During my late teens, I went through a period where I was experiencing near daily panic attacks. Part of how I coped was to eat. And eat. I found eating comforting. It helped numb my ever-present feeling of anxiety and terror. I gained 30 or 40 pounds then.
After the panic attacks began to die down, I became fixated on losing the weight that I had gained
Things started out healthy. I began walking a few miles a day, and because my anxiety was in a better place, I was eating less and less. I did lose weight, but things were never the same with both my weight and metabolism, as well as my relationship to food.
I didn’t know it then, but I was slowly developing a case of disordered eating.
By the time I was in my early 20s, I had gone through periods where I’d eaten less or eaten more. It was always kind of extreme. I never really followed a commercial diet (I pretended I was too cool for that), but I’d do things like eating zero sugar, eliminating carbs, sticking to whole grains only, etc.
The most extreme I ever got, though, was when I tried a version of intermittent fasting. Now, mind you, “intermittent fasting” wasn’t a thing back then (it was the early 2000s), but what I was doing was basically some version of that. I was eating whatever I wanted, but only within certain hours of the day.
So, everyday, I’d skip breakfast — which was doable
Then, around lunchtime, I’d get hungry, but instead of eating, I’d drink a giant black coffee. This made me sick and jittery, but at least it staved off my hunger. Then, finally, around 2 p.m., I’d eat. It was usually small, though, a whole grain roll or muffin.
Finally, I’d eat a proper dinner at about 7 or 8 p.m. Like a huge amount of food, because I was starving. Then I’d go to sleep and repeat the whole deal again.
All told, although I probably ate enough calories in total during the day, I was only allowing myself to eat during a 6-7 hour time period, and “fasting” the rest of the day. I did lose a fair amount of weight doing this. I was probably the smallest I’d ever been, in fact.
But I wasn’t well
During the months that I was fasting for part of the day, I experienced frequent dizzy spells and times that my heart would be racing out of my chest. I also began getting the most terrifying kind of migraines during this time — migraines with aura — which basically means you lose your vision for 20 minutes and see zigzags of lights.
I don’t remember exactly how I stopped fasting. I think those scary migraines — which coincided with low blood sugar moments — tipped me over the edge. I started eating breakfast again, and making sure not to go too long between meals.
It still took me many years to eat more normally, and to address my disordered eating. I now follow a more intuitive eating mentality, and I’ve tried to embrace learning to love my body at whatever size it is.
I know that intermittent fasting seems to “work” for many people
I am not surprised that it helps people lose weight. And I bet there are people who don’t end up feeling like crap as a result of having fasting periods daily.
But I also question how healthy a plan like this can be as a long-term thing. And while I know intermittent fasting doesn’t trigger disordered eating for everyone, I honestly don’t know one person who doesn’t have a history of some sort of disordered eating, and I could see how intermittent fasting could easily screw up someone’s relationship to eating.
To me, the healthiest diet is one that is based on hunger cues, that isn’t tied to outcomes like decreased body size, and that involves self-care and love. For me, intermittent fasting was anything but that.
