Intermittent Fasting and my love for food

 

Here are my thoughts about Intermittent Fasting and weight management based on own experiences and my own research and understanding in the past 2 years

First of all, calories matter, A LOT, anyone trying to sell you on something different is just a distraction.

We need to understand that Autophagy, Catabolic or TRE (time restricted window) are just fancier terms for normal body processes. Almost every major claim about fasting ALSO happens when you eat less while doing other forms of eating less.

 To be clear, the part doing the “magic” is the “not eating part”, aka eating fewer calories.

 So fasting is about managing the amount of calories you are taking in for a specific result.

 Eating less occasionally is a great weight management tool.

 If you eat less all of the time , your body is going to adjust to it and it can cause real problems; its a good formula for metabolic dysfunction.

 The other issue with fasting is that you often don’t get crucial nutrients needed for everyday functioning. One of the major things that is on our minds as fasters is “does eating this or drinking that at this time break my fast?”. As if somehow the clock regulates our weight loss using fasting. So having say, a protein shake or a handful of nuts really doesn’t matter if it allows us to get in the nutrients that we need and then feel free to continue our fast.

 So if we know that it’s the calories doing the majority of the work,  how  can we use fasting as a management tool to have long term success ?

1. First rule of fasting is that you shouldn’t be fasting all of the time. I understand the WANT to lose a lot of weight all at once but at the end of the day what you really want is to maintain those results. So food intake has to become a sustainable habit in a manageable way and you need to know the calories in those foods to do this part right.

 

2. Separate your fasting days from your non-fasting days.. Two days a week you fast, having lower calories on those days. A good example might be a Friday or Saturday where you only have one meal later in the day . The other FIVE days keep your calories reasonable but your calorie average high enough to support progress.

• Lower calorie intake can be by way of having grain free days, or one of the many many fasting rules that we have seen our mothers and grandmothers follow for their weekly (oru pozhudhu) vratams. For example: Saturdays-saathvic meals, no rice. Thursdays-Eat one saathvic meal with no salt if possible, fruits or payatham kanji for evening meal.

 

• Back to back fasting days can be counter-productive. One can lose good weight doing it this way but over the long haul there is a higher risk for losing muscle . Since we are basically just depriving ourselves of nutrients like sodium and water in a lot of cases, we have to understand that most of that weight is coming from dehydration.

 

• Occasionally putting back to back days together is fine but you really want to keep your body ready and fueled for activity most of the time.

 

• Not eating food and then having massive binge fests is not supportive of a healthy relationship with food. Most of the people that do this often like the freedom at the end of the fasts but their sleep is often short, metabolism gets compromised and throw our hormones out of whack if we push through it. Especially for women(By most people I mean me, but I know many who have had similar issues). It’s also not necessary.

 

3. Stick to your fasting days and rules by pairing with a friend and hold each other accountable.

 I FAST, I am an advocate for fasting but I don’t talk about it a lot because, frankly, there is a lot of noise out there that isn’t healthy. Fasting and Keto (I have tried both) are good examples of simplistic approaches that are recommended for people with A LOT of weight to lose. So yes, we will often see great transformations. But what you don’t hear about are the massive rebounds and people struggling to maintain the weight loss or have a lot of metabolic and digestive issues and a difficult relationship with food. People tend to OVERUSE FASTING and eventually it imprisons them and their relationship with food. This is the point of the article.

 If we think of fasting as a tool to help with calorie restriction , it can become part of a lifetime solution. I like it a lot but I don’t have silly rules so technically I am not fasting at times to keep my body fueled and preserve my muscle. So yes, my fasting doesn’t particularly align with the traditional idea of Intermittent Fasting, but I also like food, like a LOT, so yeah…