Feeling Faint or Weak from Fasting
I have heard a lot of people describe feelings of weakness, dizziness or faintness when fasting, and wondered why they have those experiences, but I don’t. Then I made a curious observation.
As I’ve often stated, we are not fanatical about our diet. If circumstances make it more convenient or politic to disregard the diet, we do. Our lifestyle is routine enough that those situations rarely arise, so we only ‘break’ the diet about once per month.
Last week was one of those occasions — we were visiting with some of Isabel’s relatives, people who live in a dirt-floored house and cook over burning wood. The head of house is a fisherman, and quite proud of his ability to bring home good food for his rather large extended family, which includes his wife, several of his adult children, some of their spouses, and half a dozen grand-children. When they offered us fried fish for supper, we thought they might take it as an insult if we refused to eat their food (many Mexican’s have that ‘food=love’ mentality), so we ate a small meal late on an evening we would normally be fasting.
The curious part came the next day — about twelve hours after eating that meal I felt extra-hungry, weak and slightly faint when I exerted myself. I laid down in my hammock and the feeling passed. After about an hour I was back to normal. It seemed very odd to me though, since I normally feel fine on ‘fasting’ mornings, and here I was feeling weak when I’d broken the fast.
It wasn’t anything wrong with the food, which was good, if rather plain. My stomach felt empty, not sickly. But why would eating cause me to be more hungry than when I was fasting?
Then I noted the timing. Those feelings came about 12 hours after we ate. Due to the timing of our fasting schedule, I’m normally sound asleep 12 hours after our last meal during an eating period. I probably get these feeling every-other-day! I just never noticed, because I’m asleep. This is why I have emphasized the importance of timing when considering intermittent fasting.
Of course, everyone is different, these are just my experiences. Isabel did not have the same reaction — she felt less hungry that morning than on mornings when we stick to the normal diet. Her monthly cycle seems more influential on how she reacts to the diet — sometimes she needs to sit down and relax for a while on fasting mornings, but as with my experience, the feeling passes within an hour.
So if you want to try intermittent fasting, be sure to pay close attention to the schedule, and how you feel. The first week or two of this diet seem strange, and are nothing to judge by. Get used to the eating pattern first, then see how minor changes affect you. Adjust the diet to fit your personal metabolism — tweak it to make it fit you. This is a lifestyle, not a short-term fad diet. Make sure you adjust it into something you can happily live with for the rest of your life — anything less is not adequate.
