How To Handle Hunger On A Fasting Day
You know the drill: You wake up, spend a few minutes scraping your eyes open, and then you hit the snooze button again. A few more minutes of sleep is worth it if you don't have to get up. In the meantime, your stomach growls in protest and you dread when it will be time to hit clean water and swallow a couple of capsules or suck on some protein bars that taste like dirt.
The mornings can be difficult. But the real challenge, of course, is dinner. A good dinner turns into a feast for most people and before you know it, you're sitting in front of a table with enough food to feed an army.
If you want to start fasting but know that dinner is going to be a big problem, here's how to handle hunger on a fasting day:
1) Go ahead and eat dinner if you want to but don't stuff yourself.
If you're going to go through with this fast, ease into it. To start off with, you can eat a big dinner or whatever you want to eat. But don't stuff yourself. Eat a little bit but leave some room in your stomach for the next day when you won't be eating anything at all. If you've never tried fasting before, this is a good way to get your feet wet before taking it up fully.
2) Drink plenty of water.
If your stomach is empty and you're thirsty, you will feel a lot more hunger pangs than usual. Make sure to drink plenty of water so that your body has enough fluid. If you don't want to drink plain water, add some lemon juice to your glass and it will give a kick of flavor too if you start feeling dehydrated. Drinking plenty of water will also help curb cravings.
3) Eat a small meal before bed.
If you're going to fast overnight, you want to make sure that you're not going to wake up starving in the middle of the night. If you eat before bed, your body will get used to eating regularly and it will be easier for it to process food overnight. Just don't try fasting through dinner or breakfast – those are meals that your body will have trouble digesting anyway so there's no need for them.