10 Intermittent Fasting Mistakes That Stop Weight Loss

Hello Health Champions. Today I want to talk  about the top 10 mistakes that people make  

during intermittent fasting that rob them  of the results and the success that they're  

looking for when starting out on fasting or  intimate fasting. And when I say success,  

I'm talking about long-term success because  if you do something to get healthier but then  

you stop doing it and you get right back to  being unhealthy where you started then what  

was the point of changing anything at all. So have  the mindset of changing for a lifetime. Another  

problem is that people don't understand that  we are different it's like they think there is  

the right way. Tell me the right way as if someone  could do all the research and just figure it out  

and come up with a one magical answer  that's going to apply to everybody.  

And there is no such thing so stop looking for the  right way but instead if you start understanding  

the different principles and the mechanisms  then you use trial and error and you figure  

out what the right way is for you. And then  there are some people who can make every single  

mistake that I'm going to talk about and they  succeed anyway at least in terms of weight loss.  

They eat the pizza they eat the ice cream they  just do it once a day and they lose the weight.  

Now I'm happy that they're getting some weight  loss results or whatever they're looking for but  

it doesn't mean that that is healthy in the long  run. But then on the other hand there are other  

people who have much more stubborn situations  and they have to be very meticulous and follow  

every single rule in the book. So keep in  mind as we're talking about these 10 mistakes  

that when we talk about results they have to  be sustainable otherwise it doesn't work and  

if it's too painful you're not very likely to  carry it through but rather a lot of people  

will quit. Mistake number 10 is that people often  change too quickly. So if you're like most people  

and you've never really tried to do anything  then you probably wake up and you have breakfast  

you eat a mid-morning snack you have lunch  mid-afternoon snack dinner and an evening snack  

and the only time you're not eating is when you're  sleeping. So if you sleep for eight hours you  

might be fasting for 10 hours and all the rest  of the time you're basically eating. So what I  

suggest is that you allow your body to get used to  this gradually don't try to shock your body. Do it  

nicely then your body is going to work with you so  if you just move your evening snack back an hour  

you gained an hour of fasting. If you skip it  all together you gain another couple of hours  

if you move your breakfast up after that and you  skip the snacks now you have 15 hours of fasting  

and you're only stimulating insulin three times a  day. And then the next step, you probably realize  

you don't need breakfast at all so you just eat  lunch and dinner and now you have an 18-hour fast.  

So you've almost doubled your fasting period and  your feeding period has shrunk in more than half  

and some people do really well just going cold  turkey going from six meals a day to two meals a  

day and if that works great but I don't recommend  it I recommend you change gradually because your  

body is going to be much happier in the long run  for a lot of people if you change too quickly it's  

unnecessarily painful and if it's painful and  uncomfortable a lot of people are going to quit  

and then we don't get the results. Mistake number  nine is that we think of it as a quick fix.  

We've all heard about these diets we see the  magazines every day that lose 30 pounds in  

30 days or some ridiculous thing like that  and the problem is we get the mindset that  

we can do anything for a period of time but  what happens then is we plan to go back to  

doing what we used to do and create the problem  all over. So get over the idea of a quick fix.  

Don't think of this as a diet think of it  as a lifestyle and stop thinking short term.  

Just because it's powerful does not mean  that it's short term you can get results  

within weeks but it doesn't mean you can go back  to doing what you used to do. Mistake number eight  

is to not eat enough food and it could be because  you don't understand intermittent fasting or it  

could be that you're just too gung-ho and you  just want the results super fast. You decided  

I'm gonna do this once and for all and you  just go all in and that may not be so smart  

the idea of intermittent fasting is that  you eat less food overall because you eat  

fewer meals but when you do eat you allow  yourself to eat until you're full. That way  

you can eat to satiety you don't feel deprived but  you are eating less food overall. You're allowing  

your body to get into fat burning and you can  start burning some fat off the body instead of  

from what you're eating. But for some people who  are a little too eager they end up eating low carb  

which is a good thing but then they also eat low  fat and low protein, right? You can't eat less or  

very little of everything that's not going to work  there's a word for that it's called starvation  

and there's two problems with that first of all  you're shocking your body you're not allowing it  

to get into that healthy, peaceful, harmonious  place where it finds its homeostasis long term.  

And the other problem is that you're going to  be suffering and it's going to be very difficult  

to sustain it. Mistake number seven is to eat  too much carbohydrate and why is that a problem  

because carbohydrate raises insulin and  the whole reason we're doing intermittent  

fasting is to lower insulin. We do that two  ways by lowering carbohydrate and by eating  

fewer meals because what increases insulin is  whenever we eat something and whenever we eat  

especially carbohydrate. So for some people  it's enough to just reduce the number of meals  

but for a lot of people you have to do both.  You have to reduce the carbs and eat fewer meals  

and why is that so important to lower insulin?  Because insulin is fat storing and if insulin  

remains high then we're going to stay in a  state of fat storing we're going to prevent  

fat burning and if we eat less but insulin is high  then we still can't get to those fat stores on  

the body. And if we can't get to them and the body  senses it needs energy but it can't find it on the  

body then it says you have to eat more and you end  up getting hungry. So high levels of insulin makes  

you hungry and too much carbs will maintain those  high insulin levels. Mistake number six is to eat  

too much protein for most people I'm not talking  about the meat fish chicken eggs I'm not talking  

about whole food good sources of protein if you  eat that in moderation it's totally okay and  

for the vast majority of people you don't really  need to restrict these at all. But we still have  

to be aware of what happens to excess protein  because the excess gets turned into glucose.  

Whenever you eat protein it can only end up  two ways either your body uses it for something  

structural meaning muscles, bone, skin, hair,  collagen, it can use it for hormones small amount  

so the structural is one way but the other  way anything the body can't use for structural  

becomes energy it converts it into glucose and it  uses it for fuel and then the glucose gets stored  

as glycogen up to the limit which isn't very much  of how much glycogen we can store and the rest  

gets converted to fat. So what I really want to  get at is that some people have heard that sugar  

is bad and carbohydrates bad and fat is bad and  then they think that the only thing left to eat  

is protein and they eat as much as they can of  meat fish and chicken but then they might also  

in between start eating things like protein  powders and protein powders are not a great idea.  

I'm not totally opposed to it if you want to use  it here and there just don't think of more protein  

as always better and these protein powders most of  them are plant-based but even the ones there are  

things like whey and collagen they have a very  poor conversion into the structural into the  

tissues meaning over 80 percent of these protein  powders and the protein in the powders gets turned  

into glucose and then some of the protein powders  even have other sugars or carbohydrates or even  

artificial chemicals and sweeteners. Mistake  number five is to eat too much fat so this is  

a little confusing to people because they think  that low carb and keto and intermittent fasting  

is about eating as much fat as possible and that's  not true. It's about reducing the carbohydrates  

so that you lower the insulin, so you can burn  the fat now that's a good thing if you can burn  

fat because then you can burn the dietary fat but  the real purpose is to burn the fat off the body  

and you still want to be in a caloric  deficit so that your body has an incentive  

to burn the fat off the body. If you keep  giving your body all the fat it needs for  

energy through the diet then it's never going  to get around to burning it off the body.  

So for some people it takes care of itself because  when they eat fewer meals their appetite goes down  

and they start burning the fat but for others they  have a tendency to keep eating a little bit more  

than they should. So this is something that you  want to be aware of that if you're not losing the  

weight your body is not burning it off the body  it could be that you're still eating too much fat.  

Mistake number four is to eat too many calories  and it is possible if you're a really good  

cook you cook gourmet foods and you eat twice  a day and you have rich sauces and you like to  

add the garlic butter. It's still possible to  eat a little bit beyond satiety you have this  

temptation to finish things just because it tastes  really good. So be aware of that that if you  

eat twice a day and you eat 1500 calories per  meal that's still 3,000 and you're probably not  

going to be burning through that very efficiently.  But another problem is a little more sneaky that  

people think that bulletproof coffee is such a  great thing and I'm not opposed to it but the  

purpose of bulletproof coffee is to extend  your fast. It's to help you get through an  

extra three, four, five hours so without raising  insulin. So if you can keep insulin going down  

and you can extend the fast then bulletproof  coffee is a good thing. But if you get it  

a little bit backwards and you think that the  bulletproof coffee is better than nothing. That is  

actually going to do something and help you lose  weight and you get the idea that more is better  

especially with collagen, like a lot of people  tell you to add, then before you know it you  

might have three of those - two tablespoons of  butter a little dash of cream some collagen - 300  

calories. If you do that three times a day now  you just added a thousand calories that you  

didn't maybe think about. Another problem can  be alcohol because alcohol strictly speaking  

the straight alcohol liquor like vodka, whiskey,  cognac, bourbon has virtually zero impact on  

insulin so it should be safe on a fast or intimate  and fast but it still is very very energy dense  

so one little shot of liquor has 150 calories  so if you have three a week that might be  

okay if you have three a day now you just added  about 500 calories that maybe you didn't think  

about. So the solution is just to be more  aware that don't add things unnecessarily  

that you don't think about and also if you eat  very rich food then maybe eat a little bit less  

of that rich food and instead what you do is you  add more low calorie density foods. So you eat the  

leafy greens and the non-starchy vegetables and  you kind of make half the plate of that. Mistake  

number three is high cortisol to have a high  stress lifestyle that maintains high cortisol.  

Poor sleep is one more factor because if you don't  sleep enough or if your quality of sleep is poor  

then you tend to run higher cortisol levels also.  

And the problem with cortisol is cortisol is  produced in the body in response to stress  

and when you're stressed your body is looking  to raise blood sugar. So cortisol helps the body  

get more blood sugar but that higher blood  sugar triggers insulin which triggers  

insulin resistance and fat storing and so forth.  So for some people a chronic high cortisol level  

could be the thing that is holding them back.  Now the problem with stress or a mental state  

of stress is I tell this to a lot of people and  they will tell me that oh but I'm not stressed  

and then we check their adrenals which handle  the stress and their adrenals are totally shot.  

Because stress is not how stressed you feel it's  not about how you feel or how you think you feel  

it's about how you have conditioned your body over  a lifetime. A lot of people will tell me I was  

stressed 20-30 years ago but today my life is very  peaceful well it's during your years of growing up  

and during your years of living that you condition  your body into certain responses and it's not  

about the stress out there, it's how your body  responds to it and that's a conditioned response  

at the cellular level. Another way to raise  cortisol is to do too much anaerobic exercise so  

anaerobic is when you're huffing and puffing when  you're pushing yourself and if you do a class like  

this and they're trying to whip you on and they're  trying to encourage you and they tell you how many  

calories you're burning and you're doing  well but you're huffing and puffing for  

40, 50, 60 minutes now you're producing cortisol  during all that time and that cortisol is going  

to backfire on you because if you're huffing and  puffing and you're making cortisol then your body  

has to use up carbohydrates and if you didn't  eat very many carbohydrates then it's either  

going to break down muscle or it's going to make  you consume more the next meal. So it's going to  

make you hungrier the one type of anaerobic that's  okay is called high intensity interval training  

which is anaerobic but it's very very short term  so whereas a class might last 45 minutes or more,  

high intensity interval training is where  you warm up a little bit and then you go  

super high intensity for just a few minutes  and then you get certain benefits, but you're  

not staying in that state long enough to make  a lot of cortisol. Another thing to be aware of  

is that if you're on medication called  corticosteroids then that is a man-made version of  

cortisol so even if you're doing everything else  right then they are giving you cortisol and that's  

going to tend to mess things up. So just be aware  of that that if you're on steroids that's probably  

going to make you extra hungry and that may not be  the best time to try to be super strict with this  

but just try to get over the steroids and then  start over. Another thing I talk a lot about is  

breathing exercises and meditation because that  is the best way long term to handle to reprogram  

that conditioned stress response so that the world  outside may still be the way it is but your body  

reacts your body interprets that differently and  you can get back into balance. Fasting mistake  

number two is to not eat enough salt we hear  so often that salt is unhealthy. Salt raises  

blood pressure and that is not true. Excess salt  can aggravate an existing health condition if we  

don't have the ability to regulate but a healthy  body can regulate salt perfectly. The only time  

you want to restrict it is if you have something  like kidney failure because now your body has  

lost the ability to regulate so therefore you have  to help your body out. But when you're fasting  

your insulin will drop. That's the whole purpose  you eat fewer meals less carbs your insulin drops  

and insulin retains sodium. Insulin acts on  the kidneys to recycle more sodium, more salt,  

so when insulin drops then we're going to lose  salt. Therefore you have to take a little extra  

also glycogen binds water. Glycogen is the  carbohydrate storage form in the body and when  

we eat less carbs and we eat fewer meals now  we're going to use up those carbohydrates and  

when we use them up they can no longer bind  water so we lose additional water that way  

and salt, sodium, always follows water. They go  hand in hand their buddies they go together so now  

you're losing water and salt because insulin drops  you're losing water and salt because you're using  

up carbs and losing it that way. Therefore when  you're fasting make sure that you get a little bit  

extra salt and water compared to what you usually  do and the number one mistake people probably make  

when they're fasting is that they're depriving  themselves. They're allowing themselves to get  

too hungry and when that happens all they can  think of is all the things they're going to eat  

when they're allowed to eat again. They're  dreaming about it and what ends up happening  

is they just consume three meals in one sitting.  They're eating all the things that they didn't eat  

when they were fasting so they might consume  everything on here just to make up for it.  

In addition to that they might sort of stray a  little extra and start eating carbs and junk. And  

that's another reason I usually encourage people  to do it gradually do it at a pace where your body  

gets used to it because it's not about depriving  yourself it's not about suffering. So what you  

want to try to do when you get back to eating is  to eat a normal to large meal. Don't try to make  

up and eat three meals in one sitting and you  want to look for low carbohydrate because when  

you eat carbohydrate that's going to stimulate  those cravings again. They're going to make you  

hungrier and you also want to focus on eating  quality nutrients. Eat nutrient dense food eat  

whole food unprocessed foods. If you enjoyed this  video, you're going to love that one, and if you  

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