Intermittent Fasting… it’s a yes from me.
Let me get this straight… I am NOT advocating you start a diet. You know my views on diets. They don’t work. Just eat real food; address your overconsumption of sugar, refined carbs, processed food and booze; but obviously, you (nor I) am a saint or a martyr, so be realistic about your life. Intermittent fasting focuses not on what we should eat but when we should be eating.
Intermittent fasting, or time-restricted eating, was not something I had ever considered before I damaged my back. I’ve always thought it screamed disordered eating, but there’s good scientific evidence that fasting aids cellular repair. If your system doesn’t have to work on processing food, it can work on fighting the cause of inflammation.
Perhaps the most well-known of the intermittent fasting diets is the 5:2. I discounted this immediately. I’d never get through a day on 500 calories without killing at least one member of my family. Moreover, it’s a bit too feast-or-famine for my liking. I doubt I’d be able to control myself on my days of ‘normal’ eating, and the sense of restriction would make me fearful of altering my relationship with food.
Looking at a daily fasting window seemed much more palatable to me. The science points to a 16:8 ratio: fast for 16 hours then eat in the 8-hour window.
This again seemed unachievable for my lifestyle, so I decided to go for a 14:10 hour split in order to try and make it work. My theory was that if I had an early dinner with the kids and tried to delay breakfast for as long as possible the next day, I’d be in, or around, that timeframe.
Readers, it ASTONISHED me how surprisingly ok it is.
I’m not rigid with it – I flex often, so if I eat later, I have breakfast later. If I’m starving, I’ll eat. If I’m too snappy with the kids or my husband, then he makes me eat. But, and this is a big but, I’m committed. This is going to be an ongoing lifestyle choice.
WHY I hear you cry, WHY would you do that to yourself? I would have been one of the naysayers, but now the inflammation has cleared up, I have realized a few things. I am sleeping FAR better. I have more energy, and I am weirdly less hungry and crave sweet food less often.
I am NOT a nutritionist, but I am guessing this has something to do with keeping my blood sugar levels more stable, and I really was the queen of hangry.
I’ve started to look at the wider benefits of time-restricted eating beyond inflammation. I’ll precis, but the claims are:
Fasting causes our insulin levels to drop. This makes our body burn stored fat to produce energy. This is great for midlife women as there is an increased risk of insulin resistance. It also appears to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.
There is evidence that the human growth hormone may increase with fasting.
The HGH helps maintain our tissue and organs throughout our life.
There are claims it helps fight ageing. Ageing is caused by, amongst other things, an overly high production of free radicals. It seems that fasting helps to clear the free radicals and build our cells’ resilience to free radicals in the future.
Studies looking into periodic fasting have also found considerable improvements in individuals with high blood sugar and positive effects on cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Weight-loss. Obviously, you’d need to stay within your daily limit for your calorific intake, (never been a forte of mine). Still, the research shows positive results without requiring any reduction in the amount of food that you eat (so long as that amount is sensible).
It can be hard to break the habit of eating upon waking.
I have always been a breakfast person, but like everything, it may take a bit of time to get used to, but adopting the new pattern soon becomes habitual. It really helped to have the motivating factor of my back to break the habit – the fact I knew the benefits helped me enormously. Is there a benefit you can use to help you?
What started as an experiment is going to continue way past the original timeframe, hopefully. I’d like it to become a lifestyle choice. I just feel so much better for it. Surprised, but pleasantly so.