5 Types of People Who Should NOT Use Intermittent Fasting

To learn if intermittent fasting is really right for your body chemistry, you can watch this video, or read the transcripts below.

(00:00):

Before we talk about who shouldn’t use intermittent fasting, I wanna say that I’m a fan of intermittent fasting. This isn’t one of those videos where it is like, Oh, you shouldn’t use that F diet, intermittent fasting that’s going kill you. That’s not what this is. I’m a fan. I use intermittent fasting personally, I use it with some of my clients. I even, I teach courses on how to do intermittent fasting. But in the same time, I understand the benefits of intermittent fasting. I also understand that just like any diet or any supplement or any food, intermittent fasting is not right for everybody and it’s going to cause more harm than good for some individuals because we all process foods differently. We all have our bodies operating differently, we have different bioindividuality. And it’s really important to understand how to work with your body instead of against it. So we don’t wanna do intermittent fashion just cuz all the cool kids are doing it. We wanna do it because it’s going to be beneficial for us. So in this video I’m gonna give you five scenarios where a person should not be using intermittent fasting or they should correct these issues or problems so that they can get the benefits from intermittent fasting. Let’s jump.

(01:18):

Disclaimer: TC Hale is not a doctor who does not claim to be a doctor license in any type of medical field. Don’t be an idiot and use anything heard on the show as medical advice. This information should be used for educational purposes only and you should contact your doctor for any medical advice not get off me.

(01:31):

So we can thank Kimberly for requesting this topic and there’s topics you guys want me to talk about. You can just add it in the comments below and we’ll see if we can add it to the list of videos that we’re gonna make. So when it comes to intermittent fasting or if as all the hip kids call it, I used to only think that a person should use intermittent fasting if they were using a proper ketogenic diet because then the body is set up to go without food for longer periods of time. But now I’m seeing a lot of people seeing success using intermittent fasting and a lot of clients without actually using a ketogenic diet as long as they follow some specific guidelines that we’ll kind of talk about today. But for the goal in using intermittent fasting, for most people it’s weight loss.

(02:12):

And a big thing to understand about weight loss is for the body to let go of stored fat, which is what we want to do when we’re looking to lose weight. We’re not looking to lose body mass, we’re just looking to get rid of the stored fat and for the body to let go of stored fat, it needs to feel good about what’s going on. When the body is stressed out, it will hold on to stored body fat like money in the bank that stored body fat is future fuel that it can use in an emergency. So when the body’s not feeling good about what’s going on, it’ll not only hold onto stored fat, but it’ll store even more things as fat to use as a future fuel source for this emergency that it feels like it’s going through when it’s dealing with a stressed situation.

(02:56):

Or maybe the steps that you’re taking to try to lose weight are stressing the body out. So we need to keep that in mind when we’re going to try to use intermittent fasting to our benefit. And when I’m teaching intermittent fasting, for the most part, I’m talking about a person, maybe they’re skipping breakfast or maybe even breakfast and lunch and maybe they’re just having dinner or just lunch and dinner or maybe just breakfast and lunch. They’re not doing this. Hey, I’m going to eat whatever I want today and then I’ll eat again in March. I’m not gonna go three or four days without any food and then have a bunch of poptarts on the fifth day. A lot of people teach this type of intermittent fasting and I don’t see a lot of value in this. I see it creates a lot of harm unless a person’s body is really running optimally and when it’s really running optimally, they probably don’t need to do a whole lot of intermittent fasting.

(03:45):

So when I’m talking intermittent fasting, I’m talking about just extending that period of window of time where you’re not eating at night and maybe it goes a little bit farther into the day or maybe it starts a little bit earlier. Now I am okay with a person doing like an OMAD situation, which is one meal a day for a day. The people that do oag every single day, I feel like they’re restricting their food intake a little bit too much and it’s stressing out the body a little bit too much. And when we talk about the effects that can have, you can understand that that can be harmful. But once a week doing one meal a day can probably bring some benefits for a lot of people. Now, one of the biggest things to remember about fasting is that while you’re in your fasting window, your body needs a backup fuel source.

(04:31):

So the number one biggest mistake that I see people make and these people should not be using into fasting is if you’re eating too many high carbohydrate foods, especially processed junk carbohydrate foods, and especially the night before you’re going to do your intermittent fasting because here’s what happens when you eat those high carbohydrate foods, you’re really gonna spike blood sugar. And when you spike blood sugar, insulin levels are gonna go a lot higher. Now the blood sugar will come down pretty quickly, but insulin can take a lot longer to come down. And as long as insulin levels are too high, the body cannot access stored fat for fuel. The insulin tells the body, Hey, you have glucose here, use that as fuel. Do not use the stored fat as fuel. So while insulin levels are too high, the body can’t access stored fat, which means it doesn’t have a fuel source.

(05:23):

Once you burn up that glucose and now the body’s gonna be a little bit stressed about that, it’s like, Hey, I don’t have any fuel. I’m trying to make things happen here and I got no fuel to happen to make that happen. I’m gonna gonna freak out a little bit. Remember, we want the body to feel good about what’s going on, if it’s going to let go of stored fat. So if we’re gonna skip our breakfast or maybe even skip breakfast and lunch, we need to make sure that the body has a fuel source that it can use while we’re not bringing in any more fuel. So to allow the body to access stored fat, we need to keep insulin on a lower level. So the night before you’re gonna fast. It’s pretty optimal to eat like a protein and maybe some green vegetables if you’re gonna consume carbs, they should be like medium carb foods, like maybe half a sweet potato or half a yam or some butternut squash.

(06:09):

Those types of carbohydrates, real food carbohydrates, not like golden grams in a taco shell. That’s way too many high carbohydrate junk foods that are gonna spike insulin too high and restrict your ability for your body to access stored fat for fuel the next day. The second scenario where intermittent fasting may not be beneficial for you is if you don’t have enough minerals in the system. So if you look at your blood pressure and it’s like 98 over 60, that’s a really strong sign that there’s not enough minerals in the system. And when there’s not enough minerals in the system, there’s not a buffering system available for when blood sugar goes too low. So when blood sugar goes low, as long as there’s enough minerals in the system that’ll buffer that low blood sugar in the body can function the way it wants to function and it feels pretty good about it.

(06:57):

But when there’s not enough minerals in the system, then that buffering system is gone. And when blood sugar starts to dip, the body will stress out a little bit and it will raise stress hormones to help the body continue to function the way that it wants to function. And these stress hormones can cause a lot of problems. Stress hormones like estrogen can thicken up our bile so that our bio won’t flow correctly. And if you don’t understand the problems that can come about when bile is not flowing correctly, check out our video on 10 reasons that proper bio flow is crucial. Because when bile isn’t flowing correctly, not only can you not digest your food and access all the nutrients in the food that you’re eating, but your body can’t detox the way that it’s supposed to detox. Well, if your body can’t detox, guess what it does with a lot of those toxins, Yeah, it shoves them into a fat cell to keep those toxins in earth so they don’t cause any trouble.

(07:49):

But now these fat cells are expanding and then now your pants don’t fit. So we really want the body to be able to detox the way that it wants to. So when we’re thickening up our bile by raising too many stress hormones, then that bis not gonna flow. We’re gonna block that detox pathway and we’re gonna create a lot of trouble. So if someone has low blood pressure, they really wanna take steps to raise their mineral levels so they can get enough mineral in this system to buffer when blood sugar goes too low so the body won’t stress out and freak out. Now, there’s a wide variety of reasons that a person’s blood pressure may go too low and my book Kick Your Fat In the Nuts, helps you run simple self tests at home using tools you can pick up at a pharmacy or a health food store to understand why your mineral levels may be too low and steps you can take to correct it.

(08:37):

And the book is available on Amazon, but below this video in the description, I’m gonna put a link where you can get the whole book totally for free and that’ll walk you through figuring those steps out and figuring out, hey, are my minerals too low? And what kind of steps can I take to improve that situation? And in the same category, I’m gonna say that if someone is dealing with eating disorders, they should not be using intermittent fasting. And you’ll hear this, you’ll hear a lot of people saying how you should not do that with eating disorders, but we view a lot of the eating disorders as being caused by not enough minerals in the system and signals can’t travel correctly and it can create a lot of trouble that can create some of these eating disorders. So if that’s an issue for you but I don’t feel like checking my blood pressure, then you’re probably in the same boat and you should not be using intermittent fasting until you can correct that issue.

(09:24):

The third scenario that could create a lot of trouble with intermittent fasting is if you’re dealing with any type of digestive symptoms. So that could be burping or bloating or acid reflux or constipation or diarrhea or nausea or even acne or skin issues. All of these are signs that digestion is not working the way that it’s supposed to work. And when both sides of digestion are not working correctly, that means that you can’t break down your food the way that you’re supposed to break it down so that you can pull all the nutrients out of that food. So if you’re not digesting your food correctly and accessing all the nutrients in that food, your body’s not getting the nutrients that it needs and there’s already gonna be deficiencies going on and the body’s looking, Hey, I really need this stuff. And then when you start not eating any food, now you’re bringing in even less stuff that the body’s looking for.

(10:14):

The body’s gonna get pretty stressed about that and raise those stress hormones again. So if you’re dealing with any of those digestive symptoms, my book chapters three and four that I talked about getting free in the description below, those will walk you through figuring out which aspects of digestion may not be working for you, and if so, what steps you can take to correct those. And I’m talking about this book, but if you hate to read, we also have a totally free digestion course that walks you through all these same steps as well as that electrolyte deficiency, low blood pressure issues as well. We’ll put a link to that totally free course in the description below. But if you’re having digestive symptoms, you gotta fix that before you start getting real benefits from intermittent fasting. Number four is, are you what we call a car burner?

(10:58):

People should be able to burn glucose and fat for fuel, but for a wide variety of reasons. Some people tend to burn glucose much more efficiently than fat, and some people tend to burn fat much more efficiently than glucose. So if you’re leaning too far on this, I really like to just burn glucose for fuel, then you’re gonna have a hard time when you remove that glucose fuel source from your body. So if you’re a person that has hypoglycemic type symptoms or maybe I don’t feel so good if I haven’t eaten for a couple hours and I really crave a lot of carbs and sugars and I’m a chocoholic and all those type situations, you might be a person that’s tending to burn carbs a little bit more than fat, and you’ll wanna take steps to correct that imbalance so that your body can burn both glucose and fat for fuel.

(11:48):

And my book in that free course will walk you through figuring out if you have an issue here and steps you can take to correct that. But if you have hypoglycemic type symptoms, if that’s you, you really need to correct that problem before you’re gonna get benefits from itIt and fasting. And we’ll put a link in the description below about issues of hypoglycemia and how to fix those problems and understand what’s going on there. The fifth scenario where a person should not be using intermittent fasting is if they’re dealing with an overly catabolic imbalance. So it was Dr. Emmanuel Vici who helped us understand that there’s a natural circadian rhythm at the cellular level of our body. And during the day our body should be in a catabolic state where the cells are kind of more permeable and the body is better at breaking down tissues so that it can be rebuilt and it’s really good at creating energy and all that kind of stuff that keeps us going during the day.

(12:37):

And then at night, we should move into a more anabolic state where the cells are kind of a little less permeable and the body’s better at rebuilding, repairing and resting. So both of those states are appropriate, but if someone gets stuck too far into one state, most of the time it can create a lot of problems. So if someone is stuck in this catabolic state, they’re kind of breaking down tissue all the time and they’re never moving into that rebuild and repair state so that they can repair those tissues that they’re breaking down. So this can be a big problem for intermittent fasting because one of the big benefits of fasting is the atopy that happens where the body is breaking down these tissues so that it can be rebuilt and repaired. But if someone is already in that state too far or too often, they start using intermittent fasting, that’s like throwing gas on the fire.

(13:29):

They’re gonna break themselves down. They’re basically just gonna be falling apart all the time. So a person wants to correct this catabolic imbalance so that the body’s moving into that anabolic state at night so that it can rebuild and repair, and then it will benefit from that atopy that can happen while the body is fasting. If you wanna learn more about that, we’ll put a link in the description for lobe for understanding a catabolic imbalance, and that’ll help you figure out, am I dealing with the catabolic imbalance? And then steps you can take to correct that and beyond those main five issues, I’ll also say, if you know somebody’s pregnant or nursing or like a teenager and they’re really wanting to lose weight just because of the body images that teenagers can often come along with they should not be using intermittent fasting. These are all stages when the body needs a lot of resources.

(14:14):

You’re pregnant or you’re nursing, all those food that you’re bringing in, those resources go towards the baby. You don’t wanna be shutting that down as a teenager. You’re still growing, you’re still building this body, this human thing that you have to live with for the rest of your life. You really don’t wanna shut that down and restrict the ability of the body to get all the nutrients that it needs. So it just remember how crucial it is not to stress your body out when you’re trying to bring these health benefits because the stress is gonna raise stress hormones, thicken up bile. It’s not gonna flow and thick up bile that’s not flowing is gonna create a world of trouble. If you are dealing with digestive symptoms at all, go ahead and check out our video on understanding digestive trouble to gain more insights into what those symptoms may be telling you and steps you can take to correct it. I can’t wait to hear about your results.