Is intermittent Fasting a Good Idea for me?
Let’s talk about intermittent fasting. I’m by no means an expert on IF or any variations of the topic, but I’ve been in this space for a long time, heard a lot of different arguments for one side or another, and have what I believe to be a balanced and forgiving approach to it. So I want to give you my professional and honest take on the topic… because I know a lot of you are wondering.
IF can be a great method for some people to control their eating habits, lose weight, improve their digestion, increase blood sugar control, and more. But, the most important thing, I think, about IF is actually that you stop eating late in the evening. And here’s why.
Every cell in your body is on a sort of clock where it does things at certain times of the day. So when we practice IF, it helps our bodies to sync with those rhythms and helps us to DIGEST our food better..
Essentially what happens late at night is that our bodies stop producing certain kinds of digestive juices and switches into clean-up mode. Imagine your body is an office building. In the evening when the lights go off, the janitor crew comes out and cleans everything up and gets ready for the next day. When we practice IF, the janitor crew comes out and cleans up all the junk that got into our bodies during the day. When we eat late at night, it’s like turning the lights on and putting up a sign that says “open 24/7” – it’s not going to kill you but it’s gonna make it a whole lot harder for your clean up crew cells to clean up your mess!
So, the most important time of day to NOT be eating lots of food and ingesting calories? Is actually 2-3 hours before bedtime and thereafter.
Does IF help you lose weight, though? Some people argue that it doesn’t matter whether or not you practice IF if you’re trying to lose weight. As long as you’re in a caloric deficit (i.e. spending more calories than you consume), you will lose weight. I’m going to disagree with that and say, I think it depends. I have so many clients who actually lose weight by eating more of the right foods… so I really don’t think that’s the only factor going on here. And also, if you’re in a caloric deficit, but your digestion and your blood sugar control SUCKS, it doesn’t matter how well you control your intake of foods, You’re going to struggle to lose weight.
Now, I do think that caloric deficit matters for many people trying to lose weight, and IF can help you get there. But overall, I think the way you take care of your body and the quality of foods you ingest matters way more than anything else when it comes to getting to a healthy weight.
Anyway, the most important part of IF is simply this: the consistency of the actual TIME you stop eating and when you start eating in the morning. You need to give your body time to wind down and take out the trash before your head hits the pillow and the janitor crew comes out. It will help you sleep better, recover better, and digest better.
Stopping eating 2-3 hours before bed helps your metabolism slow down & tells your body it’s time to go to sleep. When we eat, our bodies rev up to use or store those calories. When we eat late at night, essentially it’s telling our bodies that we should be awake doing something!… so it’ll actually affect your QUALITY of sleep in most cases.
Now, if you want to successfully practice IF there’s a couple things you need to know.
You should practice a 12 hour minimum Feeding window: that means, if you eat breakfast at 7AM you should be done eating by 7PM. That gives you 12 hours of fasting and 12 hours of feeding and 2-3 hours before your 10:00 bedtime. You can shorten your feeding window if you want to say, 11:AM to 7PM, but I think that for many women, 12 hours of fasting and 12 hours of feeding with controlled calorie intake of QUALITY foods is a good amount of room to get those great janitorial benefits of IF.
When your tummy GROWLS? That’s actually your intestines moving the leftovers toward the EXIT to make sure the halls are clean before more traffic comes through! It’s okay, normal, and good to let your tummy growl. If your tummy doesn’t growl, practicing IF while eating a wide variety of veggies, proteins, and whole-food carbs (plus regular exercise) may help to restore that good clean-up reflex.
If you get home late at night past your usual “feeding window” and you haven’t had dinner… I don’t want you to starve. That is NOT the point. Pick something lighter that’s easy for your body to digest like yogurt and make sure you have a good first meal tomorrow. If this is happening to you regularly where you’re missing dinner when you’re on the go after 5:00, you should talk to me and we'll strategize to make sure you’re able to eat proper, sufficient meals throughout the day. You’d be amazed at what just talking about this can do for you. (Also, I don’t want you to stay up later in order to wait 3 hours before bed to eat. Your body is on a clock and doesn’t care much what your brain thinks about IF.)
Don’t be afraid to live your life. Keep these things as a general rule and follow them to the best of your ability. BUT FREAKING OUT ABOUT THIS WILL NOT HELP YOU. So don’t get overly-obsessed about it. Use the general rules to your advantage to get the health benefits and keep eating good quality meals and enjoying your life. That being said, if you have diabetes, prediabetes, high blood pressure, or any other kind of chronic health concern, IF can in some cases be more effective than prescription medication at managing these conditions. In THAT case, being quite strict about IF would be more important. But, remember: The IF serves you. You don’t serve the IF.
If you are COMMITTED to IF you will find that your body will adjust it’s hunger signals to your new normal feeding times! So, if you start breaking your fast at 11:00 you’ll find that at 10:45 your stomach will start growling regularly! At first you might find that you’re hungry at 8:00AM, but as you keep going with IF, you’ll adjust to it if you commit to it for the long term. Slowly moving your feeding window back a little later a half hour at a time can help with this adjustment. If you want to try IF but you find that your body isn’t getting with the program, you may just not be eating enough CALORIES, protein, and fats at your regular meal times to begin with and we likely need to talk about how to help you do that.
A lot of people tell me that they’re not hungry in the morning and they don’t want to eat breakfast at breakfast time? That’s actually okay for most people! There are exceptions to this, but if you’re exercising and eating nutritious whole foods, your body should let you know when it’s hungry. Just make sure you have a proper breakfast ready to eat when that signal comes and the janitor crew is done cleaning up.
For MOST of us, that does mean that it’s important to have breakfast ready on the go!
My favorite to-go breakfasts are
High protein Overnight Oats
Egg Muffins with spinach and peppers and cheese
Boiled eggs with Canadian bacon on the go
Protein shake with protein powder, greens, fruits, creatine, & canned whole-fat coconut milk
Do you want to try IF? Let me know your questions and if you’re interested, we can chat about implementing it into your daily routine! Let me know if you found this helpful and get in touch if you need more nutrition guidance to optimize your daily nutrition for your unique lifestyle.
Be well,
Julia
CPT, CNC, CVC
