Hello everyone! I hope that all of you are well. 🙂 I was asked to write about exercise and fasting, more specifically the dos and don’t of exercising while fasting. Based upon my experiences, I’ve put together a short list.
DO your research – Before I even started the first fast, I did a ton of research. One of the questions that I looked for was if it was ok to exercise while fasting. There are a number of blogs out there that discuss this in pretty good detail. The best ones I found were the ones that talked about how they felt while exercising and after exercising. Granted, everyone is different, but reading the stories are truly encouraging and you can get great tips as well.
DON’T exercise at the beginning of your fast. The beginning of the fast is the best time to really observe your body and the changes and signals that you experience. It is important to get to know how you feel at different times of the day. It is vital to be able to recognize your bodies signals for when you are hungry and when you’re having a “healing reaction”, which is a type of ill feeling that happens when your body needs to release toxins that have been stirred up as a result of the fast. It could mean headache, nausea, a stomachache, back pain, or something else. Typically, once you eliminate the waste from your system, the reaction goes away. The point is that the beginning of the fast should be spent becoming acclimated to your bodies reactions and changes. Once you feel comfortable, then…
DO pick a time to exercise. I highly recommend exercising in a relatively consistent manner. Pick whether you want to exercise in the morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s been my experience that I can manage my body’s response to the fast better if I keep things consistent and on schedule. For example, I typically did my salt water flush every day between 9 and 10. That way, my system was completely flushed by 11:30 at the latest. I liked to exercise in the morning. When fasting, my energy was pretty high, and when I exercised I felt energized and exhilarated. When I exercised at night, I found it harder to get to sleep.
DO take it easy when you exercise. You are operating on a limited caloric intake, so it is important to dial back your routine a little bit. Pace yourself, especially when you first start out.
DO drink plenty of water. Water helps to flush toxins and when you are fasting, toxins are being stirred up in the body and they need to be flushed. Water will help that. It will help ease some of your reactions.
Exercising during a fast can feel great, but please be careful and if at any time you feel ill, then stop. Don’t overdo it! Please feel free to ask me any other questions if you have any. Good luck!