INTERMITTENT FASTING 101: ULTIMATE GUIDE FOR THE BEGINNER

I have half heartedly tried IF in the past but never did it for more than a couple of weeks before giving up. Mindset is everything and my mind, in the past, was not ready to embrace it. 

I had a difficult year in 2019. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and my dad passed away from a terminal illness. With all of the emotions and trying to stay strong for my kids, I stopped caring about myself. Then the pandemic hit. I have been on an emotional roller coaster for what seems like forever.  I gained about 30lbs from the fall of 2019 until late 2020. At my age, weight is not easy to lose, so I was really mad at myself. In December I began doing some soul searching and decided that, with so much in the world being out of my control, I was ready to take back control of my health!

I do not believe in cutting any food group out of my diet completely. I was looking for a long term solution, not a short term fix. I decided to commit completely to doing IF for 30 days. I started on January 2, 2021. 

What is IF?

Intermittent fasting (IF) is a form of time-restricted eating. It involves consuming foods during a specific window of time and avoiding food, or fasting, for the rest of the day. During the fasting portion of the day, you can consume only water, coffee, and tea. During your eating window, you can eat what you like. If weight loss is your main goal, you will want to make healthy choices when possible. 

Most people who follow IF abstain from food at night and for part of the morning and evening. They tend to consume their daily calories during the middle of the day. My eating window is from noon-8pm. I usually eat my first meal between 12:30-1pm and my last meal between 6-7pm. Some nights, if I am hungry, I will have a snack between 7-8pm, but that is rare.

Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Mark Mattson, Ph.D., has studied intermittent fasting for 25 years. He says that our bodies have evolved to be able to go without food for many hours, or even several days or longer.

Mattson says that after hours without food, the body exhausts its sugar stores and starts burning fat. He refers to this as metabolic switching.

“Intermittent fasting contrasts with the normal eating pattern for most Americans, who eat throughout their waking hours,” Mattson says. “If someone is eating three meals a day, plus snacks, and they’re not exercising, then every time they eat, they’re running on those calories and not burning their fat stores.”

Intermittent fasting works by prolonging the period when your body has burned through the calories consumed during your last meal and begins burning fat.

Some people believe that this method works by supporting the body’s circadian rhythm, which is its internal clock.

There are no restrictions on the types or amounts of food that a person can eat during the eating window. This flexibility makes the plan relatively easy to follow.

How do I do IF?

There are many options with IF. 

• 16:8: Eat whatever you want for eight hours a day and fast for the rest. Some people combine this with Keto or other plans that limit what you can eat. Personally, I eat whatever I want and I do not count calories. I believe in moderation and doing this long term.  Some days I do 16:8 and other days, it’s more like 17:7. 
• 5:2: Eat normally for five days a week and cut back to 20 percent of your normal daily calories for the other two “fasting” days, which usually involves about 500 calories for women. I have not tried this plan yet but am considering it for my second month of IF.
• 14:10: Similar to the 16:8 method, but you fast only 14 hours and eat for 10, making it easier to follow but not necessarily easier to lose weight. This is a solid option for those looking to maintain their current weight. This requires paying more attention to the foods you eat and really focusing on healthier options. I have done this plan before, eating my regular way, and I did gain some weight. This option did not work for me for weight loss.
• 18:6: On this plan, you eat for 6 hours and fast for 18. I have heard from lots of people that this is an ideal plan for weight loss. However, only having a 6 hour window doesn’t work for me as I am a busy mama with small children and we like to share meals together. This is an awesome option for many people but the eating window is fairly small. 

What do I Eat on IF?

Anything you want. Seriously, you can eat anything in moderation. Of course, it is beneficial to focus on healthy foods and a balanced diet while limiting processed foods and junk food. But you don’t need to count calories or deprive yourself. Simply listen to your body and eat when you are hungry. 

A balanced diet focuses primarily on:

• fruits and vegetables- fresh, frozen, or canned (in water)
• whole grains, including quinoa, brown rice, oats, and barley
• lean protein- poultry, fish, beans, lentils, tofu, nuts, seeds, low fat cottage cheese, and eggs
• healthful fats from fatty fish, olives, olive oil, coconut, avocado, nuts, and seeds

Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are high in fiber, so they can help keep you feeling full and satisfied. Healthy fats and proteins can also contribute to satiety.

Drinking water regularly throughout the day can help reduce calorie intake because people often mistake thirst for hunger. Again, you can drink whatever you want during your eating window, just be mindful that it still comes down to calories in/calories out, to achieve weight loss. 

You will be happy to learn that calorie-free drinks — such as water and unsweetened tea and coffee — are allowed during the fasting window.

What I have Learned During my First Month of IF

I joined a group on Facebook for Intermittent Fasting. I wanted support and inspiration and of course, tips and ideas. I have found that people in the first weeks of IF tend to have very similar questions and concerns. Here are 6 of the most common things that come up.

1. Do not expect results right away: After a week of doing IF and not losing 20 lbs, people want to give up. Did you gain the weight in a week? No. Then please do not expect to lose it in a week. IF takes time. In fact, MANY people do not start losing noticeable weight for 6-10 weeks. However, what is noticeable? Inches lost. It is important to measure yourself when you start and to take your measurements each month. You may not see tons of weight melting away at first, but chances are, you will be losing inches. Why? Because fat takes up more space in the body and as the fat cells start to disappear, so do the inches. I encourage you to measure your upper arms, chest, waist, hips, thighs and calves. 
2. Start Slowly: Every person is different. Some people have difficulty diving right in to a limited window eating plan. That’s ok. Start slow. Try it for 3 days the first week and go from there. You do not have to jump in 100% to be successful long-term. Take your time. The old saying is true. Slow and steady wins the race. IF is a way of life- it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Listen to your body and do what is best for you.
3. Drink a TON of water: I cannot emphasize this enough! Many people say you should drink 64oz of water a day. Personally, I think that is a minimum.  I am a firm believer in setting a goal of half your body weight in ounces a day. That may sound CRAZY but there have been studies that have shown the health benefits and weight loss benefits of drinking half your weight in ounces. That means, if you weigh 200lbs, you should aim for 100 ounces of water each day. Don’t worry if you can’t hit that mark every day, as long as you are getting 64oz and are doing light to moderate exercise, that should be fine. The more you exercise, the more water you need, so keep that in mind. 
4. Listen to your body: Our bodies do communicate with us…we are just so distracted in this fast paced world, that we rarely stop to listen. Pay attention to the messages your body sends. If you are thirsty, drink. If you are hungry, eat. We often confuse thirst for hunger and end up eating when all we needed to do was drink a glass of water. I am still working on this myself. IF has taught me to listen to my body and to eat when hungry. Over the past month, I realized just how often I was eating out of boredom or mindlessly eating while watching TV. I was rarely actually hungry. I was just eating to eat.
5. Drink Cinnamon Herbal Tea: This is something that I started doing on my own and then found out that it’s actually recommended by some to do during IF. According to some nutritionists, drinking cinnamon herbal tea during the fasting period may suppress the appetite, assisting you in controlling hunger. I have cinnamon black tea that I enjoy almost every night. It has replaced my evening bowl of popcorn. (Some say this makes my fast “dirty”, others disagree. There is no consensus.)
6. Dirty Fast v Clean Fast: Clean fasting is when you follow an intermittent fasting protocol and ingest only water or non-caloric beverages like tap water, mineral water, sparkling water, black coffee, and black & green tea. Sometimes, you’ll find information that says clean fasting must be calorie free. Black coffee and tea are allowed during a clean fast because they don’t trigger an insulin response in your body. However, research shows  black coffee may increase your insulin resistance to a small degree. Water has no calories or sugar, and beverages like black coffee contain minimal amounts of calories, carbohydrates, fat, protein, and minerals. There are insufficient calories and carbohydrates to kick your body out of its fasted state, so it can continue its “metabolic switch” from burning carbs to burning fat as fuel. Dirty fasting is when you eat foods or beverages that are under 100 calories during your fasting window. Your fasting is dirty if you add creamer to your coffee, sip on tasty bone broth, add zero-calorie sweeteners in your tea, or drink zero-calorie soda. 

Intermittent Fasting Benefits Discovered During Research

• Thinking and memory. Studies discovered that intermittent fasting boosts working memory in animals and verbal memory in adult humans.
• Heart health. Intermittent fasting improved blood pressure and resting heart rates as well as other heart-related measurements.
• Physical performance. Young men who fasted for 16 hours showed fat loss while maintaining muscle mass. Mice who were fed on alternate days showed better endurance in running.
• Diabetes and obesity. In animal studies, intermittent fasting prevented obesity. And in six brief studies, obese adult humans lost weight through intermittent fasting.
• Tissue health. In animals, intermittent fasting reduced tissue damage in surgery and improved results.

So far, my experience doing IF has been good. I thought that not having my night snacks would be hard but what I realized is that I was not eating out of hunger. I was eating for something to do while watching TV. Now I have my hot tea at night and I am perfectly satisfied. I do struggle some mornings, especially between 10-12. I make sure to drink lots of water and some mornings, I will have a hot tea. I am in my 4th week of IF and I have lost 1lb so far. I plan to take my measurements on February 2 and I will update with my progress at that time.

My stats after 1 full month following IF- I lost 3.4lbs and 4.5 total body inches. Considering many people do not lose weight at all in the first 1-2 months, I feel good about that.

Someone posted this graph in my IF group on Facebook. I am not sure where it came from but it’s a nice visual that has helped me deal with my lack of scale movement in the first few weeks. I can definitely tell a difference in my cravings. I also feel like I have more control over my eating habits.

If you are interested in learning more about the health benefits of IF, various plans and the science behind it, I highly recommend getting a copy of Gin Stephens book, FAST, FEAST, REPEAT. It’s like the Bible for intermittent fasting.