I grew up in Poland in the ’80s. One of the cultural habits back then meant at least 3 cups of black tea a day.

Nothing wrong with that maybe, but if you add to each of those cups two heaped teaspoons of white processed sugar, you are off to an interesting relationship with your food.

And your hormones. And your moods. And your emotions. And…the list goes on.

How addicted to sugar I was and how much it affected my life, probably only hit me when I moved as far away from any cultural hooks as I could: Australia.

I was 20. I had just put on ten kilograms working as a kitchen hand in a restaurant in Sydney, in which my diet consisted of coffee, fried chips, wonder white bread with peanut butter and beer.

(Thank god for the forgiveness of youth. I think 10kg was a mild way of getting away from this kind of ignorance.)

The shame and discomfort from the extra weight slowly started waking me up to having a deeper look at my eating habits. (that and my Australian boyfriend! Thanks mate).

Fast forward 18 years. Anyone who knows me might think I am super healthy: Hardly any processed foods, 90% vegetarian, definitely got a handle on that sugar addiction, very little alcohol, very little dairy etc.

To the best of my ability, I have been looking after myself as much as the bits and pieces that I gathered along the way around healthy eating would allow me.

And…

I would still wake up with stiffness, pains, and aches in the morning. I would feel tired often and I would suffer from those insatiable feelings we all know: cravings. In fact, I’ve been feeling that I am getting ‘old’. Which is a depressing thought when you are my age.

Then I decided to do a 3 day fast. I just needed to reset. But even though I have done them before and loved it, I never really went to understand why and what and how. So this time I started researching and I came across Dave Asprey’s book: Fast this way.

It made a huge impact and it’s the reason why I decided to write about it.

I had tried different diets in the past: going grain-free, vegan, the 80–10–10 diet, and the last one: keto. I could never stick to any of them.

The truth is I love food! All sorts of food!

And, I’m Pisces, which to me means, I hate any kind of rigidity. I need to feel free and in the flow to thrive. As soon as I tell myself not to eat something, after the first few weeks of willpower, I become depressed.

The rigidity in my body starts creeping up like tentacles from the deep of my subconscious, sucking out the enjoyment of life.

That’s not the way to be for me. Life is too unpredictable and chaotic to put myself in any kind of box. And that's what I actually love about it. Like a beautiful dance, it keeps me young and on the edge.

And this is exactly the gold that Dave Asprey advocates for:

Welcome to Metabolic Flexibility

First a bit of context: If you are eating a lot of carbohydrates, which most of our modern diets are based on, your body is burning sugar for fuel.

If you cut out carbs, your body will eventually switch to ketosis, which means burning fat as fuel.

That’s the basic premise of the keto diet. It really is amazing as most of our inflammation comes from eating too much sugar/carbs. Ketosis helps you get rid of that (next too many other benefits).

I did it in the past for a few months and even though I had less inflammation, I decided it’s not for me (it was too hard to maintain and I felt I was depriving myself). Which made me feel quite dejected and disempowered around food. I need to get rid of inflammation, but full-on keto is a no…so it means I will have to live with an achy body forever.

Dave Asprey is the first person that I hear saying:

understand how your body works first, then listen to it. The goal is to become flexible rather than stuck in one way. Because any habit creates weakness.

What you really want is to teach your body to be able to switch from burning fat to burning sugar to burning fat again. Effortlessly.

His whole approach is based on promoting a deep understanding of the relationship you have with food rather than following a diet- a plan made by someone else. And that can actually only come from (intermittent)

fasting, which means going without for some time.

Giving yourself a break from eating every now and again, gives you the space to observe your body and emotions better. It gives you the opportunity to come back to your own energy rather than following the cravings that are ruling your life. And as he explains, that doesn’t have to be hard either!

It’s like a relationship really. As much as we love our partners we need to have breaks from each other to feel ourselves and them more clearly.

And if you do fast for a while (12–16 hours), your body naturally starts going into ketosis. Which gives you the opportunity to observe. And then if you eat some carbs in the evening, you do get to feel the next morning how that makes you feel and if you don’t like it, you give yourself another break from eating and a chance to reset.

It’s really a compassionate way to learning about ourselves. Rather than getting hooked on one ‘right’ way, we get to understand and observe that our bodies benefit from

a) breaks from eating

b) burning fat and not only sugar all the time

and that results in metabolic flexibility, which makes us stronger on all levels.

It takes away the whole emotional shame/blame/guilt- game around food: “Oh no, I ate this again. Now I have to start from scratch.” That path will only lead to giving up on yourself eventually.

(How many of you know what that feels like? Going good for a few weeks only to fall off the horse when we get stressed followed by chastising ourselves that we did.)

With the principles from above, you get to feel empowered to steer the ship around your way, instead. You get to be playful and curious with it.

And if you are following some of his tricks, or bio-hacks as he calls them, you do get to feel the benefits of it straight away without it having to be a major disruption to your daily routine.

Like in my case: I’m waking up without a stiff and achy body anymore. And I’m still enjoying mangoes whenever I feel like it! Hallellujah!

I feel I am getting younger and not older. My cravings are literally gone. I feel I’m in control of my food again (rather than it controlling me). And honestly, each meal I make is delicious and without the cravings, I also never feel I get bored with what I am eating (which was the case in the past). It’s simple and fresh and nourishing every single time.

The basic principles of the book have been a total game-changer for me. It upgraded my life and gave me so much extra energy, it’s hard to believe, that’s possible with just a few simple tweaks.

In this article, I really don’t go deep into all the details and benefits, but I hope to inspire those of you who have tried many things and have felt disempowered, to dive deeper into it. The more you understand how your body works, the easier it is to make good choices and reap the benefits.