Program Basics
Thank you for signing up for our 90 day lifestyle change program. IF90 is a lifestyle change program designed to accomplish wellness goals. I welcome you on board and encourage you to read the following, to understand the program better and to make the best of it to truly create lifestyle change and pave the way forward towards a longer and healthier life.
The IF90 program is based on five pillars.
- Intermittent fasting
- Exercise recommendations
- Meal suggestions
- Education
- Sincere support
The wellness goals one can look forward to achieving include weight loss, better blood sugar control, better stress management, increase knowledge of nutrition, learn healthier cooking using different and diverse ingredient combinations, and more.
In our past experiences with weight loss and blood sugar management programs that only included a dietary component, we found many clients were unable to stick to the program in spite of their best intentions. We collated and understood their reasons and then designed this program that treats each of us human beings who are under a variety of pressures from the business of living life as well as under a number of influences that effect the decisions we take.
The program helps us understand the different aspects of our well-being and enables us to reach our goals in a manner that is healthy and sustainable. IF90 is divided into three phases:
- Phase 1 (5 weeks): Baby steps towards understanding fasting and nutrition
- Phase 2 (4 weeks): More intense fasting patterns, stricter diets
- Phase 3 (3 weeks): Different for everyone; includes longer fasts, discussions etc.
During the course of this program, we will become intimately aware of our many lifestyle patterns and compulsions. It will be our endeavor to help you break those patterns, so that at the end of the program, you have a choice – to continue with your new, healthier patterns, or revert to your older, not-so-healthy patterns.
Logging
A very important aspect of this program is your wholehearted participation and one invaluable way in which you can contribute to your own success is by sharing data with us. We need the following information from you, multiple times a week, as follows. Please see the last section for how to use our Telegram Bot for logging this information.
- Daily fasting hours – We need you to share this only if you fasted more or less than the number of prescribed hours. If you fasted less than 12 hours, it counts as zero, which too needs to be logged. We assume you’ll follow the pattern, so adherence doesn’t need to be shared, in order to reduce the number of messages you need to send.
- Daily walking – We need this information, the number of kilometers in the number of minutes, each time you do so. If you walked multiple times a day, please feel free to share the numbers.
- Daily food intake – We need this from you only if you significantly exceeded the amount of carbs and fats in your plan, or if you ate significantly less lentils, legumes, meats, eggs or vegetables.
- Blood Pressure & Blood Sugar – Only if you’re monitoring these parameters, usually once a week.
- Weight – Once a week, preferably measured on the same day, same time and wearing similar clothing.
High Level Program Flow
The following is a high level view of how the program will proceed as soon as you’ve finished paying for the entire program or a phase.
- First chart: The program always begins on a Monday. You will receive your first chart between Friday and Sunday the previous week. This will be sent via our Telegram bot, and will continue week after week for the duration of your subscription.
- Meal Plan: Between 1 to 5 meal plans will be present in every chart. These are suggestions and examples of what a complete diet ought to include. The plans include detailed nutrient information, so you’re free to make informed substitutions if you wish.
- A call will be scheduled each Monday, to discuss the previous week and the plan for the next week. Please ensure you schedule a call and talk each Monday, or exchange a few messages letting us know what’s happening.
- Meditation is a part of the program and will be one of the educational topics shared. This is very, very important and you must take out 5 – 10 minutes or more each day to practice, without fail. You will receive one to one guidance on the subject when you schedule a call.
- An educational topic will be shared with you by the Telegram bot each week as well as be present in your weekly chart. Please go over the material shared and make time for reading and understanding every such subject. If you have doubts, please schedule a call and clarify them. You can a so do the same via messages on Telegram or WhatsApp. It is very important for your success.
The above pattern will be followed week on week for 12 weeks.
Scheduling calls and sending us messages about your program status etc. can be done via our FB Page to share your current status, any issues or plan changes required.
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Fasting is the only sustainable way to lose weight as well as rejuvenate our bodies from the inside out. Intermittent fasting has many known benefits apart from weight loss, such as better blood sugar control, reduction in hypertensive symptoms, reduction in depressive symptoms, alleviation of inflammation and related conditions and more.
Why don’t we follow the reduced calorie method of weight loss? Click here.
A different fasting pattern will be shared with you each week. Please do your best to follow it, and this means, really do your best! If you feel like breaking your fast, call a friend, ask for support and find ways to get past it. Your fasting pattern will move from short fasts to longer fasts each week. So make every week count; each day you successfully complete will see you closer to your goal.
There are different ways of fasting intermittently. We use hourly windows spread across 5 days of the week. Consider the following examples:
- 12 hours fasting / 12 hours eating.
e.g. dinner at 8pm, breakfast at 8am. - 16 hours fasting / 08 hours eating.
e.g. dinner at 8pm, breakfast at 12pm.
- 24 hours fasting / 01 hours eating.
e.g. dinner at 8pm, next meal at 8pm.
With 24 hour fasts, your fasting window will shift by an hour each day you continue the pattern. If you need help planning your fasting window as per your work or daily schedule, we’re happy to help.
All fasting patterns are from Monday to Friday. We encourage you to take a break on weekends, fast no more than 12 hours and indulge yourself in a sensible manner within your calorie range and otherwise enjoy your weekends. If you’re diabetic, please also try and remain on a low carbohydrate/sugar diet during weekends too as far as possible.
While fasting, you can drink the following liquids:
- Water
- Club soda
- Green / White / Black tea
- Black coffee
Later in your program, week 6 onward, you will be allowed to drink water flavored with cumin, ginger, cucumber, cinnamon etc.
As your fasting windows increase in duration, so will the duration of your eating windows reduce. At some point, it will become difficult to get your daily nutrition via diet alone. At that point, you may wish to consider the consumption of nutritional supplements, while also eating nutrient dense diet, rich in dietary fiber and protein among other macro and micro nutrients. Additionally, it is important complete your energy as far as possible; please consider increasing your fat intake during these fasts. If you’re not sure what to do or how to do so, please schedule a call for clarifications or do so via messaging.
Make sure you complete your daily calories and your daily nutrition either via our suggested meal plans or by making informed choices. Either way, this must be kept in mind, the outcomes averaged weekly for evaluation.
Exercise
The program also makes light to medium exercise recommendations based on individual participant needs. These range from 30 minutes of brisk walking to light weight training, cycling etc. We define ‘brisk’ walking as a minimum of 10 minutes per kilometer.
It’s alright if you aren’t able to walk at that pace initially. Just aim at gradual increase. For example, if you’re able to walk for 15 minutes at that pace, and aim at just an extra 3 minutes each day, by the end of a week, you’ll be doing 30 minutes – double of what you started with.
Nutrient Dense Meals
Nutrient dense food is what we think we’ve been eating all our lives, but really haven’t. Nutrient dense food is defined as foods that have a large amount of nutrition per calorie, and this for us means, Low Carb, Healthy Fat or LCHF.
We will share one or more meal plans with you each week along with your chart, as a PDF file, between Saturday and Sunday each week. Every plan is designed keeping your preferences in mind. If certain ingredients get repetitive, let us know which ones you don’t want by Friday, so we can create your plans accordingly.
Your plans are collections of ingredients that you are free to use any time during your eating window. You can cook them in any manner you wish, using other ingredients like all kinds of spices, tomatoes, garlic and ginger among other options. We only ask that you keep your oil consumption limited, in an attempt to ensure your daily caloric load doesn’t exceed a set range. During your longer fasts, you’ll also need to increase your fat consumptions, through nuts, seeds and cooking mediums, in order to complete your daily calorie requirement.
At no point will we try and drastically restrict your food consumption and encourage you to complete your daily quota of calories each day via the tastiest food you can whip up, only keeping your carbs and fats under control, and the total number of calories as per your BMR – no more, no less as far as possible.
Break your fasts with whatever you feel comfortable eating at that time. Initially, you may feel the urge to binge eat carbs, which is fine initially, though we’ll need to be aware of this tendency and bring it down over the first two weeks. Our recommendation is to break a fast with a light and nutritious meal, low in carbs and rich in both soluble and insoluble fibre. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s included in your first week’s education. Do the same when ending a fast, reserving your carbs for snacks in between. This will reduce our conditioned urges to include carbs in major meals as well as reduce carb cravings, in both, our fasting and eating windows.
Weekly Education
Each week, we’ll share with you a different topic of education. This will be in the form of different media as available, or as a choice of media for the same subject. For example, if the subject is nutrition, there may be an article, podcast or video of the same subject, so you have a choice as per your personal preferences, or perhaps just an article, podcast or video. After you’ve listened to it, and noted your questions, we’ll fix a time for us to answer your questions on the subject.
Topics of education include nutrition, cooking, meditation, stress management, the science of intermittent fasting etc.
The purpose of this activity, is that you understand the reasons behind the functioning of the program and recognize the purpose behind the existence of its different components. When you’re aware of all of this, you’ll be set to fly freely and continue the benefits of the program even after you’ve completed it.
It is very important that every weekly topic be given priority. Each topic has been selected to play a prominent role in your journey after program completion.
Sincere Support
Each week is likely to present different challenges. Sometimes it may be about being unable to fast for the specified duration, and at other times, wanting to know how to substitute a plan ingredient for another. Whatever challenge you’re facing, we’re just a message or phone call away and will support your situation to the best of our abilities.
For support send us a WhatsApp or Telegram message at +91.98108 62905. Use the same number to schedule a phone conversation. Please know, unscheduled phone calls are possible now and then, but it’ll be helpful for all of us if phone calls are scheduled in advance.
Medical Advice & Tests
This program does not constitute or replace the services of a registered medical practitioner, qualified nutritionist or clinical psychologist. We advise and encourage you to keep your healthcare providers and care givers informed at all times of your wellness related activities. Additionally, it is important to follow your doctor’s advice at all times.
The tests we suggest are for the purposes of establishing a baseline for parameters like your HbA1c and to ascertain your health situation. If any values are out of range, we suggest speaking to your doctor, including on dietary and other lifestyle topics.
Using the Telegram Bot
In order to reduce the likelihood of errors and increase the speed of data availability, we use a bot on Telegram for data logging.
Installing and Registering
Step 1: Install the Telegram app if you haven’t already, and run it.
Step 2: tap the blue circular button at the bottom right, with a pencil icon in the center.
Step 3: Tap the magnifying glass at the top of the screen, and type ‘CW90Bot’, then tap the bot that appears in the search results.
Step 4: Tap the ‘Start’ button at the bottom, type ‘register’ to see registration instructions to register your account with the bot.
To register just type register registration_secret and send the message to the bot. You should have received your registration secret in an email shortly after filling out our information form.
Logging Details
Use the ‘log’ command and follow on screen instructions to log your program progress. If you registered successfully, you’ll see something similar to the image on the right. If not, a message similar to that on the left will be displayed.
Other Commands
The bot has numerous commands. Please type and send ‘Help’ for a list of these commands. This document will be updated more information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Please see the list of frequently asked questions here.