7 Reasons Why Intermittent Fasting Is More Than Just a Diet

Intermittent fasting is not a diet. Intermittent fasting is so much more! In the beginning there is often only the desire to lose weight. But intermittent fasting can do so much more for your body and mind. Learn more about seven benefits intermittent fasting offers you on your journey, some of which you might have not yet thought about.

 

The Body Always Follows the Mind

Finally being slim – how many of us would not want that? But why is it often so difficult to achieve this goal? Why does it often mean struggling with ourselves, and in the end all we do is failing? Perhaps because we have always approached it in a wrong way.

If we look closely, our body weight is actually only a number and our appearance is only the surface. Doesn’t our real motivation to change things lie much deeper? Is it not much more about how we want to feel? Do we not all strive for more (self-) love and recognition?

Finally feeling good in your own body as a goal – that’s worth working on!

Intermittent fasting can be a great help! For it does something with your consciousness, your mindset. Intermittent fasting takes you to a deeper level. And as the saying goes: The body always follows the mind!

 

Intermittent Fasting Is So Much More

Intermittent fasting means eating with breaks. That simple and yet highly effective. These breaks give your body and mind some rest and mark the beginning of a very powerful process.

Intermittent fasting is not a diet. Intermittent fasting is so much more! Fantastic things are awaiting you:

1. Intermittent Fasting Gives You Freedom

Intermittent fasting works without a nutrition plan, dieting stress and restrictions. You only pay attention to the times you eat. You do not have to change your diet, only your eating times. Make your life easier!

This way you create new eating habits and a basis for subsequent steps! You don’t have to turn your whole life upside down to do something good for yourself and your body and to collect successes. You decide what’s good for you!

2. Intermittent Fasting Improves Your Self-Control

Each fasting period strengthens your will power, because intermittent fasting is like a mental gym. Each time you fast, you train your willpower muscles. If you train them a lot, they will become stronger and it will be easier for you to resist to temptations, for example.

The best part? It all works automatically and gives you the mental strength for the new route you want to take. This way you are able to change also other things that were difficult for you before. You can not only take other decisions more consciously, but also put them into practice. You are in control again!

3. Intermittent Fasting Cleanses Body And Mind

Intermittent fasting stimulates the body’s own cleansing and regeneration process, the so-called autophagy. About 12-14 hours after the last meal, the body begins to break down defective and diseased cells and use the components to build new, healthy cells and burn useless ones to produce energy. So autophagy is some kind of garbage collection and recycling system.

Besides, intermittent fasting also brings your mind to rest. When fasting you often feel a particularly pleasant mental clarity and increased body awareness. Intermittent fasting therefore keeps us young and fresh. More energy and a better mood included!

4. Intermittent Fasting Is a Dietary Style

Intermittent fasting is not a temporary diet that is doomed to failure from the very beginning. It is a dietary style that you can easily integrate and that allows you to do what you like. Free of all the stress, combined with a deadline. That way it’s easier to keep it up. Or wait… Even better: to live it! 

Intermittent fasting can be so much more than just a short-term approach. It is not about a quick, but about a healthy and sustainable success. To acknowledge that intermittent fasting is something different and not like a diet, gives you the chance to avoid making the same dietary mistakes, to fail and to suffer from a yoyo effect or the like. No, it does not have to be a bumpy road!You don’t have to feel bad for a long time to feel good in the end.

5. Intermittent Fasting Breaks Patterns

Did you know that only 5% of our decisions and actions are really executed consciously?  This means that our habits subconsciously control up to 95% of our behavior. This is particularly fascinating because hardly any other field is affected by habits as much as our eating patterns.

Intermittent fasting addresses exactly this aspect: your habits. You eat within a certain time frame, you fast within a certain time frame. This is exactly what gives you a new perspective and a new approach to your unconscious (and sometimes even bad) habits. In such a way that you will be able to change them once and for all.

Every fasting period gives you the chance to uncouple yourself from your (bad) habits: Over time you will gain more freedom and autonomy. Using this free will, you can make different, better decisions for yourself, your body and your health.

6. Intermittent Fasting Fits Into Your Everyday Life

Whether you are with children, working in shifts or on holiday: Intermittent fasting can be applied in almost every life situation! This means that everyone can find a suitable plan! This is the great advantage of this method: In contrast to most diets, intermittent fasting allows you to enjoy freedom, variety and flexibility. And you can easily fit it into your everyday life!

Whether you combine intermittent fasting with other approaches, pay special attention to things, eat more from certain foods or less from others, are counting calories or not… – that’ s entirely up to you. For this has nothing to do with intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting adapts to you, not the other way round!

7. Intermittent Fasting Changes Your Relationship With Food

Do you sometimes just have this sudden urge to eat something really quickly, no matter what?

It’s an exciting phenomenon, the things that make us eat. Our body can easily go without food for a few hours. But what tempts us to have a snack in between, the additional serving on our plate or the death by sugar?

Eating is much more than just food intake and calories – eating is a way of rewarding, a measure for boredom, a trigger for emotions, distraction, enjoyment, time with friends… We associate a feeling with food.

Intermittent fasting changes your relationship with food. By taking a planned, conscious break from eating, you decouple yourself from your (unhealthy) habits and have the chance to identify them and free yourself. You will then be more likely to have a “desire to eat”, and the enjoyment of the fast-breaker meal will be even greater. This is the natural hunger that your body learns again through intermittent fasting!

If you then get a real craving for something sweet during the eating window, you can consciously enjoy it. For you know that you can also do without. This makes your food something special again. And it makes you feel a little bit more free.

 

Success With BodyFast

You’ve probably tried all sorts of diets. Maybe you had some gross shakes. You might left out a lot of things you love during that time. Your stomach was growling, you were hungry because you were not allowed to exceed your calorie limit with the food you weighed. You counted down the days until it was finally all over.

We believe that there has to be another way, and that there really is one! We are deeply convinced that intermittent fasting is a completely different way to reach your goal. A chance to learn things about yourself, to build a different relationship with food, to become healthier, to have more energy. Intermittent fasting is not a diet. Intermittent fasting is different. For it brings you much more than just a misery and a short-term promise of success.

By deciding to consciously taking a break from eating for a certain period of time, you set something powerful in motion. Just imagine: Of your own free will, you make decisions about what, how much and when you eat. You listen to your body, trust your instincts. You pick up the signals of your body and do what is right for you. You learn to consciously renounce and enjoy – without feeling guilty. This is exactly what intermittent fasting can do for you.

Start a different journey with BodyFast. We invite you to think differently. Follow us on Instagram for even more inspiration, knowledge and motivation!

 

Ready to start your fasting journey? Find the optimal fasting plan, delicious recipes tailored to your fasting lifestyle, supportive weekly tasks, daily motivational coachings, and more in the BodyFast app.

Author: Jenny M.

14 thoughts on “7 Reasons Why Intermittent Fasting Is More Than Just a Diet

  1. Helene Legault Cote Reply

    I’ve just started this new way of life….Very Happy 😃 I always thought that intermittent Fasting was not eating for days! In this covid era, I hadn’t seen my boss for a while and I couldn’t believe her results after just a few months….she mentioned intermittent fasting and I looked it up….and very impress with what I’m reading…
    Thank you….

    • Valerie Dratwa Reply

      Thank you for your positive feedback! We appreciate your opinion and are glad to hear about your success.
      We want to make the lives of our users easier by giving an easy to follow guideline to a healthier lifestyle. Keep it up & happy BodyFasting! 😉

  2. Stephanie Reply

    This is my third week and I’ve been doing OMAD. I’ve not lost any weight and I feel so bloated. Im drinking 128+ ounces of water a day, and black coffee. I’m really feeling defeated.

    • Valerie Dratwa Reply

      Hello Stephanie,
      It often takes some weeks until the body adjusts itself to the new eating habit of intermittent fasting. Therefore it is possible that you haven’t lost weight yet but this differs from person to person.So please, do not doubt yourself or give in!
      In addition to that, do not focus too much on the number you see on the scales. Your body weight alone is not meaningful and adequate to track your success. Take a look at your body measurements how they have changed over the course of the 3 weeks. 🙂
      So do not give up on yourself and keep going – Happy BodyFasting! 🙂

  3. Genevieve Reply

    I just started this bodyfast four days ago and it feels so good, I don’t know if I’ve lost any weight as you guys advise us to check once a week. But I feel so light already and though I do OMAD I don’t feel as hungry as I thought I would. Thank you so much

    • Valerie Dratwa Reply

      Hello Genevieve, thank you for sharing your experience with us! That’s exactly what we stand for: making the world healthier and happier 🙏🏼

        • Christian Mall Reply

          We strongly advise against drinking alcohol during the fasting periods. Even in the first 4-6 hours after an extended fast (longer than 24 hours), foods that are difficult to digest (e.g. also alcohol) are not a good idea. Outside of the fasting periods, alcohol can be consumed in moderation and responsibly. However, when you consume alcohol, it takes longer until the fasting processes start because they only start once there’s no more alcohol left in the blood. So it’s not advisable to consume alcohol directly before starting a fasting period.

  4. Marva Reply

    I started intermittent fasting 4 weeks ago and I am loving it. Today I was out shopping and stopped to eat my last meal before starting. I skipped the soda for water and ate a just right meal. I am sleeping better and feeling great

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