By Nahir of the Ox
Intermittent fasting, a trend-setting practice as a new eating habit to lose weight or maintain it, is discouraged by nutrition specialistswho consider that it can trigger eating disorders and not be healthy.
Among diets to lose weight, intermittent fasting appears on the lips of celebrities from Argentina, such as Graciela Alfano and Mariano Martínez and even Hollywood stars such as Jennifer Anistonwho declared themselves adherents to this custom in their daily lives.
Laura Malvina, 63, lives in the San Martín district of Buenos Aires and has been intermittent fasting for three months, six days a week. “I met him looking for a diet that suits me. I always went on diets and had problems with being overweight, I heard about this and looked for it on the Internet,” Laura told Télam, who carries out this practice “intuitively” and watching videos on YouTube, without the accompaniment of a nutritionist.
His routine includes going 20 hours without eating, he has a “window” of four hours for breakfast and lunch and then only drinks liquids such as infusions and juices, but for some “special event” such as a birthday “he leaves it”, as detailed.
«I don’t miss my previous way of eating. Not only do I see results in my weight, but I notice a nice feeling in my body, like I connected with spirituality. In religions there is a lot of talk about fasting and now I understand why », said the woman who claims to have managed to lose weight slowly and steadily.
But in front of the people who defend intermittent fasting to lose weight, nutritionists who discourage the practice and the World Health Organization (WHO) stand up, which does not include it among its recommendations to prevent obesity and other chronic diseases.
“Intermittent fasting is a modality of food and food restriction. There are fasts of 12 hours, 16 and up to 24. Also with alternate days of fasting and intakes on demand, “explained Télam Silvina Tasat, a graduate in nutrition and head member of the Food, Nutrition and Health Forum (Fanus). .
The specialist recalled that fasts have existed “since time immemorial, they have to do with spirituality and religion,” but said: “They have nothing to do with weight loss.”
In addition, he specified that having 24-hour fasts “are not easy to sustain” because food is the “fuel” of our body. “We physiologically fast every night when sleeping,” Tasat said about the hours in which the body processes what is ingested during the day, and stressed that for this reason “breakfast is to break fasting.”
The problem with this type of eating is that if there is an eating disorder, it can “exacerbate” it and become “a dangerous practice” that does not create healthy eating habits.
For Tasat, “there is no scientific evidence that people who do it have a significant weight loss greater than with any traditional hypocaloric eating plan and particular experiences cannot be extrapolated to the general population.”
According to data from the Association for the Fight against Bulimia and Anorexia (Aluba), almost 15% of the Argentine population has an eating disorder.
Along the same lines, Analía Yamaguchi, clinical physician specializing in nutrition and secretary of the Argentine Nutrition Society (SAN), explained that “these fad diets to lose weight can exacerbate eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia, or lead to Binge”.
“These are diets that are not sustained over time and patients do not lose more weight than with a diet where you teach the person to have a healthy diet,” he told Télam and stressed that every eating plan must respect four laws: quantity, quality, harmony and adequacy.
On the other hand, Yamaguchi indicated that diets such as intermittent fasting lead the person to become malnourished and when they lose many kilos “at once” they not only lose fat but also muscle, which causes the body to remove proteins from the digestive tract or bone, generating osteoporosis.
Maximiliano Costa, 35, lives in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo and has been doing intermittent fasting for 6 months at the suggestion of a friend who, he told Télam, “knew a lot, and had a personal trainer sister who ran.”
He started by doing 12 hours of fasting and then went on to 16. “I took it as a habit and I do it constantly. I have dinner at 9:00 p.m. and the next day I have lunch at 1:00 p.m. », she said, while the rest of the hours she drinks mate, coffee or tea.
Regarding the motivation to start this practice, he argued that it was “to improve health and not overload the digestive system.”
“I feel physically better, I control my weight more. I lower my food cravings and eat well but fewer times a day than is customary,” she described. “If you break your fast with a croissant, it is not positive,” she added, explaining that in such cases it is better to resort to healthy foods.
Costa acknowledges not having consulted with a specialist before starting this practice, which he considered as a fad for people who are over 30 years old.
“It’s not starving, if you don’t give more, you eat, but I arrive at 4:00 pm normally, I didn’t arrive hungry,” he insisted.
As for the followers of this type of diet known as “detox” because they seek to cleanse or purify the body, Yamaguchi reinforced the idea that “the body does not need to be cleansed.”
«Influencers and celebrities are not doctors or nutritionists, that’s why they say purify or cleanse the body, but that doesn’t exist. To detox you have to be intoxicated », he said.
In this way, he aimed not to demonize food.
«It is not bad that a person wants to eat an ice cream or a croissant, it is bad that they want to do it every day. As well as eating lettuce and tomato every day, because there you will also lack nutrients », he concluded.
Intermittent fasting diet can lead to eating disorders, experts warn