My Disastrous Intermittent Fasting Experience

Things you should consider before trying this diet

I have had acid reflux in my stomach in the morning hours.

I have felt that constant rumbling inside my stomach throughout the day. I have felt uneasy and demotivated at times.

I lost my appetite shortly after starting the diet.

In short, I felt terrible from within, even in hours when I was eating normally.

All right, let’s reel back a little and let me tell you my story.

So in the spring of 2019 here in Australia, after coming back from holidays in India, I was inspired by this old friend who has been experimenting with the whole intermittent fasting for a year now.

He was raving about his experience and how it has helped him in maintaining his calorie intake. And that really made me curious.

So I googled to find out more about the diet — it’s benefits, what you should or shouldn’t do, how it impacts your weight loss goals and overall health.

And once I did my research, it seemed easy and doable (at least compared to a Keto diet or an Atkins diet which I have done in the past).

Thus, I decided to give it a try and see for myself.

If you have ever done intermittent fasting in the past, you might already know, the rules for this one are pretty simple (or so you think!)

What is the fuss all about?

On the face value, it’s quite straight forward; there are periods of fasting and periods of eating, you get to decide how you want to do it.

Some people eat for 8 hours and diet for 16 hours. Some others eat for four days and diet for the next three days of the week.

So there are quite a few ways of doing it. I decided to go with the most common route — eat for 9 hours and diet for 15 hours.

So eat specifically between 12:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

Now a little background about me that might help put things into perspective. In general, I eat my lunch at 12:30 pm and my dinner at around 9:00 pm, so these meals didn’t alter.

The only difference I had to make was to skip breakfast. To those who have regularly had breakfast might think it’s not healthy to give up breakfast.

But I did my research and was surprised to find out breakfast isn’t the most important meal of the day after all.

People like Elon Musk don’t have breakfast and they have survived for so long, so can you.

So I was convinced that eating heavy breakfast is all a myth. And with the crazy work schedules, this was like a cherry on top. Less time and effort spent in prepping breakfast and then having it.

In short, it all fit in well.

The first week felt a bit weird

I usually love my morning cup of Expresso after breakfast. But without the food in my belly, I was a little apprehensive of drinking it.

However, I fuelled myself with the much-needed caffeine, and I was alright. Yes, coffee is my poison.

I know it does more harm than good, but I’m not giving up on it. Not yet.

Also, when you are fasting in the early hours, say between 8 am to 12 pm, which is a good 5 hours — coffee helps in killing your appetite. So coffee wasn’t the problem.

Anyway, it was the lunchtime that felt weird. It’s the same routine I follow — no changes there, but my appetite had considerably reduced, and I wasn’t able to have full portions.

Normally I would be hungry in the evening, so I had the liberty of having whatever I wanted as long as it’s all in moderate quantities.

I had snacks to my stomach’s fill. Somehow there was still an empty feeling inside.

And lastly, dinner has to happen before 9 pm; I would have to rush into preparing it immediately after snacks.

Yes, there is a long gap between lunch and snacks and then very little between snacks and dinner.

I know, it should have been equally spaced, but when you are working full-time, not everything works as per you. Not an excuse, just a harsh reality.

So now that the dinners were a tad bit earlier than usual and times when I am stuffing myself because I want to eat before my eating curfew begins, my stomach isn’t taking it all too well.

Second and Third week didn’t get any better

As I had mentioned before I had severe acidity issues, constant rumbling and feeling of emptiness that didn’t make me feel content or satisfied ever.

I tried this for a month.

So imagine 30 days of going through this hellish feeling before I decided to do some quick assessments as what effects it has had on my body.

Well, for starters, there was no change in my weight. I might have lost a few grams here and there, but I shall discard any weight loss/gain, which is under 1 Kg.

My metabolism went for a toss. I think Metabolism has a rhythm to it, and it’s lost every time you sway away from the routine.

What I realised is that it isn’t about the hours when you are fasting when you feel void, it’s the hours when you are eating as well.

It just kills the entire mood for eating with zest, and you aren’t particularly then savouring every meal.

Eating becomes more of a task. It reminds me of my days from childhood when I used to dread lunch and dinner times — the smell of food used to make me want to puke. Still, remember the hours it used to take my Mummy to force-feed me.

More recently, as an adult, I experienced the loss of taste for weeks together due to a heavy dosage of antibiotics that I was subject to — everything tasted like chalk.

To the extent, I lost a few kilos, but it was a dreadful experience. Almost to the point where I felt I didn’t wish to live if eating cannot be joyful.

So, no as an adult, I didn’t wish to go through dreadful punishment again, and I decided to stop after my fourth week.

Now what, you may ask?

I stopped on intermittent fasting and am back to eating normally. I am now onto intuitive eating — learning more about it and will share my experience on that too.

Recently while browsing through an article on intuitive eating, came across one which talked about diets

“90–95 % of those who go on a diet regain the weight they lose in 1–3 years”

It may not be true for everyone who has lost weight and for every diet. But I can understand the underlying nuance of what the author wants to say.

I have done a Low-carb diet and lost 10 kilos in 7 months. I was good at maintaining at that weight for almost 2.5 years post that.

However, now I am on my upward journey again.

But many factors are attributing to it and not maintaining that same diet pattern is just one of them. I have not been working out that intensely or regularly anymore, which is an essential factor too that I can’t ignore.

To summarise, the lesson learnt the hard way is that diets are great for reducing weight once off.

But to maintain that weight, it is essential to engage in intuitive eating and a moderate workout that is part of the active lifestyle.