episode 190: what’s the deal with intermittent fasting?
In this episode, we're diving into a topic that's been surprisingly absent from the podcast until now: intermittent fasting. A friend on IG reached out and requested this episode and I'm excited to get into it.
I start by defining what intermittent fasting really is and discuss the various ways people approach it, like the popular 16:8 method. I cover the potential pros and cons of IF, including how it might differ for women and men due to our unique hormonal makeup.
But here’s the big question: Is intermittent fasting right for you? I’ll share my candid thoughts on why it might not be the best fit for most people, particularly if you have a history of disordered eating. We'll discuss how the rigidity of this approach can backfire, leading to overeating, stress, and a disconnect from your natural hunger and fullness cues. I’ll also talk about who IF might be helpful for.
A peek into what I talk about today:
The surprising reason why intermittent fasting can actually lead to overeating.
Why intermittent fasting might not be the quick fix for weight loss you’re hoping for.
How your natural hunger patterns can make or break your success with intermittent fasting.
What most people get wrong about intermittent fasting and weight loss.
Is intermittent fasting more harmful for women? What the research says.
If you’ve been considering intermittent fasting or are curious about whether it could work for you, this episode is a must-listen. Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to feeling good in your body or finding ease around food.
And just a quick reminder—I'm opening up five spots for one-on-one coaching this fall! If you're interested, make sure to join the early interest list to get first dibs and a special discount. Click here.
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2024-08-06 12-25-07
[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Thank you for being here listening to episode 190 of the diet diaries, trying to get all my stuff in order here as I'm talking. Um, quick announcement. If you listened last week, you heard this. Coming this fall, I'm going to have space to bring on five new people and do one on one coaching.
So I have an early interest list going, um, so that if you are thinking about coaching, you want to get more information, add your name to the list so that you get, kind of get first access to the five spots, which means you'll set up a consult call. We'll meet. And that's like the process, right? So being on the interest list doesn't commit you to anything.
It just gives you options. Um, and I'm, um, offering people who are coming on from that list 50 off of the regular rate, um, just because I appreciate your interest and your time, [00:01:00] um, and your support. So just wanted to let you know that is coming. So You can add your name to the list now. There's a link in the show notes and on my Instagram and all the places.
And then you'll hear from me like mid late September, um, to be able to schedule a consult if you want to do so at that time. So today's episode I'm excited about because it's a request from someone. And truthfully, like I don't get those a lot. I don't really ask for Suggestions not because I don't want them, but um, because to be honest, like I have a real fear of putting like those open ended question boxes on Instagram and stories and nobody responding to them.
So just letting you know, like my vulnerabilities and how, um, What a self doubting place social media can be. So I don't often ask for ideas, um, but someone reached out and sent me a DM and was like, what she said, she was like, have you, she was like, I've gone down the rabbit hole with your podcast. She's kind of like a new, a person who kind of like recently found my stuff.
[00:02:00] And she was like, is there a podcast on intermittent fasting? I can't find one. And I'm like, no, there isn't. And I'm like, truthfully, the reason I haven't done one is because for most of the people in this community of listeners, like it's something that is usually linked to some type of disordered eating.
So I haven't done one, but then I was like, well, maybe that's why I should do one. And I kind of, you know, I just asked what her experience was with it. And she shared a little bit and I'm like, I'm gonna do one. So here I am. Um, and now that I'm thinking about it and like surprised that I haven't talked about this before, I don't really know why.
Um, so let's just kind of start off with the definition of intermittent fasting and this is gonna be kind of just sort of a conversation about what it is, why people use it, is it something that you should think about, um, what role does it play in our relationship with food, all that stuff. So intermittent fasting is really just a scheduled window of time.
Within which you [00:03:00] eat pretty much every day. And it's called intermittent fasting because you're not fasting like in general, but you are going through longer periods where you don't eat, where essentially you fast. The most common one is called an 8 16 or 16 8 where you don't eat for 16 hours. And then you have an eight hour window within which you are supposed to eat your meals for the day.
And And you get to decide what that eight hour window is. The most common one that I hear of is usually either like 10 a. m. to 6 p. m. or 11 a. m. to 7 p. m. or sometimes even like noon to 8 p. m. Um, I've never really heard of someone doing like 7 a. m. to like 3 p. m. because most people are trying to include dinner since that is often like a communal meal, whether it's with your family or you're going out.
And for a lot of people breakfast is the meal that has a lot more kind of flexibility. So there is a ton of research out there on intermittent [00:04:00] fasting. I am not citing research. I am not an expert on this. Um, if you want to go down the rabbit hole of reading research, go for it. I, to be honest, like don't feel like spending the time to go and pull, um, high quality articles for you.
So this is not meant to be like an expert opinion. I'm not recommending what you do or you don't do. What I will say, broadly speaking, is it is like pretty widely known, there are like pros and cons to intermittent fasting. And what, the pros and cons that I am sharing right now have nothing to do with your history.
I'm going to talk about that in a second. Some of the research shows that in general, it's a little bit more detrimental to women than it is to men just because we have different hormones, right? And this is not about balancing your hormones or any of that crap. But the way that our bodies react to not eating for 16 hours.
is different than the way a man's body might react. Again, that's not saying that it's good for men and bad for women, or that women shouldn't do it. It's just saying there is some research that shows that. [00:05:00] At the same time, there's also some research that shows that it can be helpful for managing insulin resistance and for people who have PCOS.
Women, right? So again, like, if it's something you're considering, I strongly encourage you to do your research, Talk with your doctor if you have a doctor that is educated on this and with whom you have a good relationship. Um, but to be honest, like, let's say you are wanting to use it to help manage insulin resistance.
There's a lot of other things that you could be doing before that to help manage insulin resistance. Intermittent fasting is It's probably not the first place I would go to. It's not going to, quote, like, fix or make up for all the other things that you're not doing, right? If you're not eating enough protein, if you're not eating veggies, if you're not eating fiber, if you're, if you're, if you haven't worked on your relationship with food at all, and you haven't learned any skills, and you're just doing intermittent fasting as like, as like a quick [00:06:00] fix, like, it's not going to do anything.
It basically becomes another diet. And here's the thing. And so like, the reason that people. Separately, I just want to mention one thing. There's a lot of research that does show that intermittent fasting and fasting in general, other types of fasting are linked to longevity, meaning how long your life is.
Um, that is a whole area that I know nothing about other than that is kind of like the big headline on that. So yes, there are, it can like affect like your telomeres and your chromosomes, like there's a lot of science out there about this. So if you're someone who's really interested in like life expectancy and longevity and wanting to extend your life, and sidebar, you don't have a history of disordered eating, Maybe intermittent fasting and other types of fasting because there are actually many types of fasting is for you.
I'm not going to talk anymore about that today because I'm talking about it in the context of like what this podcast is about and the work that I do as a coach. [00:07:00] So the reason that most people use intermittent fasting, they use it to lose weight. And here is why it helps people lose weight. The idea is that if you can only eat for eight hours, you will eat less food than if you can eat basically from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep, right?
If you wake up at seven and you go to bed at 11, that is 16 hours. It's like the reverse. It's 16 hours of being awake and you have 16 hours to eat. So the kind of understanding and the pattern is that you will eat more food. Whereas if you are only allowed to eat for eight hours, you will eat less food.
When you eat less food, when you intake less calories than your body needs, you lose weight, right? It's that simple. Anytime a human being loses weight, it is because they are intaking less calories or sometimes burning more calories than their body needs in a day. Whether you are on a diet, any diet, Weight Watchers, [00:08:00] Atkins, Whole30, Octavia, anything, that is how you are losing weight.
That, this is like, this is like science. Even when you are working on learning the skills of what, why, and how to eat, which is the work that I do, when you lose weight, it's because you are ultimately intaking less food. But the reason you are intaking less food is very different than the reason you are intaking less food when you are on a diet.
It's a totally different way in. So, that is why people, why and how people lose weight on intermittent fasting. Now, that being said, there are lots of people who will intermittent fast who won't lose weight because what happens is it becomes almost like a, like a cheat day mentality. I have eight hours, people thinking I can eat whatever I want in those eight hours.
That, that doesn't, that's not true. Like, if, if you're doing it for weight loss, you can't eat whatever you want in those eight hours. Like the eight hours is not like magic. It doesn't change like the physiology of how your body works. It just provides [00:09:00] structure. So for most people, they end up eating two meals within those eight hours instead of three meals.
And maybe like, or maybe like two bigger meals and a smaller meal. So that's kind of like how it works and why people will do it and how it works in terms of weight loss. Now, here's the thing. There are a lot of people out there who are not hungry in the morning. And this is kind of what prompted the conversation and prompted this person to reach out to me.
She's like, I'm just not a big eater in the morning. And Danny, my husband talks about this. He doesn't really get hungry until 1030 So there are some people who will naturally eat within like an eight or nine hour window because of their natural hunger patterns. And you may also eat three meals, like just because you eat, because just because you don't get hungry until later, it doesn't automatically mean like you're going to lose weight as a result, right?
Because you might get hungry later in the day, not till 11, but then you might also eat later into the day, well beyond that eight hour window till eight, nine, 10 o'clock at night. I have to take this off the water. [00:10:00] So there are some people who kind of see that natural appetite pattern in themselves and kind of like lean into that and then try to put some structure around it.
And maybe that works for them and maybe it doesn't. What I hear from most people, what I personally experienced, what I hear from clients and people just like having conversations is that it becomes very forceful and very restrictive, right? So like, let's say your eating window is 11 to 7, and it's Saturday night, and you're going out to dinner with friends at 7.
It's not start eating at 7, it's you are done eating by 7, which means you have to start eating by like 6. 15, 6. 30 at the latest. And you want to go out to dinner with friends on a Friday night, and you're Dinner reservations are at 7 or 7 30 and you do that every week or twice a week or you have a work dinner or you're traveling right and suddenly you're intermittent fasting like two or three or maybe [00:11:00] four days a week and the rest of the days you're not and then you're wondering why am I not losing weight because it's like the thing that you're doing doesn't fit your life and you're trying to shoehorn it and then you've got no structure you've got no boundaries you've got no skills and it's like you're expecting this eight hour window three or four days a week to be like this magic.
Like, bullet that's just going to help you lose weight, it's just not going to work. Um, so it really takes away, takes away a lot of flexibility. Now again, you have to know your lifestyle and what works for you, and you've got to be honest with yourself about that. For some folks that works really well, for some folks it doesn't.
I think for most folks, generally speaking, it does not work. Um, just because there's really, there's no flexibility. It's very rigid. You've got eight hours, and it's the same eight hours. Um. basically every day. Because what happens is then if you start like breaking it and adding an hour, adding two hours, not doing it, then if the idea is that you're eating less within those eight hours and now you're expanding those eight hours, you're suddenly now eating [00:12:00] more food, right?
So if this is your technique, this is your strategy to lose weight, that's why it's not going to work over time. And this is why, strictly speaking, for most people, and especially if you are listening and part of this audience and community, it's. probably not going to be something that will work long term.
Um, for most people who do it, it's like a short term thing that they'll kind of experiment with and play around with. And then here's kind of the other piece of it, right? Is if that, if you set a window of 11 to seven or 12 to eight, you are kind of overriding your natural hunger and fullness patterns, right?
You are not really allowing. your body kind of the space to get hungry and then feel full in a way that matches your natural rhythms. You're kind of like shoehorning it into where you want it to be because you want to try and lose weight. And [00:13:00] so like, if you're someone who wakes up and is hungry by eight, nine o'clock, but you're trying to intermittent fast and you don't let yourself eat until 11 or 12, You're going to be fucking starving by then.
And then what's going to happen is you're going to overeat because you're so hungry, and then you're going to eat more than you would have needed to, and then the whole point of intermittent fasting, which is basically to eat less overall, is now like blown out of the water because you've just gotten so hungry that you can't control it, and there's like this backfire effect.
Um, and if you have any history of disordered eating, and again, it's very hard to make blanket recommendations. So, I'm not going to say this in absolute, but for most, the vast majority of people who have dealt with any form of disordered eating, intermittent fasting is generally not a good idea, um, because it really prevents you from learning your own hunger patterns, learning kind of the range of your hunger, what does it feel like to be a little bit hungry, what does it feel like to be a lot hungry, [00:14:00] and then fullness, right?
There's a little bit of that, I have eight hours to eat, well I can just eat as much as I want, or. You know, if you have to finish eating by 8pm so you eat dinner at 7 and then in your head you know you can't eat again until noon tomorrow, sometimes that will trigger, well I can't eat again until noon tomorrow so I need to eat more now to make sure that I don't get hungry and then you end up overeating, right?
Because you're, you're letting, you're using a schedule and time to really be the dominant primary input for what, why and how you're eating versus like what you're noticing, what you're feeling in your own body. And yes, structure and timing is important. You know, you've heard me talk about a four to six hour window between meals.
We can definitely use timing as a way to add structure and help, but we also need flexibility within that. And if you have a fixed 12 to 8, 11 to 7 window every day, there's no flexibility. Like that's it. Um, And again, like coming back to like your lifestyle, like if you have kids, if what, how are you [00:15:00] working in the house, out of the house, travel, vacations, like Like kids sports practices and running them around or caring for parents, like so many of the responsibilities that we have, like it just becomes for a lot of people very, very difficult, and then it starts to really contribute to that all or nothing, like because people will be doing it or think they're doing it, but then it won't be sustainable.
So then they'll go, fuck it, this isn't working. And then swing back the other way. And then they'll get sick of that and feel crappy and gain weight and be like, Oh my God, I just have to go back. I just have to intermittent fast. If I could just do it from 12 to eight, I'm just, I just eat from 12 to eight and it works and I'll do it.
But then again, it's so extreme because you start doing it until something comes up and you can't, and then it swings you back the other way. Right? Like rigid, strict, very controlled. inflexible structures and systems really do not work long term and they don't allow you to really connect with and learn the skills that you need to learn to [00:16:00] eat in a way that feels good, that helps you feel at ease.
Um, so, you know, those are kind of like my thoughts, generally speaking, as I'm thinking about what I said, like I have come off like very negative on it. Um, because truthfully, Again, like, if you have any history of disordered eating, again, not for everyone, but for most people, it's not a great idea. Um, and, but if you don't have a history of disordered eating, which means you're probably not listening to this podcast, cool.
Maybe it works for you. Um, I just think that there's, there's too much rigidity and eating skills are really about flexibility, about balancing flexibility and structure. And this is like way more structure. This skews way on the side of structure and not on the side of flexibility and over the long term that's not really sustainable.
There are other ways to apply structure, right? The four to six hour window [00:17:00] between eating is a really, really good one. Um, I talked about that a couple of episodes ago. I think like in the, when I was talking about in the snacking episode. That is a really helpful way to use time to create structure for yourself.
but where you also have flexibility. So if you've got questions, reach out. I'm always happy to chat. You can send me a DM. Um, I'm trying to think of anything else I wanted to say about this. I don't think so. I think that really captures it. Um, again, feel free, do your own research. When you're doing that, make sure you're looking at like high quality research, not just like headlines.
Um, and remember that there is no magic bullet for weight loss. Intermittent fasting is not like a magic fix for weight loss. You can't just intermittent fast and then not pay attention to what, why or how you're eating within those eight hours and expect to lose weight. It doesn't, it just doesn't work that way.
Um, again, especially if you have any history of disordered eating or you struggle with food or an all or [00:18:00] nothing mindset or not knowing how to like meal plan or what to eat at meals if you're constantly snacking, right? There are so many facets to eating. That intermittent fasting doesn't just, like, wipe all those out and fix everything.
And again, there are, it is, it is maybe tenth in a line of things that I would look at. If you are trying to make changes, it is not the first place I would go far from it. It does, again, does not take the place, it does not supersede learning skills around food. Um, it's, it's, it's, for most people, it's another, um, approach to dieting.
People think that it gives them more flexibility because it doesn't tell you what to eat, it just gives you the window, but then that sets up a whole other host of issues, which I kind of talked about in terms of that all or nothing, or getting hungry, or I can eat whatever I want, it's my eight hours, I can do what I want.
It becomes, or that panic of like, now I can't eat again for 16 hours, now I'm stressing out, it brings up a lot of other stuff. And you just need to take all this into consideration and think about why you're doing this, and how do you want to feel [00:19:00] around food, and how do you want to feel in your body. So.
Those are my thoughts. Thank you for listening. I will of course be back next week. And um, again, if you're interested in coaching, you can drop your name on the interest list. It links in the show notes. And I'll see you soon.