Intermittent Fasting? Not On Board.

Clearly, the health and fitness world is full of trends and fads. A few years ago, marathon/long distance running and and minimizing animal products seemed to be the thing to do in order to be healthy. Right now, the ideal seems to be heavy weights and high protein diets (not pointing fingers, because clearly I engage in the latter).

And the actual diets…Oh goodness. You’ve got the Grapefruit Diet, Atkins, South Beach, the Dukan Diet, Paleo, etc. In the healthy living atmosphere, research is always looking for the next great thing. This diet/approach didn’t work? Let’s try something else!

I’ve been noticing a new diet trend pop up lately around the Internet, and it was a feature in the latest edition of Women’s Health that showed up on my doorstep.

Intermittent fasting, or the 8 Hour Diet as mentioned in WH.

Has anyone heard of this? The premise is this: you have an 8 hour window to eat whatever you want. The other 16 hours, you’re fasting. “Don’t let the f-word scare you. In this case, fasting is about eating whatever you want, but staying within a sensible eight-hour window” (Women’s Health, January/February 2012).

 

Umm…no.

How is only eating within an 8 hour time frame sensible?

First off: the idea that you can eat whatever you want and lose weight? That sounds gimmicky to me. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Second: In order to make this diet work, you’d probably have to skip breakfast. Or eat when you get up, and stop midafternoon. Neither sound particularly pleasant to me.

Third: What about it social situations? You get invited out to dinner, but your ‘eating period’ is over. “Sorry guys, I can’t eat until tomorrow.” No.

Fourth: Is it just me, or are you just asking for disordered eating patterns with this? You either realize that you only have half an hour left to eat, so you stuff your face (heaven knows I would), or, you stare at the clock counting down the minutes until you can eat again. Yea, this is starting to sound really sensible to me.

Fifth: You’re going to be hungry. A lot of the time. And stuff yourself the rest of the time.

(source)

I really just needed to rant about this and how stupid it sounds. I’m really hoping it goes the way of the Grapefruit Diet and “What the hell were we thinking?”

Dinner

What I am on board with, however, is last night’s dinner.

Chicken with avocado, steamed broccoli, and spaghetti squash with marinara sauce. Awesome.

<—Have you heard of this ‘diet’ before? Thoughts?