Who is intermittent fasting for?
Intermittent fasting is for anyone who is interested in improving their health, improving their body composition and improving their productivity.
I recommend this as the first step in a journey towards a healthy you. The reason being, you don’t have to change what you eat, just change when you eat it! So continue to eat the same food but have a longer break between your last meal of the day and the first meal of the next day. Once this is in place we can move to understanding food and the choices you make there.
I get so hungry when I don’t eat for two hours, how will I survive 16 hours!?
The truth is, that if you are reading this on a laptop or a phone, you belong to a town or a city. We do not know what hunger is if we live in cities. We have been blessed with surplus food. In fact, most of our lifestyle diseases are due to overindulgence, a problem of plenty.
Real hunger is not that funny feeling in the stomach or the noises that come from your tummy.
When you feel hungry, chances are it’s one of these:
- Boredom - Peanuts or biscuits at 4 pm on a working day.
- Stress - We all stress eat.
- Thirst - The body cannot tell the difference between hunger and thirst.
But I will faint if I don’t eat!
As a society, we have been brainwashed to believe that if we don’t eat, we will faint, get headaches, throw up and our blood sugar will fall. The truth is that our bodies are masters of maintaining our blood sugar. It is very rare for a person to faint due to low blood sugar. It can happen if you are on a blood sugar lowering medication.
I get Headaches when I fast, what can I do?
The headaches can come for a number of reasons.
- Your normal diet is full of sugar and carbohydrates and the headaches are the body craving for it: This will pass as the body start curbing these cravings.
- You are not drinking enough water: Drink a full glass of water and sip the second one.
- You are deficient in minerals and salts: I suggest adding a pinch of Pink Himalayan Salt to your water.
- You are too stressed about the fast: Many people are so stressed about not eating that they get these headaches.
If you have tried all the above, then break your fast. Eat something and see how you feel. Try again tomorrow.
Are Diet Sodas allowed?
Yes, you can technically have a diet soda. Because it doesn’t create an insulin response. When we fast we are trying not to create a situation where the body produces insulin.
However, diet sodas are full of chemicals that are very very bad for the body. Many studies actually show an increase of body fat in groups consuming diet sodas v/s a control group and a group drinking regular soda.
There are alternatives if you want a fizzy drink. You can have a soda sweetened with stevia. Or a fresh lime soda with salt. Yes, during your fast.
In the Next FAQs article we will be answering the following questions:
Can I eat breakfast and skip dinner?
How often should I fast?
Won’t Intermittent fasting slow down my metabolism?
Is fasting safe for diabetics?
Should I fast if I am pregnant?