I have been leading an Intermittent Fasting lifestyle for more than a year now, and throughout this process I have made many mistakes, mistakes that made me waste time and effort. Today I will share with you these mistakes and the misconceptions people have when they are starting with Intermittent Fasting.
1. Intermittent Fasting Equals All You Can Eat
People think that because they are now fasting 16 hours or more they can eat all they want, and the fasting will prevent weight gain or fat loss. This is erroneous.
The first months I started doing IF I would fast for 16 hours without any problem, but when I ate I ate a lot, I was probably eating at maintenance calories or maybe a little above it. This meant that even though I was fasting for 16 hours, there was no way in hell fat loss would occur if I was eating at maintenance or above.
Why was I eating like this? Because I thought that fasting would be enough to trigger fat loss and get me lean. I was not counting neither calories nor macros. I would eat whatever I wanted and as long as this was during my feeding window everything would be alright. Big mistake.
Understand: Whatever your goal is (fat loss or muscle gain), you must eat appropriately no matter if you are fasting or not. You must be aware of how many calories you are ingesting and the amount of each macro nutrient as well. If your goal is to burn fat, you must stay in your caloric deficit even when fasting. The same thing goes for caloric surplus when building muscle.
2. When Fat Loss Stalls, Fast More
When I stopped seeing visible fat loss changes on my body, or the scale would not move for weeks, it was obvious that fat loss was stalling (if there was any fat loss at all). What was the “solution”? Fast more. Big mistake.
I started fasting for 18 hours, then 20 hours. I was convinced this was the way to keep burning fat and I was on the right path to leanness.
Obviously if you are already doing mistake #1, fasting for 18 or 20 hours will not help, simply because you are not in a caloric deficit to begin with. Although fasting for long periods such as these might help you stay within the caloric deficit simply because there isn’t much time left of feeding, measures like these are not really necessary.
Understand: Increasing fasting time will not help if you are already eating too much and not tracking calories and macro nutrients (mistake #1). Stick with a regular fasting period that will also allow a regular feeding window. The 16/8 (16 hours fasting window, 8 hour feeding window) is usually a good choice. Do things right and you won’t have to fast for ridiculous amounts of time.
3. Fasted Training is Detrimental
Ever since I started Intermittent Fasting and started training while fasted, I felt much better when training. It is a physical and mental thing as well, you feel active and focused. However that does not mean that fasted training is for everyone. Some people can’t really train while fasted, they feel tired and are unable to keep up. This is fine.
But that does not mean that fasted training is detrimental. Fasted training might actually benefit your fat loss and your mind-body connection when training. You have to try it and see how you feel to know if it will work for you or not.
I have done early morning fasted training, as well as training in the evening after breaking my fast. I have to say that early morning fasted training feels much more productive for me. Training in the evening after having broken my fast puts me in a lazy state that does not motivate me much in the gym.
Understand: As long as you are sleeping well and getting enough rest, fasted training should not be detrimental for you. It is recommended you consume a small amount of branched chain amino acids (BCAA) before fasted training, but this is not mandatory since I know people who don’t ingest BCAA before fasted training and they are just fine.
4. Misconception of Cardio
Many who are new to Intermittent Fasting want to include cardio because they are used to doing it, or maybe to “speed up” the fat burning. This can bring undesired effects depending on what kind of cardio is being done and the current physical state of the person (Lean Body Mass, Body fat percentage, etc.)
People sometimes want to add high intensity cardio to their training to speed up fat burning. If you are already in a caloric deficit, this can actually trigger muscle loss, it can also stall or hurt your fat loss. This might be due to increase in cortisol levels and other factors.
Understand: If you are still not relatively lean (10-12% body fat) you don’t really need to do cardio. The caloric deficit (assuming you are already in one) should be enough to make you lose fat gradually. For leaner individuals (10-12% body fat), low intensity cardio should be used in order to prevent muscle loss.
Cardio should only be an option when trying to target stubborn body fat, which is usually in the abdominal region. In this case the cardio is done to improve the quality of the fat burning, not the quantity, since targeting stubborn body fat can be a complex issue. The calories burned from the cardio should only be seen as an added bonus. In this case, performing HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a great choice.
5. Not Tracking Progress & Making Adjustments
This is actually not specific to Intermittent Fasting but of dieting in general. Chances are, if you are doing mistake #1 you are also doing mistake #5, I know I was. The reason I am including this here it’s because it is easy to make this mistake when getting caught up in the whole Intermittent Fasting idea, specially if you have never done it before and are new to it. I would go on weeks and weeks without making adjustments, even though I knew fat loss was not occurring, in my mind I just thought it was just going slow and eventually someday I would wake up super lean. Do not give in to this mistake.
Understand: You must track progress and make adjustments to your eating even when doing Intermittent Fasting. You must track progress using a reasonable time frame (3 weeks is a good frame). This allows you to track your progress in a weekly matter, and calculate an average value after this time frame. This should indicate if your progress has stalled or not. If it has, you must make an adjustment to your caloric and macro-nutrient intake immediately and repeat the process. This is the correct way to achieving leanness or muscle growth.
Final Thoughts
I believe these are the most common mistakes that are very prone to happen from those who are new to intermittent fasting, that included me as well. But I learned from my mistakes, and that is the important thing.
If you have been doing Intermittent Fasting for a while and you are not achieving your desired results, you might want to check if you are doing any of these mistakes.
The Modern Renaissance Man 