Intermittent Fasting: The One Benefit No One Talks About
Intermittent fasting means lots of things to lots of people, but for me it means a protocol of meal timing that involves a 16-20 hour period daily where you don’t consume calories. For most people, it means skipping breakfast.
Intermittent fasting is a great tool to use to help create calorie deficits without much effort. It is not a magical tool, though. Even with daily fasting, you won’t maintain or lose weight if you eat more calories than you burn every day.
To read more than you’d ever want to on the subject of intermittent fasting, I’d recommend starting at the same place most people do: leangains.com
For me, IF has tended to mean skipping dinner, but the specifics aren’t as important. Also in addition to daily intermittent fasting for several years, I also have frequently fasted for 24-hours straight. In fact, in 2017, I fasted for 24 hours more than 70 times in a 12 month period.
Today, I wouldn’t say that I practice intermittent fasting, but I do plan meals the night before (at least for weekdays), so I tend to know exactly what I’m going to eat everyday. What I don’t know is when I will eat everything.
I eat my first meal pre-workout at like 5:30am, then after the workout and shower and kid duties, I’ll usually dip into my lunch bag in the car on the way to work and start eating the rest of my food. I may finish all my planned calories for day at 10am one day, or I might get busy and not finish eating until later in the afternoon.
But whenever I finish all the calories I plan to eat that day, the biggest benefit from my years of experience with intermittent fasting comes into play. That benefit is psychological: Confidence. I know I can be done with eating for the day at 10am and it won’t be a problem at all for me to make it until the next morning’s pre-workout oats.
I am confident I can survive 20 hours until I eat again, because I have many, many times before. I know what it feels like to go 24 hours without food, and its no big deal to wait to eat again. That discipline established over the years can be drawn on whenever I need it.
So, I recommend intermittent fasting or some form of fasting as a means to establish within your brain the ability to go for long periods of time without food, because it will be a useful skill to have in the bag.
