I have decided to make a series of different articles with the topic of minimalism. They will be called “The Minimalistic Way of:” and then I will dive into different topics.
This article is about how we can have a more minimalistic approach to our eating habits.
We all know that eating three meals a day is the most healthy way to eat. So the only thing we can discuss is what we are going to eat in those three meals.
WRONG!
Eating three meals a day is only a western cultural norm. There is an avalanche of studies showing up these days how NOT eating is can be healthier for us humans.
How can fasting makes us healthier?*
- Reducing Insulin Resistance
- Fighting Inflammation
- Hearth Health
- Boost Brain Function
- Boosting Metabolism / Weight loss
- Increases Growth Hormone (getting buff as fuck)**
- Longevity***
- Cancer Prevention
These are “only” the benefits fasting can have to our physic.
But fasting can also benefit us in our daily life.
Different Ways of Fasting
Fasting can be done in many different ways. But one of the more popular one is called 16/8, 8 hour diet or time restricted eating.
This means that we will be fasting for 16 hours (including sleep) and eat for 8 hours. The benefits of fasting already occurs when we have not eaten for 12 hours. But the sweet spot is around 16-24 hours.
Some of the most popular fasting patterns looks something like this:
16/8: This where we eat for 8 hours and fast for 16 hours (including sleep). This can be done by skipping breakfast, and only eat lunch and dinner. This is often done daily, or every weekday. When you get used to it, it is not that hard to do daily. This is also my favourite, because you save time daily.
OMAD: One meal a day. There is not much to it than that. It is one of the more extreme regiments. We could also call it 23:1. Fasting for 23 hours, and eating for 1 hour. I have heard some rumors about that Jakob Lund Fisker from earlyretirementextreme.com should eat this way.
5:2: Is more extreme the days we do fast, but we have more “normal” days. It suggest that in two non-consecutive days we will eat 500 kcal/day for women, and 600 kcal/day for men. For the other five days we eat normal. The fasts are typical done in Mondays and Thursdays.
How Fasting Can Save Us Time
If you decide to do the fasting I prefer, which is the 16/8. You will end up saving time each and everyday. 16/8 means that you fast for 16 hours (including sleep) and eat for 8 hours. And we can do that by only eating lunch and dinner, and skip breakfast.
Breakfast is the least social meal in our daily routine. Lunch is often spent at the job with co-workers, and dinner with the family.
But if we can skip breakfast, we don’t have to prepare that meal in the morning. When I have days like this. I can wake up at 7 AM, and be out on my bike on my way to training/work 7:15 AM. That is awesome. The only thing I spent time on will be:
- Take a piss
- Getting dressed
- Drink a glass of water
- Brush my teeth
- Pack a gym bag
And if I’m super lazy this will take me 30 minutes. And if I’m in a hurry, it can be done in 5 minutes. No need to spent hours in the morning. Instead I can sleep for another hour, rather than sit crunched over a bowl of oatmeal.
How Fasting Can Save Us Money
Let’s imagine again that we decide to give the 16/8 protocol a chance. So we skip one meal, and we decide it will be the breakfast. Breakfast is not the most expensive meal. It is cheap to eat breakfast at home. That won’t cost us more than 2 $/meal. But if we are one of those types who grabs something on our way to job. It can easily cost us 10 $/meal, for a croissant, coffee and a juice. But I imagine that people who reads this site is not that stupid with their money.
So let’s go for the 2 $/meal for the breakfast.
Preparing and eating breakfast can take between 15-30 minutes, give or take. If we imagine that we can be 30 minutes earlier on work each day. Because we don’t have to think about breakfast each morning. This leaves us with 10 hours/month of more work. If we have a job where we can work overtime, of course.
If we earn 15 $/hour after taxes the equation would look something like this:
15 $ x 10 hours = 150 $ + (2 $/meal x 30 days = 60 $) = 210 $/month
210 $/month for doing absolutely NOTHING!
How awesome is that?!
But it’s getting better.
Because you are an avid reader of this page. You do some index investing. If you can form this habit for the next 10 years. And invest those 210 $ each month.
If we have an annual 7 % ROI for those 210 $/month, your portfolio is going to be about 37.000 $ higher 10 years from now.
37.000 $ FOR DOING FREAKING NOTHING!
I think it is insane.
We are not doing anything. Research shows us that we are likely to be healthy doing so. AND we will be 37.000 $ richer.
Not to mention CO2 emission. ****
What’s not to like?
Think about this. In the western society we have never been fatter than we are today. And we are causing to much damage on the world. Food is one of the major reasons for this. The equation look like this:
Eating the we way do now + We will get to fat and sick = To much CO2
It seem so obvious. Everybody will win in this situation, just by skipping a couple of meals each week.
Just try it.
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*https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/fasting-benefits
***https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/longer-daily-fasting-times-improve-health-and-longevity-mice
****https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=325&v=nUnJQWO4YJY
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