Intermittent Fasting and Why It’s Wrong

The undeniable factual key to losing weight is eating fewer calories than you burn. That’s simple mathematics. The intermittent fasting diets (there’s several options on how you can do the diet) take this mathematical fact as the fundamental point of success in their diet and apply it to several days rather than counting on a one-day basis. On the Eat Stop Eat version for example, if you consume whatever you want for 24 hours and then don’t eat at all for 24 hours, your calorie count for those two days would probably yield a fewer intake than what you burned – provided you didn’t eat all junk food or burgers. Mathematically, the diet can be a sound method.

However, a successful weight loss that will be maintained involves more than counting calories. Once you lose weight with intermittent fasting, you’re obligated to continue doing it if you want to keep the weight off. Since you’d be committing to long-term intermittent fasting, you’ll also want to know that it could provide new-coming health conditions you didn’t even previously have.

In order to properly function at your very best on a daily basis, you need the nutrients and energy provided in food. Spending an entire 24 hours without consuming any nutrients is damaging to your health and overall well-being. Registered dietician and nutritionist Cynthia Sass explains that fasting doesn’t account for the natural way in which your body works as it “burns a combination of fat and carbohydrates after about six hours,” regardless of whether or not you’re fasting, and “when carbohydrates aren’t being consumed and your body’s ‘back up’ stores in your liver have been depleted, you begin to convert some lean tissue into carbohydrate.” Essentially, your body will begin to eat up your muscles. Another downfall to intermittent fasting and its health consequences is that there’s no regime to follow in regards to eating the right amount of fruits and vegetables. This can frequently provide an unhealthy diet. Someone who doesn’t eat fruits and vegetables on a regular basis, could lose weight with intermittent fasting, but put themselves in an even worse health condition than before.

Common side effects of fasting are headaches, nausea, low-energy levels, anxiety, stress, poor moods and even fainting. Overall, intermittent fasting just isn’t worth the risk. You’re better off counting your calories on a one-day basis, and following a regime to ensure you eat the proper amount of fruits and vegetables, than you are trying intermittent fasting.