While traveling, weight fluctuation has been a worry of mine, especially in Colombia with very calorie & carb dense meals. Well so luck would have it (or wouldn’t!) I got food poisoning from fish in Salento, Colombia.
So whether I wanted to or not, I ended up not eating for 36 hours. This was definitely the first time in my life that I had gone over one full day without a meal. And while the food poisoning was pure agony and totally different than real fasting it definitely opened me up to the idea of fasting.
I had previously read about partial day fasting, eating during an 8 hour block, say 12pm-8pm and then fasting for the next 16 hours. Most people follow a normal 16-8 eating pattern where after dinner they don’t eat again until breakfast. And if you are eating after dinner just note this is where all your gained weight comes from!
Other travelers I had read about had success with this 8-16 strategy in high caloric cities, where eating 3-4 meals in a day would be too much to offset walking/exploring.
Others had taken it even a step further with daily fasting. I don’t recommend this without proper research of current macro intakes and to really be meticulous with tracking how much fluids you are taking in on fasting days. I think this is something that is to be worked up to. If I were to experiment with an all day fast I would plan it for a long travel day, where most of the day would be spent on bus/plane sleeping, aka limiting the amount of energy i’m expending.
For normal traveling days, after my morning priming and HIIT (high intensity interval training) full body 20 minute workout, I still find myself eating 3 regular meals at approximately the same time as I would in the States. I assume this is due to prior habits, i.e. this is the only daily eating pattern I’m accustomed to so no matter what my diet consists of, I will still intake 3 large meals.
It’s interesting when we think of needing 3 meals in a day rather than needing ‘x’ amount of calories/fat/carbs/proteins. So, not to get to a biological level, because I would be a master psuedo-scientist, I want to track my macros more consistently to see what the correct intake for me should be in different cities.
While I don’t recommend getting food poisoning, I can see to see the silver lining in it and realize that their are alternatives to our status quo of 3 meals a day with snacks in-between! Take a day this week to experiment with a 8-16 fast, or don’t eat meat for one day, or have bullet proof coffee in the morning.