This guide has now passed thousands of views! Big thank you to everyone who continues to share (my posts & your story too) & be a big part of my life as my digital family!

You guys make my days so much brighter & I hope you know how much you mean to me!

I’ve lost 60 lbs thanks to carnivore & intermittent fasting! Follow me on Instagram (@lil_bit_of_fit) to see my day-to-day journey with living a meat-based life as a rockin travel xray tech & almost 42 year old athlete of life with Crohn’s Disease. (Birthday July 2nd 🎉)

I tried every diet in the book to lose weight & heal my gut issues. While I did see occasional results, I eventually couldn’t sustain it and then yo-yo’d. IF & carnivore have been the simplest and most manageable way I have found to improve my health & fitness (and stick with it).

This post is intended for my friends (and friends of friends) who have been following my health journey on Instagram, Facebook, or have asked how to get started. Because the interest has been in the thousands (so amazing!), I’ve wanted to share this information more publicly.

In the interest of time, I’ve created this super quick educational start guide with a couple troubleshooting videos!

Let’s dive into fasting & why you may not be seeing results.

I see this oftentimes with all y’all chronically under eating, trying to do protein sparing modified fasting (PSMF) or OMAD (one meal a day) with a disordered eating history.

Tap for a short video on why fasting may not be working for you!

Yes, I prefer to utilize intermittent fasting. It works best for my digestion. I eat when I’m hungry & fast when I’m not. Typical fasting window is around 14-20hrs, biggest meal I consume after my workout in the am. I also love to incorporate fat & carb cycling.
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It is not necessary for you to fast to achieve your health and body goals no matter what diet you prefer.

Remember: health & happy hormones first.
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Here’s a previous video answering a client question talking about why fasting wasn’t working for her

Coaching FAQs Here if you’re needing help

What is intermittent fasting?⁣⁣

Intermittent fasting, also known as intermittent energy restriction, is simply an umbrella term for various meal timing schedules that cycle between voluntary fasting or reduced calorie intake and eating over a given period of time.

It is just a tool to help you to manage meal times & calorie intake, it is not a dirty word nor is it a quick fix or magic pill. There are 100 different ways to “fast” & everyone has their own “definition” of what they consider fasting. Some drink coffee & water, some don’t. Some use no calorie sweeteners, some don’t. There are more optimal times, situations, & schedules that are more effective & efficient. Make sure it fits easily into your lifestyle & schedule. Pick whatever suits your needs. Remember adherence & consistency are always keys!

Most utilize the 16/8 or 14/10 or 12/10 windows. (Fast 16 hrs/eat 8) You can also periodically fast 24 hrs or longer. I personally do NOT do extended fasts.

16/8, 14/10, 12/12 Protocols – Ex: Fast 16hrs/8hr eating window
OMAD – One meal a day, fast the rest
TMAD – Two meals a day, fast the rest
PSMF – Protein Sparing Modified Fasts: highly restrictive diet that involves severely limiting the intake of calories, carbs, & fat & consuming only lean (zero-low fat) protein
5:2 – Eat normal 5 days, restrict calories to 500-600 for 2 days
Eat Stop Eat – Eat normal for 5 days then fast for 24hrs for 2 days
4:3 or Alternate Day Fasting – Fast every other day, eat normal on non-fasting days
Skip Meals Spontaneously – skip meals when you’re not hungry

Will fasting help me lose body fat?

Why your story & background matter when it comes to fasting efficacy

Before we dive into fasting deets I want to reiterate & touch on WHY your story & food/dieting/health history matter when it comes to the experiences & results you get (or lack of).

Lets be honest, the main reason most people choose the Carnivore Diet & utilizing fasting is because they want fat loss. That’s fine, we all wanna look good nekkid, HOWEVER, the difference lies in our starting point: calorically, metabolically, hormonally, physiologically, mentally, emotionally – the whole picture.

I feel we really should approach any nutrition protocol from a health/healing perspective, first, aesthetic perspective, second.

Some of us come from the SAD (Standard American Diet), some have been dieting basically our entire lives & still think 1200 calories is the magic number for weight loss, some fear fat, some fear carbs, some are binge eating &/or suffering from disordered eating & still in denial, some come from Keto, some have been struggling with gut issues/autoimmune stuff for decades & really have no idea what they can eat.

All of these different stories & starting points impact the transition & adaptation to any diet. You do not have to fast at all if you don’t want to.

Usually I see two different stories, & thus experiences, when working with clients. We’ll call them Peter & Patty.

Are you Peter or Patty?

PETER

Peter is male, used to over consuming the typical SAD, dad bod (aka looks like he might lick something deemed “healthy” & work out occasionally but really loves tacos & would much rather smash a 6 pack vs have a 6 pack). Simply eating meat & cutting out all the other crap significantly reduces his caloric intake & the fat just falls off.

PATTY

Patty is female, lets say 30-40yrs old, habitual yo-yo dieter, excessive exerciser, wants to lose fat & build muscle but doesn’t wanna be “bulky” (sigh smdh), scared to eat more than 1200-1500 calories & gaining weight is one of her biggest fears.

She’s tried every diet in the book. Had some success with “Keto” (doesn’t really know what keto means but she’s eating less carbs right?!) but always falls off the wagon, stressful home life/ job, struggled with bloating & gut issues for years.

Her neighbor, Peter, looks great since carnivore, so she decides it’s gonna be the magic quick fix to all her issues. Sooo Patty stops tracking food (because she was told it didn’t matter on the carnivore diet) & starts smashin all the bacon, ribeyes, cheese, ribs, & chicken wings.

Her gut issues get better, the first week she dropped 3lbs, but now she’s about 6 weeks in & hungry, tired, & the scale is going up! So she decided to start fasting more, & ups her steps to 20k/d. (Further stressing her body out more btw).

She gives it another month with more weight gain. She wants to quit after a couple months despite her gut issues resolving. It doesn’t work she says, “I didn’t lose weight.”

Things that matter when choosing any diet, macros, calories, &/or fasting protocols

Things I need as a coach to help you figure out appropriate macros/diet/fitness/fasting approaches:

Age, Current Weight, Height⁣⁣
Training modalities⁣⁣ (how you prefer to workout. CrossFit vs running vs yoga vs Orange Theory vs walking vs Barre vs Bodybuilding vs power lifting etc)⁣⁣
Daily Activity ⁣⁣(steps, job, kids, schedules etc)⁣⁣
Training Frequency, Volume, Intensity ⁣⁣
Previous Dieting History⁣⁣ (disordered eating, low carb, high carb, low fat, have you been chronically dieting, eating surplus, etc)⁣⁣
Medical History⁣⁣ (allergies, IBD, IBS, gut issues, hormonal issues, cancer, thyroid, etc)⁣⁣
Your goals, preferences, special needs)⁣⁣
Mindset & mental health⁣⁣
Lifestyle⁣⁣ & Stress (kids, stressful job, shitty sleep, relationship problems, etc)

That’s a LOT of stuff, right? It’s not as simple as just picking a set of macro numbers, or calories, or a magic diet camp or fasting protocol. You are not a template or calculator, you’re a human. This is why we set up coaching consultations to help you!

indiana lilbitoffit maintenance calories chart carnivore reverse diet katie kelly — A BIG reminder, we should not be dieting any more than 1-2 times per year, no longer than 12-16 weeks. You should be chillin, eating at your maintenance calories, enjoying life and getting strong AF the majority of the year! Like this chart? Allllll the free content available on Instagram!

Why should I try fasting?⁣⁣

It’s simple, eating fewer times works better for your schedule, less thinking/measuring. Your lifestyle aligns w/your eating schedule. Helpful when in a calorie deficit to allot larger meals.⁣
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Metabolic flexibility. It will utilize the fuel from previous meals/glycogen first, then it will use your fat stores to fuel your day.⁣⁣

Hunger response. Are you bored or really hungry? You learn/feel the difference. A big reason I would utilize IF with clients. It helps connect with your body’s true hunger signals.⁣⁣

Benefits of fasting: hormone balance, reduced insulin resistance, risk of diabetes, inflammation, improved focus, gut health & digestion, fat loss in a calorie deficit.

Why it works for fat loss

While I will reiterate fasting is not a diet, it can help with fat loss goals by creating a calorie deficit in various ways:

Reduces the number of meals in a day

Helps create food rules to prevent over eating & snacking, especially for people who are abstainers

Helps reduce your weekly calorie average

Helps you feel & get back in tune with true hunger cues which helps prevent eating when you’re not truly hungry. Many of us eat out of learned habit like eating in front of the tv at night, eating desert just because it is available, or seeing/smelling/hearing food cook

When should I not fast?

You’re on the gain train. If you’re ok cramming 3-4000 calories down your pie hole in a short amount of time go for it. For most, IF protocols are utilized for eating less calories simply by decreasing feeding time.⁣⁣
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It screws with your mind & feels restrictive. Can’t sustain it easily & comfortably w/your lifestyle. If it increases cortisol/blood sugar/affecting your sleep/mood/energy negatively.

If you can’t feel fullness cues & eat past satiety & all you do is think about eating during your fasting — STOP! Try eating more frequent meals during the day.

Who should NOT fast &/or fasting is not ideal

Pregnant Women
Women who are nursing
People who are reverse dieting
People training for high performance
People who have abused or overly fasted
People who have chronically under eaten for an extended period of time (aka you’ve made chasing a smaller body your hobby)
People who are trying to gain muscle
Women a week before their cycle
People healing &/or struggling with adrenal insufficiency & fatigue
People with eating disorders &/or disordered eating habits, poor relationships with food, exercise, &/or body image where restriction is a huge trigger

Getting Started

Chances are that you’ve already done many intermittent fasts in your life.

If you’ve ever eaten dinner, then slept late and not eaten until lunch the next day, then you’ve probably already fasted for 16+ hours.

Some people instinctively eat this way. They simply don’t feel hungry in the morning.

Many people consider the 16/8 method the simplest and most sustainable way of intermittent fasting — you might want to try this practice first.

If you find it easy and feel good during the fast, then have fun, experiment and maybe try moving on to more advanced fasts like 24-hour fasts 1–2 times per week (Eat-Stop-Eat) or only eating 500–600 calories 1–2 days per week (5:2 diet).

Another approach is to simply fast whenever it’s convenient — simply skip meals from time to time when you’re not hungry or don’t have time to cook.

There is no need to follow a structured intermittent fasting plan to derive at least some of the benefits.

Experiment with the different approaches and find something that you enjoy and fits your schedule.

At the end of the day, there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to nutrition. The best diet for you is the one you can stick to in the long run.

I find for those who have a poor relationship with carbs & sugar, chronic gut or health issues, autoimmune needs, etc for example, a lower carb, animal or meat-based approach is extremely effective for health, healing, & fat loss.

👇older posts to reference for ideas & help👇

body transformation woman carnivore diet

Here’s my routine & what has help me drop lbs & put my Crohn’s disease & bulimia in med-free remission.

https://lilbitoffit.com/the-stupidly-simple-system-i-use-to-stay-in-shape-and-love-my-body-as-an-empath-at-age-40/

Intermittent fasting is great for some people, not others. The only way to find out which group you belong to is to try it out.

If you feel good when fasting and find it to be a sustainable way of eating, it can be a very powerful tool to lose weight and improve your health.

oxox Coach K

All links, coaching, services, discount codes, & free content Here!

If you’ve been following a low carb diet (low carb, keto, carnivore) for a while and have been experiencing weight loss plateaus, hormone imbalances, low energy, or a decline in athletic performance, you might want to consider implementing strategic refeeds.

A refeed is an intentional, strategic increase in calories consumption This can be via carbs, fats, or both carbs and fats. Often done on a periodic weekly basis. These refeeds are an effective strategy for minimizing potential negative hormonal &/or metabolic effects from longer term dieting or low carb intake.

So lets talk Carbohydrates and Insulin

We know carbs have a larger impact on the hormone insulin. Most of us that follow a low carb diet have chosen to go this route for more efficient blood sugar balance as well as improved mental, emotional, and physical improvements. When our bodies don’t respond properly to insulin, we increase our risk for disease like metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Alzheimer’s, and more.

Insulin is responsible for telling our cells (mostly muscle, liver, and fat cells) to soak up sugar from the bloodstream. If your cells don’t respond, the level of sugar in your blood remains high and can begin to have toxic effects. This is called “insulin resistance”.

One way we can become resistant to insulin is from eating carbohydrate-rich foods in excess, especially from refined, heavily processed sources like sugary cereals, donuts, cakes, candy, brownies, poptarts – you get the picture. These foods result in excess glucose in the blood, leading to chronically elevated blood sugar and cells that eventually become resistance to insulin signalling. Chronically elevated blood sugar is a serious problem in and of itself, but so is becoming resistant to insulin, as it serves many important functions in the body.

When You Might Need to Implement Refeeds

Carbs can help athletic performance.

They’re not the devil, you’ll hear me say it over and over again what it really comes down to is our relationship with foods and they’re application.

Carbs are helpful for optimal high-intensity performance. They provide fuel for your muscles in the form of glycogen. Long term low carb dieting can lead to depleted glycogen in muscles/liver and a hindered ability to perform high intensity, glycogen-demanding exercise, especially in the beginning stages of adapting to a low carb lifestyle. HAVE PATIENCE. Performance will improve and even out over time.

One diet strategy that has been shown to actually increase performance is a carb cycling method, where athletes & avid exercisers switch between periods of low and high carb intake. The aim is to maintain the ability to efficiently use both carbs and fats for energy, referred to as “metabolic flexibility.” Not only does this ability reduce risk of disease, it also improves performance and can aid in fat loss.

In other words, properly timed carbohydrate refeeds can be an effective strategy for optimizing athletic performance and maintaining metabolic flexibility when following a low carb diet.

You can also incorporate caloric refeeds by increasing your fats macros (vs carbs) and therefore increasing your over calories to maintenance or a slight surplus in time of dieting. This is a great mental & metabolic break for many and will also help restore your “tank.”

Weight Loss Plateaus

The dreaded plateau! Trying to lose the last 5-10lbs can seem like a never ending cycle. It’s not uncommon to see significant weight loss in the first couple weeks of a low carb diet, but then stall. Coincidentally, it’s shown that 1 week is all it takes to see a drop in leptin levels.

If you’re close to your fat loss goal and have reached a plateau, a refeed can give you the hormonal & metabolic boost needed to shed the last few pounds.

How to Do a Carb Refeed

There are many ways to do a carb refeed, and depending on your situation one may be better than another. Each method involves a larger quantity of carbohydrate intake at a scheduled time, but the size and frequency will vary based on individual activity levels, genetics, bioindividuality, goals, training modalities, digestive needs, etc.

A few common methods you can experiment with to see what works for you:

Weekly

Best For: Individuals who engage in lower intensity physical activity, are currently dieting and need a mental break like on the weekends, or are seeking the health benefits of a low carbohydrate diet but want to avoid any possible negative long-term effects.

How to Do It: Pick one day or one meal per week to eat a larger amount of carbohydrates. For example, your refeed could be on a weekend or on your most physically-active day.

Recommended Amount of Carbs: 50-150g carbs, depending on the individual.

Post-Training

Best For: Individuals that perform a intense training sessions (heavy resistance training, CrossFit, HIIT, Orange Theory, Spin, etc) each week and want to optimize performance and recovery, while maintaining ideal body composition.

How to Do It: On big training days, increase your normal amount of carbohydrates in your first meal post-workout.

Recommended Amount of Carbs: 50-150g carbs for most, depending on the individual’s needs

Daily

Best For: Serious athletes who train nearly every day or multiple times per day who need to enhance recovery between sessions and have no negative physical or mental issues with carbs.

How to Do It: Pick a meal to consume a larger amount of carbs. Most often this is post-workout &/or at dinner.

Recommended Amount of Carbs: 50-200g carbs, depending on the individual.

Less Optimal Sources of Carbohydrates

When choosing where to get carbs for your refeed, some sources are more optimal than others. Refined carbohydrates, stripped of their fiber and micronutrients, tend to cause a greater spike in blood sugar compared to their whole food, fiber-rich counterparts. They are better used around training pre/post when you want this spike for fuel and recovery like white rice & all natural/low sugar cereals, rice cakes. Additionally, refined carbs have been shown to promote overeating and weight gain, alter your gut biome, and damage your intestinal barrier.

Here are some carb sources that you’d be better off avoiding during refeeds:

White, processed, non nutrient dense bread
Pastries, cake, brownies
Pasta
Candy, chocolates
Sugar-sweetened beverages
Most packaged foods — check the ingredients!

More Optimal Sources of Carbohydrates

A more optimal carb choice is going to be one that replenishes glycogen, balances insulin sensitivity, and also provides valuable nutrients. Unrefined, complex carbohydrates from whole-food sources are going to be a more optimal choice for most for getting the most out of your carb refeed unless you have issues with fiber, high fodmap fruits & veggies, etc.

Here are some of the more optimal carb sources for a refeed:

Starchy vegetables like potatoes, squash, yams, etc.
Properly prepared grains like white rice, quinoa, oats, etc.
Natural fruits
Nutritive sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, or blackstrap molasses

Summary

Carb refeeds & fat refeeds in general can be a valuable tool if used appropriately. There are several options, from once a day to once a week, but some experimentation will be necessary for determining the exact method that works best for you.

Some of the benefits you may start to see after strategically including more carbs &/or fats in your diet include:

Balanced hormones
Better body composition
Enhanced athletic performance and faster recovery
Increased energy
Reduced cravings
More restful sleep

Hope this helps team! You’re always welcome to message me on Instagram!

Tag: leptin

A Simple Ultimate Guide to Fasting