Let me confess something right off the bat: justification is one of my greatest strengths. It’s practically an Olympic sport for me. Dinner is my one consistent meal, while lunch is a rare luxury, and breakfast? It might as well be a weekend-only unicorn. When someone mentioned intermittent fasting as a health-boosting lifestyle, I practically jumped up and declared, “I don’t have erratic eating habits; I’m just a health visionary turbo-charging my body’s natural processes!”
But here’s the thing—whether you call it intermittent fasting or just life happening, there’s a grain of truth to the idea that giving your body a break can be surprisingly beneficial. Not eating for a bit doesn’t make you a nutritional delinquent; it’s more like hitting the reset button on a system that’s constantly working to take out the trash.
And let’s talk about trash—because metabolism, for all its wonders, isn’t exactly pristine. Even the best “beyond organic” foods in the world leave behind waste after they’re processed. Your body tries its best to clean house, but when you’re eating all day long, it barely gets a chance to do anything else. It’s like running a marathon with no water breaks; eventually, things are going to get messy.
Enter fasting: a pause in the feast to let your body catch up on its chores. Don’t think of it as deprivation; think of it as giving your digestive system the downtime it deserves. And this isn’t just me winging it—nature practically invented the concept. In the wild, no creature eats whenever it wants, as much as it wants, every single day. Feasting and famine are natural rhythms, and maybe we humans could benefit from adopting a little of that balance ourselves.
Not that I’m recommending you go off the deep end and starve yourself. Healthy fasting isn’t about suffering; it’s about finding a rhythm that works for you. Skip breakfast, eat between 12 and 8 p.m., or try a longer break here and there. No, you won’t shrivel up like a raisin overnight. But you might find your body feels sharper, cleaner, and less bogged down by all the snacking we’ve made second nature.
So here’s to feasting, fasting, and finding balance. Pull up a chair and tell me—how do you fuel your days, and do you ever give your body the break it deserves?
