your body functions. They’re very good for measuring inputs (calories intake for example), your body function status (heart rate or weight, for example) and the outputs you get with changing your behaviour (brainwaves when meditating or body fat percentage when changing your diet, for example).

What’s not only a fact of life but also true for your health is that wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups. You don’t want to take actions that influence your health based on your assumptions, but rather actions based on actual data that is as accurate as possible. You can manage only what you measure. Thus your set of biofeedback devices should act as a kind of sixth sense that allows you to see or hear activity inside your body and take more appropriate action.

Here are the variables you can simply measure with smart devices and applications that are easily available to you on the market:
- Aerobic activities – walking, running, hiking etc.
- Anaerobic activities – reps, load etc. when weightlifting
- Blood pressure
- Blood sugar
- Body Fat Percentage
- Body Mass Index
- Brainwaves
- Calories intake
- Hearth rate
- Lean Body Mass
- Nutrition intake
- Sex
- Skin temperature
- Sleep Analysis
- Weight
By taking a relatively cheap test, you can also get feedback on your:
- Blood analysis
- Breathing
- Hormone levels
- Muscle tension
- Many others
Devices and applications

There are more and more devices and applications on the market that enable you to monitor different body functions. In the near future, we can expect even more devices, much more capable ones that will measure an even broader set of functions more accurately and in more detail. Of course wearable technologies and medical devices are also a big business opportunity.

Here are some devices and applications I use for biofeedback fitness:
- Endomondo – anaerobic activities
- Excel – nutrition intake
- Headspace – meditation
- Smart Scale (Fitbit Aria) – weights, body fat percentage
- Blood Sugar Device (Bayer Contour) – blood sugar (buy this one if you want to also measure ketones – GlucoMen LX PLUS)
- Fitness Super Watch – FitBit Surge or Apple Watch (planning to buy)
Online, you can find many lists and reviews of different devices and applications.

Challenges of biofeedback

There are of course some challenges when implementing biofeedback in your life. The first and biggest challenge is time, discipline and thus additional stress. It’s not easy to examine your day-to day life and status of the body’s processes. It’s important to take things step by step, from basic measurements to the more advanced ones. Automating as many things as possible also makes sense.

The second problem is the financial cost. You have to invest some money into an application, devices etc. They’re not that expensive, but you still have to spend some money. Again, going step by step and making sure you actually use the devices you buy is the best way to go. Otherwise you’re just wasting your resources.

Actions you can take

Based on the biofeedback, you can take different actions for your health, mood and energy levels. Most actions are connected to some sort of relaxation or behavioural changes. Thus biofeedback can’t do magic (yet) and cure you of different diseases, but it can definitely help you manage your body and energy levels better. You also get faster feedback if something is going into the wrong direction, for example your body fat percentage.

Apple Health Dashboard, Source: Huffington Post

The most popular actions you can take based on biofeedback:
- Dietary changes
- Taking supplements
- Emotional accounting
- Exercise decrease or increase
- Meditation
- Reframing
- Changing sleep patterns
- Stretching
- Visualization
- Water intake
Biofeedback can help you the most with your fitness and energy levels, getting in shape, managing anxiety, stress and insomnia, headaches and other similar tensions. The final goal of all the effort is using all the data for personal development and behavioural changes to optimize your daily life, potential, how you feel and how much you can achieve.

In the future, I’ll show detailed examples of how I use different devices to gather feedback about my body functions.

Disclaimer: In this blog post, biofeedback is meant in a very broad meaning of the word, measuring basic health stuff with devices you can buy on the market. The blog post doesn’t give any advice for serious health issues. If you are experiencing a serious health issue, you should consult your doctor.