Health

Max Lowery, 28, found his attitude to eating changed when he decided to quit his job as a broker and take a trip to South America. “I got myself into a different way of eating by accident, I didn’t know what it was. I basically was eating one or maybe two big meals a day and I lost all the weight I put on in my brokering years and I just felt really good.

“When I came back I went back to eating three meals a day — it was all home cooked food, I was very careful with what I ate — but I started putting on weight and I felt hungry all the time. I felt slow and lethargic.”

His Fasting Discovery

So he changed back into his travelling diet and found it still worked for him back home as he built a new career as a well-being expert. Max did not know that what he was doing was called “intermitted fasting” until he started learning more about it.

“My energy levels and my hunger levels drastically improved. I wasn’t thinking about food and I was full of energy all the time. I started doing it myself and then I slowly incorporated it into my personals with my clients.

“The more research had been done and the more I learned about it, I realised that this could potentially have a really positive effect on many people’s lives. So I started developing it into my own method of intermittent fasting. I called it the “2 Meal Day” which is also the title of my book.

“The plan is based on time-restricted eating, which means you’re eating the same amount of calories just in a smaller period of time. However, it is not a calorie restriction plan, so you can do it every day. People end up eating a bit less but to most, it feels like more because they’re having two large meals a day.”

Training & Fasting

“I’m currently training for an ultra marathon so right now I’m training six days a week with one day off but of course people do not need to do that. My advice for my clients is, together with the meal plan, to get three good one-hour long workouts a week. And by good I mean they have to push themselves hard so that they are progressing in every workout. On top of that, you also want to be as active as possible so you should walk, stretch and move any time you can.”

Everything seems to be all fusiony and holistic in gyms today but Max is “a big fan of traditional compound exercises”. 

“They are the ones that work the best so I would recommend squats, pull-ups, deadlifts, hollow holds — which are really good to teach core strength and core stability — and the head press.”

However, he’s not all about that bodybuilding mindset. “My training philosophy is very much based on performance. You wanna be as fast, strong and fit as possible rather than focussing on the aesthetics.”

The Fasting Mind

“The plan also has a big impact on mental health. That’s because intermitted fasting teaches you to understand what hunger actually is and it teaches you to eat when you’re hungry rather than every few minutes.”

Guess that’s the desk biscuit binge gone then. As is coffee. As is indeed any form of food which you go to for a pick-up. 

“The thing is, we cannot depend on food for energy on a day-to-day basis. Food is for long-term energy, but for short-term we should depend on our own body fat. It improves our own mind-body connection and that’s a thing that you can apply to anything in life.” 

“Since I started intermitted fasting I’m just full of energy. You just get this general good feeling because there are no highs or lows, it’s constant. And all my clients tell me this is liberating and empowering at the same time. It’s empowering because you’re not depending on caffeine or sugar or nicotine to fuel you for the day.” 

“I mean just having this deep understanding of your body is an amazing feeling and to know that your body could do anything you want in the right conditions is life changing.”

Do you know what? He’s done a damn good job of convincing us. Everything is about bingeing in the West, from food to sex, how about we indulge ourselves a little less?

You can follow Max on Instagram @max.lowery and on Twitter @2mealday

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