My Experience with Intermittent Fasting

A month ago, I mentioned on one of my Instagram posts that I started intermittent fasting because I hurt my back a bit and wasn’t able to work out for a while. I’m going to share my experiences with a month of intermittent fasting (IF), but to begin, intermittent fasting isn’t a diet- you’re not focused on calorie restricting. Rather, it’s an eating style where you eat within a specific time period, and fast the rest of the time. During your fast, you can still have water, tea, and coffee (without cream or sugar), though.

What I did

For my month of IF, I fasted 14-16 hours a day. During week days, I allowed myself to eat between noon and 8 PM. On weekends, this schedule got shifted a bit later. For the first three weeks, I completely stopped exercising so that my back would heal. The last week or so, I began working out again, but using lighter weights than before I got hurt.

My experience

Overall, my experience was AMAZING, and this is the one eating plan that I think I’ll use forever. I’m a late night snacker, and that’s when I eat my junk food, so fasting from 8 PM to 12 noon prevented me from doing that, which was amazing.  Since I was only eating for 8 hours a day, I would eat a healthy lunch and dinner, and maybe one or two small snacks. By the time I had gotten through those foods, it was 8 PM and I had to stop eating for the day, and I basically stopped consuming junk food altogether. While I wasn’t fasting, I didn’t worry too much about eating less or cutting carbs or anything like that. I was eating what I wanted for all 8 hours, and then stopped altogether after 8 PM.

My stats

In terms of my progress, I’m not going to share my specific weight, BMI, etc. because I don’t want anyone to compare themselves to me, but I will share the change in these stats that I saw from day 1 to day 30.

Weight: decreased by 2.6 lb

BMI: decreased by .5

Body fat %: decreased by .8 % (yay!)

Muscle % : increased by .3 % (probably because my body fat went down, not because I gained muscle)

Water weight %: increased by .6%

I’m really happy with this, especially since the only statistic I really care about is body fat percentage. I’m not trying to lose weight or decrease my BMI- in fact, I’d be happy to gain weight if it’s muscle. I definitely plan to continue IF, at least during all weekdays.

Recommendation

Overall, I highly recommend intermittent fasting if you are a late night snacker like me, and if you eat most of your unhealthy food after dinner. If your problem is that you eat unhealthy food for your main meals, then IF won’t help you. If your problem is that you eat unhealthy snacks, IF will probably help because you have a limited time in the day during which you can eat all your meals, so you won’t be able to eat as many snacks as you were before. They say abs are made in the kitchen, and I 100% believe it, especially after I stopped working out for so long and saw a decrease in body fat percentage and increase in muscle percentage. I know people who have said that IF is what helped them lose weight after having babies, so I definitely think there’s something about this eating plan that works wonders.

Update

I’m looking back on this article in October 2020 – two years after I first wrote it, and it couldn’t be more true for me. I was unable to stick with intermittent fasting during my clinical rotations year (2019) since I was in the hospital SO much. I often didn’t get home until 8 or 9 PM, so it would have been impossible to fast. After that, I was studying for my licensing exam and didn’t care to worry about my eating habits.

However, I recently started IF again and for some reason it just works for me. I’m still a late night snacker and I crave sweets after dinner. Having a strict time after which I can’t eat helps me set a boundary with myself and eliminates a lot of the snacking I’d otherwise do. I don’t know why I’m able to follow the arbitrary time limits I’m setting, but I think it just helps me realize that I don’t need to eat again after dinner and I will survive. I will note that I’m eating whatever I want during my non-fasting window. Yes, I try to eat as healthy as I can, but I’m not actually limiting myself or skipping dessert.

With COVID, I’m not able to work out the way I was before- i.e. in a gym with different machines and weights. I’m doing at-home workouts, but I still feel that I’m not as strong as I was a year ago. Recognizing that is what prompted me to restart IF- well that and having finished my licensing exams. It’s about two weeks in and I can already tell that it’s going to help me a lot. I think IF will have to be a lifelong thing for me because I will always want to snack late at night- it’s just who I am.

Lastly, I feel like IF works for people by giving them a sense of control. You do get enough calories on IF, but we are just so used to eating around the clock nowadays and I don’t think we necessarily need to be doing that. There are times during the fasting window where you do feel hungry but you have to push through that feeling, and I think it could potentially be triggering for someone with a history of an eating disorder to do that. So, I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone who has struggled with an eating disorder in the past because it is a form of restricting.

Thank you for reading!

Disclaimer: I am a student and these views are my own and are not endorsed by my institutions. None of this is medical advice. Rather, I am sharing my personal experience.