It is true: It´s easier to stick to a specific way of eating if you are on your normal schedule.
It can be more challenging during the holiday season when feasting is an integral part of the celebrations or when you are invited to a party.
Invited? What to do?
Don´t panic: Incorporate your fasting into your life. You do not live for fasting, you fast for living.
When you are doing OMAD and you are invited to a wedding that includes lunch, coffee, and dinner, you can of course do the lunch and skip the rest. For sure you´ll have the coffee, but you say no to the cake and during dinner you only take part in the social gathering, but not indulging food. If you want to do that: That´s perfect and perfectly fine. But maybe you do not want that for whatever reason.
You can also enjoy the feasting and have lunch, coffee, and dinner. That´s absolutely ok. Feasting is part of your life as much as fasting is. And I guess it´s not common to be all the time at events or parties that will lead you to break your fast early or extend your eating windows.
If you decide on extending your eating window for a special occasion, you can compensate for the feasting.
Compensate your feasting
Today I want to show you two easy ways to compensate for the extended eating window during the party. You can do either one of them or both.
1. Extent the fast prior to the party
Add a couple of hours to your fasting before joining the party. That´s it!
Let´s assume, the party is on Saturday and you know about it a couple of days ahead. Plan accordingly and move your last meal before the party. Instead of eating Friday noon, you can have your last meal Friday morning or even none at all.
2. Extent the fast after the party
The party was great and you had a lot of fun, met wonderful people and enjoyed the food!
Fantastic - that is what a party is all about. After your last bite on Saturday evening, your fasting started and now you add a couple of hours on top of your normal fasting window.
It´s Sunday and you are back home: Relax and give your body the time to digest. Monday comes and you can decide whether you go for breakfast (36 hours of fasting), lunch (40 hours of fasting), or dinner (46 hours of fasting).
The easiest for me would be to start on Monday with lunch to keep my schedule of OMAD with the meal during my lunch break. What about you?
Make it an exception
How often are you invited to such events per year?
If you now say: Well - basically every weekend, I´d suggest finding a proper schedule that you can have a fasting regime to support your body and your health, but also enjoy the celebrations. However - if you´re all the time at such parties, you might find it easier to only celebrate one meal and stick to the conversations and dancing for the rest of the time.
If it is on the other hand just a couple of times per year like in my case, you will find it easy to simply enjoy the party and feast and compensate accordingly to avoid elevated high insulin levels. Big parties are special because they are an exception to our normal days. Let´s treat them like that: Exceptions.
Tips for the feasting
During Easter, Christmas, weddings, birthdays, and other celebrations, we are traditionally getting tons of delicious offerings for food and cakes and treats.
To make it as beneficial for you make sure to keep the following tips in mind:
Feasting is part of your fasting lifestyle: Enjoy it
Do not snack between the meals
Focus on whole food like vegetables and fatty meats
Avoid sugary treats
Avoid highly processed foods
Don´t drink sugar
Eat until you are full
Stop eating when you are full
Have a glass of water with a sip of apple vinegar before the big meal
Enjoy the great food and conversations