7 Intermittent Fasting Mistakes Keeping You Fat And How You Can Fix It
7 Intermittent Fasting Mistakes Keeping You Fat And How You Can Fix It
Intermittent fasting gained traction as a fad a few years ago, with most experts claiming that it would fade off just as fast as it got popularized.
Now, over a decade later, we still find it growing faster than ever.
This can simply be attributed to all the intermittent fasting success stories and transformations floating around the Internet.
But if intermittent fasting truly is such a powerful tool, why isn’t everyone who tries it walking around lean and ripped.
Why isn’t every person who uses an intermittent fasting diet plan losing weight rapidly?
Well, it’s because everyone doesn’t fast the same way.
When I started fasting, I had a hard time getting any results.
Few months into it is when I realized that there are two types of people:
The ones who succeed with intermittent fasting and the ones who don’t.
Funny enough, diving deeper into this, I realized that the ones who fail with intermittent fasting are making a few key - but common - mistakes.
*I blame all the scammy marketing which makes us believe that fasting is the shortcut to success.*
Once I fixed these common mistakes, I was finally able to be consistent with my nutrition and get the results I wanted.
If you find yourself stuck with intermittent fasting, make sure you aren’t making the following mistakes so that you can lose weight and get lean in the most effective and effortless way possible.
Grade yourself on how many of these 7 mistakes your are making and check the conclusion to see where you fall!
1. You Jump Into It Too Fast
The #1 intermittent fasting mistake you can make is to not take it one step at a time.
If you often find yourself failing when you try to follow an intermittent fasting plan, it is probably because you’re jumping into something that’s too difficult for you right out of the gate.
A good example of this is trying to execute a 20/4 style of intermittent fasting where you fast for 20 hours and eat for 4 hours.
If you have no experience with pushing your meals forward, you will find yourself feeling miserable and might even end up in binge eating sessions frequently.
This not only stalls weight loss but it also messes up your relationship with food.
What’s worse is that it makes you dismiss the effectiveness of the strategy without giving it a shot properly.
The fix:
If you have never had success with a fasting strategy before, your best bet is to start slow.
It can be as slow as a 12 hour fasting window and a 12 hour feeding window.
Once you are able to nail a protocol for a week consistently, feel free to increase the length of the fasting window.
Make no mistake, the increase has to be gradual.
Add 1-2 hours at a time till you reach your desired length of the fasting window.
2. You Don’t Sync It With Your Lifestyle
The #2 intermittent fasting mistake you can make is to select an approach that doesn’t sync with your lifestyle.
For example, forcing a 20/4 style of intermittent fasting where you eat for just 4 hours a day even when you know your lifestyle requires you to have a longer feeding window can lead to frustration and failure.
Also, while rare, some people find it difficult to be productive when they don’t have food in their system.
If you are one of these people, prolonged fasting periods or a feeding window set-up at the wrong time might not be the best solution for you, and forcing one can just lead to unsatisfactory results.
The fix:
Track your schedule and hunger patterns to find out what the best approach will be based on your lifestyle.
If you prefer eating earlier in the day, or if your lifestyle demands you to, feel free to schedule the feeding window in a way that allows you to start eating in the morning and stop eating by early evening.
On the other hand, if you prefer eating at night and don’t have time to cook during the day, setting up a smaller feeding window at night can be beneficial.
In all cases, the key it to understand what your schedule and lifestyle permits, and to then build your approach around it.
This leads to the best adherence and, therefore, the best results.
3. You’re Not Tracking Your Meals In The Feeding Window
You can have everything set-up right, but if you aren’t tracking what you eat in your feeding window, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
While intermittent fasting is a great tool for losing weight, it still requires you to follow the law of energy balance.
This means, to lose weight, you still need to consume lesser calories than your body burns.
For example, if you burn 2000 calories a day, you will still need to ensure you eat lesser than 2000 calories a day on average to make sure you lose weight, irrespective of whether or not you fast.
Most people look at fasting as a magical tool that will allow you to eat how much ever food they want and still allow them to lose weight.
Sadly, it is the same people who barely make any progress (or even regress) on intermittent fasting protocols.
The fix:
Have an idea of how many calories you need to be eating and use a simple app like Myfitnesspal to track your meals.
This will ensure that you are in a calorie deficit and will help you see the fastest results.
If you need help with setting up your nutrition, check out ”How Much Should I Eat To Lose Fat?”.
4. You’re Making The Wrong Decisions In The Feeding Window
While this might seem like a repetition of the previous point, there is a big difference between the two.
Simply put, you can eat within your calories and still see less than satisfactory results in the long run.
This is because making the wrong food decisions will impact your ability to adhere to the plan in the long run.
For example, let’s say you eat a 1000 calories of chocolate and pizza instead of a 1000 calories of a balanced diet (which still includes some chocolate).
While you would still lose weight in either case, you will find it much harder to sustain the pizza and chocolate diet.
It won’t leave your satiated and this, in turn, will make it harder for you to adhere to your fast the following day.
This might not seem like a big deal on a small timeline, but once it compounds over time, it can lead to less than satisfactory results.
Not to mention the negative health benefits that come along with it.
The fix:
First and foremost, make sure you’re getting in an appropriate amount of protein, fats and carbs in your diet.
If you don’t know how much you should be eating, check out the calculator embedded in this post.
Once you have an idea of your macronutrient split, make sure that the majority of your diet (at least 80%) comes from whole foods which are rich in micronutrients (eg. fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, etc.)
Satisfying these conditions will help you ensure that you are eating a diet that is primarily filled with healthy and satiating foods.
Of course, you don’t need to worry if you fail to hit your targets and eat a higher percentage of “fun foods” occasionally.
5. You’re Not Drinking Enough Water
If you plan on having a long fasting window and you don’t drink enough water, you’re going to have a hard time.
I’m not going to turn a chunk of this post into the benefits of hydration, but I can’t stress the importance of consuming water during your fast.
This also applies to the people who feel hungry or tired when they fast.
Up your water intake and you’ll find a night and day difference in your approach to fasting.
The fix:
Make sure you start your day with a big glass of water.
Drink water frequently through your fasting window.
You can also use zero-calorie beverages like green tea and black coffee during your fasting window.
Not only will this give you a little bump with the hydration, but they will also help you stay full and push the fast longer.
6. You’re Treating It Like A Starve-Binge Cycle
This issue is more so to do with the mindset side of things.
You can’t expect to succeed with intermittent fasting if you glorify it as a starve binge cycle that brings results.
Sadly, even the best of the best fall for this.
If you find yourself thinking that you can starve yourself for half the day to enjoy later in the evening, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Not only will this not lead to results (if you aren’t tracking what you eat), but it will also do significant damage to your relationship with food.
You can very easily take something that is a helpful tool to lose weight and transform it into something that cultivates disordered eating if you aren’t careful.
The fix:
Have a set plan and treat fasting the way it is meant to be treated.
Understand that it is not a “shortcut” to losing weight and that you will need to put an effort to change your nutrition to see results.
Once you fix the underlying problem, you will be able to consistently make progress and lose weight using intermittent fasting.
7. You’re Overdoing It
Last but not the least, going overboard with fasting.
Once you get results with fasting, it is very easy to convince yourself with the logic of more is better.
It’s not uncommon to see people go from 12 hour fasts all way to 16, 18, 20, 24, 36, 48 and even 72 hour fasts.
The decision of where you want to draw the line eventually depends on you.
Linking longer fasts to weight loss success will cultivate a false belief within yourself.
Whenever you will find yourself struggling to lose weight, you will resort to very long fasts as your first option.
If you are trying to lose weight to improve your body composition, prolonged fasting may not always be beneficial.
It makes it harder for you to train hard and maximize lean muscle.
The fix:
Know where you will draw the line with your fasting.
As a general recommendation, I don’t see the point in fasting for more than 24 hours if body composition and weight loss is the primary goal.
I have found 16-18 hours to be the sweet spot which allows you to eat bigger meals while still being fasted through the majority of the day.
In occasional cases, using a One Meal A Day approach as outlined in the “Getting Lean With The Help Of 24 Hour Fasts” can also be helpful.
Conclusion
How many out of these 7 mistakes were your making?
Grade yourself and see where you fall.
5-7 mistakes: Fixing your mistakes can speed up progress exponentially and help you see the true potential of intermittent fasting.
3-4 mistakes: You have the general concept sorted out, but you are only working at half capacity. Fixing your mistakes can help you kickstart the process and lose weight consistently again.
0-2 mistakes: You already know the power of fasting and have seen some benefits of using this approach. Fine tuning the process by fixing your mistakes can help you optimize your nutrition strategy and make sure that you break past your weight loss plateaus.
I started out with 6 mistakes and slowly climbed my way up to making 0 mistakes with my intermittent fasting strategy.
Doing this not only helped me lose weight in a sustainable manner, but it also helped me build a better understanding of nutrition while allowed me to later transfer to a normal eating strategy while sustaining my results.
That said, let me remind you once again that intermittent fasting isn’t magic.
It can be a very useful tool for some, but will only work as long as you put an effort into your nutrition.
I hope you liked this article.
If you have any questions, drop a comment below.
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