Snapper With Tomato Basil Relish

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Join Brian Hall of Fast Days Healing Days, as he shows you how to prepare Snapper With Tomato Caper Relish and shares tips on keeping the mental stress low in an ADF (Alternate Day Fasting) lifestyle, sometimes called intermittent fasting or every other day dieting.

 

pan-sear-on-grill

Pan searing on the grill keeps fish smells out of the house.

Alternate Day Intermittent Fasting, or ADF for short, doesn’t have to be complicated or mentally stressful. Every other day we have one goal: limit calories to 500 calories per Fast Day (FD). Because we don’t mind fasting throughout the day, most of our calories are eaten at one central meal, either late in the afternoon or early in the evening. Sometimes, if there are any calories leftover, we’ll enjoy a small protein rich dessert or evening snack.

After living an alternate day intermittent fasting lifestyle for a while, a few “aha” moments occurred that helped define and refine our personal fasting practices. One of the discoveries involved timing of the first FD (Fast Day) meal. We found on Fast Days that we have less hunger when we delay eating until (at least) late in the afternoon; maybe 3-4 o’clock, or early evening.

We know once supper time comes that we’ve easily made it through another Fast Day (FD) and can now look forward to enjoying eating whatever we want until the end of the next day (as long as the evening meal on the FD is 500 calories or less). It’s a big psychological boost.

The goal for Fast Day (FD) meals, from my perspective, is to meet our protein needs and as many nutrient requirements as possible, while satisfying us physically, mentally and emotionally. Susie T. and I made the decision to treat Fast Days as “just another day of food.” By making a conscious decision to view our alternate day intermittent fasting diet this way, we’ve removed any sense of deprivation from the equation. Since it’s just a “normal day,” day-in-day-out, we don’t have an urge to splurge and binge eating (or out of control eating) doesn’t happen. It’s a YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) thing; you just have to find what works for you, personally. No diet is perfect and there is no one-size-fits-all diet solution that will be successful for everyone.

snapper-tomato-basil-relish

Snapper With Tomato Basil Relish goes great with Asparagus

Fast Day meals don’t require huge sacrifices or big gyrations. You don’t have to skimp and prepare super low fat/low calorie meals on Fast Days. Making a few substitutions with reduced fat and very select low calorie products, or simply reducing fat portions just a little bit, turns a feast day meal into an appropriate Fast Day (FD) meal with little effort. We don’t even notice the calories are lower, because it doesn’t taste like “diet food.”

It’s not that you MUST eat low fat when doing ADF. Our diet is still around 40-50% fat (considered high fat), but it’s lower in fat, which allows us to eat more food volume. Fat has roughly twice as many calories per gram than protein or carbs, at 9 calories/gram.

We do keep food choices low carb and as close to paleo/primal as possible; preferring to cook from whole ingredients, keeping prepared products to a minimum. It’s not that ADF is a low carb diet, either. Eating low glycemic load, low carbohydrate food helps us control hunger levels while maximizing the nutritional value in meals, another discovery made during our ADF journey.

 

seasoned-snapper

Red snapper, scaled with the skin left on, gets shallow slits and seasoning.

Fast Days (FDs) and feast days are both low carb (by personal choice). If we eat a high glycemic load, high carb meal, it’s usually on a special occasion, composed of small servings of the high carb items, and is very infrequent. We made a personal choice to eat this way to keep our blood sugar and insulin levels controlled. But most people eating an ADF, 5:2, 4:3, JUDDD, or EOD (Every Other Day) diet don’t make any food restriction beyond eating 500 calories on alternating days. These intermittent fasters still improve health markers such as inflammation, blood pressure, lipid profiles, hormone levels, and blood sugar. Oh, and they lose weight, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2014 Fast Days Healing Days. All rights reserved.

Author: Brian Hall

Brian Hall, a mild-mannered, IT guru and FileMaker Pro database developer by day at www.bhsys.net, nutrition nerd and grill-o-phile by night. He likes things hot–by heat or by fire–he’s en fuego with passion for chiles and his first mistress, Sweet Lady Propane; cooking up dude-food to delight your inner Sasquatch. He’s the brains and muscle behind this joint and doesn’t mind flexing his guns or fire-starter on demand. Passionate about great steak and wine that makes you smile with pleasure, Brian can be found behind his grill on any given Sunday. Email Brian with your IT questions, FileMaker Pro Database needs, or just to chew the fat about grilling or Macs (his true love).

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