How To Start Fasting
Posted by Scott V Watkins, MD
Doing It Right Will Give You Lifelong Healthy Habits
Now that you know the multiple benefits of fasting, how do you begin?
First, remember that the practice involves both time-restricted eating (not consuming food for optimally 16 hours per day) and true fasting (keeping caloric intake to under 600 calories a day for 1-2 days per week).
For many people, a 12-hour fast isn’t too difficult. Making 7 p.m. (or at least 2-3 hours before bedtime) your last meal is fundamental. (Eating after your evening meal really has no value anyway, unless you’re trying to gain weight. And consuming food close to bedtime also can result in reflux, when stomach acid backs up into the esophagus, a problem that’s been detailed in the previous fasting articles). Not eating again until 7 a.m. should be fairly easy, as most people are sleeping at that time. All told, that would add up to a 12-hour fast.
To really see benefits, though, the minimum fasting time would be 14 hours, with a 16-hour fast the eventual aim. Some people may, however, find going for 16 hours straight without food is something they need to work up to, so try increasing the length of time you go without food each day to later in the morning, until you reach that 16-hour goal.
During your fast, you can, and I encourage you, to consume non-caloric drinks, which can include:
- Green tea has compounds that help with gut healing and are anti-inflammatory.
- Black tea and black coffee, both of which have antioxidant properties that can be powerful.
- Water is usually the simplest and often the best way to hydrate.
- Electrolyte-containing drinks can be helpful but must be non-caloric.
What about artificial sweeteners for that tea or coffee? In recent years, these sugar substitutes have been shown to likely be at least as bad as sugar, if not worse, for your health. Our bodies respond to anything we consume, and artificial sweeteners can be harmful over time. However, I believe short-term use is OK. I myself have used artificial sweeteners to wean myself off sweetened drinks, and it took some time, but now I usually don’t add any sweetener to my drinks.
What SHOULD you eat when NOT fasting? It’s one of the first questions my patients ask me.
There are a number of healthy eating plans that functional medicine practitioners like myself can prescribe. These include:
- Elimination Diet: Removing food from your diet that you suspect your body can’t tolerate.
- Cardio-Metabolic Diet: Eating plans that support the heart and help the body convert food into energy.
- Mediterranean Diet: Focusing on plant-based foods such as whole grains, vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts and seeds.
- FODMAP Diet: One that’s low in sugars, which can cause intestinal problems.
However, when starting intermittent fasting/time-restricting eating, I’d recommend NOT making any major changes in what you eat. I have always found it best to only make one big change at a time, to determine if that change is directly having an impact on your health. Too many changes at once make it difficult to pinpoint what’s actually making a difference. So the bottom line is: First fix the amount of time you devote to eating, and once that’s become an established habit, you can move on to making positive changes to what you eat. (To learn more about forming habits that allow you to accomplish more, I’d highly recommend the book Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, by James Clear).
Even if you don’t change your actual food intake, adapting to an intermittent fasting schedule is the first step toward long-term success. When it comes to breaking your fast, though, take a common-sense approach: Don’t expect a good outcome from eating doughnuts and drinking milkshakes — you may even end up with diarrhea.
Finally, I want to stress that I’m not recommending practicing intermittent fast/time-restricted eating as a quick fix — this isn’t a short-term dash to fit into a new bathing suit or outfit. It took time to establish the habits you’re trying to change, so it may take a bit of time to alter your approach to food and eating and develop lifestyle habits that will stay with you your entire life.
Be well!
