Shortest feeding window yet

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  For those of us who are Roman Catholic, it’s the beginning of Lent, a solemn religious observance lasting 40 days until Easter.  Since Sundays don’t count, the 40 days cover a 46-day period. During Lent, we’re invited to the three traditional practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. 

On Ash Wednesday, we’re obligated to fast and abstain from eating meat.  Now this fast permits one full meal during the day. And if you read the fine print, you can have some food at other times of the day, if necessary, but combined the amount consumed should be less than a full meal.  The other fine print is that this fasting obligation applies only if you’re between the ages of 18 to 59.

So, this middle-aged man “technically” didn’t have to fast yesterday, but he did.

In my olden days before experimenting with and practicing secular intermittent fasting (IF), I’d struggle on Ash Wednesday because my gut and mind were not conditioned for the demands of fasting.  Now that I’m a skilled IF-practitioner, this Ash Wednesday fasting obligation is something I consider “fasting light.”  It’s not that difficult and yesterday was a good example.

Yesterday I was extremely busy with work and it seemed that no matter how hard I tried during the day, an opportunity never presented itself for me to come up for air, or eat.

Normally when I practice IF, I set my feeding window in advance and stick to it.  A feeding window is IF jargon referring to the inclusive period in a 24-hour day during which an IF-practitioner will eat. 

So, if I’m practicing Fast 5, one of many versions of IF, my feeding window is five hours.  It might begin, for example, at 2:00 p.m. and last until 7:00 p.m.  During this feeding window, my mouth is open for the business of eating and closed all other hours.  Based on my experience, a 5-hour feeding window works well for me and that’s what I do most of the time.

Yesterday, however and like I said, I was very busy with work so I didn’t eat for the first time until 7:18 p.m. in the evening.  This is very unusual for me.  And I still had work I wanted to get done so, after I finished eating at 7:29 p.m., I resumed working for a couple more hours.

Therefore, all the eating I did yesterday was during these 11 minutes on an IF-day that turned out to be a new world record for me of my shortest feeding window yet.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum