Sometimes it’s easy to forget why we do the things we do. 
And it’s also easy to forget what’s important.
With Fasting, it’s not the hormonal stuff that’s the most important.
It’s the mental part.
For fasting to work it must be associated with positive reinforcement. When you finish a 24 hour fast, you should feel really good.
Because you finished.
You accomplished your goal.
You won.
The problem occurs when you get USED to fasting.
Once your used to fasting.. you forget about the positive reinforcement. And this can lead you to using fasting as PUNISHMENT.
Not good.
Fasting should not be a punishment.
As an example:
You have a bad night of eating..so you FORCE yourself to fast the
next day. You are now associating Fasting with something negative.
This can make fasting STOP working and it could lead to binging before and after.
Bottom line: Don’t use fasting as a punishment (Simple message)
Always remember, fasting should be positive.
Here is a great Facebook message I received from Agnes about this exact topic:
“Seems that when I don’t use the fasting to punish myself and save calories for eating poorly or too much the day before I do much better. I hope that’s some insight to others.”
So if you want to make sure Eat Stop Eat keeps working remember to keep it positive. Don’t use your fasts as a punishment, use it as a tool to lose weight, and build positive momentum.
Every time you complete a 24 hour fast, it’s a small win for you.
(Yeah you!)
just a friendly reminder for this holiday season.
BP
Nice reminder. Thanks Brad.
This is pretty much why I’d problem with few of my recent fasts, it was because I was using them as a “punishment”. Thanks for this reminder Brad.
Thanks Brad. I was heading into a bad place with fasting as punishment and forgot how great those first few fasts felt. Thanks for the kick in the pants!
I reframed being hungry from needing to eat to the concept that I was accomplishing my weight loss, but have to eat and so it is easy to go from the reframing to the idea that eating is not helping weight loss goals and setting us back. Especially if we have eaten something as a reward, or eaten something we feel we should not have eaten. So we can feel guilty from eating and burn out from that.
Brad comes up with a middle path here that is sustainable – the idea that the fast is the goal and not that I have to lose 20kg asap.
I am fine to dial it down until I am losing 1kg per week and let the time pass. There is no contest here except staying on the middle path and following to the end goal. The long term sustainable goal.