My experience
I’m all for a holistic approach to health, so besides emotional and relationship health, I also like to research and practice taking care of my body. Intermittent fasting has gained significant attention over the last ten years or so. Reading about all the enticing reported benefits, I had to try it out. About eight years ago, I started my intermittent fasting with the 8/16 schedule and slowly increased it to 5/19 over the course of a few years.
It’s easy and fast to write or read about it! Not quite so easy to practice it over the course of years. Most promoters of intermittent fasting make confident claims about how easy it becomes after the first two or three weeks. Unfortunately, I can’t say I found it at all easy. I found both morning and evening hunger quite difficult to bear, even years into the practice. Sharp hunger often wakes me up in the middle of the night. About a decade earlier, I tried longer fasts a few times (10 and 12 days) and felt utterly miserable throughout the whole ordeal. If you find intermittent fasting difficult, in spite of all the promises you read online, you are in good company. 🙂 It did become somewhat easier after the first few weeks, though, even for me.
My difficulties weren’t due to the kind of food I was eating, because I was already practicing a healthy diet and avoiding processed food for many years. Perhaps the 5/19 schedule was too extreme for me. According to some authors, women are biologically less adapted to fasting compared to men, due to historically spending more time with the family and less time in hunting expeditions (or wars). Fasting can, allegedly, mess up female hormonal balance.
I decided to stick to my 5/19 schedule anyway because I wanted all those sweet benefits. I did lose a few stubborn kilos, but I often felt low energy (in spite of the regular physical activity in my garden), and many evenings I couldn’t think of much except food. My blood tests also showed increased cholesterol levels, which confused me a lot. Then I read that an underactive thyroid can lead to higher levels of cholesterol in the blood. I started worrying that I might have made my metabolism slower by fasting, and thus my thyroid less active.
Not wanting to make things worse, I decided to stop intermittent fasting for a while (by then I had been practicing it for roughly six years). My body reacted with glee, like it got to feast after famine, and I quickly regained the lost weight. For almost two years after, even the thought of starting intermittent fasting again would get a “no way in hell!” reaction from my body. Recently, however, I found out that increased cholesterol could be among the symptoms of perimenopause, too. That reduced some of my concerns about intermittent fasting.
A few months ago, I went back to intermittent fasting, this time with a mild 10/14 schedule. I find it makes me tolerably mildly hungry before bedtime but doesn’t send my body into panic mode. I might gradually go back to 8/16 with time if I can feel good enough with it. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to 5/19, though. It might work for somebody else, but for me it just doesn’t.
Strategies to Make Intermittent Fasting Easier
How did I handle such a strict fasting schedule for six years, despite it not being quite right for my body? Here are some strategies to make intermittent fasting easier. Feel free to pick the ones that work for you. Not every body works in the same way, so not everything that works for me might work for you. I can only speak from my own experience.
I also advise using these strategies for reasonable goals only. Don’t risk your health with extreme practices if they don’t work for you.
1. Adapt Your Fasting Schedule to Your Biorhythm
Some authors say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Many proponents of intermittent fasting suggest skipping breakfast and focusing on lunch and dinner instead. Who is correct? It depends on your body. I was always an early riser and desperately hungry by 6 am or so, but I never ate much for dinner. I also know a number of people who say they can’t eat breakfast because their bodies don’t tolerate it. Many people are somewhere in between. Don’t try to force your body into a rhythm it never felt comfortable with just because someone else suggests it. It adds extra stress to an already stressful practice.
2. Consider How to Fit Fasting into Your Work Schedule
Do you forget to eat when you are focused on something else? Or do you find it easier to be hungry when you are resting, and can’t focus when you are hungry? Keep that in mind when deciding when you want to fast.
In addition, consider when you have time to prepare meals. Are you so hungry after work that you can’t postpone eating until you prepare a healthy meal? Then you are likely to throw yourself off balance with some fast food. You might want to prepare food in the morning and keep it in the fridge for later, or perhaps break your fast with a small healthy snack while preparing a more substantial meal.
3. Pay Attention to Your Calorie Intake
One danger of fasting is that you might give yourself the freedom to overeat during the eating window. Another danger is that you might cut your calories down too much and make your body panic. Explore how much food feels balanced and stick to that.
4. Pay Attention to the Quality of Your Food
When we do something good for ourselves, it’s very easy to tell ourselves we deserve an “outlet” or a reward and end up eating less healthily. That way, you receive fewer nutrients, which can again make your body panic. Besides being nutritionally poor, junk food throws our bodies off balance, especially our hunger hormones. That can greatly increase the sense of hunger and cravings.
5. Distract Yourself
If work distracts you from hunger, plan to be hungry during work hours. If having fun distracts you from hunger, plan interesting activities for your free time. Most people are the most aware of their hunger when they are alone and bored. If not work, consider what other activities might distract you. Perhaps taking a walk, playing with your kids, going out with friends, watching an interesting movie, or reading a good book? Make sure not to neglect exercise.
6. Try Drinking Warm Tea
I find this works for me—warm tea makes my stomach calm down and feel fuller, and I can drink as much of it as I want. If you find it stimulates your stomach too much and makes you hungrier, then don’t do it.
7. Observe Your Hunger and Cravings with Interest
When working with emotions, I find the more people try to fight them, the more difficult it is. On the other hand, if you observe emotions with acceptance and interest (but not believing in them or giving in to them), they become much easier to bear. I find the same applies to hunger and cravings.
8. Wait 15 Minutes
Hunger comes in waves. Well, for me around breakfast time it’s constantly intense until I eat, but at least at other times it subsides after a while. If sharp hunger wakes me up in the night, I’ve learned I need to wait 15 minutes or so. Then the hunger goes away and I can go back to sleep.
9. Recognize and Prepare for Your Moments of Weakness
Everybody has some weaknesses and triggers that undermine their willpower. Many people, for example, feel increased cravings in times of stress. A common self-sabotaging excuse is, “I’ll just cheat a little today, and from tomorrow on I’ll be disciplined!” Somehow that disciplined tomorrow comes rarely or never.
Notice what situations and excuses are likely to make you give in to old habits. Think about how you want to deal with them in the future. How can you comfort yourself, distract yourself, or substitute unwanted habits? Perhaps prepare some tea in advance, for example. Make a list of motivational thoughts. Plan some fun activities. Or call a friend, as in the paragraph below.
10. Find a “Fasting/Diet Buddy” for Venting and Emotional Support
I have a friend who has to follow a strict diet due to health problems. She has another friend who is dieting to lose weight. She says the two of them call each other whenever they find cravings difficult to bear. Then they give each other space to complain and vent to their heart’s content. For example, “I hate this so much!” or “Why me, it’s so unfair!” It helps them release stress and feel better. Of course, you can also share your successes with your buddy. Joy shared is multiplied; pain shared is divided.
11. Give Yourself Emotional Support
You can also be your own friend. Food is not just nutrition, it’s strongly associated with security and love. Hunger can therefore trigger feelings of insecurity and abandonment, probably lingering from our childhood. Consider how you can talk to yourself and what you can do to help yourself feel safe and loved. That should give you more emotional strength to deal with fasting.
I hope this advice can make intermittent fasting easier for you! Remember, no extreme is ever healthy. Don’t torture your body. Listen to it and cooperate with it to find a balance you can maintain long term.
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