Myths about Intermittent Fasting - Evolve180 Weight Loss

At Evolve180, we are experts at using intermittent fasting and extended fasting to boost the success of our weight loss clients.

If you have Metabolic Type B, Metabolic Syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, insulin resistance, PCOS, long-term obesity, are over 50 or have hormonal imbalances and your weight loss provider doesn’t incorporate fasting, you’re missing out on the biggest, most powerful and effective tool in the industry today!

There IS a right way and a wrong way to fast depending on your PURPOSE for fasting. Knowing your purpose and the right type of fast to use makes all the difference in how fasting will work for you.

Here are the biggest misconceptions we’ve come across regarding intermittent fasting.

Everyone should fast!

Not really. We only recommend fasting for those clients who WANT to try it and feel positive about it. Not eating is NOT for everyone! We might highly recommend fasting for clients whose sluggish metabolisms really need the boost. But even then, it’s totally optional. The Evolve180 baseline weight loss programs are extremely effective without fasting. Fasting is powerful scientific shortcut, but it’s not required to receive total benefit from our program.

Intermittent fasting will help you lose weight.

Only if it’s combined with an overall eating plan that supports YOUR metabolic type. If you have Metabolism Type B, and you don’t address your overall balance of carbohydrate, protein and fats during feeding windows, intermittent fasting might not be enough to help you lose weight at all. You might actually gain weight because you’ll just be hungrier at the end of the fast and more likely to overeat the wrong foods.

Fasting just reduces overall calories and that’s why you lose weight.

Whether or not your overall calories are lowered by intermittent fasting depends entirely on what and how much you eat when you break your fast. We have seen many people who try intermittent fasting on their own go so overboard on their post-fast meal that they end up eating more calories in total than they would’ve if they’d just eaten normally.

For most of our clients, calories matter, but macronutrients matter more in terms of how effective fasting will be. Macronutrients include the ratio of fat to carbs to protein in their overall eating plan.

Fasting can also provide numerous metabolic and health benefits which are equally as important – if done correctly. For clients with Metabolic Syndrome, Type 2 Diabetes, PCOS, Insulin Resistance, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar or long-term obesity, fasting can speed things up and help them better maintain weight loss for the long term.

There is a right way and a wrong way to fast.

Yes and no. People fast for many reasons: weight loss, anti-aging, disease prevention, metabolic healing, spiritual and mental clarity… Each purpose requires specific criteria to be met or else the fast won’t work for that goal. A fast for weight loss might allow things an anti-aging fast wouldn’t. Knowing why you’re fasting will tell you what kind of fast you need and then yes – there is a right way and a wrong way to accomplish that goal.

One of the biggest mistakes we see people make when they try intermittent fasting on their own is getting hung up on details that just don’t matter for their goal. We see people doing just fine who suddenly get discouraged because they read something that didn’t apply to them, and suddenly feel like they are failing.

Others read the advice for the wrong type of fast and doing just a few tiny things wrong will ruin all their efforts.

The internet is a minefield of trend “experts” spouting Do’s and Don’ts without any context for why. Educate yourself. Or better yet, come talk to one of the experts at Evolve180 to get a fasting regimen customized exactly for YOU and your metabolic type.

Questions? Contact Us!

If you fast during the day, you can eat whatever you want at night.

Ummm, nope. How you break your fast is just as important as how you fasted to begin with. With daily timed eating, diving into pizza and ice cream for your post-fast meal is completely counter-productive. Do we really need to explain why? Most people use intermittent fasting for weight loss and/or maintenance. Combined with the right type of ketogenic or low-carb protocol for your metabolic type, it can supercharge your progress and results. But if you blow the overall keto vibe by overdoing it with carbs, fat or even protein after your fast, you may as well not have fasted at all.

Using IF to deepen, extend and supercharge a sound keto program is great. Using IF to maintain a properly calibrated weight maintenance program is awesome! But using IF to justify overeating or indulging in foods that aren’t good for you will backfire. That approach resembles a type of Bulimia (binge/restrict) so it’s best not to venture too far down that path.

The longer I fast, the hungrier I’ll get.

Again, this depends entirely on what you were eating before you began your fast, what you mean by “long,” and what you mean by “hungry.” We teach clients to understand the biology of ketosis and the powerful appetite suppressing effect you can achieve if you do it correctly. We call this state “food peace.”

Our baseline Evolve180 Weight Loss program achieves this on its own. But if you add fasting while in the midst of E180, food peace can deepen tremendously! The depth of food peace from combining E180 and IF is astounding to our clients. Most of them have never felt better, been less hungry, more clear headed, or had more energy in their lives.

These clients are the ones that realize what it means to have received an eating plan customized for THEIR body and metabolism. These are the clients who look forward to fasting days because of how good they feel!

Clients who try one of our extended fasts see the effects even more strongly. Usually they had no idea how easy it would be once they understood how to do it properly.

Hunger and appetite become clearly differentiated in these clients’ minds. Suddenly they understand that a habitual stomach growl at typical breakfast, lunch and dinner times is just a bodily sensation. Without craving, appetite and desire, those sensations pass and peace returns pretty quickly. It’s easy. It feels amazing. And it supercharges progress and results.

Eating pure fat won’t break my fast.

Once again, this depends on WHY you’re fasting. Some fasts require you to abstain from ALL substances entering your digestive tract. Other types are barely impacted by the addition of some fat, a few supplements or even a little bit of protein here and there. You need to know what your goal is and then adapt your fast to that. Eating fat destroys some fasting benefits, and hardly effects others. Know your criteria — or better yet, know an EXPERT who can help you ensure your efforts aren’t wasted.

Fasting will work if I pick one type and do it consistently.

Fasting carries so many possible benefits that it boggles the mind. Fasting of various kinds has been credited as beneficial for weight loss, disease prevention and treatment (especially cancer and Type 2 Diabetes), anti-aging, cellular cleansing and rejuvenation, cognitive improvement and spiritual enhancement.

How did we ever lose sight of such a powerful health strategy over the ages? A lot of theories center on the fact that no one makes money by telling folks not to eat. Not the food industry. Not the self-help books and videos industry. Not the medical establishment or pharmaceutical companies. Not the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry.

Fasting (intermittent and extended) has become very trendy lately, but the truth is it’s been around for as long as human beings have. As a survival mechanism, our bodies developed ways for starvation to actually become beneficial in moderation.

To ensure we could endure hunger without eating up our own vital tissues…
To ensure we could think clearly enough to problem solve our way to more food…
To ensure that we could hunt, gather, run and fight without eating…
And to ensure we could effectively commune with our spiritual source to sustain hope and connection…

…our bodies developed ways to both PRESERVE and IMPROVE our physical, mental and spiritual functioning during prolonged periods without food.

During fasting, hormones are released which protect muscle and vital tissues while the body burns stored fat. The metabolism becomes more efficient – lean and mean! Counterregulatory hormones heighten energy, mental clarity and attunement. The body takes the opportunity to ‘clean house,’ consuming junk proteins and cellular debris and making cell death and regeneration more efficient. To put it succinctly, we are girded for metabolic battle and ready to operate at peak efficiency to survive the crisis.

We can stimulate many of those benefits without the crisis with intentional fasting.

• Just want to burn fat while protecting muscle and boosting your metabolism?
• Need to attain better mental clarity for important tasks or activities such as writing a book or writing a business plan?
• Want to reverse Type 2 Diabetes or Insulin Resistance?
• Want to clear your mind and boost your attunement for spiritual reasons?
• Want to get rid of cellular debris and kill off unhealthy cells to prevent or treat cancer?

There’s a fast for that!

Each of these purposes can be achieved using a specific set of fasting criteria. Only ONE type of fast will work for ALL of these goals, but it’s overkill for most of them. There are thousands of fasts that will work for many of these goals, but only if they are calibrated correctly. Some fasts we’ve seen promoted online will work for NONE of these goals. It can feel overwhelming to know which fast is right for your purposes.

So the answer is that you need to know what your purpose is for fasting. Then you need to educate yourself on which criteria are necessary to achieve that goal. Then you can select from the fasts that meet your goal but which you’ll find easiest to stick to. Variables abound to make fasts more or less convenient, do-able and sustainable for your lifestyle. Just make sure you have the most important factors in mind when you make your choice.

We would love to help you get started on the road to better health!

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Intermittent and Extended Fasting

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