The very word “fasting” scares me. I love to eat and consider myself a foodie. (It also conjures up the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur when we cannot eat or drink for 24/hours, always a challenge for me!)
But for as long as I can remember, I have been on a diet, fluctuating between a size 10 and 12, maybe once a 14. I have visions of my mom and me in our kitchen in the 1960’s preparing the Weight Watchers coffee shake with instant coffee, lots of ice and sweet and low, while my sister would have an ice cream float (always thin, she never dieted). She also made cheerleading and I didn’t but I digress. I would also snack on Weight Watchers baked apples made with diet cherry soda. Yuck!
The idea of Intermittent fasting piqued my interest when a friend tried it with good results. What is Intermittent Fasting (IF) anyway?
IF is an umbrella term for various eating plans that cycle between periods of fasting and eating over a defined period. It’s a pattern of eating or a way of scheduling your meals so that you get the most out of them. You change when you eat, not what you eat.
Let me give you an example. The most popular type of IF is the 16/8 Method where you eat your meals for an 8 hour period E.g. from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm and fast for 16 hours. It can be whatever 8 hours suit you best 10:00 am to 6:00 pm etc. There is no snacking in between meals. This one is considered to be the simplest, most sustainable and easiest to stick to and the one I have chosen to follow. This is circadian rhythm fasting as our metabolism has adapted to daytime food and nighttime sleep.
Other methods involve fasting for 24 hours once or twice a week or consuming 500 to 600 calories on 2 non-consecutive days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days. These 2 are too restrictive and difficult for me.
A 2014 study found this eating pattern caused a significant weight loss (3 to 8%) and more important, people lost 4 to7% of their waist circumference (significant loss of harmful belly fat that causes disease.). The same study shows it causes less muscle loss than standard calorie restriction and may aid in growth of new brain cells and protect against Alzheimer’s.
In fact, Harvard Medical School published an article on the 8 hour eating, 16 hour fasting version of IF noting “a growing body of research suggests the timing of the fast is key and can make it a realistic way to lose weight and prevent diabetes.”
Four ways to use this information for better health:
Avoid sugars and refined grains. Eat fruit, vegetables, beans, lentils, whole grains, lean proteins and healthy fats, e.g. a sensible Mediterranean-style diet.
Let your body burn fats between meals. Don’t snack!!! (If we don’t snack, our insulin levels go down and our fat cells can release their stored sugar to be used as energy and lose weight.) Be active throughout the day. Build muscle tone.
Consider a simple form of Intermittent Fasting – you choose the 8 hours.
Avoid snacking or eating at night.
I had always believed and followed the popular nutritional recommendations which assert that small, frequent eating, grazing, is the best way to control your appetite. And I worried that not eating enough would cause lethargy, dizziness and brain fog. Or was that an excuse for my eating bigger meals more often (combining the two methods). Not a good idea!
Both IF and grazing share this important feature: we are controlling energy (calorie) intake. When we consume less calories than we burn, we lose weight and ideally most of that is body fat. Whether you take in less calories by eating frequent small meals or infrequent larger meals is up to you.
Because I have been snacking especially at night, I decided to try eating meals during an 8 hour period from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. I also have throatburn a form of Reflux which prescribes no night eating. I have been eating this way for 2 weeks and am feeling good. I never believed I could make it to 11:00 am without eating. However, I am okay, not keeling over from hunger after my 45 minute morning walk. It’s kind of not a bad thing to feel hungry and not rush to get a snack. The better you can manage hunger, the less likely you are to act compulsively toward it!
So if you are looking at this IF stuff and not sure where it fits in for you, what should you do? Learn the essentials of good nutrition, things like eating good quality food in the right amounts at the right times. Things like learning to prepare healthy foods in the first place. Let me know what you think. XO Penny
Resources
Intermittent Fasting: Surprising Update by Dr. Monique Tello Health.harvard.edu
Beginners Guide to Intermittent Fasting jamesclear.com
Experiments with Intermittent Fasting by John Berardi Precisionnutrition.com
I’m game! I should try do without snacking !!! It seems I am always looking for something to snack on. I will give it a try but what do you do without coffee when you first wake up??? Maybe that’s not considered a food!?!
You can have your coffee tea or water when you get up, no sugar. You need to eat 3 meals, or at least 2 during eight hour period. I thought I would be starving, but it’s ok. You know how I love to eat!
This technique – even the term “intermittent fasting” is new to me. I’m interested because you say that there is some evidence that it helps with weight loss, and I’ve noticed that my weight is slowly creeping up.
I often stay up late when I discover a new TV series or am in the middle of a good book. And I’m an evening snacker – though I’ve switched from ice cream or frozen yogurt to fruit or popcorn. But it sounds like I may need to cut out the snacking entirely if I want to make progress. Like Debby, I’m wondering does coffee and/or tea count?
And thank you for bringing IF to my attention!
Hi Karen. IF was new to me to. You can have your morning coffee or tea, no problem. That is my problem-snacking especially at night. Instead of eating 4 small meals, I was eating continuously and it was settling in my belly. Try it. You don’t have to go crazy with it. Do it as often as you can!