WHY DO WE OVEREAT? WE EAT WAY TOO MUCH!

How Has Tea Brought Me To Intermittent Fasting?

Tea has led me to become more aware in many respects. Food and nutrition is one of those areas I have become more aware about, and intermittent fasting has helped me take control of my life and wellbeing in a much better way. in this article I talk about my experience, heightening my sensitivity through both tea, intermittent fasting, and tuning in to the language of the body.

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As you know, at The Tea Crane, I select teas that are not only organic or pesticide free, but they are actually also good for you. They are delicious, traditionally grown, traditionally crafted teas that I select, and because I drink those teas, I have experienced that over time I’ve become more sensitive and more aware of what is going in on in my body. That is not just because of the properties of the tea, but also because of the fact that this kind of tea – an organically, naturally grown, pesticide free tea that is not heavily fertilized that is very pure in taste – is much milder and subdued in character. And to really get to the taste and the traits of these kinds of tea, you have to train yourself to become more perceptive, receptive and sensitive to the traits of this tea.

So if you drink a tea like this, you’ll become more sensitive to how your body reacts to the tea. You become more mindful of how your body functions, what your body does in response to certain traits of a specific tea. And this does not just limit itself only to tea. It becomes a heightened sensitivity that penetrates in all different layers of life in general. So through interacting with these teas and through training myself and through drinking these teas and and heightening my sensitivity, I’ve also become more aware of how my body reacts to other things, to temperature, to food, to clothes to fabrics, too.

Heightened sensitivity

I’ve become more sensitive in a broader way just simply by interacting with pure natural tea. So the logical next thing in line besides the tea is how your body reacts to food. And your body in general is a great brain of its own. We always try to figure out things in our head and try to look at external resources and research and what other people say and their experiences.

But you have an antenna of your own. We tend to look outside, but we hardly ever look at the antenna itself. Your body is not only a receptor, but it also gives you a lot of signals back about what is going on with yourself. Listening to your body is the most important thing that you can do for yourself. Everything that you do has a response in your body. When you eat, it has an effect on your body.

Food, your fuel

Let’s look at food. Food is the fuel for your body to function. Without food, you can’t do the things that you need to do throughout the day. You need food for your body, so food is fuel. Now imagine if you put the wrong fuel in your car.

Say, you put water in your car. It’s the wrong type of fuel. Will your car move? Obviously, it won’t!

but why don’t we think in that way about our body? If you eat a lot of fast food, if you eat things that don’t necessarily have a lot of nutritional value, then what is the response that your body gives to that type of food?

Very often after a lunch or dinner meal, we feel lethargic. You feel that you need to go to bed. You can’t do anything. That is not how your body should respond to food. You should have food that invigorates your body, that gives you the energy to do the things. That is the function of food, and that is how I come to perceive food as well.

Intermittent Fasting

How did I get to this point? About three years ago, I started intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is something that a lot of people do for, not just their health, but also for weight loss, etc. But I’ve found much more meaning in intermittent fasting than just seeing it as a diet.

It’s become kind of a lifestyle because through intermittent fasting, I’ve grown more aware of when I eat and also what I eat. The purpose of intermittent fasting really is not to change what you eat, it’s to look at the times of when you eat. And if you don’t know what intermittent fasting is, it’s usually expressed by the simple 16:8 principle. 16 stands for the hours that you don’t eat, and 8 stands for the hours that you do eat.

The general idea of intermittent fasting is that you create a 16 hour time slot during which you do not take any food. You only have water and maybe some tea or coffee without cream and sugar. What would that mean in terms of your day to day activities? For example, at 12, at noon you have a meal and at 8 in the evening you finish eating.

That is eight hours of an eating window and 16 hours that you maintain an empty stomach. Now of course, you can shorten it and extend it as well. 16:8 is a good starting point. But you can also do 20:4 or, only have one meal a day, or have two meals at a closer time to each other. And in choosing your approach, what really is important is that you listen to your body and observe how it reacts to it.

Training receptivity

It’s again, something to train your receptivity to the messages that your body sends out. Not only does your body tell you things, you can also tell your body things and ask for a response. So by triggering your body with these intermittent fasting techniques, and by keeping an empty stomach for a long period of time, you can see how your body reacts to it and what eventually the results are of it.

Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

I’ve become happy, more aware of the things around me and more appreciative of the things that are around me. When I fast, I’m also much more invigorated. I thought it was going to be the opposite. If you don’t eat, I thought, you’re not going to have the energy to do the things that you need to do. But having started intermittent fasting, I’ve realized that I actually function better when I don’t eat until in the afternoon.

My mornings are better. If I would start with a breakfast in the morning, I would quickly grow hungry again and become more lethargic and don’t really have the energy to do the things that I want to do. So if I keep that empty stomach state for a longer time, I just feel much more invigorated, energized, happy to go and do the things that I want to do.

When I get to the point where I break that fast and where I do eat, I am so much more appreciative of the food that I get. And on top of that, I also know that today I’m only going to have one meal or two meals, and I’ve only got two opportunities at most to give my body the fuel that it needs to function.

The right fuel

And that’s a great idea. If you give your body the fuel that it needs to function, that is a great feeling! I enjoy it so much more. I’m not just mindlessly eating all the day through because I have cravings and my sugar levels come down and every two hours I need to get something to boost me up.

No, I know that this is the meal that is going to sustain me for most of the activities that are going to come for the day, and I always look for something that invigorates me and that is delicious, that I enjoy eating.

The beauty of intermittent fasting is not that you have to change your eating habits or that you have to limit what you’re eating or cut out things, etc. But if you become receptive to what your body says in response to the fasting, for me at least, I changed the way I eat; I changed what I eat; and I look at food in a completely different way. I enjoy it so much more.

Simply, the truth is we eat way too much. We don’t need three meals in a day. Two meals is enough. In the past, people would also just have breakfast and dinner and have nothing in between.

Some people would have only one meal. I function on days with only one meal. Basically our culture, having three meals a day and snacks in between and something before bed, it’s from what I’ve come to understand, because we’re having way too much sugar. And that is one thing that I’ve become more aware of.

Eliminate sugar

When I started looking at what do I need to eat for my body to be able to sustain itself with just one meal a day, basically, the biggest trick and the the biggest help was to cut out sugar. Just eliminate sugar. Yes, it’s maybe nice and it gives you that nice boost, but basically your glucose spikes up, it comes back dropping down, and in two hours time you need something else because you feel bad.

It’s the bandaid policy that our society basically functions on. When we have a problem, we need to solve it right now. “Put a bandaid on it and don’t worry about what’s gonna happen tomorrow or in an hour or two.” I don’t think that is healthy. So looking at it in a more long term span, what is going to sustain me throughout the day that, if I have it now, is going to give me the energy and make me feel great.

That is what food needs to do. Food is the fuel for my body to function to its fullest potential. When you’re hungry, everything is food. But when you’re full, anything more is poison. This essentially means that when you’re hungry, you can basically have anything. You can have sugar bars or other kind of random things, because those things are needed to survive.

But when you are full, you’ve had your meals in a day and you’re still continuing eating and you have your snacks in between and you have your, glucose spike, crashing down, and you need some sugar to feel better again, then you are just poisoning yourself. And on top of it, think of it again as your car. If you put sugar in your body, if you have fast food for your two meals a day, then quickly you will understand that your body will give you a response saying, “I can’t sustain on this nourishment.”

The beauty of Intermittent Fasting

You will have to start looking for other things. The beauty of intermittent fasting is that it is a tool that puts you in contact with your body and gives you the opportunity to start listening to what your body is saying in order for you to be able to get through the day with only two meals at most.

It isn’t a diet and you don’t have to change what you’re eating, but you’re just limiting yourself to a shorter eating period and you give your body the time to recover. Because when you keep an empty stomach state for an extensive period of time, your body starts to clean itself up and it changes its way of getting energy. It starts to burn through your fat reserves so that it can keep itself going.

You can really go for a long period of time without food. On top of that, you start to think about “What do I need to give my body so that it functions to the best possibility?” And that’s what I find so intriguing, because you give yourself the opportunity to listen to your body and to figure out what your body says in reaction to certain types of food.

Hands on the wheel

It gives you this stool to start experimenting yourself and to activate the connection between you and your body. So instead of thinking about how “the commercial on TV said that you have to go to fast food store A or fast food store B,” maybe try eating it, see what your body says. Try something else, and again see what your body says. Gradually over time, you will figure out which nourishment is best for you and you’ll see that you can take life in your hands and make it so much better.

if you are already fasting, or if you have experience with intermittent fasting or other fasting practices, leave a comment below and let us know what your experience was. And if you haven’t heard about intermittent fasting yet, or you haven’t tried it out yet, give it a try. You can start with a simple 16:8 practice. Have an eight hour food window; or maybe just start by trying to skip breakfast. See how you feel. If you did, also leave a comment.

Stay happy, stay healthy!

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