Why I do Intermittent Fasting

A reader asked if I would write a post about my experience with intermittent fasting. I am happy to oblige as intermittent fasting – or IF – has been an important tool in my weight loss success. 

Let’s start by clarifying that losing weight, while complicated at times by hormones, stressors, genes and environment, can be summarized in a simple formula: 

Calories expended (exercise plus the calories your body burns by breathing, regenerating cells, circulating blood) minus calories consumed (food and beverages) = either a deficit of calories (weight loss) or a surplus (weight gain).

Intermittent fasting is not in itself a weight loss trick. You can’t magically consume more calories because you’re only eating in a 6 or 8-hour window. 

I learned that myself last spring when my husband I first started IF. We would eat whatever we wanted during our eating window, including ice cream, Cheetos, cookies, mac and cheese, red licorice by the package and potato chips. For several weeks, I was losing weight but that was probably because I had given up alcohol in mid-January and had returned to regular exercise.

By early April, I was gaining again. I had even dialed back on the food intake during my window, but the scale was still slowly climbing back up. 

That’s when I joined Noom and discovered I was just eating too much food. Period! After being on Noom for awhile, it dawned on me that I could eat the same amount of food in 45 minutes, 6 hours or 24 hours and it didn’t matter because it’s about the overall calories, not when you eat them. 

So why would I bother doing intermittent fasting? Here are the main reasons I continue to do IF. 

It’s one part of a bigger plan: 

IF is a tool I’ve used for over a year. I believe it has contributed to my success, but it’s not the only tool in my toolbox. I use it in conjunction with other methods, namely not consuming alcohol, developing an exercise habit that I enjoy, and doing Noom. 

I find IF easy to do: 

I am not a breakfast person and I never have been. I find eggs repulsive and while there are other breakfast foods I like, I’m just not hungry in the morning. This was a source of frustration for my parents and me while I was growing up so this isn’t a new thing that I can change. I have tried. So not eating until 12 or 1 pm everyday has not been a problem. I don’t miss eating breakfast.  

Feeling the hungriness: 

I went a long, long time without ever feeling hungry. Hunger was an unfamiliar sensation and so easy to fix if I had even a nanosecond of a hunger pang. IF helps me recognize the feeling of truly being hungry and now I know how to distinguish it from wanting to eat because I’m bored, stressed, happy, sad, etc. 

It makes my life easier: 

Preparing two meals a day rather than three means more time to do things I enjoy. It also means buying fewer groceries, having less dishes to do, and I can eat bigger lunches and dinners.   

It’s taught me some things: 

I have learned to be more disciplined and IF provided me with a way to create structure in an area where there was little.  

Possible health benefits: 

I have scoured the Internet for concrete proof that IF indeed has health benefits and this is the best and most reliable info I could find. There are a lot of maybes, as you will read. 

A few things to note: 

• Noom does not suggest you do IF or any particular diet, but does not dissuade you either should you want to. Noom advises eating breakfast everyday as part of a healthy eating lifestyle. 

• I gave up cream in my coffee in order to make IF work for me. I loved my cream and never thought I would give it up for anything. But I decided to try it for a week, and now I enjoy my coffee as is. I have black coffee every morning, just one mug. I actually taste the subtle flavors in coffee now that there is nothing else in it and have become a bit of a coffee snob. So between 7 pm and 1 pm the following day, I have coffee, lemon water, herbal tea and plain water. That’s it. 

• If I get a headache, and I had many for months while slowly recovering from Dengue Fever, I will eat something no matter what time of day it is so I can take Advil or Tylenol. I usually eat a banana or a slice of cheese. It’s more important to me that I feel better than it is to maintain my fast. 

• You don’t have to do 1:00 to 7:00 pm like I do. If you’re a breakfast lover, your eating window could be 9:00 – 3:00 pm, just have an early dinner. Or extend your window to 8 hours and make it 9 to 5 pm. 

• I did not start doing IF with a 6-hour eating window. I gradually got there. If you’re just beginning IF, I would start with a 10 or 8-hour window of eating and if you want, shrink that slowly. The first month or so is not always easy. You may have low energy, headaches and general malaise. If so, expand your time to accommodate or reevaluate IF. 

IF very well may not be for you and that’s okay! Remember that in the end, it’s all about the calories in and calories expended. Please talk to your doctor about IF if you’re concerned about the health aspects. 

Let me know if you have any questions! 

Adrienne