Should You Take A Day Off From Fasting?
Over on The IF Life blog, Mike OD suggests that those living a fasting lifestyle take one ‘up’ (non-fasting) day each seven to ten days. He thinks this will signal the body that there is no danger of starvation, and help prevent the build-up of Alpha-2 receptors on fat cells — the kind that make it hard to lose that fat.
From a psychological point of view, I don’t like that idea. First, I’m not sure why it is called an ‘up’ day, but it makes it sound like the rest of the days must be ‘down.’ I know how most people think about food, and I’m sure that for all too many folks an ‘up’ day would soon translate into a reward — which, again, makes all the other days seem somehow inferior. If you stick to the arduous fast for a full week, you reward yourself with an ‘up’ day.
If that is how you feel, you will never keep up with the fasting regime for the rest of your life — which is what the goal of a good fasting lifestyle should be. There are two broad categories of intermittent fasting — those whose fast includes calorie restriction, and those who fast but make no effort at restricting calories. Some people think that fasting with calorie restriction can be a permanent lifestyle, but I doubt that will work for more than a tiny minority of people. Instead, I think a calorie restricted fasting regime is a good temporary solution to help you lose weight more rapidly than you otherwise would. Perhaps if that is your goal, you may want to build in occasional reward days to help keep the weight-loss from plateauing out.
Once you are at or near your ideal weight, however, the less rigorous — and much less difficult — calorie unrestricted fast is your best choice for a permanent lifestyle. And if you follow a schedule that suites your lifestyle, you will be eating as much as you want half of every day — as we do on our 23/25 fast — so every day is an ‘up’ day. So long as you eat a normal, healthy diet, and get a reasonable amount of exercise, fasting will help you maintain your ideal body weight, while still reaping the health benefits attributable to caloric restriction.
