If you follow us on social media you might have seen that we put out a poll to see what you guys wanted to learn about! We listed a bunch of different diets and surprisingly intermittent fasting won by a landslide, so let’s talk about intermittent fasting and why it is something that we do not support.
If intermittent fasting is something that you are thinking about trying or maybe a spouse, friend, family member, or someone close to you is. This blog could be a great resource to share with them! So, first things first, I think it’s important to note what intermittent fasting is. There’s a bunch of different versions of intermittent fasting and different amounts of hours of fasting but the important thing to take note is that when it comes down to it, it is just timed restrictive eating. When we think about diets a lot of times we think about a certain food, or cutting out an entire food group, maybe even restricting a specific ingredient. For example, if you’re on the keto diet that food group would be carbohydrates(which btw we don’t support keto or any diet for that matter). Sometimes it’s cutting out sugar, sodium, or whatever the diet says that you’re not “allowed” to have.
Diets like the keto diet are a little easier to detect because you know that there is a specific food being restricted. However, with intermittent fasting what makes it a little tricky is that there’s a lot of people who support the claim that it’s “not a diet” because it’s not “restricting” anything. We call BS, because that is simply not true! Maybe it’s not restricting a specific type of food, food group, or specific ingredient, but it is restricting your TIME.
When it comes down to it there are three questions I want you to ask yourself before going on a diet:
1. Is it sustainable long-term?
2. Does it compromise my mental sanity?
3. Is it going to benefit me and my health long term?
Let’s break these down a little further!
1. Is it sustainable for the rest of my life?
Absolutely not! I hear all the time about people who start Intermittent Fasting then they’ll go to brunch, a holiday party or whatever it is and they get there and it’s not within their “fasting window” or “allotted time to eat.” That’s not sustainable and you can’t participate in regular life events anymore because it does not align with when you’re “allowed” to eat, so that is reason number one!
2. Does it compromise my mental sanity?
When we think about making peace with food. We need to remove all guilt, shame, and morality tied to food. Think back to the example that I just gave about sustainability. If you went to a social event where you felt like you’re not allowed to eat because it’s not within your “fasting window” that’s not good for your mental sanity. Let’s think about if you do decide to break your fasting window anyways because you’re at a social event. Now we start to feel guilt and tie morality into the timing of eating. That can alter mental stability and you need to protect your energy!
So let’s go to the basics of needing to eat and be energized. We need water, we need food, we need sleep, and those are three necessities. It is a PRIVILEGE to have an abundance and an excess to food. If we are intentionally restricting ourselves of the times we are “allowed” to eat that is absurd. So, if you feel like you’ve ever tried intermittent fasting or you know people that are doing it because they think that they are putting themselves in “control” of what they’re eating. That is truly just a false sense of control because they’re thinking that they’re not allowed to eat at a certain time when they are! Intuitive Eating is amazing at helping us make peace with food and understand that we do have unconditional permission to eat. Once we realize that, we lose that feeling of feeling out of control around food because we know that we have full access to it and can eat any food whenever we want.
3. Is it going to benefit me and my health long term?
There’s been a lot of people that have started backing the “science” of Intuitive Eating with Intermittent Fasting and none of those studies show sustained weight loss over two years. Here is an article posted about a doctor who had tried intermittent fasting years ago and had good results with it, so he started recommending it to all of his patients. He was later involved in a large study on the effects of intermittent fasting versus people who just eat normally. He realized that there wasn’t a difference and that there’s actually a loss of lean muscle mass versus fat loss in those who tried intermittent fasting.
Listen, food is a privilege, food is energy, food is what truly keeps our brains functioning, our body functioning, and our organs functioning so you do not need to have a restricted time when you’re not “allowed” to eat because that can perpetuate some truly disordered eating patterns and behaviors. If you enjoyed this blog, I know you will also greatly enjoy my blog titled: Why we do NOT support Noom. Give it a read and let me know your thoughts!
