In this episode I talk about the importance of autonomy when practicing intermittent fasting for weight loss. An AI generated transcript is below. Links: Private Coaching With Kayla Sign up for my weekly newsletter My Books (ebook or paperback) on Amazon: The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting: How I lost Over 80 Pounds and Kept It Off Eating Whatever I Wanted Overcoming Weight Loss Obstacles: How To Keep Going When Things Get Difficult Get the audiobook for free with a 30 day FREE TRIAL from Audible My young adult fiction novel: Escape From Olshek's Castle ALL THE INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THIS PODCAST IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. IT IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS CONSULT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL BEFORE GOING ON ANY DIET OR EXERCISE PROGRAM. Begin AI Generated Transcript Welcome to the Six Miles to Supper podcast. I'm your host, Kayla Cox, and I've lost over 80 pounds with intermittent fasting six days a week, eating whatever I wanted at my meals, taking a cheat day every Sunday and walking six miles a day. And I'm here to help you on your weight loss journey. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the importance of autonomy with intermittent fasting. I recently read a really good book on motivation called Drive by Daniel Pink. And in that book, he talks about motivation and what are the ingredients that need to be present in order for motivation to occur. And he says it comes basically down to three elements autonomy, mastery and purpose. And in today's episode, we're going to just focus on the idea of autonomy. Autonomy comes from two Greek words Otto's meaning self and numerous meaning law. When you put that together, all it really means is when you have autonomy, you are governing yourself, you're giving yourself rules, and then you are following them. And if you don't feel like you have autonomy, then you lose motivation. In other words, when you start to feel like other people are in control of your weight loss journey or they're in control of your fasting, you're going to feel less in control. You're going to feel like you don't have autonomy and then you're going to lose motivation. So it's important to listen to how you are feeling on the weight loss journey and to, you know, like if you ever start to feel like you're not in control, that's a red flag. And so I'm going to go through a few areas where I feel like a lot of us can start to feel like we don't have autonomy. But really, this is an illusion. Ultimately, you are in control of every single aspect of the weight loss journey. So let's talk about the fasting window itself, because that's where a lot of people have trouble. Ultimately, you are in control of what you allow yourself in the fasting window. But too often it can be, you know, a thing where maybe you've heard like, oh, well, you can't have anything at all, or you're not allowed to have a mint, or you can't have gum or you can't have cream in your coffee. And then you can think that that rule is forcing you to do something you don't really want to do. But the truth is, it is your choice whether to adopt that rule for yourself or not. It's a trap to adopt that rule for yourself and then to feel resentful of the person who you got the rule from. The truth is, there is no intermittent fasting police. So if you want to have cream in your coffee or you want to have a piece of gum or you want to have a spoonful of peanut butter in the fasting window, because that's what gets you through it. That's okay. You also have autonomy in the eating window. You get to decide what to eat and what not to eat and how much to eat. If you want to eat higher calorie kind of foods or things, you know, have a lot of sugar, a lot of salt or a lot of fat, you can do that. You're in control of every bite that goes into your body. And yet sometimes you can start to forget that, you know, you might think the other people are forcing you to eat a certain way, but that's simply not true. If you want to be low carb, be low carb, but understand that that's your choice. It's not anybody else's. Also, you are in control of how often you eat. If you want to eat three or four different times, and that still makes it so that you have the appropriate amount of food going into your body. Then you'll still lose weight. You're in control also of what time you fast and for how long you fast. You know, like if you want to do a second eat, great. If you want to do a 15 nine, you can do that. You can, you know, put all your eating in the morning or you can do all your eating late at night. It doesn't really matter. You're in control of that. It's also up to you how many days a week you're practicing fasting. You know, some people do it seven days a week. Other people do it five days a week. Some people do it three days a week. It's all about what you can stick with and what works in your life. It's also in your control. How often you take the day off. For whatever ...
