‘I tried intermittent fasting and lost 2kgs in two months - but I regret it’

Intermittent fasting is one of the world’s most popular diet trends so I put it to the test myself and while the results were there, I don’t think it was worth it

After three months of intermittent fasting, which prolongs the amount of time you leave between certain meals and forces your body to burn fat for energy as a result, I managed to drop a few kilograms. However, I'll never do it again and the lessons I learned could be far more important.

Like many people at the start of summer, I was looking for ways to cut down a few final kilograms before heading off on holiday. However, as anyone with PCOS and thyroid issues will know, this can be an incredibly challenging task when your own metabolism is deadset against you so the usual mainstream diets don't work for me.

Instead, I decided to look into intermittent fasting, which is when you leave a substantial gap between your last and first meal of the day. Most intermittent fasting beginners start on an even split, 12 hours of eating and 12 hours not eating, but people can personalise this however suits them with some extremists doing just one hour of eating with 23 hours of fasting.

In my research I found most experts discussing a 16:8 or 18:6 ratio for weight loss where you only eat for eight or six hours respectively. I opted for the former and opted to go for 18:6 if I felt like I could handle it (spoiler alert; I couldn’t). With that, I set my hours; 8am to 4pm, limited myself to 1,400kcals a day so I wouldn’t gorge in my eight food hours and set off on this experiment.

The first few weeks were incredible. Like any Gen Z I consume a lot of ultra-processed snack foods especially late into the evening hours and cutting this out all-but instantly fixed my sleeping habits even during the sweltering heat waves. Although you always hear experts talking about how these types of foods affect your body, I genuinely hadn’t realised just how inflamed and bloated I constantly was until I gave my body the time and space to digest everything I was actually consuming. Everything started to regulate properly, even some of my PCOS symptoms.

My energy levels were up and my motivation skyrocketed as I started noticing some early weight loss alongside the disappearance of these symptoms. I also found it easier than any other diet I had tried before. As long as I didn’t eat an exorbitant amount of calories during my eight hours, I was fine and this bolstered my confidence too because I wasn’t constantly facing that shameful feeling if I had been tempted by a donut.

I ran into a few hurdles in these first few weeks though; one thing I found that was rarely spoken about is how to incorporate exercise into your fasting routine as going to gym on an empty stomach can be just as detrimental as not eating afterwards, an unexpected Catch-22. Keeping in mind that health experts advise having a high-protein meal after a workout I decided to shift my hours to 12pm-8pm so that my evening gym routine would coincide with my last meal of the day.

This was one of my favourite things about intermittent fasting, just how flexible it is. If I had a social dinner one day I would start eating later to extend my hours or if I had an early morning I’d stop sooner the day before so I could grab breakfast in time.

Yes, it does take a lot of on-the-go maths and I’m far more familiar with divisions of 24 than I used to be but it was all going great. By the end of the first month I had dropped 1.5kg (3.3lbs) but this is where things started to turn.

I started to get mentally tired of trying to organise my life around my eight hours of eating, every meal started to feel like a race against time to plan, prep and eat. I am also a notoriously forgetful person so it wasn’t uncommon for me to only remember I could eat two or three hours into my eating window or forget to make my final meal of the day in time.

As a result, I wasn’t struggling to stop myself from eating too much during my eight hours, instead I was struggling to get near the 1,400kcals a day I had planned. I could feel this in my energy levels and I just couldn’t find the motivation to go to gym or out nearly as much, as well as a growing discontentment whenever I even thought of food.

The initial weight drop started to slow as well and I was only down another 0.5kg (1.1lbs) by the end of month two. This began hampering my motivation as I was generally getting tired of this routine but I decided to give it one final month to see if I was just struggling through the growing pains.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t true as I didn’t manage any weight loss during month three all the while continuing to struggle with sticking to the fast in a healthy way. I started turning more and more to takeouts and ultra-processed food in a bid for a quick hit of dopamine. Some experts use a rule of thumb of 50 calories, saying that going above this during your fasting hours will break your fast, and unfortunately, most coffees, teas and even some sugar-free energy drinks go above this so I was truly sapped for energy.

Looking back now I don’t regret trying intermittent fasting as it taught me a lot about how my body processes food and how I can use that to my advantage. But I can honestly say I’ll never try it again for more than two weeks at a time.

It’s also important to note that each individual will react differently to intermittent fasting. Some variations of the fasting diet include only fasting on certain days of the week or month which I will very likely try next but I am incredibly glad I no longer have to check the time before I can have an apple.