Or shall I say, 'skipping breakfast and starving ourselves'?
That's really what intermittent fasting is.
Intermittent fasting is supposed to help with:
Inflammation
Gut Issues
Energy
Weight loss
BUT, is it helping symptoms OR the root cause?
Perhaps it is true for some individuals, mainly with a male physiology, in the short term.
But what is it doing to your thyroid, adrenals, hair and overall health in the long term?
We must look at everything in context.
Fasting is incredibly popular right now, with plenty of woman and men jumping on the bandwagon for things like inflammation, gut issues and the big one... weight loss. Sadly, due to good marketing, many people think that "skipping breakfast" will unlock the secret potential to quick and easy weight loss. But why do people get such mixed (and mostly not great) results with regular intermittent fasting?
Let's break it down a little further...
👉🏻 We don't run on thin air. Your body runs on fuel (glucose). You get this fuel from your food, and every cell needs it to help you thrive. When you wake up in the morning, you have depleted liver glycogen stores and you need fuel for the day. You also need nutrients to make your hormones for the day, which quite literally run your entire chemistry! Your liver can only hold enough glucose to get you through about 8 hours without food. Once glycogen stores are depleted, you make more glucose by literally breaking your body down. The first things to go are muscle mass, hair, and those kinds of "non-essentials". After this, it can move on to different tissues and even organs. Gluconeogenesis (a process that transforms non-carbohydrate substrates, such as lactate, amino acids, and glycerol, into glucose) is an incredibly tough process for your body to go through because it requires us to be in fight or flight mode (make adrenaline to be activated), and limits non-essential activities to keep you alive and conserve energy. This process comes with a huge cost. Relying on adrenaline and cortisol to make glucose is not a great long-term strategy for hormone health. Hello, blood sugar imbalances, adrenal burnout, exhaustion, brain fog, low progesterone, low thyroid, hot flashes and more. It can feel really great at first! The adrenaline can make you think you're feeling better than ever, when in reality, burnout is on the way. When you actively choose to see through the clever marketing of diet culture BS and make nutrition choices based on your physiology, you can gain energy and reach a healthy weight without restriction.
But now you wonder, 'Why do I feel better on intermittent fasting though?'
In the short term, generally people feel better because:
Their gut is highly dysregulated and eating less or less often feels better.
They are confusing elevated adrenal hormones (adrenalin and cortisol) with health improvements.
How Metabolic Stress Paves the Way for Digestive Breakdown:
Not having enough minerals and hydration impairs bile flow and the bile gets sludgy.
The pancreas is supposed to be making digestive enzymes to break down fructose and glucose but is impaired.
Stress wreaks havoc on our stomach acid: without it we can’t break down food or bacteria and parasites as well.
Transit time usually slows down (constipation, less break down of food nutrients, less absorption).
What does Digestive Breakdown mean?
Sluggish fat digestion – feeling heavy, floating stools, greasy stools, nausea.
Poor carbohydrate, gluten, and dairy digestion in the small intestine from lack of enzymes (it’s not the food you are sensitive to, it’s the lack of enzymes to digest your food!).
Poor protein digestion: feeling heavy when eating protein, indigestion, poor hair and nail growth etc.
More time for bacteria and fungus to ferment food.
But why does fasting feel good at first?
When we go long periods without eating, our liver is responsible for keeping blood sugar stable (The liver stores 100-120g of sugar at all times). But eventually our liver and muscles run out of glucose when we fast for too long. To make glucose it requires the body to increase adrenal hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This process encourages the pancreas to release glucagon, which breaks down tissue. It promotes the production of glucose from amino acid molecules, your muscles.
Basically, it usually feels good until it doesn’t! And I speak from personal experience, but I also see it with clients across the board. I did intermittent fasting for nearly 3 years and most of my health issues became worse instead of better.
When we understand that adrenal hormones are fight or flight hormones you understand that they force the body to use vital nutrients at FAST rates. Too fast really! You are not going to get enough nutrients in when you fast/stress over a long period of time. Regular, long-term fasting forces the body to use the liver's back up system, gluconeogenesis to meet its glucose needs. Relying on gluconeogenesis and glycolysis to meet your body’s needs is hard on the metabolism. As your adrenals/metabolism begin to slow down, the effects of regular fasting starts to show! Slowly but surely.
“But our ancestors ate this way!” Well did they really? And if they did, was it really their choice, or would they have had better health and a better life if they had been able to provide the correct nourishment for their metabolism and body?
Women's physiology thrives off of safety and abundance. There's nothing less safe for a body that uses energy to create life than not knowing when your next meal is coming in. Research shows that intermittent fasting for women:
Inverts the circadian rhythm
Stresses the adrenals
Suppresses thyroid conversion (T4 to T3)
Messes with hunger and satiety hormones (grehlin & leptin)
Causes physiological insulin resistance
Increases evening blood sugar
Increases fat mass and causes hyperinsulinemia
Depletes the liver, making it harder for the liver to store blood sugar as glycogen
But my biggest problem with intermittent fasting is: It tricks people into thinking that eating is the problem, and simply not eating is a fix to the problem. A Tale as old as time really.
If your body feels better when you're not eating food, it's not a fasting deficiency. Fasting most likely is not going to make things better long-term. There's an imbalance that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. Maybe you have burned through all your potassium and sodium stores after years of stress, and child rearing.
If you're not hungry in the morning, this is a cry from your body for help. This is not a healthy sign. Everybody knows, children and animals are ready for breakfast at sunrise! Wouldn't you be worried if your dog never felt like eating in the morning? Yeah, I thought so. The problem with all these health coaches and gurus encouraging women to intermittent fast is that they truly do NOT understand the female physiology. They do not warn them of the dangers it will cause to their adrenals, thyroid, detoxification, reproduction, hair growth, mood, mental clarity or anything else. They do not remind women that fasting is a way to easily and intentionally under-eat, leading to further metabolic adaptation. When you're running on stress hormones, it almost always feels good right up until it doesn't.
Now I hear clients doing this to their children. I encourage you to look at the full research to make a more educated decision.
To slowly build hunger in the morning, start with a small piece of fruit, an egg, a glass of milk. Anything that speaks to you. Over time, you will develop a hunger first thing rising. That's when you know your body is getting back into balance.
References:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32845924/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230500/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34213700/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419605/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34474513/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8954770/
Comments