by Esther Adeniyion June 3, 2019June 3, 2019Leave a Comment on The top 10 Intermittent Fasting Mistakes (How to avoid them)
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Intermittent fasting is becoming a very popular option for losing weight. However, some people who claim not to see results are probably making some terrible intermittent fasting mistakes.
These IF mistakes would do nothing but jeopardize all of your weight loss efforts no matter how hard you try.
If you have never heard of Intermittent fasting before or would like to know more about the concept of Intermittent fasting for weight loss, click here.
I will go straight to list out the top 10 Intermittent fasting mistakes you might be making and how to avoid them to get maximum results for your weight loss quest.
Contents
- 1 IF mistake 1 – Not drinking enough water
- 2 IF mistake 2- Overshooting your calories
- 3 IF mistake 3 – Starving yourself
- 4 IF mistake 4 – Obsessing over numbers
- 5 IF mistake 5 – Giving up too soon
- 6 IF mistake 6 – Not being flexible
- 7 IF mistake 7 – comparing your weight loss journey
- 8 IF mistake 8 – Going in too aggressively
- 9 IF mistake 9 – Telling everyone you are on IF
- 10 IF Mistake 10 – Keeping important people out of the loop
If you are not drinking water during IF, you are making a serious mistake. You would even realize how difficult the fasting process is in the first place.
Especially for Intermittent fasting beginners, when you just start out with Intermittent fasting, you are bound to have a lot of headaches and uncomfortable experiences as a result of withdrawal from food.
That you are to stay away from food during your fasting period does not include staying away from water. In fact, water is going to be your best friend during this period.
In this article, I share in detail how I trick myself to drink more water.
I understand it might be difficult to stay within calories when you are about to break your fast but it is a terrible Intermittent Fasting mistake.
You are creating a calorie deficit in the first place, you want to stay within the numbers. One way to avoid this mistake is to plan your meals ahead of time.
It will be best if you even plan your meals for the entire week in case you have a full-time job. Meal prep is going to be your best bet in this case.
It is very easy to get to a desperate point as soon as you overcome the initial withdrawal symptoms of food. You become an Intermittent fasting pro and you take it too far.
I have personally discovered that there is a fasting peak that gets me to not have an interest in food for the rest of the day.
Say you are on the 16/8 intermittent fasting routine, after 16 hours, there is usually the possibility of you not having an interest in food. Hunger disappears and you might be tempted to take advantage of that.
This is a mistake. It is important to stick to the Intermittent fasting schedule you pick. You are training your body to learn how to reduce body fat in favour of muscle gain.
Don’t go overboard and starve yourself, it is a mistake.
If you ask me, I would say to give yourself a month or two to begin to monitor the scale. Obsessing over your weight every morning will only discourage you.
Your body will have to get used to the new feeding system you are introducing to it and begin to gradually adjust. This is the time to allow it to adjust.
Don’t start IF expecting too much too soon, it will disrupt your mental flow and impede your progress in the long run.
This leads me to the next Intermittent fasting mistake.
One of the problems new Intermittent fasters or beginners have is lack of patience. You should realize that the fat did not creep up in one day or one month even.
It will, therefore, take a while to begin to see major fat loss and an overall reduction in body size. Do your intermittent fasting for a month or two to begin to make serious conclusions.
Intermittent fasting should fit into your lifestyle. Interestingly, there are so many Intermittent fasting methods, you can click here to see a full list.
So, if 16/8 is not working for you, why not try the warrior diet? If that is not fitting seamlessly into your lifestyle, you might give 5:2 a try. It is a mistake to think that Intermittent fasting is supposed to bind you and make your life miserable.
You have to be flexible in your Intermittent fasting journey. I started with IF 16/2 but after a while, I became very used to the system. Given that I normally work hard during the day and hardly have time to eat, I seamlessly switched to warrior diet.
It might be a difficult one for you so you have to be flexible enough to understand your body system and work your lifestyle around it.
This is a very easy mistake to make, it’s a trap, don’t fall in. There are a lot of articles on Intermittent fasting all over the internet these days and a lot of the intermittent fasting before and after pictures claim a lot of things.
Don’t be under pressure to go by these pictures and information. Sure, you can learn from these people but don’t base your processes on their experiences, it is a mistake.
You will burn out, lose steam and become discouraged if you go by what you see.
When I started out with intermittent fasting, I was too determined and ironically, this is going to cause a lot of problems for starters.
Guess what I started with when I began my intermittent fasting journey? IF 20:4! That was going in too aggressively. I was supposed to adjust gradually. Because I also didn’t understand the concept of drinking enough water, I had a lot of headaches too frequently.
It would have been much easier if I had taken a lot of water to cushion the temporary food withdrawal effect. I was too aggressive, so much that I thought ingesting anything whatsoever would ruin my results. I was wrong.
Start your intermittent fasting gradually and maintain it or gradually increase fasting periods as the case may be.
Too many people do not understand the concept of Intermittent Fasting and until they do, they might discourage you, become concerned or verbally loathe your efforts.
The worst set of people to tell that you are on Intermittent Fasting is your family. Their discouragement is going to be more out of concern than otherwise. Eat-stop-eat translates to starvation for anyone who is hearing it for the first time.
It is way better to keep this to yourself until they see results and realize that you look healthy nonetheless.
Somehow this could even be your family provided that you can predict that they would look upon the concept with favour. You should let important people who are sure to understand know that you are going on intermittent fasting.
This is absolutely necessary if these people have a role to play in your meals. Say for example, you cook together, eat together or you cook for them. If they understand your new feeding method and they respect it, they will be of great help in your journey. They can assist with moral support or tease the life out of you if you are breaking the rules.
If you are currently on an Intermittent Fasting schedule, please be careful not to make these Intermittent fasting mistakes so as not to jeopardize your weight loss efforts.
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