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Five intermittent fasting mistakes that undo all the good work

Intermittent fasting is a general term for various eating patterns that involve not eating for short periods of time. Unlike a typical weight-loss diet that restricts how much or what you eat, intermittent fasting isn't all about the food you put in your body; instead it's about when you put that food in your body.

The diet (if you can call it that) integrates periods of fasting into your day to reap the many proven benefits, like burning stored body fat for energy. It's the way we ate as hunter-gatherers, when food was scarce and we would follow feast with hours or even days of fasting. As such, intermittent fasting puts our bodies in line with the way they evolved.

For me, dropping from three meals a day to two has made a vast difference to my health, and left me convinced that  intermittent fasting is the missing link in our lives. However, I appreciate some people come into difficulty when trying the regime, which asks you to fast for around 16 hours in a 24 hour cycle. 

Here are the top five errors people make – and how to overcome them...

1. You think it’s an excuse to eat rubbish

Unfortunately, people think that intermittent fasting is a magic pill that will solve all their problems. Yes, it is an incredibly effective tool to take control of your health, but it won’t cancel out eating a diet full of processed foods and sugar.

When you are intermittent fasting, it is important to nourish your body with nutrient dense, whole foods. The fasting process sees your body break down damaged components and use them for energy – a cleaning, healing, slimming process.

It also means your body becomes more sensitive to the food you eat; great if it’s full of nourishing nutrients, not so good if you're eating crap. Not only that, if you aren’t nourishing yourself with nutrient dense foods, you will feel hungry all the time.

2. You calorie restrict during your “eating window”

One of the main issues that some people come into when they start IF is that they continue to calorie restrict when they have broken their fast. The whole point of eating in this way is to listen to your body and eat until you feel full. Your body is an amazing machine, if you allow it to do its job properly. It will release hormones to make you feel full when it knows it’s had enough food.

If you calorie restrict you'll probably end up under-eating, which causes lots of unwanted changes in the body. Long term, it's neither sustainable nor particularly good for you.

3. You over train

If you have spent a number of years eating badly and not exercising and you would like to try IF, don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Ease yourself into fasting and training gradually. One of the worst things you can do is throw yourself into a five-times-a-week intense training regime, when your body is already coming to terms with a different rhythm to your food intake. The combination can easily lead to adrenal fatigue, which will probably lay you low in bed for a week.

Your body thrives with a little bit of physical stress here and there, but too much stress can become a problem. So, one thing at a time.

Bye-bye, breakfast: Why two meals a day is the new 5:2
Bye-bye, breakfast: Why two meals a day is the new 5:2

4. You obsess over timings and “eating windows”

In my opinion, one of the main benefits of IF is teaching you to become completely in tune with your body and understand what I call “real hunger” – something that occurs every 16-24 hours, not every 4 hours. Your body should dictate when you should eat, not the clock. If you focus on time periods, you end up counting down the hours until you can eat – you never learn to understand your body's signals.

With the two meal day, you choose to skip either breakfast or dinner, which almost automatically extends your overnight fast to about 16 hours. The focus is not on the time period; if you choose to skip breakfast you can break your fast whenever you feel hungry.

5. You aren’t drinking enough water

When your body is in the fasted state it starts to break down damaged components and detoxify the body. It is very important that you flush out those toxins drinking lots of water. Ideally, you will drink more water than you usually would. I drink roughly 4-5litres every day, most of that during my fasting period. Not only that, drinking water, particularly sparling water can help you to feel full, which is important when you are first getting into IF.

The 2 Meal Day by Max Lowery is out now, £14.99. You can also follow Max on InstagramYouTube and Facebook