In the last 15-18 months I have tried many things related to my health and wellbeing, including fasting. There are obvious reasons behind doing all this mix and match.
Unfortunately, I have diabetes and pancreatitis.
Both these health conditions bring me to try and experiment various physical activities and food habits.
During this time, I tried fasting for a month, only on Sundays. Most thinkable reason for choosing Sundays is, it is a non-working day, and I can stay indoors doing almost nothing.
Regular activities that I do on a regular working days, will burn whole lot of calories and practising fast on such a day wouldn’t be a nice move.
So, what kind of fast I was doing and why I stopped it later after trying for one month, read till end.
Why I started Fasting?
I wanted to put my body to reset, and that brings to me observe fasting.
There are many ways one can have fasting – it can be very focused for specific reasons like weight loss, digestive system reset, etc.
My expectations from fasting were to give my digestive system a break every week. Literally I used to feel energized throughout the rest of the week.
But I am not sure, whether it was due to fasting or was it due to the excitement of keeping the fast.
Psychologically (though this is my personal experience), fasting plays a very crucial role in elevating the mood. It challenges your mind and body equally.
Hence, it is directly helping you in developing the resilience and discipline one need with eating habits.
Poor eating habits is a major contributor in lifestyle health diseases, which are increasing alarmingly fast now.
What kind of fasting I was doing?
It was in later months of 2025, around the month of August. I used to observe complete fasting, without consulting doctor, which I think (now), I shouldn’t have done.
So, what I used to eat or drink during the entire day.
I start my day with morning cup of black coffee. Then until noon, I eat nothing, start feeling little hungry. But this is the time when I used to push myself.
In entire day, I used to have a plenty of fluids, buttermilk, coconut water, lemonade, plain RO water, and that is it. I do consume 2-3 cups of black coffee spread throughout the day.
By the evening, around 7-8, I used to have tapioca pearls. Soaked overnight in room temperature water. I add 3-4 tablespoon curd and a tablespoon of jaggery powder to it.
This is my entire day’s diet for a fast.
So, Why I stopped after One Month!
Like I said earlier, I am diabetic, for me, observing a full day of fast comes with some real challenges.
When I put my body through the whole day of fasting, I ensuring not taking my medicines, including the insulin in the morning.
Not eating anything during the entire time, my blood sugar would go down drastically and can result in hypoglycaemia (It didn’t happen), but that can be risky.
When you go from fasting to eating on Mondays, I tend to overeat.
Sometimes, I do plan my Monday meals on my fasting day itself, as a token of treating myself for my hard work put on the day of fasting.
Considering these challenges, I started following other lifestyle changes, which eventually helped me in controlling blood sugar.
How My Eating Habits Changed After I Quit Fasting
Firstly, I was more focused about my eating habits. I started thinking about ways to modify my eating habits. I bring in lot of changes, like;
- I came down to eating lot of vegetables and fruits during the entire day.
- Controlled eating non-vegetarian, while earlier I used to eat chicken, eggs, fish and prawn at least 3-4 times a week. Now I eat only fish, that too 4-5 times a month.
- Stopped consuming dairy products, excluding curd.
- I also worked on structuring macronutrients in my food. Now I make sure my meals have portions of proteins, fat, fibre along with carbs.
- Tried to find and add more sources of protein in my diet. Chickpeas, kidney beans, whole mung, Bengal gram, become important part of my diet.
- I used to consume seeds like chia, sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I added flax seeds for heart health.
- Now I use to cook everything in cold pressed groundnut oil. Earlier, I was using coconut oil and ghee (Clarified butter).
- Air fryer is used more often than not. Particularly my snacks. I air fry, fritters and samosa. Air fryer decreases the use of cooking oil.
- Salads are now an integral part of my diet. I eat a lot of meals with green salads or sometimes protein salads now.
- Stopped eating ultra processed snacks. Air fried groundnut is one of snacks I eat a lot.
- Eat when you feel hungry. For me, I use to eat my breakfast (DIP Diet, you would love to read about this) after 9AM, have my lunch around 1-1.30 PM and my dinner around 7PM. This allows me an intermittent fasting window of 14 hours. Due to regularity in my meals, I generally feel hungry around the same time daily.
So, if you are diabetic or have any other health condition and not able to do fasting like myself, you can consider the above-mentioned changes in your eating habits.
If you are trying any of these methods, share your experience.
And, if you already have a similar experience, let us all know about it in the comments.
We can cover your experiences in a dedicated blog. 😊
