4 Misconceptions about Intermittent Fasting

Is it really for you?

Intermittent fasting in a few words

4 misconceptions about intermittent fasting #1 — I’m going to lose weight #2 — I can eat whatever I want during my eating period #3 — I must pay to join the “fasting” community #4 — I’ll see quick results

My personal experience — Positive and negative aspects of fasting

Over the years, I decided to try a new lifestyle and rethink the way I was managing my meals. Although I’m not a professional in this field per se, I’ve been able to experiment with many things related to food and nutrients.

That’s why I wanted to share with you my personal experience and research on intermittent fasting.

To put things in context, here is the relationship the old me had with food:

• I grew up eating three times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• These meals were huge, probably around 1,000 calories each.
• As a child, I was told that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, so it became a ritual. As soon as I opened my eyes, I would start thinking about breakfast.
• Throughout my childhood, I ate a breakfast of “charcuterie”, butter, white bread, and fruit juice concentrate.
• I kept the same pattern into adulthood, except on weekends when I ate twice a day — a huge breakfast and dinner.
• I wasn’t paying attention to calories. I also didn’t find it helpful to eat vegetables and hated the idea of starting any kind of sport.

Once I became independent, I wanted to change my lifestyle and I took it one step at a time. The whole process took two and a half years:

• I started to incorporate balanced meals (without fasting) into my daily routine. My concern was to get used to having vegetables on my plate, which wasn’t the case for many years. At that time, it was unimaginable to eliminate breakfast.
• Then I started small workouts. I started with 12-minute workouts every other day. I had never worked out before, so I wanted to get used to it first and then increase the intensity.
• Months went by, and I started working out three times a week.
• Then I started thinking about intermittent fasting, first as a weekly test. I just wanted to try it, mostly because I couldn’t imagine living my life without breakfast every morning (as you can see, it was a real thing to me).
• I tried intermittent fasting for a week to see how it felt. I chose to fast for 16 hours (8 pm to 12 am) and eat during an 8-hour window (12 pm to 8 pm).
• Furthermore, I realized that I could go without eating in the morning. In fact, I had more energy without breakfast than with (the energy gain from intermittent fasting is confirmed by a study published in 2020).
• Finally, I started counting the calories per meal I had to eat and cutting back on processed sugar, as much as possible.

Once I incorporated intermittent fasting into my life, many people in my surroundings asked me questions and I realized that there are still many misconceptions about it.

Intermittent fasting in a few words

Intermittent fasting is a time-limited type of eating. This means that you can eat for a certain period.

To be brief, there are three main types of fasting: alternate-day fasting, whole-day fasting, and time-restricted eating.

In this article, I will discuss time-restricted eating, defined by Harvard as “Following a meal plan each day with a designated period for fasting”, this period is also called a “window.”

In other words, you can choose a period of your day during which you can eat.

If you hear someone talking about fasting, you will probably hear references to 16/8, 18/6, or 20/4. These fractions simply refer to the number of hours a person chooses to eat and fast.

16/8: 16 hours of fasting and an 8-hour window to eat.

18/6: 18 hours of fasting and a 6-hour window to eat.

20/4: 20 hours of fasting and a 4-hour window to eat.

Good to know:

• It’s better not to eat anything 3 hours before going to bed and not to eat anything in the hour of waking up (if you can watch this video, it’s a real gold mine).
• The moment you stop eating is not the moment you start fasting. When you stop eating, you still have food in your body that is being digested. Simply put, your fasting begins when your body has nothing left to digest. So you can fast faster if your last meal is light.
• Fasting allows the organs to repair themselves

“When your organs are repaired and rejuvenated, it’s almost like taking care of your car, getting the oil changed and tires rotated, daily” Dr. Satchidananda Panda

4 misconceptions about intermittent fasting

#1 - I’m going to lose weight

When you look at the studies that have been done on this subject, it’s not that simple.

First, you should be careful because there are lots of studies on intermittent fasting, but they don’t always involve humans, many studies involve mice.

In a 2019 STEM talk, Dr. Satchidananda Panda confirms that studies on mice “do show that time-restricted eating leads to weight loss.”

He found that “mice that ate within a set time frame (8–12 hours) produced thinner, healthier mice than those that ate the same number of calories in a wider time window, showing that when you eat can be as important as what you eat.”

But…

When studies involve humans, the samples are not always diverse enough. A study published in September 2021, states that “ERT reduces body weight and improves metabolism. Decreases in insulin resistance, oxidative stress, inflammation, and blood pressure are observed even when body weight is held constant (75). However, many of these studies are small sample sizes (10 to 20 participants), short-term, (4 to 12 weeks), or single-sex.”

I also saw many articles earlier this year written about a study published in April 2022. These articles conclude that intermittent fasting doesn’t work any better than a traditional caloric deficit diet.

Here’s the study’s passage that referred to “a regimen of time-restricted eating was not more beneficial about reduction in body weight, body fat, or metabolic risk factors than daily calorie restriction.”

When I read the study, I noticed that the scientists had indeed come to this conclusion concerning, exclusively, obese people.

Conclusion? The information relayed isn’t false, but it cannot be applied in a general way.

Having said that, you should be careful with the information you find online and, as much as possible, make up your mind by doing further research and checking the sources, if they are cited — of course.

Secondly, I believe that the results of intermittent fasting won’t be the same depending on where you start.

If you start intermittent fasting when you are already eating balanced meals, exercising, and have a good sleep cycle (I’ll probably write another article on that subject later), I am not sure that you’ll see significant weight loss.

On the contrary, if you start fasting when you haven’t integrated your daily routine of balanced meals, the choice of fasting may seem a bit hasty. It would be a matter of integrating the habit of eating balanced meals (1) and fasting (2) into your daily routine, which can be too big a goal all at once.

In my opinion, it’s better to take it one step at a time, although the combination of the two is more likely to result in weight loss.

Therefore, before you start fasting, you may want to ask yourself these questions:

• Am I eating balanced meals every day?
• Am I physically active or does my job involve a lot of movement?
• Do I have a good, complete sleep cycle?

#2 I can eat whatever I want during my eating period

This can be a little tricky at first because if you were used to eating non-stop from the moment you woke up until you went to bed, it can be hard to manage your hunger.

You may be tempted to binge on all kinds of food as soon as your fasting is over.

The idea behind intermittent fasting is to eat the same number of calories you would have eaten if you had not been fasting.

However, if you want to lose weight, you can decrease the number of daily calories during your eating window.

On the contrary, if you want to gain weight, you must increase your daily calorie count.

Just because the major word in intermittent fasting is “when” (when can I eat?) doesn’t mean you can forget about the “what” (what should I eat?).

If I can give you one piece of advice: prepare the meals you will eat at the end of your fast. This will help you not jump on the first food you find.

I made this mistake when I first started fasting, I was so hungry that I could eat a large amount of food in a short period.

Even though I was eating balanced meals, I was eating too much in one sitting. Also, there is some controversy about how much protein your body can assimilate at once, there are many factors to consider: how often you work out, whether you eat all day or fast for part of the day, the type of protein you eat, etc., …

#3 — I must pay to join the “fasting” community

When I started fasting, some people asked me questions about how it works: Do I feel hungry? When does my meal period start? Could I drink while fasting? Did I see quick results?

One of them was about the price of the “fasting” method.

Intermittent fasting is free. You don’t have to pay to do it unless you want to be accompanied by a professional during the process.

#4 — I’ll see quick results

My point is that you shouldn’t start something if you expect quick results.

You must adapt to your lifestyle and environment if you want results. This means taking a long-term view.

I’m sorry if I offend some people’s sensibilities, but the fact is that promises of quick results (1 week or a few months) through questionable supplementation processes or by starving yourself are just smoke and mirrors.

You may see quick results (you’ll probably lose excess fat quickly) but these methods cannot be sustained over the long term.

And beyond the fact that it won’t be fun to stick with them, these methods can be very dangerous to your health.

If you want to change your eating habits, do it at your own pace and consult a healthcare professional.

My personal experience — Positive and negative aspects of fasting

As I got used during years to eating once I got up, it was strange to wake up and just drink water and coffee.

I noticed I had way more energy in the morning than before, but I was hungry between 10 am and noon. To calm the feeling of hunger (I couldn’t manage it), I increased the number of cups of coffee, which isn’t really a good thing.

The second thing is that I wanted to do things so badly that I made it a point to scrupulously respect the window through which I could eat. As a result, it created a form of stress. In retrospect, I should have allowed myself more flexibility.

Concretely, I chose to time my eating window to my workday as an employee (my table time started at noon). Therefore, my window ended at 8 pm. Finishing at 5 pm left me with 3 hours to go home, cook with my boyfriend, work out, clean, shower, etc. Far be it from me to complain about comfort but, fasting was stressful in that sense as I had to hurry home from work so I didn’t overshoot my window. Nothing dramatic — I agree — but I wanted to live my experience to the fullest and do things right.

To defuse this problem, we started preparing larger quantities to cover at least 2 days in a row with this meal. This way, we didn’t throw ourselves into everything and we could devote this time to other things.

The big positives are:

• It has changed my relationship with hunger. I am much better at managing my hunger than before.
• I have a lot more energy in the morning, and it makes sense. When I was eating three times a day, I was in a digestive phase all day.
• I lost 10 kilos but, in my opinion, the food rebalancing, the fasting, and the sport formed a whole that allowed me to reach this result

In closing, I would simply advise you to think about the real reason you want to start fasting.

Then you can determine if it’s a good reason to start and if it’s the right time.

Editorial Disclaimer: This article reflects the opinions and perspectives of the author. It does not represent the publication’s point of view. In addition, we kindly ask that sources of information be appropriately documented. Illumination and all its publications keep a neutral perspective on this topic to allow diverse voices.

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