Busy day or week? Here’s a tip: Don’t eat. Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern (not diet) where you restrict the timeframe for when you consume calories. The window should be at most 8 hours, preferably as small as 4-5 hours. By leveraging intermittent fasting, you will receive 2 bonuses to increased productivity:
- You save time by not eating until dinner. The saved time from not having breakfast or lunch (and not thinking about it) easily adds one hour of free time per day
- By not eating, you will avoid the heavy and tired feeling that comes after having a meal, especially lunch. Done correctly, you will have a balanced energy level throughout the day, without the plummets after consuming food
It may sound tough to simply “not eat” for an extended period of time, but trust me, it’s not. The human body was not built for being stuffed with food every living hour anyway. You may feel hungry the 2-3 first days of trying it, but after that you quickly get used to it.
It’s important to underline the “consume calories” part. To do intermittent fasting properly and avoid getting hungry, you must not consume any calories in the calorie free window. The only thing you should consume is water, coffee and tea with little to no sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners will trick the body to believe its feeding time, so diet sodas are off the table.
Intermittent fasting really is a productivity booster, so test it out for a few days and get a feel for it. We can talk about its effect for brain health, cancer and longevity some other day.
