Intermittent Fasting: An easy addition to a working diet

What is intermittent fasting? #

Restrict your eating to a certain time window. The notation for describing eating and fasting times is this: 16-8. Which means: 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating.

Why do it? #

Digestion is an energy intense process for your body. If you give your body a window of fasting, it is able to actually finishing the digestion process and trigger repair mechanisms.

Only after 10-12h of fasting will your body start to repurpose aged cells and reduce inflammation. This positively impacts the immune system.

How I applied it in my life #

When I first heard of intermittent fasting and especial 16-8, it sounded crazy to me. How is that gonna work? I’m just gonna be hungry. Why would I do that to myself? I tried it a bit and it was a lot of effort and not worth it at all.

Time passed. I worked on my diet and found something that fills me and gives me energy for a long time. And then I stumbled over intermittent fasting again.

I was already not eating 2:30h before going to bed (as this negatively impacts sleep quality, digestions diverts energy away from recovery.) I counted the hours and as it turns out, I was basically already doing an intermittent fasting schedule of 12-12.

So, I decided to just try 14-10, (it’s just a small change after all), by eating the last meal 2h earlier. During the day I never felt hungry. Only in the morning, but that was already the case before 😄

At this point I was only eating breakfast and lunch. It felt natural to just eat breakfast earlier. So, 16-8 happened automatically.

Skip breakfast or dinner? #

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
– A cereal commercial

The industry is trying to sell you something with that quote, but there is some truth to it.

In the morning your body is the most efficient at processing food¹. Eating soon after waking also signals to your inner clock that the day is starting.

Both eating savory in the morning and eating soon after waking up (ideal is the slot 30 mins to 1.5h after waking) took some getting used to. But, I do feel better with this schedule than without it.

What about the benefits? #

For me and the way I have integrated intermittent fasting in my life, there a few to no costs. The only one that comes to mind, is not being able to eat dinner. But, I do make exceptions for some dinner (happens rarely.) That means, that any upside, any positive effect that intermittent fasting has on me, I basically get for free.

For me, there is not much of an effect that I have observed. I have always had a good immune system and no problems with inflammation. Just knowing that it’s good for my body is enough for me.

Most of the benefits that people report after starting intermittent fasting I would attribute to be the result of eating better. Because you can’t do IF and eat like crap. That is gonna be torture. And for a lot of people, who try IF, it is torture.

Alarms & Tracking #

As you can imagine I don’t need to set alarms or anything. My body is hungry in the morning and then knows when it’s time for lunch. Easy.

I do have IF in my habit tracker, just so I don’t forget about it. Because actions that are easy and automated can easily slip my mind with the passage of time.

Exceptions to the schedule #

I do break the intermittent fasting rule occasionally.

• There was no earlier opportunity for me to eat.
• There is a dinner, which doubles as a social occasion, that I want to participate attend.

The results is always the same: I feel worse. But, I can’t solely attribute that to breaking my intermittent fasting rule, because it usually coincides with other rule breaks, such as: eating sugar, eating less than 2.5h before bed or eating in a way that spikes my blood sugar.

I am aware of these costs and if the dinner is important to me, I will bear them.

Conclusion #

Intermittent fasting is very easy to do, if your diet already gives you energy for at least 6-8h. And that’s a big if.

Intermittent fasting itself you set up once and then don’t think about it much. Benefits for me only exist on paper, but that’s fine, since it’s such an easy fix.