Video: 10 Signs That Intermittent Fasting Isn’t Right For You.

September 9, 2015 By Leanne Vogel December 21, 2018

Intermittent Fasting may not be right for you. It’s a great tool, but if you have 1 or more of these imbalances, you may be better off avoiding it. And, how to be keto without intermittent fasting.

When we’re Fat Fueled, our blood sugar is regulated and we naturally reduce the need to feed every 2-3 hours. Without the ups and downs of sugar irregularity, our body isn’t signaled to make up for the blood sugar lows. When we eat high-fat keto, we have unlimited access to the energy stored in our body fat.

These two scenarios make intermittent fasting quite effortless… but that doesn’t mean you should do it.

The information I’ve shared in today’s keto video is based on my personal experience, experience with my clients, and in depth conversations I’ve had with my health team of doctors, naturopaths, acupuncturists and more.

If you’re a woman who has tried intermittent fasting, or you’re interested in it, today’s keto video will shed some light on when intermittent fasting isn’t right for you (and why).

For video transcription, scroll down.

Highlights

• How intermittent fasting works
• Whether women should practice intermittent fasting
• How hypothyroid, amenorrhea and adrenal dysfunction reacts to fasting
• How to be ketogenic without fasting

Resources

• Recipe: Rocket Fuel Latte
• Watch: Adrenal Dysfunction and Hormonal Imbalance
• Watch: How To Do a Carb-up
• Get Fat Fueled
• Start your 30-day journey to high-fat, keto with The Keto Beginning
• Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Video Transcription

Hey guys. Today, I’m going to talk with you about intermittent fasting and the 10 signs that point to intermittent fasting maybe not being so great for you. The reason I’m making this keto video is because I meet with women one on one in my Spark sessions or chat with women on Facebook or Twitter and I see a trend. A lot of people trying to push themselves into intermittent fasting when maybe they’re not right for it. Before we do that, maybe you’re thinking, “Okay. What is intermittent fasting?” Intermittent fasting is when we’re going anywhere between about 14 hours of no food to 24 hours of no food. There are fast where you can go above that but this is not that.

You may have seen a couple of forms of intermittent fasting where people recommend that you do just no calorie drinks like diet drinks and water or coffee and then there’s the bulletproof style intermittent fasting where you’re having a fatty keto coffee and then there’s my form of intermittent fasting where you’re having your keto rocket fuel latte. I’ve linked up to that keto recipe right over here and down below if you want to see what that looks like.

How does intermittent fasting work? When you are keto and fat fueled, your blood sugar is regulated. Intermittent fasting is a lot easier when you’re keto and eating fat because when your blood sugar starts stabilized, when you’re eating lower amounts of carbohydrates, you’re able to long periods of time without food. The reason I remember eating a lot when I was eating high carbohydrate like over probably around 250 to 300 grams of carbs a day and plus that, especially when I was vegan. It’s not that when I’ve felt hungry, I was actually hungry. It was like, I just need something right now. By going high fat keto, we eliminate that need of, “Oh my gosh! I need to eat right now.” Therefore, we’re able to go longer periods of time without eating. Intermittent fasting were going about 14-hour mark plus.

When we eat high fat, low carb, keto, like how I’ve outlined in my keto book, The Keto Beginning, we have unlimited access to all the fat in our bodies and all the fat that we’re eating. We have fuel for a really, really long time. It’s not just that blood sugar regularity that’s reduced and therefore we can go long period of time, it’s that our body has fuel within us to continue to burn while we are not eating. All the information I’m about to share is from my personal experience and working with my clients in my Spark sessions, friends of family who have joined me in their fat-free journey and also multiple talks with my acupuncturist, my doctors, nutritionist friends. I mean, I have a huge crew of people that work behind the scenes when I have questions or concerns or even with my own health. Know that this information is specifically geared toward women because I find that we need to be gentle with ourselves a lot more and make sure that our body is really balanced before we get going.

Without further adieu, 10 signs that points you intermittent fasting maybe not being so good for you. Number 1, you have a history of anorexia, bulimia, overeating, under eating, any type of eating disorder or disordered type of eating patterns. It may not be so great for you to intermittent fast. The only reason I say that is because you probably come a long way, be on your recovery and not so great but if you’ve come that long way, it can sometimes trigger past feelings and beliefs and before you know it, you’re down in the depths of eating disorder craziness. If you have a history of an eating disorder and you’re in recovery, my suggestion to you would be just don’t intermittent fast.

Number 2, you have Amenorrhea. Specifically, Hypothalamic Amenorrhea or Amenorrhea that’s caused by a drastic amount of weight loss or Amenorrhea that’s brought on by a massive reduction in food quantity that you’re reducing your calories to 1100 calories for multiple months and then you lose your period. Amenorrhea is a loss of period, you’re going to do far better eating breakfast, lunch and dinner than you will with reducing your amount of calories or moving things around because we want to send a signal to our body that it’s safe. One of the reasons for Amenorrhea specially the Hypothalamic Amenorrhea is that your hypothalamus is like, “Dude, this body isn’t safe.” If we are not eating for long periods of time, even if it’s a rocket fuel latte or even if it’s a bulletproof coffee or anything like that, it might not send a strong enough signal to your hypothalamus. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be fat-fueled by still having breakfast, lunch, and dinner just means that you’re not intermittent fasting and that’s okay.

Now, number 3, you force yourself to do it. Oh my gosh! I am totally guilty of this. I did it. When I first started, I was like, “I’m going to intermittent fast and I’m on hour 10 and I’m so hungry and I’m just going to push through it.” That’s not what we want here. If you are hungry, eat. If you’re not, don’t. Simple as that.

Number 4, you expect that you may have adrenal dysfunction and I talk all about adrenal dysfunction in a previous video a couple of weeks ago so head on over here to check out that video, I’ve also linked below if you want to listen to that. If you suspect that you have adrenal dysfunction, it’s best to avoid intermittent fasting because again, we want to send a right signals to our body saying that it’s safe. Also, we want to pump it full of nutrients when we have an adrenal dysfunction, we want to make sure that we’re having as much nutrients as we can in our meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be fat-fueled.

Number 5, you are breastfeeding. You need a lot of fat so you’ve come to the right place. You need a ton of that. You also need a lot of nutrients and a lot of food and you need to be able to pump out the milk multiple times a day and in order to do that, I would suggest that you don’t intermittent fast because the more nutrients you have coming in throughout the day, the better off you’ll be.

Number 6, you’re pregnant. Yup. It happened. Congratulations. That is awesome. I’m so happy for you but you shouldn’t intermittent fast. Maybe if you’ve already been intermittent fasting for a super long time and then you’re totally rocking it, you want to keep continuing, I’ll leave that up to you. Maybe a couple times here and there in your first trimester maybe but if you are just finding this and you’re planning to get pregnant or you just got pregnant or you’re like a couple weeks away from being pregnant and you’re really in the depths of it, maybe don’t intermittent fast.

Number 7, you have Hypothyroid symptoms and I will be publishing a video about this in the next couple of weeks, it is an epic interview about all things Hypothyroid within the low carb, high fat realm. It is epic and I hope you love it. If you have Hypothyroid issues or symptoms, my recommendation to you would be do not intermittent fast or do it a couple times in a week but not everyday.

Number 8, your sleep has changed recently like since you went high fat, low carb. That’s a telltale sign that first, you need a carb up so head on over to my video about carbing up. I’ve link to it here and below about the signs and symptoms that point to you needing to do a carb up and what that looks like and how to do it. It’s all there. If you’re having any issues sleeping and this is a new thing that just popped up, that tells us that you probably have slight hormone imbalance and it points to maybe intermittent fasting not being so good for you. Until you figure out what that underlying imbalance is, solve it and then go back to work.

Number 9, you live a highly stressful life and you have no idea how to handle it and you’re just like, “Whoa!” all the time. An intermittent fasting may not be so good for you. Again, this goes back to an imbalance and making sure that you’re properly nourished throughout your day and a breakfast, lunch, dinner will send the right signals to your body saying everything is safe. It’s one last thing for your body to stress out about.

Number 10, the final one, you have got issues or imbalances or you have multiple allergies and you can’t figure out why all these allergies are happening and sensitivities and keep on pointing to leaky gut and all these crazy things are happening and you think you have sibo and candida and your gut … If you think you’re having problem with your gut, perhaps intermittent fasting isn’t right for you.

Notice a theme with all of these 10 things, most of them anyway. In most of these circumstances, I’m saying that it might not be so good to do intermittent fasting if you are healing from something or experiencing an imbalance. If you know like you have a clean bill of health, you are totally awesome, you are great. You’ve had blood panels done and your thyroid is awesome, your adrenals are on par, you live a totally chill life, you’re not pregnant and you’re not breastfeeding then heck yah. Do intermittent fasting. If you were one of those people but you really like intermittent fasting and you feel good with it, continue but maybe see how you feel during 2 to 3 days of intermittent fasting instead of every single day and also stressing yourself out when your friends invite you for breakfast and you’re like, “Oh my gosh! I’m fasting then how am I going to have breakfast?” Just have the breakfast and intermittent fast the next day.

When it comes to nourishing our bodies with the high fat eating style, I’ve definitely gone leaps and bounds by using fat and a lower carbohydrate intake to heal my body. I just had a bunch of blood work done and I will be looking through it all with my doctor in the next couple of weeks and then sharing all the results with you so you can see how powerful this way of eating is. It doesn’t mean that you need to intermittent fast or push yourself to limits because I firmly believe that if you have an imbalance like a low thyroid or adrenal dysfunction’s a little bit off or anything like that, it’s important to make sure that at the end of the day, we are eating as many nourishing foods as possible.

That’s really what I’m going to be talking about in my next keto book, Fat Fueled that comes out in just a couple of weeks in October. I’ve added a link below and up here to add yourself to a presale list. If you want to be part of the presale group, you get an awesome discount, invitation to an online keto event before the book goes live and I really talk about the 3 different keto profiles that you can put yourself into in order to become fat fueled but also thinking about nourishing your body. A therapeutic approach to a ketogenic eating cell that gets you keto and fat fueled but isn’t putting you into areas because I find there’s a ton of keto resources out there where listening to your body and encouraging your body to heal within a ketogenic eating cell isn’t all that encouraged. I hope to start up that conversation and I’m very excited to share it with you in just a couple of weeks.

If you want to get on a high fat, keto journey right away, the best place to start is with my keto book, The Keto Beginning, I have link to it here and below and you can give it a whirl as a 30-day keto guide and literally a beginner’s guide about how to do all of this. If you love the information that I share today, I would love for you to subscribe to my channel. You can do that, I’ve included a link right there and you can go ahead and subscribe and I will see all of you next Wednesday for another edition of my show. Bye!

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