I NEVER thought I’d say this, but….I have become a big fan of the intermittent mini fast!
WHAAT, you say? Settle down! And I’ll tell you all about it.
IMF is the NEW acronym I’ve invented for what I call intermittent mini fasts.
Here’s how it came up, what I learned, and what I did about it.
Taking Another Look
First, some personal history. Years ago, I dabbled in fasting as a weight loss tool. Horribly unguided, white-knuckle fasting that would pretty much go on as long as I could tolerate it. Then I’d try to “break the fast slowly” as all the experts advised, but I would run fast lane into binges and overeating. Stuff-starve at its worst!
Interestingly enough, over the past couple of years, as I am an avid reader and researcher of what’s going on in the health and fitness fields, the idea of fasting seemed to be resurfacing as a health and longevity tool.
Because of my prior experience, and all the work that I had done to heal my relationship with food, eating, and my body, I dismissed and ignored all of these references. And as someone who enjoys everything they eat (and won’t eat anything I don’t like, so there!) I was especially, shall we say, trepidacious!
However, references persisted, and I thought, OK Lani, let’s take an objective look at see what this is all about. After all I am a new person, different from those years way back when. I’ve learned from experience, but I’ve also become able to look at things more objectively than ever before.
And I decided to take a new, objective look and see what truths I might uncover if I would allow myself to “unbudge” from my previously cemented position regarding intermittent fasting.
What Caught My Eye
As I began to let the material about fasting filter into my domain, I saw references that made me sit up and take attention.
Particularly these 5 potential benefits of intermittent mini-fasts:
- reduce inflammation
- increase insulin sensitivity
- decrease stress hormones
- increase human growth hormone production
And of course:
5. reduce body fat stores without sacrificing muscle.
What? I’d been thinking since forever that fasting eats into our muscle mass. That it decreases your metabolism, and does all kinds of other things to wonk up our efforts to be trim!
NEW Research Proves “Fitness Fasting Mythology” Wrong?!
There is lots a growing pile of documentation that refutes these common beliefs about fasting.
But let me show you an easy place to find out a little bit for yourself.
The simplest, most direct presentation of this information is by my friend Brad Pilon, who has written a book about intermittent fasting called Eat Stop Eat. Brad is a nutrition researcher and fasting specialist who did exhaustive, objective research on fairly recent studies done with intermittent fasting on a variety of subjects. It is all very well documented in his book, and it is an impressive collection.
Evidence To The Contrary
Here’s what Brad found out.
First, many of the ill effects that we may associate with fasting occur after extended periods of fasting. Short-term fasts, as Brad details in his book, do NOT demonstrate negative effects and have been shown to improve many of the biomarkers as I have listed above. His documented research and “sciency” audio files available had me sit up and take notice!
Brad’s “Fasting Files”, as I call them, which are part of the Eat Stop Eat book, include all kinds of nuggets, such as this one: after several hours without caloric intake of any kind, there is a marked increase of fatty acids in the blood stream. If no food has been recently eaten to account for this, then where do the fatty acids come from? Possibly stores in the body?
The Benefits Are In The “Intermittent Mini”
In Eat Stop Eat, Brad promotes fasts of no longer than 24 hours. And only one or two times a week, depending on your goals. The beauty of this is you never go a day without eating! A common pattern is dinner to dinner, or lunch to lunch. So, if you ate dinner at 6 one day, your IMF would be until dinner at 6 the next day. And it is very flexible – you can work your way up!
I have found intermittent minis to deliver to me personally in many ways:
~ great energy on fast days
~ trimmer in my middle
~ excellent returns for my clients who have been utilizing this technique themselves.
This mini-fast schedule has delivered in terms of gentle weight loss, good energy, improved relationship with food and eating, appetite moderation (quite possibly the increased insulin sensitivity), and detected decrease of inflammation in the system.
Now, you might be thinking – as I did – if you were to fast for the day up to dinner, that all you-know-what would break lose when it came time for dinner. C’mon, I know that’s what you’re thinking! Because I was certain of it.
But you know what? That didn’t happen. And it hasn’t happened for me during the several weeks that I have been enjoying the many benefits of the IMF. As I already, said, I never thought I’d say it, but….me likey!
AND a glance at the literature available in research journals shows promise….watch for details in future posts right here!
In the meantime, I’m curious about YOUR experiences with Eat Stop Eat, or other fasting experiences. Post your comments below and let’s talk about it!
This method of eating really intrigues me as several years ago (12) I lost all my pregnancy weight and then some using Weigh Down. Now I’m 6 weeks postpartum after my 6th baby (our first girl!) and am the heaviest I’ve ever been. There was controversy over the Weigh Down principles and I’m hesitant to do that type of eating again because it was like starving yourself thin. So, I’m wondering if this would be a healthy alternative to that. Plus since I’m breastfeeding should that be a factor?
Thanks so much for your fantastic site, Lani!
Hi Vanessa,
6th baby? Oh, my! Well, you do have your work cut out for you!
I HEAR you on the starve yourself thin. I did enough times to finally realize that it wasn’t going to work longer than in the short term. Too much stored hunger!
Unbelievably, the min-fast mode is entirely different. If one is fresh off years of diet cycling, I recommend some time recovering from that before doing the mini-fast method. If not, then usually good to go.
However, you are going to experience more hunger more often if you are breast feeding because of the energy demand on your body. It will be a factor. If no medical advice against, it, you could experiment. And if you do, be sure not to force the “24 hours” – just try something shorter first. Have you read Brad’s book? Follow my link in the article above to check it out.
thanks so much for coming by to comment, and I’m thrilled that you are finding value in my columns!
Let me know what you decide about mini-fasts.
Lani
Lani, I have tried these mini-fasts as well – along with Fast-5, a protocol that means you fast every day for 19 hours and eat for 5… so, you might eat lunch and dinner, but skip breakfast.
I have given Eat-Stop-Eat an honest try as well as Fast-5 and while the science all makes perfect sense to me, and I honestly thought this was healthy, I have come up against problems with my MENTAL health when I did them. Brad Pilon says very clearly that you need to “act like nothing happened” after a fast, i.e. not catch up on the lost food… that is pretty much impossible to me.
Secondly, and probably the bigger issue for me personally: I wonder if some people are just GRAZERS. So many people on forums etc. talk about how they have to “force” themselves to have breakfast, or how liberating it is to them that now they don’t have to do that. As for me, I will spend my morning starving and unable to concentrate if I miss breakfast. And I get very hungry before lunch. And then I get hungry again for dinner, although to a lesser extent. So what gives? I’ve never had to force myself to eat breakfast, from childhood on. Or to eat any meal at all!
So I’m wondering if some people find this IMF is their natural inclination anyway, while for someone like me, it is just like torturing yourself and the effort will backfire? (starving –> bingeing / indiscriminate choices)
Susanne,
I’m so glad you posted your thoughts because it has been on my mind to article an update on IMF. I’ll just have to do it!
Until then – ‘acting like nothing happened’ sounds easier than it plays out, I know!
As for the ‘very hungry and unable to concentrate’, our livers and muscles do make a good store of glycogen so we aren’t truly ‘starving’ with those few hours, but that doesn’t make you any less comfortable! Here’s what Lisle/Goldhammer have to say that may address this:
In reality, water-only fasting is dynamic, complex, and involves many health-promoting processes…There is also an enhanced mobilization and elimination of toxic products, including poisons such as PCP, dioxins, pesticide residues, and other pollutants.
Perhaps our discomfort comes from this phenomenon? Can’t say for sure.
And as for the backfire phenomenon, yes I know all about it and really, though fasting may be a good idea on occasion, not necessary for our health though at the same time may be prescribed as same by a health practitioner and many powerful health changes have been made with supervised fasts.
I promise an update and may I use your commentary as part of same if appropriate?
thanks Susanne!