First popularised by Dr Michael Mosley\u2019s book\u00a0The Fast Diet in 2012, the idea of the 5:2 diet took the wellness world by storm. It introduced us to the idea of intermittent fasting: eating normally for five days each week, and restricting calories for two days. By 2018, intermittent fasting had become almost ubiquitous for weight management in midlife. A ZOE study in 2022 showed benefits in mood, energy, mental sharpness and improved gut health. Recently, though, experts have cast doubt on the formula, with studies showing little to no differences in body composition and even an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Carly Corrigall, 44, is a personal trainer from Surrey. Like many of her clients, she began noticing signs of perimenopause after she turned 40 \u2013 specifically, brain fog, fatigue and weight gain.\u00a0She tried intermittent fasting<\/a> as a symptom reliever, after being recommended it by many other midlife women \u2013 but the results were far from what she\u2019d expected. <\/p>\n I work almost exclusively with midlife women<\/a>, so I\u2019ll often trial the trends they\u2019re coming to me talking about. Intermittent fasting is something many of my clients tell me they\u2019ve tried; it\u2019s become a midlife \u201cmust do\u201d. It\u2019s definitely seen as a miracle cure for weight gain, brain fog and other hormone-related issues.<\/p>\n I tried intermittent fasting way back at the start of the curve, in 2022, when the research around its benefits <\/a>was first emerging. The studies \u2013 showing it boosted concentration, brain function, glycaemic control and body composition \u2013 really fascinated me and I was particularly interested in the findings around gut health<\/a> and autophagy (the self-cleaning cells undertake when we don\u2019t eat for long periods). I wanted to get ahead of the trend, both to be well-informed for my clients and see if it would ease my own perimenopausal symptoms<\/a>.<\/p>\n New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n The long-term health benefits intermittent fasting promised were hugely appealing and it seemed so simple: all I needed to do was squeeze my eating into a smaller window and I was going to feel fresher, more vibrant and upbeat, all while improving my long-term health. In reality, this wasn\u2019t the case at all.<\/p>\n I decided to try a 10-hour eating window, with a 14-hour fast. While the idea is generally that you condense your usual meals into that time period, for me, I ended up simply skipping breakfast to make the timings work. As a busy mum, I\u2019m always really rushed in the morning but it turns out this is one of the ways I went wrong.<\/p>\n I aimed to last until 10 or 11am before eating anything at all \u2013 but it was so hard to stick to. I\u2019d have been rushing around all morning, sorting out the kids, seeing clients and perhaps even doing a workout, before having a brunch-style meal. It felt less like intermittent fasting and more like meal skipping.<\/p>\n For me, eating in this way really messed with my hunger signals and rhythm. It felt very forced; any sense of intuitive eating fell away. Immediately, I worried how on earth I was going to stick to it, as I just felt so hungry. The literature I\u2019d read (primarily the big ZOE intermittent fasting study) was that you could have black tea or coffee while fasting, so I started my day with a black coffee and ended up spinning out on the caffeine.<\/p>\n Intermittent fasting just added a whole heap of stress into my already very full day. There\u2019s much talk of food noise and how the protocol can dial this down, but for me, it became louder than ever. My whole life revolved around when I was finally going to eat; the logistics were tricky and I was constantly having to think ahead.<\/p>\n The mental load of having to work it all out was exhausting. Since I\u2019d skipped breakfast and had a large brunch, I wasn\u2019t hungry for lunch, but if I didn\u2019t eat something, I\u2019d be starving by dinner time. There were lots of evenings when I couldn\u2019t eat before 8pm and I started to panic \u2013 the whole day became about my eating window, which is ridiculous, looking back.<\/p>\n My energy levels hit the floor. I was training for a running event at the time and I didn\u2019t hit any of my goals \u2013 training felt like wading through treacle. It was so demoralising because you\u2019re told this method is amazing and you\u2019ll feel incredible \u2013 but I felt the opposite. I felt so flat and cross with myself that it wasn\u2019t working. I couldn\u2019t work out if my training was just going really badly or if something bigger was going on.<\/p>\n I felt a deep fatigue all the time, and I\u2019d fall asleep on the sofa every night \u2013 but rather than stopping, I doubled down on the challenge. I dreaded the mornings \u2013 I kept waiting for it to get easier but it didn\u2019t. I even developed bad heartburn that would wake me up at night and I think this was because my stomach was too empty. My system was primed but I wasn\u2019t giving it the food it needed. I remember spending the evenings feeling hungry and grouchy but I just went to bed, hoping I\u2019d go to sleep and forget about it. It was so bleak.<\/p>\n I\u2019d originally wanted to give intermittent fasting a go for six weeks and I made it to four when I reached breaking point. The week before I packed it all in, I felt run down and exhausted, with a sore throat, a cold and mouth ulcers that wouldn\u2019t go away. The realisation dawned that it just wasn\u2019t working for me; all of the signs were pointing to it not being great for my body.<\/p>\n By the end of the trial, I hadn\u2019t noticed a single metric improve: I didn\u2019t lose any weight, I didn\u2019t feel better. As soon as I started tuning into my hunger signals again, everything shifted. I immediately felt calmer and I was annoyed with myself for fasting for so long.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t just my experience either; it\u2019s what I\u2019m hearing from other women I work with. But I felt like such a failure. We\u2019re given this protocol that we\u2019re told is a miracle and I felt so confused about why I felt so horrific \u2013 was I not doing it properly? Was I not trying hard enough? I started gaslighting myself, wondering if it really was this hard or if I just couldn\u2019t cope.<\/p>\n When I look back now, it horrifies me. I was going against all the advice I give to clients day in, day out \u2013 don\u2019t drink coffee on an empty stomach, don\u2019t train fasted and so on. All I was doing was layering stress on top of stress.<\/p>\n With hindsight, I\u2019m quite shocked at how much my thought process shifted and I can\u2019t fully understand why I didn\u2019t stop sooner, given the huge red flags I was experiencing. I think I just wanted to \u201csucceed\u201d and was lured by the research headlines without really considering the nuance and lack of data on women.<\/p>\n This being said, I have learned a few things. I\u2019m still interested in the idea of autophagy and I\u2019ve learned that eating late in the evening doesn\u2019t work for me \u2013 ideally, I like to have at least three hours between eating and going to bed.<\/p>\n I would never dream, now, of not fuelling before and after my workouts. That\u2019s my priority: I\u2019m doing all this work for my body to feel strong and healthy. Why would I deprive it of the building blocks it needs? It seems like a total paradox. I\u2019m so glad that chapter is well and truly closed in my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First popularised by Dr Michael Mosley\u2019s book\u00a0The Fast Diet in 2012, the idea of the 5:2 diet took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[3378,97,167731,32809,304,149,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-494912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-features","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-and-wellbeing","11":"tag-healthy-diet","12":"tag-healthy-eating","13":"tag-lifestyle","14":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}