First of all... don't be scared by the mention of the word fasting. I'm not asking you to starve yourself and drink only water.
If you're struggling with weight loss, especially while eating carbs, I can guess you have a history of losing weight and gaining weight. You struggle with what to eat, how much to eat and how much to exercise.
Eventually this struggle results in decision fatigue, at that point you just want to give up having to expend energy making health decisions where you are constantly having to weigh your values and goals against your immediate wants and needs.
This constant weighing back and forth is exhausting. Everyone from President Obama to Steve Jobs has spoken about how simplifying their decision making process has saved their sanity.
If you are constantly wondering how and what you're going to eat, a lot of your mental energy is consumed by what should be a simple decision. Your brain, though, only wants to make so many decisions. A diet "plan" seems to solve this problem by telling you what to eat, until your immediate needs of your body and mind take over and you give up following the plan. One reason that your body's needs take over is because your body is not being able to access and use your fat stores for energy, so its sending signals to your brain that its starving and you should SEND FOOD NOW!
And so you eat, anything you can find!
If you are struggling to use fat as energy, you have an insulin issue, I'm not claiming you are pre-diabetic or have metabolic syndrome, but your insulin is probably out of whack some how.
Getting insulin low is the key to unlocking your fat stores and using them. All foods affect insulin to some degree, but any starchy carb or refined sugar is the worst at spiking your insulin up high and putting a pad lock on your fat stores, while maybe even adding to them.
Intermittent fasting helps correct insulin imbalances by making your body more sensitive to insulin, so it needs to make less of it and it uses it better. It seems to allow the body to access and use their fat stores, which means you lose body fat without feeling so uncomfortable.
Women seem to be better suited to fasting about 14-15 hours at a time and it seems to give them similar results to a man's 18 hour fast. This would mean eating your last meal at 8pm and not eating again until 10 am. If you normally eat until 11pm and then get up at start eating around 6 or 7 am, this one change would almost double your "fasting" period.
Intermittent Fasting and decreasing your insulin is one area that the original Newport Skinny Tea program can definitely help you with, if you eat your dinner between 7-8pm and have your evening tea after that, you will not have any additional increases in your insulin, which will allow your body to go into fat burning mode during the night.
The same goes with the morning, if you can get up and just drink your tea, do some exercise and not eat until 10 am, you will likely become more sensitive to insulin. You will be using up any stored energy in your muscles and then when you eat your body will be able to use it instead of store it.
Also, in Newport Skinny Tea there are several ingredients that help your insulin sensitivity, cinnamon is well known to help you be more insulin sensitive. Kokum (Carcinia Cambogia) also helps your pancreas repair its beta cells, which produce insulin. Green and black tea also make your body better at using body fat.
This week I want you to try to increase your resting "fasting" period to 8pm until 10am. If this feels uncomfortable, then go slow, increase it by 20-30 minutes at a time, in one week that can be three and a half hours!
Jennifer XOXO
PS this email is not medical advice and should never be considered as such, please contact your doctor for specific medical advice regarding your personal medical history.