“The philosophy of fasting calls upon us to know ourselves, to master ourselves, and to discipline ourselves the better to free ourselves. To fast is to identify our dependencies, and free ourselves from them.” Tariq Ramadan
Fasting is Hard
No one enjoys fasting, but as the quote above says, the journey to self-mastery, discipline, and personal freedom is worth the hunger pains we experience.
A 2020 survey revealed that 24% of Americans had tried intermittent fasting as part of a weight loss program.
The biggest obstacle is working through hunger pains as we learn to fast.
This article discusses three major points to help you with your hunger in fasting:
- Six Tips to Lower Hunger While Fasting
- Who You Can See About Your Hunger in Fasting
- How Tiger Medical Helps With Fasting and Hunger Pains
Six Tips to Lower Hunger While Fasting
Here are six basic strategies to lower your hunger while fasting.
1. Hydrate
Your brain can confuse dehydration with being out of body fuel.
2. Consume More Protein
When you lower carbs and increase fat and protein intake, you will convert from burning only carbs and glucose to burning fat, reducing hunger and providing longer energy.
3. Eat More High-Fiber Foods
This will lower ghrelin levels (which decreases the need to eat).
4. Improve Sleep
Poor sleep makes the body compensate by consuming more calories, usually bad quality!
5. Diaghphragmic Breathing
This will disarm the stress response on demand, improving your cortisol profile and lowering your desire to eat.
6. Scheduling
Plan your fast to start after dinner, then all through the night to maximize the easier hours of fasting. Then you only have to battle the hunger pains in the morning.
Who You Can See About Your Hunger in Fasting
1. Physician
The first option is to see a physician.
They can explain several strategies to lower your hunger, such as those listed above.
For some, taking a prescription medication to lower appetite may be appropriate to gain momentum in your weight loss goals.
2. Nutritionist
The next option is to see a nutritionist who can walk through switching from burning carbs to fats and proteins.
A nutritionist can help you find foods that will increase the hours you can live without hunger pains.
3. A Certified Functional Health Coach
A third option is to work with a certified functional health coach you can find here.
Certified health coaches have a solid understanding of fasting and overcoming hunger pains.
How Tiger Medical Helps With Fasting and Hunger Pains
Tiger Medical Institute is a specialty medical clinic focused on advanced functional and restorative medicine.
Our focus is on the driven professional who has achieved success but feels their health has been compromised and wants to get ahead of any severe issues proactively.
Tiger employs a three-step process with each patient that has proven to resolve the underlying causes of your symptoms repeatedly.
These symptoms keep you from showing up as the best version of yourself and sap personal productivity.
Here is how Tiger Medical helps:
- Test for underlying mechanisms that may be working against your fasting.
- Customize treatment and lifestyle changes specifically for optimal health and focus.
- Partner with your Tiger doctor and health coach to implement the plan for a year!
Tiger Medical employs advanced tests to view your health profile comprehensively.
You complete a health history survey, and our doctors review, interview, and customize your testing based on what they learn about you.
From test results, we customize your health recovery path. You then enter into the Tiger Medical process that generates results consistently over time.
You can go here to learn from previous Tiger clients how our approach worked for them!
Lastly, it is essential to understand Tiger Medical is not primary care. We recommend that you first seek your local doctor’s opinion, remain under the supervision of your primary care doctor, and augment their care with a specialty clinic like Tiger when it makes sense.
Your Next Best Steps
If, based on the information you have reviewed here in our article and on our website, you feel Tiger Medical is a good fit, then the next best step is to go here to book an assessment call with a Tiger Professional.
In this first call, the meeting is about learning your history, struggles, and goals. This is a valuable assessment process that aids you in deciding if one of Tiger’s programs works to meet your needs.
We want to ensure that you are a good fit for our program and that our Tiger team can help you resolve your challenges.
It’s time to make yourself patient number one and embrace self-care.
The first step in that process is to meet with us to learn how!
For further reading, view the following articles on our learning center:
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