In every person’s life, there’s a turning point. For me, it was when my 3 year old looked at me and said, “Dad! Stand up straight!” She wasn’t referring to my posture but my weight. It was pretty obvious that she was comparing me to the other fathers in the store. I felt a searing pain go through me and it wasn’t because 30 minutes earlier, I had been stung by a blue bottle jelly fish. So began my quest to stop looking like Daddy Pig. It was December 2017 and I was 84.85kg. I should be 67kg for my height.
So I worked out a plan to lose weight. The usual story. No bread, limited carbs, exercise & good old-fashioned weeping & gnashing of teeth while passing the aisle of temptation before the cashier. Damn you, Nestle!
Let me be frank, I was suffering and progress was slow. To make matters worse, being gluten free was causing problems. My body was becoming intolerant to it. Can you imagine the pain of watching others eat a mutton bunny? There’s only so much an Indian can handle.
Habitual Hunger?
I’ve been working on my spiritual growth as well and wanted to understand fasting. I found a great video by Dr. Myles Munroe on Youtube. He made a statement that sounded odd. He said that the hunger pangs that you feel are habitual. Your body expects food at certain times and secretes the necessary digestive juices to get the job done. The first 8 days will be tough then your body will re-calibrate itself according to your eating habits or lack there of during your fast.
I always assumed that hunger pangs meant your body requires food. If this is not the case then we’re eating due to a routine and not because we need it. So that begs the question, how often should we be eating? How often did previous generations eat? I started digging around and found a three-part documentary on Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. One hour each of watching an old English woman talk to historians, chefs, clergy and everyone in between. Let me spare you the agony and give you the gist of it. Three meals a day started in the industrial revolution. For centuries, people mostly ate one meal per day.
That makes sense. Think about the time that Abraham met three men and asked them to stay while he prepares something for them to eat. (Genesis 18.) Here’s an except:
Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”
“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”
So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”
Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.
So they baked bread, slaughtered the calf, cooked it and then the visitors ate? Holy Moly, How long did all this take? I can’t even wait 15 minutes in the drive through. We’re accustomed to eating at certain times and we get our food “instantly”, back then you had to really work for it, if you want to have a meal.
The Romans believed that anyone that ate more than one meal a day was a glutton. Let’s consider the dynamics of making breakfast in ancient times.
Breakfast
There’s no electricity. No lights, no fridge, no stove! Nothing! You wake up when the sun rises. If you feel like bacon, you have to slaughter the pig. Need milk? Milk the cow! Want to cook something? Start a fire!
What time are you going to get to work? They never ate breakfast in the morning. They use to “break” their “fast” later in the day. So their breakfast was actually our lunch. There goes our modern day breakfast. No need for it. Come to think of it, only cereal commercials say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I wonder why?
So let’s break it down. In ancient times, people ate one meal a day. After the industrial revolution, it changed to 3 meals per day. Now we hear that we should eat 5 small meals per day. And exercise our butts off to lose the damn weight. Every second person is obese. Why is it increasing? As far as I can tell, the only people that benefit from higher consumption are the food processing companies. We’re eating way to much and it’s impossible to burn it off.
Talk is cheap, let’s test this theory!
I eat one time each day. Around 11:45, I start to forage for food in the kitchen. I haven’t been eating “clean”, just a bit of everything. Cereal, last night’s supper that I missed, whatever was there. I’d line them up and have a mini buffet for one. I eat around 12:00. I was 84.85kg in December 2017. It’s June 2018 and I’m 74kgs. Just one meal per day and moderate exercise. Think about it like this. If your expenses are more than your income then your bank account will be skinny. If your income is more and your expenses are less, your bank account will grow fat. So if you eat one meal a day, your body has to use the fat for energy to supplement itself. It does this naturally. If you eat three meals a day, you have to increase your output to burn it otherwise you’ll get fat. It’s as simple as that. If you’re an office worker that sits behind a desk, you don’t need to eat as much as someone that digs ditches the whole day. He needs more food as his job requires more energy. Once I reach my goal weight, I’ll have to find an equilibrium between my food intake and my energy expenditure. That’s the tricky part. Keep in mind that this is a change in lifestyle, not a diet.
In the next article, I will go through the practical elements of losing weight this way. I get that what I said is controversial. Frankly, I stumbled upon this information inadvertently but I think I’m on to something. Thus I’m using myself to test my theory and I’m sharing the journey with you. Let me know your thoughts on this. If you’re going to try this, make sure you check with a medical professional before doing anything drastic. Take Care.