Clean Fasting for Metabolic Health
Lisa Jasunas
Own your opportunities.
I’m here to tell you that you CAN turn obstacles into opportunities. My own story wasn’t inspiring me, so I chose to re-write it. I released 145 pounds (66 kgs), most of it during a pandemic. You can do hard things! No one said it would be easy, they said it would be worth it.
My life seemed to revolve around food. Whether it was planning for the next meal or comforting myself with it. Food was always a constant through years of low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. I found myself positioning myself behind people in photos or facing the camera with my “good side.” I didn’t leave the house without make up because I was known as the “pretty face.” But why hide when you were born to stand out?
After decades of a lifelong unhealthy relationship with food and disordered eating, I was ready to find the missing tool in my life’s toolbox as weight loss had always been a lifelong impossible feat.
Stats
- Starting weight: 297lbs/135kgs
- Goal weight: 150lbs/68kgs
- Current weight: 180lbs/82kgs
- Highest weight: 325lbs/147kgs
- Height: 5’8/173cm
Between a fast-paced career and late nights pursuing my college degree, the pounds really started to exponentially pack on. In 2009 I had a beautiful son, Jacob, and tragedy struck when he passed away unexpectedly in 2010. In an instant, I was motivated by the number of lives he changed with his time in our family. I had struggled for so long; it was time to put myself first. A year from his death date, I became pregnant with my second son, who brought a joy to my life that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to feel again.
I mustered up the courage to leave my decade long abusive relationship and became a single mother which brought an even faster paced life. After losing Jacob, I never wanted to take life for granted, but it was impossible to LIVE life to the fullest being morbidly obese. Yet, I continued to fill my deep void of losing a child with food. Not only had I severely tanked my metabolism from decades of deprivation dieting and a yo-yo lifestyle, but I was also now living in masked sadness. So, I tried channeling my feelings into exercise with a personal trainer.
Nothing was working.
I went through phases of working out 6 times a week with no reasonable weight loss. It didn’t make sense and was incredibly frustrating, so I dabbled in diet pills, OTC capsules, and trendy diets as I had in the past. Nothing was sustainable and I wasn’t seeing the progress I was expecting to see. I ended up seeking medical advice. I was diagnosed with insulin-resistant polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and I learned that this is a leading cause of weight gain in childbearing women. Since insulin helps control the amount of glucose in the blood, with resistance, the body’s cells don’t respond normally to insulin and glucose can’t enter the cells as easily. It builds up in the blood which leads to weight gain. Since insulin resistance is a time dependent process it is difficult to break that cycle down, but clean intermittent fasting is where the magic happens! That’s why caloric deficit, healthy eating and exercise didn’t work over time for me, and it took this new lifestyle to shake things up. The less time my body responds to insulin releases from food, the more the magic can happen in my body.Relearning my body living with PCOS.
I spent the next 8 years learning about PCOS and how to combat insulin resistance by making my body more sensitive to insulin. It’s important to be metabolically balanced because insulin regulates blood glucose levels, promotes fat storage, and even help breaks down fats and protein. After marrying my husband, I devoted my focus to my health AGAIN so we could eventually add to our family, but PCOS also is a leading cause of infertility and we struggled. In 2018, I miscarried. When I searched on the internet to what helped with insulin resistance, I found intermittent fasting as a leading lifestyle, but since I was so use to “dieting” I was drawn to the searches that required changing what I was going to eat versus WHEN I was going to eat. I began to follow a low glycemic food intake style based on this web search and finally started to see weight release.
The Clean Fast.
When you aren’t eating, your insulin level goes down and leads you to ketosis sometime after 18 hours-ish, and fat is used for fuel in a fat burning state rather than glucose from food. By consuming only water, unflavored sparking water, black coffee and black or green tea during your fasting window, you use your own fuel for energy. Clean fasting minimizes hunger and maximizes fat burn because it keeps our circulating insulin low. If you put cream and sugar into your coffee, your body will choose to burn the fuel you added to your coffee. Even chewing gum flexes your jaw which tells your brain you’re about to feed it, which can trigger hunger and insulin release. Little changes add up to remarkable results. The choice is yours!Surround yourself with a like-minded village.
I’ve been on this journey for 2.5 years now and I could not have done it alone. I listen to a handful of podcasts during my fasts to stay motivated and continue learning. Hearing the stories of others is inspiring. I found Gin Stephen’s Delay, Don’t Deny Intermittent Fasting Support Facebook group which provided many tools and guidance from others. I then found Delay, Don’t Deny! Advanced Support for Clean Fasting which I lean on for daily support. Sharing the knowledge of fasting has become a passion of mine. I created a health page on Instagram, and you can find me @losinglisa_fastingaway. You can hear more of my story on the podcasts below.
Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live – Jim Rohn.
Naturally, other areas of my life have been impacted for the better by me taking control of my life with IF. Fasted exercise has become my favorite form of movement. Once you become fat adapted your body burns fat for fuel instead of food for fuel which can help increase energy, decrease cravings, and improve sleep. Fat adaptation is a long-term metabolic adjustment to ketosis, a state in which your body burns fat for fuel instead of carbs. Exercise is important for my mental health, so I try to incorporate it daily with walks on breaks at work, 10 minute workouts of functional movements to get my heart rate up (jumping jacks, pushups, planks, wall sits, etc.) and getting outside with my family. Before finding this lifestyle, I had more excuses than actions.Day one or One day?
You decide if this is DAY ONE or ONE DAY. Your greatest wealth is health. Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come, get up and make them. Start slow. This life isn’t something meant to be extreme, there are such things in our body as fasting muscles that we must strengthen to be successful in our fasting. You can adjust your plan when you are ready. Most importantly, mix it up to keep your body guessing!
I always tell anyone on this journey who may be struggling that weight loss is not linear. Over time, slow progress adds up. Give it time, patience is key. This is for L*IF*E. We are changing decades of poor decisions and bad habits; we can’t change these overnight.
The greatest gift was finding clean intermittent fasting. I hope to continue to plant the seed and watch this lifestyle become mainstream. I hope to motivate those around me to use tools in life that keep it worth living, even when it gets too tough to bear.
LISTEN TO MORE OF MY STORY ON THESE PODCASTS
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Great story!! This journey is amazing!!
So inspiring! I love how you threaded quotes throughout your story and it just flowed so well. So proud of you for taking control despite your challenges in life!