I tried intermittent fasting for one week—and failed slightly but am sticking to it
Recently, thanks to the much-anticipated opening of the new Whole Foods Uptown, something became very apparent to my colleagues – I am obsessed with food. They were fully aware that I would gladly devote all my free time to cooking, and reading cookbooks and food blogs, but my manic excitement about the grand opening of a new grocery store was the moment they needed to define the line between passion and obsession.
To balance this love for all things delicious, I try to keep a pretty active and healthy lifestyle. I refer to my diet as “paleo-ish” during the week, and I am all about making everything from scratch. Despite this, I still struggle immensely with portion control.
Recently, in one of my favorite lifestyle and food blogs, LeeFromAmerica, I stumbled across a new-to-me term – intermittent fasting. I had heard of people doing fasts before to “cleanse,” but I really never considered it to be something realistic for me.
Attracted by the “intermittent” piece of it, I looked into this shiny new fad. And I was intrigued to find that this is not really a new fad; instead it is something humans have unintentionally been doing for thousands of years.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting (IF) is not so much of a diet as it is a pattern of eating (not what or how much, but when). The idea is: your body can be either in the fed or fasted state. When you are in the fasted state, your body can burn fat that it couldn’t access if it was working on digesting what you just ate. The problem is that it generally takes 12 hours after your last meal to fully enter the fasted state. Our ancestors did not have a problem with this, but as food has increasingly become available and a part of our social lives, we are quick to eat whenever food is in front of us (and not because we need it).
My plan
Naturally, I was intrigued. I began to wonder if, despite my generally clean diet, I was doing myself a disservice by eating that banana before the gym in the morning or the piece of dark chocolate before bed.
There was only one way to find out. I decided to start small with the “12 hour window” or 12/12. What this means: for 12 hours a day I do not consume any food with the exception of water and herbal teas. Alternatively, 14/8 IF would be not consuming food for 14 hours a day.
I chose not to eat between about 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., depending on the day. I wanted to see if some of the positive immediate side effects would hold to be true. Namely:
Better digestion + less bloat = happier me
Regulated energy levels – I hate the thought of developing a caffeine dependence
Improved skin – working for that glow
Increased intuitive eating – being more aware of eating when I am hungry versus bored
This is how my week of IF went:
Day 1 – Glued to WebMD
One of my biggest hurdles when starting a new health challenge is the very first morning. I go to bed eager and ready to be the new-and-improved me, yet when I wake up it’s all excuses and questioning what I got myself into.
My normal day starts with hearing my alarm yell at me to get my butt to the gym at 5:45, followed by eating a banana, throwing on sneakers and heading out the door.
This morning I knew I had to wait until 8 a.m. to eat my first bite of food, to make sure 12 hours had passed since my last bite. Stomach growling, I hunched over my phone at the gym (trying to look like I was stretching) and frantically typed into Google “is intermittent fasting really good for me?” “Am I going to pass out if I run on an empty stomach?” Of course the internet gave me mixed reviews, but I got up and tried to fight the hunger, because I can’t give up on the first day… let alone the first hour.
To my surprise, I had the best run I have had in a long time. I felt fantastic, my hunger subsided and I was able to hold off until I broke the fast with a gigantic Honeycrisp apple, a big scoop of homemade nut butter and a small black coffee. The rest of the day I felt great and was riding such a high because of this new “healthy me”, that I was able to forgo my afternoon Dove chocolate I have stashed away in my snack drawer.
Day 2 – Getting the hang of it
I strode into the gym still hungry but empowered by my success from the day before. Today I was more worried about dinner. I had a 6:30 p.m. flight home to D.C. for a wedding, and I knew I wouldn’t be getting in early enough to finish eating by 8. As soon as I got back with my family, I ate a big salad and clocked in at 8:30 p.m., not bad, and the goal even kept me from snacking throughout the night (my parents are notorious snackers – I wonder where I got it from).
Day 3 – Having fun with fasting
I woke up at 6:30; my internal clock is my biggest enemy, and knew I still had to wait two hours before I could eat breakfast. This part of the day was getting easier and I was finding that I didn’t mind being a little hungrier in the mornings. I, in fact, am not going to pass out from hunger, and if I ever really felt like I would, I could just eat. No big deal.
Yet again, the real challenge today would be dinner. My cousin was getting married and I knew we would be up late eating cake and drinking wine. So I made a plan: I would stop drinking anything except water after 9:30 p.m. and I would still get to eat breakfast at a reasonable time.
Despite my good intentions, to make up for my inability to drink past 9:30, I quickly grabbed a glass after the ceremony ended at 6 and happily sipped on free red wine for the next three and a half hours. It turned out my biggest problem was not that evening, but instead the next morning.
Day 4 – F for failure or F for fasting?
Saturday morning was such a sequence of failures I couldn’t help but immediately give up on my new quest for a healthy fasting lifestyle. My head felt like it was internally combusting, I was in a strange hotel in rural Virginia and neglected to pack any kind of pain pills, and I was far away from my beloved stockpile of light blue Gatorade. I threw on a t-shirt dress and sunglasses at 8 a.m. after peeling myself out of bed and slowly walked to the nearest supermarket to purchase these elixirs that would bring me back to life. This expedition was quickly followed by a continental breakfast and a boatload of coffee. Intermittent fasting was but a distant memory.
After a long ride home and an afternoon nap, I was determined to get back on the wagon (if for no other reason than knowing I would be sharing my experiences with you all). I had a big, beautiful pizza and basket of tater tots for dinner, took the last bite at 6:45 p.m., and managed to resist the glorious box of fudge pops in the freezer because I had to stick to the fast and make up for the slack this morning. Big win.
Day 5 – Fasting while flying
I generally like to fast during flights if I can, (who knew digestion doesn’t work at that altitude and speed?) so I had a black coffee with a scoop of ghee around 9:45 a.m. and a handful of cherries. On the flight I stashed the Biscoff cookies in my purse and opted for a cup of water when the flight attendants came around. Once we landed, I ate a Larabar for a snack and successfully avoided all of the gross travel bloat – winner winner chicken dinner.
Dinner was a conglomerate of random produce and things from my freezer – an Italian chicken sausage, sautéed peppers and kale and Trader Joe’s sweet potato gnocchi. My sweet tooth tempted me to have a dark chocolate and sea salt square as I cleaned up my mess, but I still stopped eating at 7:15 p.m.
Day 6 – Worth it
I no longer felt hungry (or no longer noticed it) going to the gym in the morning. I still felt very hungry when I got to work around 7:45 and was quick to devour whatever I packed for breakfast, but I felt good because I knew I was replenishing my body after my workout.
I noted that any pimples that inevitably came up during my time on the plane were already nearly invisible, and my skin had been pretty clear otherwise – another win.
Day 7 – Not over yet
Coming up at the end of the week, I am unwilling to call this the last day of my intermittent fasting challenge. I may mess up sometimes (RE: my weekend struggle), but I have felt good, energetic and much more in tune to how often I snack since starting IF. I am more aware of when I feel uncomfortably full after meals and if I am eating when I am hungry or just bored. Even though I am not perfect, these are steps closer to where I want to be with a pretty simple lifestyle change. I am excited to see where it takes me.
Update: Two Weeks Later
I am happy to say that I have successfully continued my journey with IF. Before experimenting with this new eating pattern, I had put on a little weight that I seemingly couldn’t shake. After about two weeks of being more conscious of when and why I was eating, I lost those pesky couple of pounds (shocker – mindful eating? Who would have thought!?). I will say, I have been intentional about mindful eating in the past, but I am a girl who likes guidelines to follow, and IF did the trick for me.
This story was originally published June 29, 2018 at 12:04 AM with the headline "I tried intermittent fasting for one week—and failed slightly but am sticking to it."