Q: My new year’s resolution was to start intermittent fasting to lose weight but I have gained weight. What’s wrong with me?
A: The first thing to ask yourself is whether you have confused intermittent fasting with intermittent feasting. If you are eating too much, especially if it is sugary processed foods, it doesn’t really matter whether you have it between 6am and 11pm or between midday and 8pm.
All dietary plans are, at their core, just different ways of eating. While we all understand that we must eat to live, have a good look around you and you will realise that most people live to eat.
Of course, for those who have the means to choose whichever meals they like understand that it is one of life’s blessings. From Wagyu beef to creamy spinach-stuffed salmon in garlic butter, the culinary arts are divine and you can enjoy most of it and still maintain a healthy weight and fit lifestyle.
Hormones matter and different foods affect hormones differently, but this question can be answered without delving too deeply into this, other than to warn you to limit sugar and don’t starve yourself.
Intermittent fasting limits the time window for eating. There are various versions of the diet, but the most common is the 16:8 diet, meaning you fast for 16 hours and are allowed to eat for eight hours only in every 24-hour cycle.
It’s said to have many benefits, including weight loss, improved cholesterol, decreased inflammation, improved brain function, decreased insulin resistance, increased muscle, better digestion, and more. If it sounds like every other so-called healthy diet, it’s because it is. Do intermittent fasting incorrectly with the wrong foods and we’d bet our breakfast on none of these benefits coming to pass.
While intermittent fasting sounds intense and intimidating, it’s not that bad considering you are asleep for half of your fast if you do the 16:8 protocol. It becomes far more difficult when your last meal was high in sugar and you’ve subsequently been hungry since.
Prof Tim Noakes once told me that diets don’t work because they make you hungry. It’s fairly obvious because it takes cyborg-like dedication to go through life feeling hungry all the time. You will break, and you will binge. If you don’t, you’ll probably be miserable and lose friends instead of centimetres.
So, what could you be doing wrong? An educated guess would be that you are either eating too much during your eating window, eating too little during your eating window, or eating the wrong foods during your eating window.
You can’t get away with eating more than you normally would just because you are “fasting” — your calories consumed will exceed calories burnt and you will gain weight. If you are eating far less than what you were used to eating, you’ll be hungry and more likely to “cheat” and top up now and then with food unlikely to be conducive to weight loss.
This brings us to eating the wrong types of food. You will hear this over and over no matter the diet or trend you choose to follow. If your meal plan comprises processed foods, simple carbohydrates and sugar, you will gain weight and increase your risk of developing a variety of lifestyle diseases. Intermittent fasting is not an excuse to forget the fundamentals of healthy eating.
Other factors that will contribute to your weight gain include not drinking enough water and not sleeping enough. It doesn’t matter whether you’re vegan or in love with meat, you must eat enough protein, especially if you are exercising. Rather than filling up on refined sugar and spiking your insulin in a weight-gain yo-yo, eat more protein and enjoy feeling fuller for longer.
I don’t advocate any specific eating plan. Much of my life has been spent intermittent fasting — not because I believe it to be superior, but because of the times that I train and my distaste for breakfast before work.
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