What to Know Before You Start Intermittent Fasting

I know people get fed up with seemingly, ever-changing nutrition advice but when it comes to intermittent fasting, this isn’t new. If anything, eating around the clock is new and definitely not healthy. You may already know that when we sleep, our body heals and regenerates. Think of digestive rest in the same way. Time without calories allows your body to heal and repair. It counters inflammation, cancer, and weight gain.

So how does it work? Truthfully, there are many different methods and they don’t all involve extended fasts. The concept of intermittent fasting refers to the fact that when we eat is as important as what we eat. And it may be more important.

With nutrition clients, I explain the timing concept using a research study with three groups of mice. One group had an unhealthy diet and could eat around the clock. (I’m sure you can guess what happened to those rodent’s weight and lab tests.) The second group could only eat for eight hours each day and had a moderately healthy diet, lower in sugar and carbs than the first group. The third group had the healthiest diet of all, the most fiber and lowest sugar, but they could eat whenever they wanted. So, who do you think did the best in terms of weight and health? The time restricted group. According to these mice and humans too, timing matters.

The second group of mice in the study mentioned above, did something called 16:8. This is when you eat for eight hours and “fast” for 16. So, you could eat from 10am-6pm and then, as we say at Foodtrainers, “the kitchen is closed”. This is the same method Hugh Jackman used for the Wolverine movie.

We start clients with a 12-hour rule. And I suggest starting where you are. If you have a super early breakfast and a late dinner, start to smush things a bit (see, I’m not always so science-y!) and nudge your dinner time up a little earlier. There is a lot of convincing data on more aggressive fasts, but a 24-hour water fast isn’t step one, especially not for women who seem to have a more difficult time with aggressive time manipulation.

A fun, summer way to experiment with fasting is while traveling. Just say no to airline offerings, stick to water and/or caffeine. This decreases jet lag and you don’t need to bring any special foods.

The other thing to remember is that we’re not lab rats. If you are condensing your eating and feel bingey or that you’re now eating “worse,” fasting may not be for you. And one final point: It’s better, for a number of reasons, to make dinner earlier than it is to skip breakfast. Your body will look and feel it’s best if you eat in line with your circadian rhythms. Simply stated, eat when it’s light out. Step one if you’re a newbie would be to just start to track when you eat (include your first calories, coffee counts if it’s more than 50 calories) and when you close the kitchen. Get a sense of your norm and only then try to experiment.