When you hear the word "fasting," what comes to mind? Deprivation? Despair? Trying to eat your young because you're so hungry that every time you look at them you see little cheeseburgers with arms?
I'm right there with you. Or I WAS.
Before I go on, I want to issue a disclaimer: What I am about to write is not directed at anyone in particular. I've been fighting this weight loss battle for a looong time, and one thing I have heard ad nauseum is, "You're probably not eating enough," or, "You need to eat more often." Everyone says this to me, and I stopped finding it annoying a long time ago. I promise. I just smile and nod and realize that people really are trying to be helpful by sharing what has either worked for them, or what they themselves have been told repeatedly by those supposedly in the know.
I know that many people have been successful with the plan that suggests eating several very small snack-ish type meals every day, and every couple of hours, rather than the traditional three meals per day. If that works for them, then great. But me, I like MEALS. You know ... a big, fat chicken breast with a big side of carbs and another big side of vegetables followed by something sweet (thanks again, dad, for the the inherited after-dinner sweet tooth). Eating like a bird all day long leaves me feeling like ... a really hungry and dissatisfied bird. A cranky one at that.
I WILL peck your eyes out.
In the end, it all comes down to burning more than you take in. Go ahead, eat those six Twinkies. If that's all you eat today, you'll lose weight. You'll be sick and unhealthy, but you'll lose weight. The point here is that no matter where/when/how you take in your energy, using more than you ingest will bring weight loss results.
For someone whose problem is an obsession with food, having to eat every couple of hours and therefore spend a LOT of time preparing things to eat can be problematic. It feeds that obsession. If someone came to me and told me they had a drinking problem, I'd likely NOT tell them to go get a job as a bartender. Same concept here.
Now, enter the concept of fasting.
What I'm talking about here isn't the nonsense you typically hear about where you ("you," meaning "annoyingly skinny celebrities") go 30, 60, even 90 days taking in nothing but fruit/veggie juice. No thank you.
I'm talking about intermittent fasting, herein referred to as "IF." There are different ways to do this:
-Fast (nothing to eat and nothing but calorie free beverage) for a 24 hour period a couple of times per week.
-Fast daily for anywhere from 16-20 hours, allowing yourself an eating "window" of 4-8 hours every day.
I've chosen to do the latter (started at 16 hours and now doing about 18-19 daily), and so far I am very happy with it.
My observations
The Pros:
-Less obsessing. I am no longer spending endless hours in the morning preparing all my little snacks to take with me to work. This sets me free in so many ways. It's hard to explain if you've never had a dysfunctional relationship with food, but not having to deal with food for the better part of my day just creates a feeling of freedom for me. I feel my obsession with food diminishing and I like it.
-A sense of control. When I overeat, the first thing I feel after binging is a sense of guilt over my complete lack of control--and it is one ugly, vicious cycle. On the flip side, when I refrain from eating for a long period of time and let my mind rule rather than my stomach, I feel empowered. I feel as though I'm gaining control over an area of my life that has long controlled ME. This does wonders for my psyche.
-A "lighter" feeling. With a 5-hour eating window (the IF crowd refers to this as a feeding window, but I feel like I should be eating from a trough when I use that term) every day, the opportunity to overeat is greatly decreased. Sure, I could spend five hours stuffing my face, but I don't. My face-stuffing days ended a long time ago. I eat too much, to be sure, but typically over the course of an entire day (a few Doritos here, a Zinger or two there, grazing during the dinner-cooking hour until I've inadvertently consumed the equivalent of two meals), not in a few short hours.
-I'm not dying. I have times where I feel hungry, but it usually passes with a big drink of water. And I've even noticed that, when it's time to break my fast and I've gone 17 or more hours without food, I don't feel ravenously hungry. Yes, I'm ready to eat something, but there are no cheeseburgers with arms anywhere in sight.
-Weight loss. I'm still new at this IF thing. I'm still trying to find a groove and be 100% consistent with it. But I've found that when I do it and do it right for a couple of days in a row, I see the scale go down and I just plain feel better--more energy and never weighed down by an overstuffed gut.
The Cons (there really aren't many):
-The family factor. One thing I read in my many studies on this subject is that this IF thing is much harder to do if you are not a single, carefree sorta person. I have kids. Kids like to eat. I hear it's good for kids to eat dinner pretty much every day. This means I am cooking for them at night during part of my fasting period. It's a challenge, but I find that if I break my fast (at 4:00) with something relatively healthy and filling (a piece of whole wheat toast and a green smoothie), I'm not terribly tempted to help myself to giant spatulas full of their dinner.
-Adjusting. This takes some getting used to. It's different. It bucks against what you've always done because you've always been told to do it. There is an adjustment period, and though I like this way of eating and I think it's going to work well for me, I'm still in that adjustment phase.
For the skeptics
Not convinced? Or on the fence? Google it. That's what I did. I was very surprised at how much information I found on this subject and at how many former advocates of the eat-every-two-hours diet have been converted to the IF lifestyle. There is a TON of science out there backing this way of eating.
If you don't feel like Googling it, let me just share with you some of the things I've learned:
-"Starvation mode" is bunk. Hogwash. Nonsense. We humans, especially Americans, are spoiled. We think we're starving if we miss our afternoon snack. How did our ancestors (you know, the ones who weren't so fat?) live? Do you think they stopped at the 7-11 and grabbed a granola bar every time they felt a twinge of hunger? They ate what they grew or killed and eating wasn't always an hourly or even daily occurrence. Studies show that metabolism will slow after
long periods of fasting, but the percentage is so minute and insignificant that it barely registers on the charts. If our bodies truly are starving, guess where they go for fuel? Our FAT STORES! If your body stops burning fat when you eat less, can someone please explain anorexics to me? How do they get down to -12% body fat and 75 pounds if their bodies stopped burning fat when they stopped eating?
Note: In no way do I condone or advocate dabbling in anorexia. Bad idea.
This is an instance where people (mainly fitness professionals/personal trainers) have said something so often and for so long, that it's become fact without really being 100% factual. While there's nothing unhealthy about eating 5-6 small, nutritious snacks per day, it's not keeping your body from the dreaded and imaginary "starvation mode," as has been pounded into us.
Big, fat, HUGE clarification here: I am not saying that you are an idiot for using frequent eating to lose weight. Nor am I saying that the method itself is hogwash or bunk. You can stop writing that angry comment you were about to send me. I'm saying that there is a whole lot of misunderstanding out there about WHY it works. It works because calories are being restricted. Calorie restriction coupled with frequent eating works. I do not dispute that. I only dispute the reasons we've been given about WHY it works. If you were eating 600 calories 6 times per day, you can't tell me that you'd expect to lose weight or rely on a raised metabolism to burn fat for you. This article explains it oodles better than I can:
http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2011/10/snacking-metabolism/
-Weight loss/muscle gain. Our bodies are primed for fat-burning while in fasting mode as practiced with IF. Again, Google this. I read so many articles and visited so many sites that I didn't keep track of many of the links. Studies have shown that fasting with proper nutrition and proper weight-lifting technique actually IMPROVES the body's ability to gain muscle, and we all know that more muscle = more calories burned. That IS a fact.
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Overall health. One thing I read over and over again in my quest for info on IF was that fasting has been shown to cause marked health improvements (improved cholesterol numbers, for one) and is linked to prevention of pesky little maladies like cancer, type II diabetes, and dementia, just to name a few. Read up on it. You'll be impressed.
-No more grazing. I chose my eating window as 11am to 4pm because 4:00 (the time I usually get home from work) is when I typically start undoing all the good things I've done all day long, and the undoing continues until about 9:00 at night. I get home and the house is a mess and the kids are loud and there's a laundry list (actual laundry included) of things for me to do before bedtime.
Let the stress eating begin.
"Oh, it won't hurt anything if I just have this handful of Fritos."
"It's just a few bites of chicken enchilada casserole that I swore I wasn't going to touch."
"Oh, it won't hurt anything if I just have this handful of Fritos."
"I really need/deserve to eat this chocolate bunny leftover from Easter 2010."
"Oh, it won't hurt anything if I just have this handful of Fritos."
When it comes to "snacks," if I give myself an inch, I take a mile. On the other hand, when I know I'm in fasting mode and NOTHING is allowed, I have no leeway. And once again, I have that sense of control that empowers me.
In a nutshell
Despite all of the suggestions out there to the contrary, our bodies indeed were NOT made to be fed every few hours.
We are not garbage disposals. Our bodies were designed to be fed what we NEED to survive, and not to be constantly fed just to avoid slight little feelings of discomfort now and then. When you feel those little pangs of hunger, embrace them. Encourage them. Appreciate them. It means your body is about to start gorging on your fat cells. Nom, nom, nom.
I'm in no way the poster child for this subject, since I'm just getting started. I'm only passing along to you what I have learned in my hours and hours of reading about this topic. I've shared with you what my limited experience has been, along with some links below featuring folks who have had great success. If eating smaller meals is the easiest way for YOU to control your calorie intake and see the results that YOU want, then that's what YOU should do. It's worked for many. But this fasting thing gives me a sense of control and keeps me from overeating during my typical binge-fest hours.
IF feels like something I can live with long term. Best of all,
the evidence suggests that it's good for my health. I'm sold.
One of my favorite IF blogs out there is
19 Hours = Freedom. I like it because she takes a common sense approach and because she has had results. If you're interested at all in IF, her blog is a good place to start.
Other IF links I like (there are tons more, but these are the ones I managed to save):
http://n8trainingsystems.com/2012/04/20/is-breakfast-the-most-important-meal-of-the-day/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fasting/#axzz1xhhqj5Ni
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/health-benefits-of-intermittent-fasting/#axzz1wCCJ8S2A
http://artofmanliness.com/2012/01/25/intermittent-fasting/
http://www.paleoplan.com/2012/05-09/intermittent-fasting-part-3-faq/
