Why I Quit Intermittent Fasting

Reminder: This is my experience with Intermittent fasting, but I am not a doctor and it is to be used for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

Fasting has become very popular because there is a lot of health benefits and it can help some people lose weight. Last year, I decided to try Intermittent fasting for about eight months because I wanted to see if it could improve my gut health and give me more energy. Fasting may help some people reach their goals, but it did not work for me and caused me to have more problems than I had before I started fasting. I was hopeful that Intermittent fasting was going to work because it’s incredibly easy, but it did the complete opposite of what I wanted it to do and the risk far outweighed the little benefits I may have gotten from it. Intermittent fasting did give me some positive results, but the negatives outweighed the benefits, and I didn’t feel like it was worth continuing because I didn’t see any major changes. Why did I quit Intermittent fasting? In this post, I am going to share why I decided to quit Intermittent fasting.

It worsened my bowel health– My gut health has been poor lately, and I decided to start fasting with the hopes of improving it. I was eating less often when I was fasting and as a result was pooping less, which may sound like a good thing, but not always, because if you aren’t eating enough calories, it can trigger constipation. When you skip meals, the meals you eat have to be larger, which can be a problem for people with bowel issues, because larger meals are terrible for digestion and often cause bloating that can lead to constipation. I feel better when I eat smaller, more frequent meals, and when I was fasting, I was doing the complete opposite and eating larger, less frequent meals. When I first started fasting, I thought it was improving my gut health because I was starting to see some small improvements until I started getting constipated more frequently, and my already slow bowel function was even slower. If you want to prevent constipation, it is so important to eat enough of the right kinds of food and give your body enough calories. It will make your constipation struggles even worse if you don’t eat enough fiber, and when you fast, it’s easy not to eat enough because you are training your body to eat less.

My stoma leaked more- When I was practicing Intermittent fasting, I did a relatively short fast and only fasted for about sixteen hours, and my first meal was usually around noon. If I did a workout the night before, I ate a little later and there were some days, I did not eat my first meal until two or three in the afternoon. The stoma I have connected to my bowel reacts to some foods and sometimes will leak because it’s just a little hole on my lower abdomen, and anything I put into my body can come out of my stoma. I have less stoma problems when I make healthier choices and eat on a regular eating schedule, which I was not doing when I was fasting. My stoma did not like my irregular meal schedules, and I had more stoma problems than I normally would. It is normal for me to have a leaky stoma after breakfast because it’s the first meal of the day, but usually it’s not too bad and stops within an hour or two. When I was fasting, my stoma problems were much worse, and I dealt with constant stoma problems all day long, which got old real quick. I couldn’t figure out why I was having so many stoma problems because I was doing so well. I quickly realized it was the fasting because as soon as I stopped everything went back to normal.

It worsened my relationship with food- I have struggled with having a positive relationship with food and my body for most of my life. Since I have a history of poor body image I should have never considered fasting because it makes these issues worse. It worsened my relationship with food because when you restrict food, it makes you even more concerned about the food you do eat. When I stopped fasting, I was able to heal my relationship with food and my body, which I don’t think I would have ever done if I kept doing a diet that encouraged severe restriction. The best thing I ever did for myself to heal my relationship with food and I would not have been able to do that by following a plan that told me when and how much to eat. I would not recommend anyone who struggles with body image to do any kind of fasting because it is easy to undereat when you fast, and it can make your poor body image struggles even worse.  

My hunger cues were non-existent- When I was fasting, I was eating less often which sounds like it would be good, but I think it was causing me to undereat calories and my hunger cues were non-existent. Since I was getting my body use to eating a lower amount of calories, I think it was slowing down my metabolism because I was not hungry when I should have been and as a result, I was not eating enough. My hunger cues have come back since I stopped fasting which makes it a lot easier to fuel my body properly.

When I was Intermittent fasting, I lost weight, but that was about the only positive I got from fasting, and for me, that was not enough to want to keep doing it. Fasting can help you lose weight, but it’s not the only way to lose weight because you can lose weight by making healthier choices. Some people may get great results from fasting, and I am not suggesting that everyone should avoid it at all costs, and I am only sharing my experience with it. I wish I had gotten more positive results from fasting because I didn’t have to change my diet in any significant way, and it’s relatively easy to do, but the reality is that the negative effects outweighed the benefits. Fasting is safe for a vast majority of people, and it may help some people lower their cholesterol, provided you are still eating healthy. As a disabled person, I am always open to trying new things that might improve my bowel function, and although Intermittent fasting did not work for me, I am glad I tried it because you don’t know if something is going to work until you try it. What was your experience with Intermittent fasting? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.

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