She Tried Intermittent Fasting for a Week
1. The Plan: Working Up to 18 Hours of Fasting
To get started, GH hooked me up with Jaclyn London, MS, RD, CDN, Nutrition Director at the Good Housekeeping Institute, to give me the low-down. She confirmed that while there are some claims that intermittent fasting can benefit your health and promote weight loss, the data pool is pretty small.
"Her hesitation in recommending the diet overall is that research is pretty limited," London told me. "There have been some human studies linking IF to reduced cognitive decline in at-risk populations, improving markers of oxidative stress, and weight loss. But for the most part, larger-scale studies have found that there's virtually no difference between alternate-day fasting and simply restricting calories daily."
There are three main approaches to IF: time-restricted fasting, where you limit your eating to a set time every day and fast for the other 12 to 18 hours; modified fasting (a.k.a. the 5:2 diet that Kimmel follows), where you eat just 25% of your recommended daily calorie intake two days per week and eat normally otherwise; and alternate fasting, where you switch between periods of consuming zero-calorie foods and beverages and actually eating.
London recommended I go with the time-restricted fasting since you can start small and work your way up. Since the cognitive benefits are what I was most interested in, she encouraged me to focus on eating a Mediterranean-inspired diet full of nutrient-dense fruit, veggies, lean protein, whole grains, and healthy fats versus processed foods.
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2. Day 1: Starving by 8:30 A.M., Then Panic-Eating Lunch
That first day I woke up at 6:30 a.m. Two hours later, I was famished. My husband makes smoothies for us every morning (usually a combination of spinach, kale, frozen pineapple, banana, ground flax seeds, and this superfood green powder he gets at some healthy place) and I was basically drooling as I watched him down his before work.
Right away, I noticed I felt especially tired and unfocused. For one thing, it took me three hours to write something that normally would take one because my mind kept drifting off to what I was going to eat later.
3. Day 2: Less Hunger Pains, More Major Headaches
The next day was another 15-hour fasting day, but I woke up around 4:30 a.m. and couldn't fall back asleep, which made for verrrry long morning of not eating. The good news is I learned from my mistakes and had my leftovers from dinner first instead of the smoothie. That solved the problem of my growling stomach, but the headaches and spacey feeling were still there.
For dinner that night, my husband made homemade whole-wheat pizza with lots of veggies and a teeny amount of cheese. I also had a glass of red wine. All of it was London-approved. She said the trick to drinking wine while doing IF is to not overdo it, since having more than a glass or two could make me dehydrated and trigger feelings of hunger, not to mention lose the willpower to avoid late-night snacking.
4. Day 3: Ordering Out — And Skipping the Burger
Heading into the weekend, I upped the fasting to 16 hours on Saturday and 17 hours on Sunday. I knew I'd eat at least a couple meals out, so London advised me to order entrees that were at least 50% vegetable-based with some lean protein, healthy grains, and fats thrown in to keep me full. This made the plan very easy and simple to adhere to.
On Saturday morning I made my own breakfast bowl with kale, cherry tomatoes, avocado, two eggs, and two slices of bacon. For dinner that night, my husband and I tried a new restaurant. Everyone around us got the burger, which is probably what I would have chosen had I not been doing this plan. Instead, I ordered an arugula, fennel, and tomato salad and my husband got the crab cake sliders. We also got a small plate of the lobster mac'n'cheese, and I used the "I'm on a Mediterranean diet" excuse to eat most of the lobster since London suggested I eat more seafood.
5. Day 4: Drinking More Water Like an IF Pro
On Sunday we brunched at a Mexican place, and I passed up what would have been my usual go-to (tacos!) in favor of a eggs benedict-like entree that came with salad and potatoes the closest thing to a vegetable-based dish on the menu. Later, I snacked on green pepper slices dipped in hummus, and ate leftover veggie pizza and a kale side salad for dinner.
Even though the daily headaches were still persisting, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of things. I asked London about them, and she encouraged me to drink more water. "The point of this type of fast versus others is that you're not required to skip non-caloric beverages," she explained.
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