The Most Underrated Benefit of Intermittent Fasting
By: Stephanie Dorsay Rondeau
Tags: Health, Diet, Intermittent Fasting, Nutrition, Fitness

The Most Underrated Benefit of Intermittent Fasting

Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile on Unsplash

“I could never do that. I have to eat every few hours or I die.”

This phrase, or something like it, is what I said the first time I ever learned about Intermittent Fasting (IF). This was long ago, before it was the latest fad in the diet and health world. At that time, I truly couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to torture themselves like this.

Despite my skepticism, I had decided to run a series of experimental diets and report about my experiences and results on my personal blog. I was going to give each method a month, reflect on any progress or lack thereof, and go from there.

The month that I tried intermittent fasting, I followed a 16:8 protocol, where the goal is to observe a 16 hour fasting window and 8 hour “feeding” window within a 24 hour period. It’s important to note that although you are only eating during a specific 8 hour period, it is crucial to maintain your healthy calorie count during that time. Thus, this isn’t merely skipping meals. In fact it’s almost the opposite — all of your meals are consumed, they’re just condensed into a smaller time frame.

Sure, many people go into intermittent fasting expecting fat loss and body composition changes, and when followed smartly, those are certainly changes that one can expect from this type of protocol. I will admit that during that month, and every time since then that I incorporate IF into my routine in one way or another, I do lose some body fat fairly easily, that is if you can call fasting for 16 hours per day easy.

However, this is by far the least important benefit of intermittent fasting for me, and is not the reason why I come back to it periodically whenever I feel like I need a little reset of my health routine.

I am a creature of habit. I can eat the same thing for breakfast day in and day out for years (and no, this is not hyperbole). With those habitual tendencies however, I also tend to fall into less healthy habits fairly easily. A dessert one night can turn into dessert every single night. Chocolate after lunch a couple days in a row can turn into a need for chocolate after lunch every single day. See where I’m going with this?

Not only do I fall into habits with relative ease, I can also stress eat (or just eat-eat if we’re being honest) my way through an entire bag of chips before I even realize what I’m doing. And when I’m feeling hungry, I often do what I call urgent eating, where hunger feels like an emergency (it’s not) and speed-eating crackers seems to be the only cure. And I know I’m not the only one. Often hunger comes at us like an angry lion, forcing us into survival mode feeling like we need to act fast or perish.(Of course if there is a medical condition that requires quick food intake, that is a different story).

In that first month that I tried intermittent fasting, and every time that I have incorporated it into my life since then, I have finally been able to exert control over that emergent urge to eat. I can finally understand that hunger is generally not an emergency, and that hunger signals can often be misleading depending on many other factors such as stress, emotions, lack of sleep, etc. Do I feel hungry during my 16 hour fast? Absolutely. As I write this, I am currently nearing the end of hour 16 and looking forward to breaking my fast.

However, the difference is that it does not feel like an emergency. I don’t feel like I have to eat right now or I’ll die. If something comes up and I don’t actually get to eat for another hour, I know that I’ll be fine. And that kind of control is freeing in a way. I don’t feel particularly rigid about my diet or regimen (I currently fast only 3 days per week), yet I have a sense of control and calm rather than lack of control and unstoppable urges for savory snacks.

And lastly, the habits. Intermittent fasting allows me to halt an unhealthy habit that I may have formed recently, and helps me to kind of reset my mental state around food. Instead of having chocolate every night before bed, I’m more mindful of if and when I eat sweets. I have a calm mental control over when I eat, rather than going into a frenzy over some hunger pangs or eating mindlessly out of habit alone.

This is the real benefit to me. Sure, fat loss is a nice side effect as well, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of the reason why I go back to IF on a fairly regular basis. But the mental clarity and feeling of calm around food is truly the primary reason why this is a recurring part of my routine. I don’t practice it every day, and I take time off of it completely for various reasons, but it’s always there in my back pocket when I need a little mental reset around food as well as a physical one.

Intermittent fasting is generally an effective method of fat loss, and there are a host of other health benefits as well. But this mental calm around food is the winner, in my book. Feeling like you have control over what you eat, rather than cravings controlling you, is the piece that many people are missing when it comes to decreasing sugar intake and mindless eating. It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure. But for those who have success, it’s a wonderful tool for both body and mind.