About a year after Bethany graduated college, she was feeling stuck. She was working long hours at her office job and not working out, and her mental and physical health were both suffering. Bethany started working out at the gym at 5:30 in the morning. She enjoyed her early-morning workouts; being active at this time helped start her day off with some much-needed movement, and gave her time to make her hour-long commute.
A few months went by, and something still wasn’t right. She was giving her body the movement that it needed, but she wasn’t doing the same with her eating habits. Her job was fast-paced and exciting, but very stressful. Her morning workouts helped to decrease the stress somewhat, but she still found herself using food as a way to cope with difficulties at work. In her mind, the only way to feel better was to eat less. So, she got on Instagram. She started following every fitness influencer she could find. She studied their diets and their full-day-of-eating posts, and after several weeks of research, she decided to try intermittent fasting. Tons of people were doing it, so it had to work for her…right?
Many of the influencers whose accounts she looked at had set their feeding times to be later in the day, starting at 12 or 1pm and ending at 8 or 9pm. She tended to be hungry in the morning, so she decided on an 8-hour eating window that lasted from 10am until 6pm.
At first, this way of eating felt new and exciting. When she went to happy hour with friends and someone asked why she wasn’t eating, she felt superior telling them she was doing intermittent fasting. She thought she was being healthy and giving her body what it needed.
It only took a couple of weeks for her to realize that was the complete opposite of what she was really doing. Her new and “cool” way of eating was sabotaging her early morning workouts. She couldn’t lift as heavy or run as far, and she felt tired and lethargic in the mornings. On top of that, after expending so much energy at the gym and not replenishing it, she would get to work and be unable to focus. So the quality of her work suffered as well.
When the magical 10 o’clock hour came around and it was finally, finally time to eat, she wouldn’t just eat breakfast – she would eat a breakfast fit for a football player. Her body felt so deprived that she was unable to listen to her internal hunger and fullness cues. She ate way past fullness, to the point where she was so uncomfortable she found it difficult to sit at her chair, let alone get any work done. So she continued to be unproductive at work. On top of that, she started having feelings of guilt after eating. She thought there must be something wrong with her – why couldn’t she control herself around food?
When it was nearing 6:00pm, her designated cutoff time, her body’s fear of deprivation would kick in again, and she would again eat anything she could get her hands on. This again resulted in feelings of extreme fullness and guilt.
Intermittent fasting had a major effect on her social life. She could no longer grab a post-run morning breakfast with friends, and after-work happy hours were a source of misery. If she went, she couldn’t eat or drink, and spent the entire time staring longingly at everyone else’s food. If she didn’t go, she felt lonely and isolated.
Eventually, she started “cheating” on the weekends. As long as she followed her fasting plan during the week, she was allowed to eat whenever and whatever she wanted on Saturday and Sunday. This was not an ideal solution. When Monday rolled around, the feelings of deprivation would come back, and she would fall back into the pattern of massive overeating during her feeding windows.
There is a lot of information online about intermittent fasting. Fitness gurus around the world tout its benefits, so it’s no wonder it has become so popular. But many registered dietitians will say otherwise. According to Jonathan Poyourow, RD, CSCS, “do you have to do intermittent fasting to achieve your diet or fitness goals? Absolutely not.” Registered dietitian and board certified specialist in sports dietetics Rachel Fine has a similar view, stating “I do not support combining intermittent fasting and working out, especially for athletes.” She goes on to say that “for people who work out a lot, the goal of a diet should be fueling the body and that can be hard to do with intermittent fasting.”
Your muscles store carbohydrates in a form called glycogen. During a workout, your glycogen stores are broken down for energy. If you are training in a fasted state and do not have available glycogen stores, your body will instead break down fat and protein for fuel. This can sabotage your workouts and health goals. Protein is stored in your muscles, so when we talk about the body breaking down protein for fuel, we are really talking about losing muscle mass, which leads to decreased strength. So while you’re working out to gain muscle mass and get stronger, your body is actually breaking down the muscle mass you already have.
If you’re using intermittent fasting as a way to decrease your overall calorie intake, you could end up with slowed metabolism. This occurs when the body is not getting enough calories, causing it to go into starvation mode. In this situation, the body slows down its processes in an effort to hold on to the small amount of energy that is available. It can be very difficult to lose weight at this point, even with a decreased calorie intake and more intense workouts.
In addition to binging behaviors, weakness during workouts, and an inability to lose weight, there are other ways to tell if intermittent fasting is not working for you. Rigidity around your routine, such as refusing to go out with friends because it conflicts with your diet, is one way. You may even feel guilty if you do not follow the specific fasting and feeding times you set for yourself. Another indication is decreased sleep quality, which can lead to low mood, poor memory, and decreased ability to learn. Over time, intermittent fasting can result in low alertness, decreased ability to concentrate, and dizziness. These may occur during fasting windows, when you are not eating and therefore not giving your body enough energy. Intermittent fasting can also increase stress, which can contribute to weight gain. These effects and others can all be caused by intermittent fasting.
Needless to say, after a short venture into the world of intermittent fasting, Bethany found it impossible to maintain. Instead, she started listening to her body’s internal hunger and fullness cues. She discovered intuitive eating. And she started feeling better: her energy increased, she was able to put more into her workouts, and her performance at work improved.
Letting go of a diet plan or any type of rigid eating can be difficult. It’s very hard to let go of the rules and trust your body to tell you what it needs. If you aren’t feeling fulfilled by your intermittent fasting plan but you’re not sure what to do next, schedule an appointment with one of our nutritionists. They are here to help you simplify eating to fuel your body and reach your goals.
– Written by the Metabolic Reset Program Team