Intermittent fasting- just an acceptable way of starving yourself?

No. I just don't eat until 12 every day bc I'm not hungry until then.

As long as people are eating the appropriate number of calories and minding their nutrition I don't see any issues. Do some people use IF as a way to disguise eating disorders? Sure, the same way a person may use any other way of eating to do the same. There's nothing about skipping meals that in itself would indicate an increased risk for an eating disorder.

I think of 16:8 this way........an old fashioned method of weight management was "don't eat anything after dinner." 16:8 is similar in that you have a manageable window where you don't eat. Breakfast, dinner....it doesn't matter.

5:2 is very low calorie, but just 2 days a week. You're after the same weekly deficit, but you are going about it a different way. This might be really helpful if you go over on weekends on a regular basis.

If you are eating a normal number of calories a day or, with 5:2, a week, I see no issues. If it was an excuse to do a very low cal diet, sure, but it's normally not.

IF is perfect for me as I have almost unconsciously done it for most of my life. I have never been much of a breakfast person and struggled for years to eat what has been labelled 'the most important meal of the day', as I often felt sick and unwell afterwards. IF is not about cutting calories. The days calories are still used but are usually spread between 1 or 2 meals, rather than 3. It can actually make those other meals more enjoyable as you have more calories and macros available for them.

As long as someone's overall calories are within a reasonable range, I don't see how it's any different than any other diet. For some people it's just an easier way to stay in a deficit/within their range than trying to obsess over every little thing they put in their mouth.

The issue you are having is your looking at eating and meals as more of a societal thing. Putting meals into little buckets of time, for example: Breakfast at 8 am, Lunch at noon, Dinner at 6.

Well that is fine and dandy if that works for you but no one ever said it had to be that way and it sure wasn't that way with our ancestors.

Breakfast simply means to "break the fast". You are breaking the fasting period of when you last ate which in normal circumstances was the night before. It doesn't need to be at any specific time or period during the day. So in reality we all fast a little bit when we sleep for 6 to 8 hours a night and more like 10 hours because most don't eat as soon as they go to sleep or as soon as they wake up. Unless you are one of those who gets up in the middle of the night for a late night snack lol.

People aren't skipping meals when they do intermittent fasting, they are simply eating all their meals in a smaller time frame. What they find is they don't eat as much when the time that they do eat is smaller, helping them keep a calorie deficit.

At the end of the day the best diet is one that works for you.

Why do you think it's disordered? Several of the people who do it on here have said they never ate breakfast before IF became a fad. Some people can't eat early or they'll be ill, or they may be tempted to graze/overeat all day. And some just prefer to eat more calories later. If they're getting adequate calories/nutrition, there's nothing wrong.

janisseshirley wrote: »

I just seen an article about IF in a magazine yesterday and the IF was 5:2. I noticed on the 2 days the calorie allowance was only 500 calories. Is that healthy? Also for anyone who has been on the IF plan, have you lost weight faster than if you ate your normal calories 7 days a week? I was wondering since I've been told that losing more than 1 - 1.5 pounds a week is aggressive and the article said most people lose 3-5 pound a week.

People who follow 5:2 will eat at maintenance the remaining days, so it averages out to give them a decent deficit. And unless you have several hundred pounds to lose, nobody should be losing 3-5 pounds every week.

heybales wrote: »

janisseshirley wrote: »

I just seen an article about IF in a magazine yesterday and the IF was 5:2. I noticed on the 2 days the calorie allowance was only 500 calories. Is that healthy? Also for anyone who has been on the IF plan, have you lost weight faster than if you ate your normal calories 7 days a week? I was wondering since I've been told that losing more than 1 - 1.5 pounds a week is aggressive and the article said most people lose 3-5 pound a week.

It's a 22% deficit overall - actually more reasonable than I'd suggest majority on MFP start at - attempting as fast as possible, getting closer to 50% in many examples I've seen.

People truly fast for a couple days with no issues, no food at all, just water. 500 would be like easy compared to that.

It is actually healthy - did you read the research results?
Or was it a weight loss only article not touching on anything else.

If article said 3-5 lb a week - they probably meant the first week - just like many do starting any diet of eating less.

It was in a magazine called 5:2. Mainly it just said how people were losing weight at a faster rate and had various recipes for 500 calorie meal days. There were no research results.

aliblain wrote: »

I’ve noticed a few people saying that they are combining different types of IF diet (doing 5:2 and 16:8 for example) or limiting their eating window to a very short time. I like IF but part of me is uneasy about the way it makes skipping meals acceptable. What we reckon? Is IF just a way of people disguising disordered eating as an acceptable diet?

Notwithstanding that 5:2 and 16:8 are quite different approaches, this approach to calorie consumption is largely about behaviour. As illustrated in thread neither changes gross calorie intake, but puts some controls around when those calories are consumed. That can help some people.

One smooths intake through the week, the other is essentially Ramadan...

As ever, they're not a panacea. I've regularly found that 5:2 dieters are less effective in the workplace on fasting days. Frequently hangry, which is a pain.