Body disconnection is all too common in a world that has trained women to ignore, repress, and control their bodies. Instead of hearing what your body has to say, you learn to follow external cues and guidance. And I know that maybe this doesn’t sound so bad—why not listen to the experts?—but it is problematic for two reasons:
There’s a lot of information available today. Unfortunately, not all of it is legitimate or coming from a true expert or research-based source.
You’ve been taught to do everything with your mind, but the body has a lot to say too. If you’re not listening, you’re missing critical messages that can lead to a happier, healthier life.
I dedicated an entire chapter in my book, Well to the Core, to the importance of listening to your body. This is something that is often left out of health and fitness programs, most of which focus on facts and rules—but don’t leave space to consider the wisdom and needs of your body.
I also explained in my recent blog post, 5 Practical Strategies to Listen to Your Body Each Day, long-term, that sustainable health is only possible when you listen to your own body, and then respond with care and compassion, based on what you know about your body.
Here’s the real kicker: most women aren’t talking about the struggles and pain that come from this disconnection. The solution is just another fix or another diet when really, you need to come back to yourself first.
Let’s go deeper into what I mean when I say body disconnection and why it can feel so hard to talk about. Then I’ll share five questions that will help you understand and talk about body disconnection.
What Body Disconnection Means
While body disconnection can be diagnosed as dissociation, a clinical disorder, what I’m talking about today is something a little different. As humans, we live in three holistic, interwoven states of being: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. It’s equally important to nourish all of these dimensions, but we often learn at early ages to see our body as a separate object, rather than an innate and beautiful part of our whole selves.
Seeing your body as a separate object means you might:
Ignore important mind-body connections, like how stress at work is impacting your physical health (ex. You’ve been having chronic headaches or digestive issues).
Not know when you’re still hungry or comfortably full. When you ignore your body, you miss those cues.
Find yourself exhausted at the end of the day because you didn’t give yourself the rest your body was asking for.
Many of these may be true for you right now. I’ve been through seasons of life where all of these are true in one way or another. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Why Women Aren’t Talking About This
This is an interesting aspect of body disconnection: many women are suffering, yet few people are talking about it. Why? Well, the simple answer is that you may not even recognize it’s happening. After a while, body disconnection can become so automatic that you might not even realize that you aren’t listening to your body. You’ve become so accustomed to listening to your personal trainer or that nutritionist you follow on Instagram that you don’t know any other way.
This is why an important step to unraveling the complex layers of this issue is to have open discussions with other women. The power of connecting with others who are also feeling this way is immeasurable. I know when I open up to my friends, I always feel more connected to myself and less alone.
Plus, it gives you a chance to explore what’s really happening, something you might not do by yourself because let’s be honest, the to-do list is long and the day is short!
If you’re ready to talk with your trusted loved ones, like friends, close relatives or even a therapist, about feeling disconnected from your body—and whether they feel that way too—here are some questions you can use. Think of these as conversation starters to get everyone thinking more deeply and openly about this issue.
1. Why Do We Feel Disconnected from Our Bodies?
This is a multi-faceted question, and the answer can (and probably will) differ for everyone. Some women might disconnect as a result of internalized beliefs around body image while others might disconnect because of an unhealed trauma.
Being open about this with your friends might also help you recognize other reasons why you’ve disconnected that you didn’t realize. The same goes for your friends as you share your experiences.
2. How Does Body Disconnection Make Us Feel?
Many complicated feelings tend to come with body disconnection—shame, insecurity, confusion, mistrust, numbness, depression, anxiety, and more. These emotions are overwhelming to deal with in isolation, but it can be cathartic to express them with others who understand.
Interestingly, emotions are inherently somatic. This means you can feel them manifest in your head, neck, throat, shoulders, chest, stomach, or other body parts. When you feel safe (like with a group of people who love you) to can start to notice, release, and sort through your emotions out loud in real time, it gives you a chance to return to embodiment, which is the opposite of body disconnection.
3. Why Are We Afraid to Trust the Body Connection?
You’ve heard the phrase, “trust your gut,” over and over again, since childhood. So what makes it so difficult to lean into this inner trust?
If you’ve experienced illness or physical pain, you might be mad at your body or blame your body.
You may feel as though you “trusted your gut” before and it drove you in what felt like the wrong direction.
If you’ve felt out of control in your life, controlling your body (rather than surrendering and listening to it) becomes a coping mechanism.
There are so many reasons why you might feel disconnected. Sort through them with your trusted sources who may also feel the same as you.
4. What Are the Impacts of Body Disconnection?
Women who experience body disconnection also have a higher risk of shame, low self-esteem, lack of interoceptive (emotional and sensory) awareness, eating disorders, and other mental health concerns. These consequences can interfere with your life in so many ways that you might not even recognize them.
Being vulnerable about mental health issues can feel daunting, but the more open and honest you are, the lighter you’ll feel. There is power in sharing your burdens with someone else and realizing you aren’t alone in how you feel.
5. How Can We Start Reconnecting to Our Bodies?
This question is arguably the most important: how do we restore the connection to our bodies in order to cultivate a healthier and more holistic relationship with ourselves? When we consider this together as a community, we can help each other find practical, actionable ways to heal and re-establish the inherent physical connection that’s been lost.
Two powerful tools for rebuilding this connection are mindful movement and breathwork—both of which you’ll get immediate access to if you start your free Lindywell trial. With 300+ Pilates workouts and dozens of guided breathwork sessions, you’ll have important resources to come back to your body.
But don’t stop there. Talk with your friends about how they might consider reconnecting with their body. This is also a great exercise in actually listening to your body—when you ask that question, what does it tell you? Maybe you sense the need to slow down or add more play into your life.
The options are endless, so let your friends inspire you, but don’t forget to tune into your own answers.
Healing Our Body Disconnection Happens in Community
In a culture that teaches you to treat your body as a separate object, it’s no wonder you’re feeling disconnected. I want to remind you, however, that it’s never too late to break free and tune into the inner wisdom of your own body once again. This process takes time, after all, you might have to unlearn a lifetime of conditioning. But the journey is so worthwhile—and you are so deserving.
Body checking is so automatic—my bet is you don’t even know you’re doing it. If you take a minute to really think about it, how often do you stop in front of a mirror to scrutinize the width of your hips, the texture of your skin, or the fit of your jeans?
To some degree, we all practice this self-monitoring behavior. So much so that there’s a name for it: body checking. I love the way Katherine Metzelaar MSN, RDN, CD explains what this is:
“I often describe body checking as the fleeting moment between stimulus (‘Omg, how does my stomach look right now!?’), and action (doing the body checking behavior), where there is a hope of relief from the distress or anxious feeling you have. While the body checking behavior is often an attempt to relieve your discomfort or anxiety, it usually leaves you feeling worse off than before you body checked with a heightened sense of anxiety around your body which can be a difficult cycle to get stuck in.”
This cycle is exhausting! Maybe you know what I mean as you think back to how often you check yourself in the mirror or scrutinize your body in a photo. How tiring it is to always be looking for approval that you look “good enough”?
I’m a recovering body-checker and I know how hard it can be to break this habit. If you’re ready to let go of body checking and release all the anxiety that comes with it, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in and give you some tools to get started.
Note: I want to acknowledge that body checking compulsions can be indicators of a more severe issue, like an eating disorder. To access help and start the healing journey, please visit this resource page from the National Eating Disorders Association.
Body Checking and When It Becomes Unhealthy
Body checking is the frequent evaluation of your external appearance and this can take many forms. For example, some women fixate on their body shape, weight, size, or composition. Others are more concerned with facial features such as teeth, skin, hair, or noses. Here are some examples:
When you check your hair every time you catch your reflection in a mirror.
When you question the size of your legs as you look down at your thighs while sitting.
When you dissect your outfit or the size of your arms as you look at a photo someone took of you.
Body checking can manifest at an early age and in many forms. I recall feeling insecure as an 8-year-old because of a comment someone made about my thighs. No matter how you look, what size you are, or your current stage of life, anyone can be prone to body checking.
As “normal” as this is, it isn’t always healthy. Body checking exists on a continuum. You might fall into the habit occasionally with no serious repercussions, or it could escalate into an unrelenting obsession.
How can you determine where you are on this spectrum? Here’s a helpful barometer from Liz Cook, MS, RD, LDN: “When body checking becomes something that interferes with your normal daily routine or starts to take up a lot of your time, it’s no longer a neutral behavior.”
Signs That Body Checking Has Become Harmful
When body checking tendencies result in dissatisfaction with yourself, that’s when it becomes a problem. These behaviors are rooted in shame, negative self-talk, and a poor sense of worth. At the end of the day, we live in a society that glorifies a very specific body type—and body checking is our way to see if we’re measuring up or not.
It’s important to know that body checking doesn’t only happen among women with eating disorders. Body checking, and the ramifications of it, can and do impact anyone. And It’s no wonder this sad truth is our reality—in a recent survey, more than 4,250 women shared their views on body image and here are some of the results:
88% feel their body weight or shape is at least moderately important.
74% have a list of foods they either will or won’t allow themselves to eat.
69% believe that larger bodies are not as healthy as smaller bodies.
32% think being thin is an indication of fitness and personal discipline.
14% would take 1–5 years off their lives in exchange for the “ideal” body.
Body checking is an attempt to calm all the anxiety around enoughness—good enough, thin enough, pretty enough.
My Body Checking Journey
I have been hard on myself since I was a little girl, striving for an ideal body shape for my whole life. As a dancer, body checking quickly became a regular part of my life. The pressure of being measured for costumes, judged for performance, and spending hours looking in the mirror alongside my peers led to an unhealthy level of body checking.
Once I entered the fitness space as a Pilates instructor I quickly realized I could be a part of the ongoing pressure that women face to look a certain way, or I could be a part of the solution. It became very evident that leaning in the traditional wellness gimmicks generated more clients and profits for my business and the companies I worked for.
However, considering my own experience with body insecurities, I didn’t feel good about this. I recognized that I had a choice: either leave the industry or make a change in whatever areas I could. More than a decade later and my career as a Pilates instructor has now transformed into so much more than just helping others achieve their physical health and fitness goals.
As the founder of Lindywell, my mission is now to help others break free from the layers of dissatisfaction and societal pressures we deal with on a continual basis and feel good in their body and mind. This is why at Lindywell, we say over and over again: grace over guilt!
I would say I am a recovering body-checker now. Thanks to the work I’ve done around this, I live with more freedom than ever before, and I want this outcome for you too.
Become a Recovering Body Checker With Me
Healing from body checking doesn’t happen overnight. It takes mindful action and consistent effort to recognize the habit, challenge the thoughts, and start to release what you’ve become accustomed to doing. Here are a few steps you can take to make this happen for yourself.
Step 1: Become aware ofwhen you’re body-checking. This awareness can help you start to recognize when you do it in the moment. It happens so quickly and automatically, you might not know right away. Be mindful throughout your day and try to notice when you do it.
Step 2: In the moment, ask yourself: “Why do I want to check my body right now?” This can be helpful to understand what you get out of it. We, as humans, do everything for a reason. Are you looking for validation that your stomach is flat? Do you want to be reminded that your arms are thin enough? What’s the benefit of doing this?
Step 3: Choose a reframe, or mantra, to counteract that feeling of “not enough” in the moment. Here are a few of mine: “Wellness does not equal weight loss.” “Health and fitness habits don’t have to be all or nothing.” The goal is to choose a phrase that helps you challenge the negative thought that’s pushing you to body check in the first place. Check out our blog post on self-love mantras if you’re feeling stuck on this part.
Step 4: Catch yourself before you body check. If you’re being mindful throughout your day, and you notice you want to body check—start with your reframe and then stop yourself from doing it. This will be hard because your mind is craving that validation, so use your reframe or mantra as your anchor. With practice and time, it becomes easier, I promise!
Step 5: Check out my book, Well to the Core, where I talk all about what true health and wellness look like—beyond the mirror or the shape of your body. Along the way I provide tons of actionable steps you can take to feel well to your core.
You Deserve a Life Free from Body Checking
We no longer need to live under the constant pressure of negative self-talk and compulsive body checking. You can let go of this automatic (and toxic) habit if you get intentional and take consistent action to reframe and catch yourself in the moment. I know how challenging this can be, so please remember to keep trying—it does get easier!
Start this journey to freedom right now and start your free trial of Lindywell. As a member, you have access to gentle Pilates workouts, nourishing recipes, and guided breathwork sessions—all curated to help you discover true health.
lass=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-3588421″ src=”https://ift.tt/BMPCTUr; alt=”Tony the Tiger wants you to keep eating breakfast. Should you, or should you try intermittent fasting?” width=”708″ height=”375″ />
“…Tony the Tiger tells us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day! It’s grrrrrreat!”
This adage about breakfast has become commonplace that it’s readily and unquestionably accepted as fact.
Well then, what’s with the growing popularity of Intermittent Fasting and SKIPPING breakfast?
(Tony just audibly gasped.)
In this Ultimate Guide to Intermitting Fasting, I’ll teach you everything about the science of fasting and what results you can expect:
We’re going to take two widely accepted healthy eating “rules” and turn them on their head:
RULE #1: You HAVE to eat first thing in the morning: Make sure you start with a healthy breakfast, so you can get that metabolism firing first thing in the morning!
“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”
There are even studies that show those who eat earlier in the day lose more weight than those who ate later in the day or skipped a meal.[1]
RULE #2: Eat lots of small meals for weight loss. Make sure you eat six small meals throughout the day so your metabolism stays operating at maximum capacity all day long.”
In other words, “eat breakfast and lots of small meals to lose weight and obtain optimal health.”
Can you eat breakfast and lots of small meals and get great results? Of course.
But what “conventional wisdom” misses are the actual underlying mechanisms WHY this works (hint: it’s how it affects overall behavior) – which can lead us to a false positive. Sure it can work, but if you don’t know WHY it’s working, you might miss an opportunity to do something different that works BETTER for you and your life.
For example, what if there’s science and research that shows SKIPPING BREAKFAST (the horror! blasphemy!) can help with optimum human performance, mental and physical health improvement, maximum muscle retention, and body fat loss? How would that fit in with our conventional wisdom?
That’s where our exploration of Intermittent Fasting comes in.
Intermittent fasting is not a diet, but rather a dieting pattern.
In simpler terms: it’s making a conscious decision to skip certain meals on purpose.
By fasting and then feasting deliberately, intermittent fasting generally means that you consume your calories during a specific window of the day, and choose not to eat food for a larger window of time.
There are a few different common patterns to implement Intermittent Fasting, which I learned about from Martin over at LeanGains, a resource specifically built around fasted strength training:
#1) INTERMITTENT FASTING 16/8 PLAN
What it is: Fasting for 16 hours and then only eating within a specific 8-hour window. For example, only eating from noon-8 PM, essentially skipping breakfast.
Some people only eat in a 6-hour window, or even a 4-hour window. This is the “feasting” and “fasting” parts of your days and the most common form of Intermittent Fasting. It’s also my preferred method (5 years running).
Two examples: The top means you are skipping breakfast, the bottom means you are skipping dinner each day:
You can adjust this window to make it work for your life:
If you start eating at: 7AM, stop eating and start fasting at 3pm.
If you start eating at: 11AM, stop eating and start fasting at 7pm.
If you start eating at: 2PM, stop eating and start fasting at 10pm.
If you start eating at: 6PM, stop eating and start fasting at 2AM.
#2) INTERMITTENT FASTING 24-HOUR PLAN
Skip two meals one day, where you take 24 hours off from eating. For example, eat on a normal schedule (finishing dinner at 8PM) and then you don’t eat again until 8PM the following day.
With this plan, you eat your normal 3 meals per day, and then occasionally pick a day to skip breakfast and lunch the next day.
If you can only do an 18 hour fast, or a 20 hour fast, or a 22 hour fast – that’s okay! Adjust with different time frames and see how your body responds.
Two examples: skipping breakfast and lunch one day of the week, and then another where you skip lunch and dinner one day, two days in a week.
Note: You can do this once a week, twice a week, or whatever works best for your life and situation. (We’ll talk more about how to determine that later.)
Those are the two most popular intermittent fasting plans, and the two we’ll be focusing on, though there are many variations of both that you can modify for yourself:
Some people eat in a 4-hour window, others do 6 or 8.
You’ll need to experiment, adjust to work for your lifestyle and goals, and see how your body responds. If there’s one thing we’ve learned after Coaching over 15,000 1-on-1 clients: there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to exercise and nutrition that works for everyone, all of the time.
Let’s first get into the science here behind Intermittent Fasting and if you should consider it!
How Does Intermittent Fasting Work?
Now, you might be thinking: “okay, so by skipping a meal, I will eat less than I normally eat on average (2 meals instead of 3), and thus I will lose weight, right?”
All things being equal, yes.
By cutting out an entire meal each day, you are consuming fewer calories per week – even if your two meals per day are slightly bigger than before. Overall, you’re still consuming fewer calories per day.
In this example, you’re eating LARGER lunches and dinners than you normally do, but by skipping breakfast you’ll consume 500 less calories per day.
And thus, weight loss!
However, that doesn’t mean this works 100% of the time, for everyone. Remember the conventional wisdom we challenged above? The same goes here. By understanding the underlying mechanism of weight loss (i.e. calorie deficit), we can better understand how our dieting strategy is affecting our behavior. Then we know if this strategy will work for us or not!
In the case of intermittent fasting, by condensing their eating window, many people feel more full and naturally eat less (like in the example above.)
However, it’s also totally possible for you to overconsume calories during that same period, which would result in weight gain instead of weight loss. Whomp whomp.
If you were reliant on the idea that “Intermittent Fasting works for weight loss” – full stop – you could be easily discouraged if it didn’t work. You might think: “Is my metabolism broken?” But because we know that intermittent fasting is one dieting strategy that CAN work for weight loss if it helps you stick to a caloric deficit more easily, you’re empowered to decide if this is a good fit for you. Eureka!
This is highlighted in a recent JAMA study[2] in which both calorie-restricted dieters and intermittent fasters lost similar amounts of weight over a year period.
You might be thinking: “Ok, ok, I get it. Caloric deficit. But what about the timing of meals – can’t that also influence how your body reacts?”
It’s true – your body operates differently when “feasting” compared to when “fasting”. But it’s important to understand how this fits into the big picture.
When you eat a meal, your body spends a few hours processing that food, burning what it can from what you just consumed.
Because it has all of this readily available, easy-to-burn energy (thanks to the food you ate), your body will choose to use that as energy rather than the fat you have stored.
During the “fasted state” (the hours in which your body is not consuming or digesting any food) your body doesn’t have a recently consumed meal to use as energy.
Thus, it is more likely to pull from the fat stored in your body as it’s the only energy source readily available.
However, when we compare the differences in energy used from body fat over an entire day, that’s entirely dependent on the total calories consumed. So while your body is more likely to pull energy from a recent meal, and will rely on fat stores once that energy runs out, if you eat the same amount of calories throughout the day, the result is the same amount of energy pulled from fat. It all balances out in the end.
The same goes for working out in a “fasted” state.
Without a ready supply of glucose and glycogen to pull from (which has been depleted throughout your fasted state, and hasn’t yet been replenished with a pre-workout meal), your body is forced to adapt and pull from a source of energy that it does have available: the fat stored in your cells.
While many of us get excited about the idea of being in a “fat-burning mode”, the same principle holds. If we burn an equal amount of calories, whether fasted or not, the result is less total energy stored in our fat cells at the end of the day. (There’s even an argument for athletes whose sports require glycogen to be readily available to meet their energy demands – making sure these stores are never depleted is important so an athlete doesn’t ‘bonk’ in the middle of their competition.)
Hopefully, you can see how easy it is to take a true fact of our biology (we burn more fat from fat stores when in a fasted state) and extrapolate it to seem more than it is. The same goes for six meals a day!
The truth is, there isn’t a magic pill or solution that’s going to overcome the basics. The best reason to do Intermittent Fasting is because you like it and it fits within your lifestyle.
TL/DR: Fasting can help promote weight loss and muscle building when done properly ~ though it isn’t the ONLY method that works.
Should I Eat 6 Small Meals a Day?
There are a few main reasons why diet books recommend six small meals:
1) When you eat a meal, your body does have to burn extra calories [9] just to process that meal. So, the theory is that if you eat all day long with small meals, your body is constantly burning extra calories and your metabolism is firing at optimal capacity, right? Well, that’s not true.
Whether you eat 2000 calories spread out throughout the day, or 2000 calories in a small window, your body will burn the same number of calories processing the food [10].
So, the whole “keep your metabolism firing at optimum capacity by always eating” sounds good in principle, but reality tells a different story.
2) When you eat smaller meals, you might be less likely to overeat during your regular meals. I can definitely see some truth here, especially for people who struggle with portion control or don’t know how much food they should be eating.
However, once you educate yourself and take control of your eating, some might find that eating six times a day is very prohibitive and requires a lot of effort. I know I do.
Also, because you’re eating six small meals, I’d argue that you probably never feel “full,” and you might be MORE likely to eat extra calories during each snack.
This is why personal preference is so important when picking a diet strategy that works for you.
Although grounded in seemingly logical principles, the “six meals a day” doesn’t work for the reason you think it would (#1), and may feel prohibitive to prepare and eat 6 times a day (#2). Other people may find that 6 meals a day fits them perfectly. If you find what works for you, that rules!
If we think back to caveman days, we’d have been in serious trouble as a species if we had to eat every three hours. Do you think Joe Caveman pulled out his pocket sundial six times a day to consume his equally portioned meals?
Hell no! He ate when he could, endured and dealt with long periods of NOT eating (no refrigeration or food storage) and his body adapted to still function optimally enough to still go out and catch new food.
A recent study (written about in the NYT, highlighted by LeanGains) has done a great job of challenging the “six-meals-a-day” technique for weight loss [11]:
There were [no statistical] differences between the low- and high- [meal frequency] groups for adiposity indices, appetite measurements or gut peptides (peptide YY and ghrelin) either before or after the intervention. We conclude that increasing meal frequency does not promote greater body weight loss under the conditions described in the present study.
That’s why we made this:
Should I Try intermittent fasting? (6 Things to Consider)
Now that we’re through a lot of the science stuff, let’s get into the reality of the situation: why should you consider Intermittent Fasting?
When you fast, you are potentially making it easier to restrict your total caloric intake over the course of the week, which can lead to consistent weight loss and maintenance.
#2) Because it simplifies your day. Rather than having to prepare, pack, eat, and time your meals every 2-3 hours, you simply skip a meal or two and only worry about eating food in your eating window.
It’s one less decision you have to make every day.
It could allow you to enjoy bigger portioned meals (thus making your tastebuds and stomach satiated) and STILL eat fewer calories on average.
It’s a point that Coach Matt makes in this video on intermittent fasting:
#3) It requires less time (and potentially less money). Rather than having to prepare or purchase three to six meals a day, you only need to prepare two meals.
Instead of stopping what you’re doing six times a day to eat, you simply only have to stop to eat twice. Rather than having to do the dishes six times, you only have to do them twice.
Rather than having to purchase six meals a day, you only need to purchase two.
#4) It promotes stronger insulin sensitivity and increased growth hormone secretion, two keys for weight loss and muscle gain. Intermittent fasting helps you create a double whammy for weight loss and building a solid physique.
#5) It can level up your brain, including positively counteracting conditions like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia.
As explained here in this TEDx talk by Mark Mattson, Professor at Johns Hopkins University and Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, fasting is grounded in serious research and more studies are coming out showing the benefits:
#6) Plus, Wolverine does it:
If adamantium-clawed superheroes do Intermittent Fasting, it can probably work for you too, if you can make it work for your particular lifestyle and situation!
What Are the Negative Effects of intermittent fasting?
In my own experimentation with Intermittent Fasting since 2014, I have found very few negative side effects with Intermittent Fasting.
The biggest concern most people have is that Intermittent Fasting will lead to lower energy, focus, and the “holy crap I am hungry” feeling during the fasting period and ruin them.
People are concerned that they will spend all morning being miserable because they haven’t consumed any food, and thus will be miserable at work and ineffective at whatever task it is they are working on.
The following are my thoughts and experiences, and your results may vary:
Yes, the initial transition from EATING ALL THE TIME, to intermittent fasting MIGHT be a bit of a jolt to your system; it was for me.
However, once I got through the transition after a few days, my body quickly adapted and learned to function just as well only eating a few times a day.
Although I fast for 16 hours per day with no issues, the following might help assuage your fears that skipping breakfast will cause your body to eat itself and your brain to implode:
After 48 hours of fasting in a recent study[12], “cognitive performance, activity, sleep, and mood are not adversely affected in healthy humans by two days of calorie-deprivation.” You’ll be fasting for far less time than that.
“So why do I feel grouchy and lethargic when I skip breakfast?”
In this nerd’s humble opinion, a good portion of the grumpiness is a result of past eating habits. If you eat every three hours normally, and normally eat as soon as you wake up, your body will start to get hungry every three hours as it is now used to consuming food every three hours.
If you eat breakfast every morning, your body expects to wake up and eat food.
Once you retrain your body to NOT expect food all day every day (or first thing in the morning), these side effects become less of an issue. In addition, ghrelin (a hormone that makes you hungry [13]), is actually lowest in the mornings and decreases after a few hours of not eating too. The hunger pains will naturally pass!
Personally, I found this grumpiness subsided after a few days and now my mornings actually energize me. But your mileage may vary.
It’s important to understand that Intermittent Fasting is NOT a cure-all panacea. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that if you skip breakfast and then eat 4,000 calories of candy bars for lunch and dinner that you will lose weight.
If you struggle with portion control, figure out your calorie goals and track your calorie intake in your meals to make sure you’re not overeating.
If you skip breakfast, you might be so hungry from this that you OVEREAT for lunch and this can lead to weight gain. Again, the important thing here is that with an intermittent fasting plan, you’re eating fewer calories than normal because you’re skipping a meal every day (if your goal is weight loss.)
Think about it in caveman terms again. We certainly found ways to survive during periods of feast and famine, and that remains true today. Imagine if you needed to eat in order to be active and alert: what would hungry cavemen do?
They would go find food, and that probably required a ton of effort. It actually takes our bodies about 84 hours of fasting [14] before our glucose levels are adversely affected. As we’re talking about small fasts (16-24 hour periods), this doesn’t concern us.
AN IMPORTANT CAVEAT:Intermittent Fasting can be more complex for people who have issues with blood sugar regulation, suffer from hypoglycemia, have diabetes, etc. If you fit into this category, check with your doctor or dietitian before adjusting your eating schedule. It also affects women differently (there’s a whole section dedicated to that here).
Can I Build Muscle and Gain Weight While Intermittent Fasting?
I still eat roughly the same number of calories I was consuming before, but instead of eating all damn day long, I condense all of my calorie consumption into an eight-hour window.
11 AM Work out with heavy strength training in a fasted state.
7 PM Consume the second portion of my calories for the day in a big dinner.
8 PM – 12 PM the next day: Fast for 16 hours.
In a different method, my friend Nate Green packed on a crazy amount of muscle while fasting for a full 24 hours on Sundays – so it is possible. [15]
I’m not kidding when I say this has revolutionized how I look at muscle building and fat loss.
Ultimately, this method flies in the face of the typical “bulk and cut” techniques of overeating to build muscle (along with adding a lot of fat) before cutting calories to lose fat (along with some muscle) and settling down at a higher weight.
I prefer this method to the bulk-and-cut technique for a few reasons:
There’s far less of a crazy swing to your weight. If you are putting on 30 pounds and then cutting 25 to gain 5 lbs of muscle, your body is going through drastic swings of body mass. Your clothes will fit differently, you’ll have different levels of definition, and your body will wonder what the hell is going on.
You’re consuming less food and thus spending less money. Rather than overeating to put on 1 pound of muscle and 4 pounds of fat in a week or two, you’re aiming to eat exactly enough to put on 1 pound of muscle without adding much fat on top of it. Yeah, it’s a delicate balance, but there’s far less swing involved. You are just slowly, steadily, and consistently building muscle and strength over many months.
There’s never a need to get “vacation-ready”: we all want to look good naked, right? When you are just adding muscle, you don’t need to worry about getting your body ready before by drastically altering your diet (avoiding a miserable crash diet like the Military Diet). [16]
You can make small adjustments and stay on target. Keep your body fat percentage low, build strength and muscle, and if you happen to notice your body fat creeping up, cut back on the carbs. Within two weeks you should be back at your preferred body fat percentage and can continue the muscle-building process.
A note on BCAA consumption. Martin from LeanGains [17] recommends consuming Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s) as a supplement with regards to fasted training to aid your muscles through your workout.
Personally, I used BCAAs for about 6-8 months during my initial start with fasted training (consuming them before training), though haven’t used them in the past 2+ years. I didn’t notice any adverse effects to not taking them with regard to my performance. Recent research suggests that as long as your protein intake is adequate, BCAA supplementation doesn’t seem to have any benefit for building muscle or strength [29][[30]]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33741748/[[30]]
Now, it should go without saying that if you want to build muscle while fasting, you need to work out. Specifically, by lifting heavy.
If you want help building a workout routine designed to create muscle, I have a couple of options:
#1) “Build Your Own Workout Routine” and get your hands dirty. Our guide will walk you through building a full-body exercise program in 10 simple steps.
By only eating fat and protein, your body must adapt to run on fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. In the absence of carbs/glucose, your body converts fats to ketones and uses them for fuel.
This process is called “ketosis,” and there are two ways for a body to enter ketosis:
Eating in a way that induces ketosis (very low carb, high fat).
Fasting…Hey, that’s what you’re reading about right now!
We actually have an amazing success story here on Nerd Fitness, Larry, who followed our strategies, went Keto and start intermittent fasting. He ended up losing weight, getting stronger, AND overcame the challenges of rheumatoid arthritis (click on the image for his story)!
Here’s how the fasting portion of it works:
As your body enters a fast period when there are no sources of glucose energy readily available, the liver begins the process of breaking down fat into ketones.
Fasting itself can trigger ketosis.
Fasting for a period of time before kicking off a Keto-friendly eating plan COULD speed your transition into the metabolic state of ketosis, and fasting intermittently while in ketosis could help you maintain that state.
I personally love fasting for the simplicity: I skip breakfast every day and train in a fasted state. It’s one less decision I have to make, it’s one less opportunity to make a bad food choice, and it helps me reach my goals.
WHY KETO + IF WORKS = eating Keto can be really challenging. And every time you eat, it’s an opportunity to do it wrong and accidentally eat foods that knock you out of ketosis.
You’re also tempted to overeat.
So, by skipping a meal, you’re eliminating one meal, one decision, one chance to screw up.
Note: if you’re thinking “Steve, am I losing weight because I’m skipping 1/3rd of my meals for the day, AND eliminating an entire macronutrient?”, then you’d be right.
Both Keto and IF have secondary effects that could also be factoring in – physiological benefits which I explain in both articles.
Your value may vary!
You need to decide what works for you.
You probably won’t become “keto-adapted” (your body running on ketones) just skipping breakfast every day – your body will still have enough glucose stored from your carb-focused meals for lunch and dinner the day before.
In order to use fasting to enter ketosis, the fast needs to be long enough to deplete your carb/glucose stores, or you need to severely restrict carbohydrates from your meals in addition to IF in order to enter ketosis.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Experiment and try different strategies that will work for you.
By skipping a meal or minimizing carbohydrate intake, you’re more likely than not to lose weight:
You can do intermittent fasting without eating a Keto Diet and lose weight.
You can do a Keto Diet without intermittent Fasting and lose weight.
Does Intermittent Fasting Have Different Effects on Men and Women?
The quick answer is: “yes, Intermittent Fasting can affect men and women differently.”
Anecdotally, we have many women in our online coaching program that swear by Intermittent Fasting, while others have had adverse effects.
Let’s dig into the science and studies.
A recent PubMed summary concluded that “fasting can be prescribed as a safe medical intervention as well as a lifestyle regimen which can improve women’s health in many folds [18].
Now, in that extract, many of the studies cited are focused on specifically calorie restriction (and not just fasting), and they also say that “future studies should address this gap by designing medically supervised fasting techniques to extract better evidence.”
Digging into the PubMed Archives brought me to the following conclusions [19]:
One small study (with 8 men and 8 women, all non-obese) resulted in the following: “Glucose response to a meal was slightly impaired in women after 3 weeks of treatment, but insulin response was unchanged. Men had no change in glucose response and a significant reduction in insulin response.”[20]
Another small study (8 women) studied the effects on their menstrual cycles after a 72-hour fast – which is significantly longer than any fast recommended in this article: “in spite of profound metabolic changes, a 72-hour fast during the follicular phase does not affect the menstrual cycle of normal cycling women.” [21].
Yet another study tracked 11 women with 72-hour fasts (again, longer than we’d recommend) and it found that “Fasting in women elicited expected metabolic responses – included increased cortisol (a stress hormone) – and apparently advanced the central circadian clock (which can throw off sleeping patterns). [22]
Those studies above, in working with small sample sizes, and different types of fasting than recommended here, would lead me to believe that fasting affects men and women differently, and that many of the weight loss benefits associated with intermittent fasting (that affect insulin and glucose responses) work positively for men and negatively for women.
There are also a series of articles[23] out there that dig into the potential reproductive health issues, stress challenges, induction of early-menopause [24] associated with fasting (and calorie restriction) for women.
Precision Nutrition – a great resource – recommends not attempting Intermittent Fasting as a woman if:
The challenge associated with all of this is that there aren’t enough long-term studies, with large enough sample sizes, specifically targeting female humans, with relation to the different types of Intermittent Fasting.
ALL OF THIS TO SAY: It does appear that men and women will have different experiences with intermittent fasting; we’re all unique snowflakes (yep, especially you), and your body will be affected by intermittent fasting differently than the person next to you.
There is enough evidence as cited in the articles and studies above that would give me pause to recommend Intermittent Fasting for women, especially if you are considering getting pregnant in the near term.
If you are looking to attempt fasting for weight loss reasons, my research has shown me that Intermittent Fasting could be less effective for women than men with regards to weight loss, and thus you would be wise to keep your efforts elsewhere:
Now, if you’ve read the above warnings, you are still curious about Intermittent Fasting, and you want to give it a try as a female, that is your choice!
You know your body best.
So, get blood work done, speak with your doctor and get a check-up.
Give intermittent fasting a shot, track your results, and see how your body/blood work changes as a result of Intermittent Fasting and decide if it’s right for you.
Your mileage may vary, so speak with a doctor or find a doctor versed in intermittent fasting plans and treat it like an experiment on yourself!
Top 6 Questions about Intermittent Fasting
1) “Won’t I get really hungry if I start skipping meals?”
As explained above, this can be a result of the habits you have built for your body. If you are constantly eating or always eat the same time of day, your body can actually learn to prepare itself for food by beginning the process of insulin production and preparation for food.
After a brief adjustment period, your body can adapt to the fact that it’s only eating a few times a day. The more overweight you are, and the more often you eat, the more of an initial struggle this might be.
Remember, your body’s physical and cognitive abilities most likely won’t be diminished as a result of short-term fasting.[25]
2) “Where will I get my energy for my workouts? Won’t I be exhausted and not be able to complete my workouts if fasting?”
This was a major concern of mine as well, but the research shows this might not be the case: “Training with limited carbohydrate availability can stimulate adaptations in muscle cells to facilitate energy production via fat oxidation.”[26]
In other words, when you train in a fasted state, your body can get better at burning fat for energy when there are no carbs to pull from!
The caveat to this is that pulling energy from fat oxidation is a slower process than breaking down carbohydrates. If your workout is super intense (high-intensity interval training, MMA, even bodybuilding) – you’ll likely benefit from having more readily available energy to fuel your workouts for better performance.
3) “I like the idea of fasted training, but I work a regular 9-5 or a night shift and can’t train at 11AM as you do. What am I supposed to do?”
Depending on your training schedule, lifestyle, and goals, go back to the portion above where I talk about the 16/8 protocol and simply adjust your hours of fasting and feasting.
Don’t overthink this. If you can’t train until 5pm, that’s okay. Consume a small meal for lunch, or shift your Intermittent Fasting window to eat all of your meals in the 8 hours post-workout. Better to do that than abandon it as a lost cause and have 0% compliance.
If you are an elite athlete, speak with a coach or nutritionist about your specific concerns and expectations. Otherwise, make intermittent fasting work for you Consider trying the 24-hour protocol below instead of the 16/8 protocol.
If you train later in the day (say, 7pm) but break your fast before training (aka Lunch), make it a smaller meal focused around fats and protein – which should be a solid goal even if you aren’t Intermittent Fasting! Try to time your carb and big meal consumption to happen AFTER your workout.
If you exercise BEFORE work, but then don’t eat until lunchtime: consider a protein supplement immediately after your workout, or simply wait until lunch to start eating. See how your body responds and adjust accordingly.
Do what you can, and don’t psyche yourself out! Get started and adjust along the way.
4) “Won’t fasting cause muscle loss?”
We’ve been told by the supplement industry that we need to consume 30 g of protein every few hours, as that’s the most amount of protein our body can process at a time.
Along with that, we’ve been told that if we don’t eat protein every few hours, our body’s muscle will start to break down to be burned as energy.
Again, NOT TRUE! Our bodies are quite adept at preserving muscle even when fasting [27], and it turns out that protein absorption by our body can take place over many many many hours.
Protein consumed in a shorter period of time has no difference on the body compared to protein spread throughout the day.
5) “What about my body going into starvation mode from not eating?”
Now, the thought process here is that when we don’t feed ourselves, our bodies assume calories aren’t available and thus choose to store more calories as opposed to burning them, therefore eliminating the benefits of weight loss with fasting.
Fortunately, this is NOT true.
Starvation mode is significantly overblown and sensationalized these days. It takes a dramatic amount of starvation, for a long, long, long time, before your body kicks into “starvation mode”. We’re talking about 24-hour or 16-hour fasts here, and starvation mode takes significantly longer than that.[28]
In other words: starvation mode should not be factoring into your decision here.
5) How much should I eat while intermittent fasting?
If your goal is weight loss, you still need to consume fewer calories than you burn every day to lose weight. If your goal is bulking up, you’ll need to consume more calories than you burn every day. Intermittent Fasting isn’t a cure-all, it’s a PART of the puzzle.
To start, begin intermittent fasting and eat your normal-sized meals and track your weight and performance. If you are losing weight and happy with the progress, keep doing what you’re doing! If you are NOT losing weight, you could be eating too much. It’s a message I really strike home in our guide “Why Can’t I Lose Weight?”
#1) Don’t freak out! Stop wondering: “can I fast 15 hours instead of 16?” or “what if I eat an apple during my fasted period, will that ruin everything?” Relax. Your body is a complex piece of machinery and learns to adapt. Everything is not as cut and dry as you think.
If you want to eat breakfast one day but not another, that’s okay. If you are going for optimal aesthetic or athletic performance, I can see the need to be more rigid in your discipline, but otherwise…freaking chill out and don’t stress over minutiae!
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to your intermittent fasting plan. It’s just one tool in your toolkit.
#2) Consider fasted walks in the morning. They can be a great start to clear my mind and prepare for the day.
Simply wake up and go for a mile walk. Maybe you could even start walking to Mordor?
#3) Listen to your body during your strength training workouts. If you get lightheaded, make sure you are consuming enough water.
If you notice a significant drop in performance, make sure you are eating enough calories (especially fats and protein) during your feasting window.
And if you feel severely “off,” pause your workout. Give yourself permission to EASE into intermittent fasting and fasted workouts. This is especially true if you are an endurance athlete.
#4) Expect funny looks if you spend a lot of mornings with breakfast eaters.
A few weeks back I had a number of friends staying with me, and they were all completely dumbfounded when I told them I didn’t eat breakfast anymore.
I tried to explain it to them but received a bunch of blank stares. Breakfast has become so enGRAINed (zing!) in our culture that NOT eating it sounds crazy.
You will get weird looks from those around you…embrace it. I still go to brunch or sit with friends, I just drink black coffee and enjoy a conversation.
#5) Stay busy. If you are just sitting around thinking about how hungry you are, you’ll be more likely to struggle with this. For that reason, I time my fasting periods for maximum efficiency and minimal discomfort:
My first few hours of fasting come after consuming a MONSTER dinner, where the last thing I want to think about is eating.
When I’m sleeping: 8 of my 16 hours are occupied by sleeping. Tough to feel hungry when I’m dreaming about becoming a Jedi.
When I’m busy: After waking up, 12 hours of my fasting is already done. I spend three hours doing my best work (while drinking a cup of black coffee), and then comes my final hour of fasting: training.
#6) Zero-calorie beverages are okay. I drink green tea in the morning for my caffeine kick while writing. If you want to drink water, black coffee, or tea during your fasted period, that’s okay. Remember, don’t overthink it – keep things simple! Although be aware that Dr. Rhonda Patrick over at FoundMyFitness believes that a fast should stop at the first consumption of anything other than water, so experiment yourself and see how your body responds.
If you want to put milk in your coffee, or drink diet soda occasionally while fasting, I’m not going to stop you. Remember, we’re going for consistency and habit-building here – if milk or cream in your coffee makes life worth living, don’t deprive yourself.
There are MUCH bigger fish to fry with regards to getting healthy than a few calories here and there during a fast.
80% adherence that you stick with for a year is better than 100% adherence that you abandon after a month because it was too restrictive.
If you’re trying to get to a minimum bodyfat percentage, you’ll need to be more strict with overall calories – until then, however, do what allows you to stay compliant!
Track your calories, and see how your body changes when eating the same amount of food, but condensed into a certain window.
#8) Don’t expect miracles. Yes, Intermittent Fasting can potentially help you lose weight, increase insulin sensitivity and growth hormone secretion (all good things), but it is only ONE factor in hundreds that will determine your body composition and overall health. Don’t expect to drop to 8% body fat and get ripped just by skipping breakfast.
This is just one tool that can contribute to your success.
Getting Started with Intermittent Fasting: Next Steps
Intermittent fasting can potentially have some very positive benefits for somebody trying to lose weight or gain lean body mass.
Men and women will tend to have different results, just like each individual person will have different results. The ONLY way to find out is through a conversation with your doctor and self-experimentation.
There are multiple ways to “do” an Intermittent Fasting Plan:
Fast and feast regularly: Fast for a certain number of hours, then consume all calories within a certain number of hours.
Eat normally, then fast 1-2x a week: Consume your normal meals every day, then pick one or two days a week where you fast for 24 hours. Eat your last meal Sunday night, and then don’t eat again until dinner the following day.
Fast occasionally: probably the easiest method for the person who wants to do the least amount of work. Simply skip a meal whenever it’s convenient. On the road? Skip breakfast. Busy day at work? Skip lunch. Eat poorly all day Saturday? Make your first meal of the day dinner on Sunday.
After that, get started! Take photos, step on the scale, and track your progress for the next month.
See how your body responds.
See how your physique changes. See how your workouts change.
And then decide if it’s something you want to keep doing!
4 years later, I have no plans on going back to eating breakfast. Sorry General Mills and Dr. Kellogg!
Thanks for reading, and I hope we gave you ALL the information you wanted about Intermittent Fasting, it’s underlying mechanisms for success, and reasons it may (or may not) work for you!
-Steve
PS: Before you take off, grab our Intermittent Fasting Worksheet to help you start your fasting practice:
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
PPS: Make sure you check out the rest of our guides on losing weight:
CAVEAT: I’m a dude and can only speak from anecdotal evidence in speaking with women who have done IF, parsing studies, and trying to draw some conclusions that will help you make a decision
Glucose tolerance when doing alternate day fasting: study
Short-term fasting in normal women: absence of effects on gonadotrophin secretion and the menstrual cycle: PubMed Extract
Endocrine and chronobiological effects of fasting in women: Abstract
lass=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-3588421″ src=”https://ift.tt/BMPCTUr; alt=”Tony the Tiger wants you to keep eating breakfast. Should you, or should you try intermittent fasting?” width=”708″ height=”375″ />
“…Tony the Tiger tells us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day! It’s grrrrrreat!”
This adage about breakfast has become commonplace that it’s readily and unquestionably accepted as fact.
Well then, what’s with the growing popularity of Intermittent Fasting and SKIPPING breakfast?
(Tony just audibly gasped.)
In this Ultimate Guide to Intermitting Fasting, I’ll teach you everything about the science of fasting and what results you can expect:
We’re going to take two widely accepted healthy eating “rules” and turn them on their head:
RULE #1: You HAVE to eat first thing in the morning: Make sure you start with a healthy breakfast, so you can get that metabolism firing first thing in the morning!
“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”
There are even studies that show those who eat earlier in the day lose more weight than those who ate later in the day or skipped a meal.[1]
RULE #2: Eat lots of small meals for weight loss. Make sure you eat six small meals throughout the day so your metabolism stays operating at maximum capacity all day long.”
In other words, “eat breakfast and lots of small meals to lose weight and obtain optimal health.”
Can you eat breakfast and lots of small meals and get great results? Of course.
But what “conventional wisdom” misses are the actual underlying mechanisms WHY this works (hint: it’s how it affects overall behavior) – which can lead us to a false positive. Sure it can work, but if you don’t know WHY it’s working, you might miss an opportunity to do something different that works BETTER for you and your life.
For example, what if there’s science and research that shows SKIPPING BREAKFAST (the horror! blasphemy!) can help with optimum human performance, mental and physical health improvement, maximum muscle retention, and body fat loss? How would that fit in with our conventional wisdom?
That’s where our exploration of Intermittent Fasting comes in.
Intermittent fasting is not a diet, but rather a dieting pattern.
In simpler terms: it’s making a conscious decision to skip certain meals on purpose.
By fasting and then feasting deliberately, intermittent fasting generally means that you consume your calories during a specific window of the day, and choose not to eat food for a larger window of time.
There are a few different common patterns to implement Intermittent Fasting, which I learned about from Martin over at LeanGains, a resource specifically built around fasted strength training:
#1) INTERMITTENT FASTING 16/8 PLAN
What it is: Fasting for 16 hours and then only eating within a specific 8-hour window. For example, only eating from noon-8 PM, essentially skipping breakfast.
Some people only eat in a 6-hour window, or even a 4-hour window. This is the “feasting” and “fasting” parts of your days and the most common form of Intermittent Fasting. It’s also my preferred method (5 years running).
Two examples: The top means you are skipping breakfast, the bottom means you are skipping dinner each day:
You can adjust this window to make it work for your life:
If you start eating at: 7AM, stop eating and start fasting at 3pm.
If you start eating at: 11AM, stop eating and start fasting at 7pm.
If you start eating at: 2PM, stop eating and start fasting at 10pm.
If you start eating at: 6PM, stop eating and start fasting at 2AM.
#2) INTERMITTENT FASTING 24-HOUR PLAN
Skip two meals one day, where you take 24 hours off from eating. For example, eat on a normal schedule (finishing dinner at 8PM) and then you don’t eat again until 8PM the following day.
With this plan, you eat your normal 3 meals per day, and then occasionally pick a day to skip breakfast and lunch the next day.
If you can only do an 18 hour fast, or a 20 hour fast, or a 22 hour fast – that’s okay! Adjust with different time frames and see how your body responds.
Two examples: skipping breakfast and lunch one day of the week, and then another where you skip lunch and dinner one day, two days in a week.
Note: You can do this once a week, twice a week, or whatever works best for your life and situation. (We’ll talk more about how to determine that later.)
Those are the two most popular intermittent fasting plans, and the two we’ll be focusing on, though there are many variations of both that you can modify for yourself:
Some people eat in a 4-hour window, others do 6 or 8.
You’ll need to experiment, adjust to work for your lifestyle and goals, and see how your body responds. If there’s one thing we’ve learned after Coaching over 15,000 1-on-1 clients: there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to exercise and nutrition that works for everyone, all of the time.
Let’s first get into the science here behind Intermittent Fasting and if you should consider it!
How Does Intermittent Fasting Work?
Now, you might be thinking: “okay, so by skipping a meal, I will eat less than I normally eat on average (2 meals instead of 3), and thus I will lose weight, right?”
All things being equal, yes.
By cutting out an entire meal each day, you are consuming fewer calories per week – even if your two meals per day are slightly bigger than before. Overall, you’re still consuming fewer calories per day.
In this example, you’re eating LARGER lunches and dinners than you normally do, but by skipping breakfast you’ll consume 500 less calories per day.
And thus, weight loss!
However, that doesn’t mean this works 100% of the time, for everyone. Remember the conventional wisdom we challenged above? The same goes here. By understanding the underlying mechanism of weight loss (i.e. calorie deficit), we can better understand how our dieting strategy is affecting our behavior. Then we know if this strategy will work for us or not!
In the case of intermittent fasting, by condensing their eating window, many people feel more full and naturally eat less (like in the example above.)
However, it’s also totally possible for you to overconsume calories during that same period, which would result in weight gain instead of weight loss. Whomp whomp.
If you were reliant on the idea that “Intermittent Fasting works for weight loss” – full stop – you could be easily discouraged if it didn’t work. You might think: “Is my metabolism broken?” But because we know that intermittent fasting is one dieting strategy that CAN work for weight loss if it helps you stick to a caloric deficit more easily, you’re empowered to decide if this is a good fit for you. Eureka!
This is highlighted in a recent JAMA study[2] in which both calorie-restricted dieters and intermittent fasters lost similar amounts of weight over a year period.
You might be thinking: “Ok, ok, I get it. Caloric deficit. But what about the timing of meals – can’t that also influence how your body reacts?”
It’s true – your body operates differently when “feasting” compared to when “fasting”. But it’s important to understand how this fits into the big picture.
When you eat a meal, your body spends a few hours processing that food, burning what it can from what you just consumed.
Because it has all of this readily available, easy-to-burn energy (thanks to the food you ate), your body will choose to use that as energy rather than the fat you have stored.
During the “fasted state” (the hours in which your body is not consuming or digesting any food) your body doesn’t have a recently consumed meal to use as energy.
Thus, it is more likely to pull from the fat stored in your body as it’s the only energy source readily available.
However, when we compare the differences in energy used from body fat over an entire day, that’s entirely dependent on the total calories consumed. So while your body is more likely to pull energy from a recent meal, and will rely on fat stores once that energy runs out, if you eat the same amount of calories throughout the day, the result is the same amount of energy pulled from fat. It all balances out in the end.
The same goes for working out in a “fasted” state.
Without a ready supply of glucose and glycogen to pull from (which has been depleted throughout your fasted state, and hasn’t yet been replenished with a pre-workout meal), your body is forced to adapt and pull from a source of energy that it does have available: the fat stored in your cells.
While many of us get excited about the idea of being in a “fat-burning mode”, the same principle holds. If we burn an equal amount of calories, whether fasted or not, the result is less total energy stored in our fat cells at the end of the day. (There’s even an argument for athletes whose sports require glycogen to be readily available to meet their energy demands – making sure these stores are never depleted is important so an athlete doesn’t ‘bonk’ in the middle of their competition.)
Hopefully, you can see how easy it is to take a true fact of our biology (we burn more fat from fat stores when in a fasted state) and extrapolate it to seem more than it is. The same goes for six meals a day!
The truth is, there isn’t a magic pill or solution that’s going to overcome the basics. The best reason to do Intermittent Fasting is because you like it and it fits within your lifestyle.
TL/DR: Fasting can help promote weight loss and muscle building when done properly ~ though it isn’t the ONLY method that works.
Should I Eat 6 Small Meals a Day?
There are a few main reasons why diet books recommend six small meals:
1) When you eat a meal, your body does have to burn extra calories [9] just to process that meal. So, the theory is that if you eat all day long with small meals, your body is constantly burning extra calories and your metabolism is firing at optimal capacity, right? Well, that’s not true.
Whether you eat 2000 calories spread out throughout the day, or 2000 calories in a small window, your body will burn the same number of calories processing the food [10].
So, the whole “keep your metabolism firing at optimum capacity by always eating” sounds good in principle, but reality tells a different story.
2) When you eat smaller meals, you might be less likely to overeat during your regular meals. I can definitely see some truth here, especially for people who struggle with portion control or don’t know how much food they should be eating.
However, once you educate yourself and take control of your eating, some might find that eating six times a day is very prohibitive and requires a lot of effort. I know I do.
Also, because you’re eating six small meals, I’d argue that you probably never feel “full,” and you might be MORE likely to eat extra calories during each snack.
This is why personal preference is so important when picking a diet strategy that works for you.
Although grounded in seemingly logical principles, the “six meals a day” doesn’t work for the reason you think it would (#1), and may feel prohibitive to prepare and eat 6 times a day (#2). Other people may find that 6 meals a day fits them perfectly. If you find what works for you, that rules!
If we think back to caveman days, we’d have been in serious trouble as a species if we had to eat every three hours. Do you think Joe Caveman pulled out his pocket sundial six times a day to consume his equally portioned meals?
Hell no! He ate when he could, endured and dealt with long periods of NOT eating (no refrigeration or food storage) and his body adapted to still function optimally enough to still go out and catch new food.
A recent study (written about in the NYT, highlighted by LeanGains) has done a great job of challenging the “six-meals-a-day” technique for weight loss [11]:
There were [no statistical] differences between the low- and high- [meal frequency] groups for adiposity indices, appetite measurements or gut peptides (peptide YY and ghrelin) either before or after the intervention. We conclude that increasing meal frequency does not promote greater body weight loss under the conditions described in the present study.
That’s why we made this:
Should I Try intermittent fasting? (6 Things to Consider)
Now that we’re through a lot of the science stuff, let’s get into the reality of the situation: why should you consider Intermittent Fasting?
When you fast, you are potentially making it easier to restrict your total caloric intake over the course of the week, which can lead to consistent weight loss and maintenance.
#2) Because it simplifies your day. Rather than having to prepare, pack, eat, and time your meals every 2-3 hours, you simply skip a meal or two and only worry about eating food in your eating window.
It’s one less decision you have to make every day.
It could allow you to enjoy bigger portioned meals (thus making your tastebuds and stomach satiated) and STILL eat fewer calories on average.
It’s a point that Coach Matt makes in this video on intermittent fasting:
#3) It requires less time (and potentially less money). Rather than having to prepare or purchase three to six meals a day, you only need to prepare two meals.
Instead of stopping what you’re doing six times a day to eat, you simply only have to stop to eat twice. Rather than having to do the dishes six times, you only have to do them twice.
Rather than having to purchase six meals a day, you only need to purchase two.
#4) It promotes stronger insulin sensitivity and increased growth hormone secretion, two keys for weight loss and muscle gain. Intermittent fasting helps you create a double whammy for weight loss and building a solid physique.
#5) It can level up your brain, including positively counteracting conditions like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia.
As explained here in this TEDx talk by Mark Mattson, Professor at Johns Hopkins University and Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, fasting is grounded in serious research and more studies are coming out showing the benefits:
#6) Plus, Wolverine does it:
If adamantium-clawed superheroes do Intermittent Fasting, it can probably work for you too, if you can make it work for your particular lifestyle and situation!
What Are the Negative Effects of intermittent fasting?
In my own experimentation with Intermittent Fasting since 2014, I have found very few negative side effects with Intermittent Fasting.
The biggest concern most people have is that Intermittent Fasting will lead to lower energy, focus, and the “holy crap I am hungry” feeling during the fasting period and ruin them.
People are concerned that they will spend all morning being miserable because they haven’t consumed any food, and thus will be miserable at work and ineffective at whatever task it is they are working on.
The following are my thoughts and experiences, and your results may vary:
Yes, the initial transition from EATING ALL THE TIME, to intermittent fasting MIGHT be a bit of a jolt to your system; it was for me.
However, once I got through the transition after a few days, my body quickly adapted and learned to function just as well only eating a few times a day.
Although I fast for 16 hours per day with no issues, the following might help assuage your fears that skipping breakfast will cause your body to eat itself and your brain to implode:
After 48 hours of fasting in a recent study[12], “cognitive performance, activity, sleep, and mood are not adversely affected in healthy humans by two days of calorie-deprivation.” You’ll be fasting for far less time than that.
“So why do I feel grouchy and lethargic when I skip breakfast?”
In this nerd’s humble opinion, a good portion of the grumpiness is a result of past eating habits. If you eat every three hours normally, and normally eat as soon as you wake up, your body will start to get hungry every three hours as it is now used to consuming food every three hours.
If you eat breakfast every morning, your body expects to wake up and eat food.
Once you retrain your body to NOT expect food all day every day (or first thing in the morning), these side effects become less of an issue. In addition, ghrelin (a hormone that makes you hungry [13]), is actually lowest in the mornings and decreases after a few hours of not eating too. The hunger pains will naturally pass!
Personally, I found this grumpiness subsided after a few days and now my mornings actually energize me. But your mileage may vary.
It’s important to understand that Intermittent Fasting is NOT a cure-all panacea. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that if you skip breakfast and then eat 4,000 calories of candy bars for lunch and dinner that you will lose weight.
If you struggle with portion control, figure out your calorie goals and track your calorie intake in your meals to make sure you’re not overeating.
If you skip breakfast, you might be so hungry from this that you OVEREAT for lunch and this can lead to weight gain. Again, the important thing here is that with an intermittent fasting plan, you’re eating fewer calories than normal because you’re skipping a meal every day (if your goal is weight loss.)
Think about it in caveman terms again. We certainly found ways to survive during periods of feast and famine, and that remains true today. Imagine if you needed to eat in order to be active and alert: what would hungry cavemen do?
They would go find food, and that probably required a ton of effort. It actually takes our bodies about 84 hours of fasting [14] before our glucose levels are adversely affected. As we’re talking about small fasts (16-24 hour periods), this doesn’t concern us.
AN IMPORTANT CAVEAT:Intermittent Fasting can be more complex for people who have issues with blood sugar regulation, suffer from hypoglycemia, have diabetes, etc. If you fit into this category, check with your doctor or dietitian before adjusting your eating schedule. It also affects women differently (there’s a whole section dedicated to that here).
Can I Build Muscle and Gain Weight While Intermittent Fasting?
I still eat roughly the same number of calories I was consuming before, but instead of eating all damn day long, I condense all of my calorie consumption into an eight-hour window.
11 AM Work out with heavy strength training in a fasted state.
7 PM Consume the second portion of my calories for the day in a big dinner.
8 PM – 12 PM the next day: Fast for 16 hours.
In a different method, my friend Nate Green packed on a crazy amount of muscle while fasting for a full 24 hours on Sundays – so it is possible. [15]
I’m not kidding when I say this has revolutionized how I look at muscle building and fat loss.
Ultimately, this method flies in the face of the typical “bulk and cut” techniques of overeating to build muscle (along with adding a lot of fat) before cutting calories to lose fat (along with some muscle) and settling down at a higher weight.
I prefer this method to the bulk-and-cut technique for a few reasons:
There’s far less of a crazy swing to your weight. If you are putting on 30 pounds and then cutting 25 to gain 5 lbs of muscle, your body is going through drastic swings of body mass. Your clothes will fit differently, you’ll have different levels of definition, and your body will wonder what the hell is going on.
You’re consuming less food and thus spending less money. Rather than overeating to put on 1 pound of muscle and 4 pounds of fat in a week or two, you’re aiming to eat exactly enough to put on 1 pound of muscle without adding much fat on top of it. Yeah, it’s a delicate balance, but there’s far less swing involved. You are just slowly, steadily, and consistently building muscle and strength over many months.
There’s never a need to get “vacation-ready”: we all want to look good naked, right? When you are just adding muscle, you don’t need to worry about getting your body ready before by drastically altering your diet (avoiding a miserable crash diet like the Military Diet). [16]
You can make small adjustments and stay on target. Keep your body fat percentage low, build strength and muscle, and if you happen to notice your body fat creeping up, cut back on the carbs. Within two weeks you should be back at your preferred body fat percentage and can continue the muscle-building process.
A note on BCAA consumption. Martin from LeanGains [17] recommends consuming Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s) as a supplement with regards to fasted training to aid your muscles through your workout.
Personally, I used BCAAs for about 6-8 months during my initial start with fasted training (consuming them before training), though haven’t used them in the past 2+ years. I didn’t notice any adverse effects to not taking them with regard to my performance. Recent research suggests that as long as your protein intake is adequate, BCAA supplementation doesn’t seem to have any benefit for building muscle or strength [29][[30]]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33741748/[[30]]
Now, it should go without saying that if you want to build muscle while fasting, you need to work out. Specifically, by lifting heavy.
If you want help building a workout routine designed to create muscle, I have a couple of options:
#1) “Build Your Own Workout Routine” and get your hands dirty. Our guide will walk you through building a full-body exercise program in 10 simple steps.
By only eating fat and protein, your body must adapt to run on fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. In the absence of carbs/glucose, your body converts fats to ketones and uses them for fuel.
This process is called “ketosis,” and there are two ways for a body to enter ketosis:
Eating in a way that induces ketosis (very low carb, high fat).
Fasting…Hey, that’s what you’re reading about right now!
We actually have an amazing success story here on Nerd Fitness, Larry, who followed our strategies, went Keto and start intermittent fasting. He ended up losing weight, getting stronger, AND overcame the challenges of rheumatoid arthritis (click on the image for his story)!
Here’s how the fasting portion of it works:
As your body enters a fast period when there are no sources of glucose energy readily available, the liver begins the process of breaking down fat into ketones.
Fasting itself can trigger ketosis.
Fasting for a period of time before kicking off a Keto-friendly eating plan COULD speed your transition into the metabolic state of ketosis, and fasting intermittently while in ketosis could help you maintain that state.
I personally love fasting for the simplicity: I skip breakfast every day and train in a fasted state. It’s one less decision I have to make, it’s one less opportunity to make a bad food choice, and it helps me reach my goals.
WHY KETO + IF WORKS = eating Keto can be really challenging. And every time you eat, it’s an opportunity to do it wrong and accidentally eat foods that knock you out of ketosis.
You’re also tempted to overeat.
So, by skipping a meal, you’re eliminating one meal, one decision, one chance to screw up.
Note: if you’re thinking “Steve, am I losing weight because I’m skipping 1/3rd of my meals for the day, AND eliminating an entire macronutrient?”, then you’d be right.
Both Keto and IF have secondary effects that could also be factoring in – physiological benefits which I explain in both articles.
Your value may vary!
You need to decide what works for you.
You probably won’t become “keto-adapted” (your body running on ketones) just skipping breakfast every day – your body will still have enough glucose stored from your carb-focused meals for lunch and dinner the day before.
In order to use fasting to enter ketosis, the fast needs to be long enough to deplete your carb/glucose stores, or you need to severely restrict carbohydrates from your meals in addition to IF in order to enter ketosis.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Experiment and try different strategies that will work for you.
By skipping a meal or minimizing carbohydrate intake, you’re more likely than not to lose weight:
You can do intermittent fasting without eating a Keto Diet and lose weight.
You can do a Keto Diet without intermittent Fasting and lose weight.
Does Intermittent Fasting Have Different Effects on Men and Women?
The quick answer is: “yes, Intermittent Fasting can affect men and women differently.”
Anecdotally, we have many women in our online coaching program that swear by Intermittent Fasting, while others have had adverse effects.
Let’s dig into the science and studies.
A recent PubMed summary concluded that “fasting can be prescribed as a safe medical intervention as well as a lifestyle regimen which can improve women’s health in many folds [18].
Now, in that extract, many of the studies cited are focused on specifically calorie restriction (and not just fasting), and they also say that “future studies should address this gap by designing medically supervised fasting techniques to extract better evidence.”
Digging into the PubMed Archives brought me to the following conclusions [19]:
One small study (with 8 men and 8 women, all non-obese) resulted in the following: “Glucose response to a meal was slightly impaired in women after 3 weeks of treatment, but insulin response was unchanged. Men had no change in glucose response and a significant reduction in insulin response.”[20]
Another small study (8 women) studied the effects on their menstrual cycles after a 72-hour fast – which is significantly longer than any fast recommended in this article: “in spite of profound metabolic changes, a 72-hour fast during the follicular phase does not affect the menstrual cycle of normal cycling women.” [21].
Yet another study tracked 11 women with 72-hour fasts (again, longer than we’d recommend) and it found that “Fasting in women elicited expected metabolic responses – included increased cortisol (a stress hormone) – and apparently advanced the central circadian clock (which can throw off sleeping patterns). [22]
Those studies above, in working with small sample sizes, and different types of fasting than recommended here, would lead me to believe that fasting affects men and women differently, and that many of the weight loss benefits associated with intermittent fasting (that affect insulin and glucose responses) work positively for men and negatively for women.
There are also a series of articles[23] out there that dig into the potential reproductive health issues, stress challenges, induction of early-menopause [24] associated with fasting (and calorie restriction) for women.
Precision Nutrition – a great resource – recommends not attempting Intermittent Fasting as a woman if:
The challenge associated with all of this is that there aren’t enough long-term studies, with large enough sample sizes, specifically targeting female humans, with relation to the different types of Intermittent Fasting.
ALL OF THIS TO SAY: It does appear that men and women will have different experiences with intermittent fasting; we’re all unique snowflakes (yep, especially you), and your body will be affected by intermittent fasting differently than the person next to you.
There is enough evidence as cited in the articles and studies above that would give me pause to recommend Intermittent Fasting for women, especially if you are considering getting pregnant in the near term.
If you are looking to attempt fasting for weight loss reasons, my research has shown me that Intermittent Fasting could be less effective for women than men with regards to weight loss, and thus you would be wise to keep your efforts elsewhere:
Now, if you’ve read the above warnings, you are still curious about Intermittent Fasting, and you want to give it a try as a female, that is your choice!
You know your body best.
So, get blood work done, speak with your doctor and get a check-up.
Give intermittent fasting a shot, track your results, and see how your body/blood work changes as a result of Intermittent Fasting and decide if it’s right for you.
Your mileage may vary, so speak with a doctor or find a doctor versed in intermittent fasting plans and treat it like an experiment on yourself!
Top 6 Questions about Intermittent Fasting
1) “Won’t I get really hungry if I start skipping meals?”
As explained above, this can be a result of the habits you have built for your body. If you are constantly eating or always eat the same time of day, your body can actually learn to prepare itself for food by beginning the process of insulin production and preparation for food.
After a brief adjustment period, your body can adapt to the fact that it’s only eating a few times a day. The more overweight you are, and the more often you eat, the more of an initial struggle this might be.
Remember, your body’s physical and cognitive abilities most likely won’t be diminished as a result of short-term fasting.[25]
2) “Where will I get my energy for my workouts? Won’t I be exhausted and not be able to complete my workouts if fasting?”
This was a major concern of mine as well, but the research shows this might not be the case: “Training with limited carbohydrate availability can stimulate adaptations in muscle cells to facilitate energy production via fat oxidation.”[26]
In other words, when you train in a fasted state, your body can get better at burning fat for energy when there are no carbs to pull from!
The caveat to this is that pulling energy from fat oxidation is a slower process than breaking down carbohydrates. If your workout is super intense (high-intensity interval training, MMA, even bodybuilding) – you’ll likely benefit from having more readily available energy to fuel your workouts for better performance.
3) “I like the idea of fasted training, but I work a regular 9-5 or a night shift and can’t train at 11AM as you do. What am I supposed to do?”
Depending on your training schedule, lifestyle, and goals, go back to the portion above where I talk about the 16/8 protocol and simply adjust your hours of fasting and feasting.
Don’t overthink this. If you can’t train until 5pm, that’s okay. Consume a small meal for lunch, or shift your Intermittent Fasting window to eat all of your meals in the 8 hours post-workout. Better to do that than abandon it as a lost cause and have 0% compliance.
If you are an elite athlete, speak with a coach or nutritionist about your specific concerns and expectations. Otherwise, make intermittent fasting work for you Consider trying the 24-hour protocol below instead of the 16/8 protocol.
If you train later in the day (say, 7pm) but break your fast before training (aka Lunch), make it a smaller meal focused around fats and protein – which should be a solid goal even if you aren’t Intermittent Fasting! Try to time your carb and big meal consumption to happen AFTER your workout.
If you exercise BEFORE work, but then don’t eat until lunchtime: consider a protein supplement immediately after your workout, or simply wait until lunch to start eating. See how your body responds and adjust accordingly.
Do what you can, and don’t psyche yourself out! Get started and adjust along the way.
4) “Won’t fasting cause muscle loss?”
We’ve been told by the supplement industry that we need to consume 30 g of protein every few hours, as that’s the most amount of protein our body can process at a time.
Along with that, we’ve been told that if we don’t eat protein every few hours, our body’s muscle will start to break down to be burned as energy.
Again, NOT TRUE! Our bodies are quite adept at preserving muscle even when fasting [27], and it turns out that protein absorption by our body can take place over many many many hours.
Protein consumed in a shorter period of time has no difference on the body compared to protein spread throughout the day.
5) “What about my body going into starvation mode from not eating?”
Now, the thought process here is that when we don’t feed ourselves, our bodies assume calories aren’t available and thus choose to store more calories as opposed to burning them, therefore eliminating the benefits of weight loss with fasting.
Fortunately, this is NOT true.
Starvation mode is significantly overblown and sensationalized these days. It takes a dramatic amount of starvation, for a long, long, long time, before your body kicks into “starvation mode”. We’re talking about 24-hour or 16-hour fasts here, and starvation mode takes significantly longer than that.[28]
In other words: starvation mode should not be factoring into your decision here.
5) How much should I eat while intermittent fasting?
If your goal is weight loss, you still need to consume fewer calories than you burn every day to lose weight. If your goal is bulking up, you’ll need to consume more calories than you burn every day. Intermittent Fasting isn’t a cure-all, it’s a PART of the puzzle.
To start, begin intermittent fasting and eat your normal-sized meals and track your weight and performance. If you are losing weight and happy with the progress, keep doing what you’re doing! If you are NOT losing weight, you could be eating too much. It’s a message I really strike home in our guide “Why Can’t I Lose Weight?”
#1) Don’t freak out! Stop wondering: “can I fast 15 hours instead of 16?” or “what if I eat an apple during my fasted period, will that ruin everything?” Relax. Your body is a complex piece of machinery and learns to adapt. Everything is not as cut and dry as you think.
If you want to eat breakfast one day but not another, that’s okay. If you are going for optimal aesthetic or athletic performance, I can see the need to be more rigid in your discipline, but otherwise…freaking chill out and don’t stress over minutiae!
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to your intermittent fasting plan. It’s just one tool in your toolkit.
#2) Consider fasted walks in the morning. They can be a great start to clear my mind and prepare for the day.
Simply wake up and go for a mile walk. Maybe you could even start walking to Mordor?
#3) Listen to your body during your strength training workouts. If you get lightheaded, make sure you are consuming enough water.
If you notice a significant drop in performance, make sure you are eating enough calories (especially fats and protein) during your feasting window.
And if you feel severely “off,” pause your workout. Give yourself permission to EASE into intermittent fasting and fasted workouts. This is especially true if you are an endurance athlete.
#4) Expect funny looks if you spend a lot of mornings with breakfast eaters.
A few weeks back I had a number of friends staying with me, and they were all completely dumbfounded when I told them I didn’t eat breakfast anymore.
I tried to explain it to them but received a bunch of blank stares. Breakfast has become so enGRAINed (zing!) in our culture that NOT eating it sounds crazy.
You will get weird looks from those around you…embrace it. I still go to brunch or sit with friends, I just drink black coffee and enjoy a conversation.
#5) Stay busy. If you are just sitting around thinking about how hungry you are, you’ll be more likely to struggle with this. For that reason, I time my fasting periods for maximum efficiency and minimal discomfort:
My first few hours of fasting come after consuming a MONSTER dinner, where the last thing I want to think about is eating.
When I’m sleeping: 8 of my 16 hours are occupied by sleeping. Tough to feel hungry when I’m dreaming about becoming a Jedi.
When I’m busy: After waking up, 12 hours of my fasting is already done. I spend three hours doing my best work (while drinking a cup of black coffee), and then comes my final hour of fasting: training.
#6) Zero-calorie beverages are okay. I drink green tea in the morning for my caffeine kick while writing. If you want to drink water, black coffee, or tea during your fasted period, that’s okay. Remember, don’t overthink it – keep things simple! Although be aware that Dr. Rhonda Patrick over at FoundMyFitness believes that a fast should stop at the first consumption of anything other than water, so experiment yourself and see how your body responds.
If you want to put milk in your coffee, or drink diet soda occasionally while fasting, I’m not going to stop you. Remember, we’re going for consistency and habit-building here – if milk or cream in your coffee makes life worth living, don’t deprive yourself.
There are MUCH bigger fish to fry with regards to getting healthy than a few calories here and there during a fast.
80% adherence that you stick with for a year is better than 100% adherence that you abandon after a month because it was too restrictive.
If you’re trying to get to a minimum bodyfat percentage, you’ll need to be more strict with overall calories – until then, however, do what allows you to stay compliant!
Track your calories, and see how your body changes when eating the same amount of food, but condensed into a certain window.
#8) Don’t expect miracles. Yes, Intermittent Fasting can potentially help you lose weight, increase insulin sensitivity and growth hormone secretion (all good things), but it is only ONE factor in hundreds that will determine your body composition and overall health. Don’t expect to drop to 8% body fat and get ripped just by skipping breakfast.
This is just one tool that can contribute to your success.
Getting Started with Intermittent Fasting: Next Steps
Intermittent fasting can potentially have some very positive benefits for somebody trying to lose weight or gain lean body mass.
Men and women will tend to have different results, just like each individual person will have different results. The ONLY way to find out is through a conversation with your doctor and self-experimentation.
There are multiple ways to “do” an Intermittent Fasting Plan:
Fast and feast regularly: Fast for a certain number of hours, then consume all calories within a certain number of hours.
Eat normally, then fast 1-2x a week: Consume your normal meals every day, then pick one or two days a week where you fast for 24 hours. Eat your last meal Sunday night, and then don’t eat again until dinner the following day.
Fast occasionally: probably the easiest method for the person who wants to do the least amount of work. Simply skip a meal whenever it’s convenient. On the road? Skip breakfast. Busy day at work? Skip lunch. Eat poorly all day Saturday? Make your first meal of the day dinner on Sunday.
After that, get started! Take photos, step on the scale, and track your progress for the next month.
See how your body responds.
See how your physique changes. See how your workouts change.
And then decide if it’s something you want to keep doing!
4 years later, I have no plans on going back to eating breakfast. Sorry General Mills and Dr. Kellogg!
Thanks for reading, and I hope we gave you ALL the information you wanted about Intermittent Fasting, it’s underlying mechanisms for success, and reasons it may (or may not) work for you!
-Steve
PS: Before you take off, grab our Intermittent Fasting Worksheet to help you start your fasting practice:
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
PPS: Make sure you check out the rest of our guides on losing weight:
“Can I get rid of my man boobs quickly and naturally?”
Awkward phrase? Sure.
But that’s not gonna get us to shy away from the topic here on Nerd Fitness.
We work on solutions to questions just like this with our Online Coaching Clients:awkward questions and challenging situations that are tough to talk about, but can be helped!
This is what we do, and we’re really good at it.
Today, let’s tackle the “moobs” situation head-on by covering all of the following in this MASSIVE guide:
Let’s chat about some medical definitions, because it’ll help us put “man boobs” in some proper context.
Gynecomastia is defined as the benign growth of the male breast glandular tissue. The National Institute of Health states it’s usually caused by “increased estrogen activity, decreased testosterone activity, or the use of numerous medications.”[1]
Pseudogynecomastiais when male breasts are enlarged by fat deposits, due to an increase in body fat which distributes itself on one’s body according to genetics.
Most men who struggle with “man boobs” or “moobs” are in this second category, and the “pseudo” means they don’t really have the condition “gynecomastia.”
There is no hormonal imbalance.
Instead, the body is just storing extra fat in the chest area.
I’ll mostly be talking about shedding body fat and building muscle to lose “moobs,” but I will also talk about gynecomastia and medical conditions later.
Next up!
Can You Get Rid of Man Boobs?
Why do some men store fat in their chest?
We all process and store calories differently in our bodies.
And how our body stores excess calories is a critical concept for our discussion on “man boobs.”
If you eat more calories than you burn, day after day, month after month, year after year, your body has to do something with all that extra energy.
If we’re sedentary, more often than not, the body will choose to store that energy as fat to be used for later.
Depending on our genetics, our body might choose to store that fat in our butt, gut, thighs, or chest.
Probably a combination of all those things.
And for some of us, a large portion of that body fat deposits itself in our chest area.
And thus, man boobs.
So, in order to start reversing the process, we need to have a two-pronged approach to tackling the “moobs” problem naturally and safely:
Exercise and nutrition.
Specifically, strength training and calorie restriction.
If you are somebody that wants EXACT instruction and a nutritional plan that is designed to help you reduce your man boobs, check out Nerd Fitness Coaching. We’ve helped people just like you do this the right way.
Can Exercises Target Chest Fat?
Fat and muscle are two different ‘systems’ in our body.
Fat sits on top of the muscle, like oil on water.
When we target a specific area for weight loss, like with a Thighmaster, all we’re really doing is exercising the muscle underneath the fat on our thighs.
And don’t get me wrong – this is GREAT (the muscle, not the Thighmaster).
Strength train so more calories are diverted to rebuilding our muscle mass rather than getting stored as fat.
Strength train (again) to build up the muscle under the fat. Muscular pecs with a low body fat percentage look dramatically different than man boobs.
Here’s why: strength training preserves the muscles we have (and can help build pectoral muscles).
Our body also has to rebuild the muscle that breaks down while we exercise, so it uses any extra calories we have to do that rather than storing it as fat!
Think of it kind of like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter (come on, this is Nerd Fitness after all).
When we strength train, our body will act like The Sorting Hat and divert calories coming into House “Rebuild Muscle” and away from House “Store As Fat.”
It’s a message we really strike home in our video for Body Recomposition:
With a strategy of slight caloric restriction combined with enough protein and heavy strength training, we’re decreasing the body fat on top of our muscle, while also building up that same muscle underneath.
This results in tighter skin, with less padding (fat), stretched over firmer muscles.
Build up oour pectoral muscles (chest muscles under your “man boobs.”)
Same with broadening our shoulders.
We can also improve our posture to make sure we stand tall and proud, puffing our chest out and pulling our shoulder blades back.
In order to accomplish each of these goals, we’re gonna focus on building up strength in our PUSH muscles and our PULL muscles.
Our first stop will be push-ups, a foundational exercise for developing upper body strength.
We show the correct way to do one right here:
I don’t care if you need to do them from your knees or doing an elevated push-up:
KNEE PUSH-UP
ELEVATED PUSH-UP
We all start somewhere, and the name of the game is progressive overload – getting stronger with each workout!
In addition to the push-up, let’s consider the following as the best 5 Advanced Chest Exercises.
These are the types of exercises we build into the workout programs for our Coaching Clients looking to reduce chest fat and build up muscle in that area:
#1) Bench press (barbell or dumbbell).
If one piece of equipment is visually associated with a fitness gym, it would be a bench press. If you’ve never used one before, check out our guide on using a bench press safely right here.
#2) Incline bench press.
We can also work on an incline bench press to develop a more rounded-pectoral muscle that targets your upper chest.
Not only can our pectoral muscles help push forward, they also get worked out when we do an overhead press (though much less so than the bench press variations.)
Varying chest exercises is a good way to help attack all different sides and parts of our chest and build well-rounded pectorals.
Here’s a dumbbell variation if you can’t train with a barbell yet:
The dumbbell fly is another great exercise that targets the chest. This is one you want to make sure you do with good form. Lie on a bench like you are about to do a dumbbell bench press (but you’ll want to use MUCH lighter weights to start.) Keep your elbows slightly bent and your chest puffed up. Reach to the sides until you feel a great stretch RIGHT in the chest muscle, and then come back to the starting position.
As we cover in our “how to build your own workout” guide, make sure to do a push exercise in every workout to start building up pectoral muscles.
Again, start with push-ups.
Start doing them today.
Again, if you can’t do a regular push-up, a knee push-up is totally fine.
Just do them.
After you get cozy with push-ups, move onto the above advanced moves or follow some of the following workouts:
I asked the male members of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion about man boobs, and many have reported improving their appearance with these pectoral exercises.
Outside of improving man boobs, strength training will make every other aspect of your life better.
Bringing groceries in from the car, doing that thing that consenting adults do, and defending yourself against ninjas will all be much easier after strength training.
Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include two other exercises that can change your life:
Show me somebody who is super strong at those four movements, and I’ll show you somebody who has a great physique.
Seriously, don’t neglect those PULL muscles!
This exercise might seem counterintuitive: why work on your back muscles if we’re trying to build up the muscle in our pecs?
Balance and posture.
By building strength in our PULL muscles, we strengthen and tighten our back muscles. This will naturally cause us to pull our shoulder blades back and down into proper position, and give us a better posture.
If we ONLY do chest exercises, we’re more likely to get out of balance, which leads to contracted chest muscles, hunched shoulders, and poor posture.
Here are some options for building up our back muscles and improving our posture:
And if you can’t do a pull-up yet, here’s a great pull-up progression that will show you how to do assisted pull-ups to build up strength, like so:
Too long didn’t read:get strong, and your life will get better.
Build muscle in the right places, and it can help you reduce “man boob” problems.
Now, if you’re all:
“Steve this sounds awesome. I want to strength train, but damn man. I’m already self-conscious enough about my man boobs.
How the hell do I get enough confidence to go into a gym when I don’t know what I’m doing!”
Great question.
If you want expert guidance, form checks, and a custom build workout (and nutritional guidance) to help you transform your physique, we have a private, 1-on-1 coaching program that spurs nerds into action.
After all, temporary changes create temporary results.
And we want to get rid of man boobs permanently.
So, in order for us to lose body fat, we need to expend more calories than our body consumes, consistently.
Let’s put some numbers to this: 3,500 calories equals roughly one pound of fat.
So if we do the math here:
There are seven days in a week.
If we want to lose one pound of body fat in a week (a worthy, sustainable goal for some), we need to create a caloric deficit of 500 calories a day.
We can do this by consuming 500 fewer calories, burning 500 more calories, or a combination of the two.
Remember this: a daily 500-calorie deficit compared to how we normally eat to lose a pound a week.
(Note: in our coaching program, we’ve found clients have the most success targeting 0.5%-0.75% of their body weight per week as a fat loss goal. This is fast enough to see consistent results and stay motivated, while not SO restrictive that it’s completely unsustainable.)
What does 500 calories look like?
Here are two examples:
The number of calories found in a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew.
Hopefully, those two dots above made your head explode.
“Steve, you’re saying that in order for me to counteract just sipping on a Mountain Dew while owning noobs in Fortnite, I’d need to run 5 miles?
I haven’t run a mile since gym class. And that was 15 years ago.”
Yup.
Nutrition is 90% of the equation when it comes to weight loss.
NINETY. PERCENT.
Okay, I don’t actually know the exact percentage, but 90% is dramatic enough.
I hope to get you to realize that changing your nutrition is the most important thing you can do to reduce “man boobs.”
Sure, exercise is important.
However, when it comes to creating a caloric deficit, it’s much easier to decrease calories consumed vs. increase “calories burned.”
Put a different way: would you rather pour out that Mountain Dew, or run five miles?
Let’s tie together our discussion on “man boobs” with our philosophy on fitness: we’re eating too much, and our body is choosing to store these calories wherever it sees fit.
Unfortunately in this situation, it’s choosing to store them in our chest area.
We can’t change the past.
But we can change your future…and you won’t even need a wacky scientist.
This is why we’re gonna reverse the trend: eat a caloric deficit, consistently, until we reach our goal. Then learn how to eat AT our caloric needs to sustain it for the long run.
Over time, our body will respond by burning fat from certain areas, in a certain order (again, this is out of our control).
As our body fat percentage drops far enough, it should start to remove the body fat from your pectoral area.
We have two paths forward.
PATH ONE: Count calories. If you’ve never done this before and are interested in trying, we recommend recording every meal and morsel for 3-5 days to start. (We can use a food journal, a calorie-counting app like MyFitnessPal, etc.
It’ll teach you a lot about the food you eat, and yourself. From there, calorie counting can be a viable strategy for SOME to continue to monitor and dial in their caloric intake. For about 25% of our coaching clients, this is the process that works for them.
PATH TWO: follow our “simple plate” approach from our Healthy Eating Guide. Learn portions sizes, and start making slightly better choices. Focus on getting enough protein and veggies and cut back on liquid calories. Over 60% of our coaching clients find this method to be more sustainable and successful for them in the long-run.
I know that overhauling one’s diet is easier said than done.
But it’s time to take a proactive approach to nutrition.
You’re reading this article because man boobs are a real problem for you – educate yourself on what you’re eating and work on cutting back on the calories!
And that’s what we’ll cover in the next section: what foods to eat that will help you reduce your calories without you being miserable.
What should I be eating to lose “moobs”?
The Nerd Fitness philosophy on what constitutes a ‘healthy food’ can be written like this:
“Foods I can eat frequently that give me enough fuel to get through the day AND don’t make me miserable.”.
Protein like poultry, meat, low-fat dairy, and legumes.
Fruits and vegetables.
Healthy carbohydrates like rice and quinoa.
Healthy fats like almonds and olive oil.
Occasional full-fat cheese and dairy.
These are the types of foods that form the foundation of a well-balanced diet.
Do you know WHY these types of foods help with weight loss?
Because if we stick mostly to this list, we’ll likely create a caloric deficit naturally.
But why tho?
The fine folks at WiseGEEK did an awesome post where they took pictures of what 200 calories of a certain food look like.
200 calories of broccoli gets you enough broccoli to fill up an entire plate:
Or half a Snickers bar:
Yeah. And who eats half a Snickers and says “I’ll save the other half for later?”
Literally nobody.
If we want to create a caloric deficit consistently, focusing on foods that give you a ton of bang-for-your-buck from a nutrients vs calories standpoint is the answer.
Of course, I know a Snickers bar is way more delicious than broccoli – it was designed in a lab by scientists to be AMAZING!
And I’m not gonna tell you to never eat a Snickers ever again either.
Instead, we need to start being proactive about our food choices. If we’re gonna eat a Snickers, we better damn well be planning for that by reducing our calorie intake elsewhere.
And if the scale isn’t budging, and our man boobs aren’t getting smaller – we’re still eating too much!
They all follow the same premise: by changing the foods we eat, we’re more likely than not to eat a caloric deficit. Certain people respond better to certain diets than others.
Minimize and plan for processed food – they’re designed for us to overeat them. Take a look again at that Snickers bar. Do you really think you’d only eat half of one to stick to 200 calories? Of course not.
Eat veggies.Vegetables are nutrient-dense and light on calories. Because of all the fiber, they are also tough to overeat. Imagine eating all that broccoli. Are you going for seconds? Probably not. So eat your veggies to help keep you full. Here’s how to make vegetables taste good.
Avoid liquid calories. Cut back dramatically on soda, juices, smoothies, and any beverage with calories. Even most coffee orders (with sugar, cream, etc.) have a ton of hidden calories. Stick to water, and unsweetened tea or black coffee. Here are our thoughts on diet soda.
Prioritize protein.Our body uses protein as the building block of muscle rebuilding. Outside of repairing our body, protein will also work to keep us full and satiated: 400 calories of chicken will leave us wayyy more full than 400 calories worth of Gatorade.[3] If you prioritize protein on your plate, you’ll be doing a lot of the heavy lifting on proper nutrition. Some great sources of protein include chicken, eggs, beef, pork, fish, nuts, legumes, quinoa, and most dairy products. Check out our Guide to Protein to measure how much protein you need every day.
These four points will help you on your journey to create a caloric deficit.
I know this is much easier said than done. After all, everybody knows they should eat more vegetables, and yet 70% of the country is overweight.
Clearly, there’s more happening here than just “I need willpower and I need to try harder!”
If you’re struggling with portion control and challenges, jump fully into the NF community.
We cover human behavior and psychology to help you:
Surround yourself with people that make you better (including our free private community).
We’ve helped thousands of people like you here at NF, and we really focus on nutrition.
As we said, it’s 90% of the battle!
It’s why we created our 10-level nutritional system. Each level gets a bit more challenging and healthier, but you can progress at your own speed to make your changes stick!
You don’t have to search far on the internet for the advice “avoid soy because it causes man boobs.”
It’s repeated so much, it’s assumed to be fact.
Is it?
The definition of gynecomastia (medical condition of man boobs) mentions “increased estrogen activity” as a major cause.
So when people say stay clear of soy, they’re worried about its impact on hormones like testosterone and estrogen.
Why the concern?
It comes down to a compound found in soy called “isoflavones.” Isoflavones are a type of phytoestrogen, which acts a little like estrogen, the central female hormone.
“Phyto” is derived from Greek and means “plant.” “Estrogen” is estrogen. So phytoestrogen more or less means plant-derived estrogen.
The fear of isoflavone rests with our bodies using this plant-like estrogen as actual estrogen. A report from Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology found that this is potentially possible.[4]
I should now note, we are about to wade into a controversial subject.
We’ll be careful and rely on good old-fashioned science and studies for guidance.
However, sometimes science can point us in a couple of different and contradictory directions. When this happens, it’s important to acknowledge the uncertainty.
Compounds in soy may act like estrogen in the body. Does this apply to men though? And do they cause “man boobs?”
A 2005 study out of The Journal of Nutrition did find a relationship between soy intake and hormone levels in men.[5] However, they concluded these to be “minor.”
In 2010, Fertility and Sterility tackled the question on whether soy had “feminizing effects on men.”
Neither isoflavone supplements nor isoflavone-rich soy affect total or free testosterone levels.
The journal concluded:
There is essentially no evidence from the nine identified clinical studies that isoflavone exposure affects circulating estrogen levels in men.
Case closed?
Probably, but I’d be remiss not to mention the following:
There is one documented case published in Endocrine Practice, where a man may have given himself gynecomastia by drinking three quarts of soy milk a day.[7]
His gynecomastia went away when he stopped. Granted, this is anecdotal evidence, which is far from proof.
However, it is interesting and worth noting to round out this discussion. And as mentioned earlier, the ability for phytoestrogen to act as actual estrogen does seem possible…
“Steve, Just tell me: Should I ditch soy to ditch my man boobs?”
Well, as with anything, quantity and context matters. Virginia Miller, an estrogen researcher at the Mayo Clinic, told a Vice journalist:[8]
The amount of phytoestrogens in various soy products varies by process method.
Dr. Miller didn’t think it was too problematic to eat soy, specifically mentioning that:
Eating tofu is probably OK.
Interestingly, Miller suggested that BPA found in plastic is more harmful to our endocrine (hormone) system than eating or drinking soy.[9]
Confusing stuff.
In general, the consensus seems to be that as long as you don’t binge soy products, the amount of phytoestrogens found in a normal diet is fine.
If you have the actual condition of gynecomastia, soy is unlikely to be the root cause.
As more and more research is being done on this subject, this answer could change.
My opinion: this is a tiny piece of the puzzle…
…not the whole picture.
If we’re overeating food every day, worrying about the soy we consume is missing the forest for the trees.
That’d be like…putting on a long sleeve shirt instead of a t-shirt for added protection, before driving 50 miles an hour into a brick wall.
Instead, maybe focus on wearing a seat belt, or better yet – not driving into the wall in the first place!
I swear that analogy made sense in my head before I typed it out.
Anyways – back to real specifics.
Here is the Nerd Fitness philosophy on soy: focus on total calories consumed and get that dialed in for consistent caloric deficit.
Only THEN, as our body fat starts to decrease, and we’re analyzing how our body responds to any and ALL types of food, see how our body responds to removing soy from our diet.
Want to have an expert guide you on this process? A fitness partner to help guide you on nutrition, including eliminating and then re-introducing certain foods? You can by checking out Nerd Fitness Coaching.
Do I actually have gynecomastia?
The only way to really know if you have gynecomastia is to go to a doctor.
They’ll be able to tell you (often with an ultrasound) if it’s a glandular breast enlargement or just fatty tissue.
They might also do some blood tests to check testosterone levels and female sex hormones like estrogen.
If you have an imbalance, gynecomastia could be a side effect. They’ll know for sure and can prescribe a treatment.
Also, they can verify that something very serious isn’t going on. In very rare cases, male breast enlargement can be a sign of cancer. Yes, men can get breast cancer.[10]
It should be noted: obesity itself is tied to increasing the development of real gynecomastia.
Excessive fat stimulates the body’s production of estrogen, spurring the growth of actual breast tissue.[11]
Said another way:
Pseudogynecomastia can turn into actual gynecomastia.
If you are diagnosed with gynecomastia, it’ll be between you and your doctor as to the next steps. I’ve seen men take one of three paths, as I’ve read anecdotes from our private support community for Nerd Fitness:
Men who had elective surgery (liposuction in some instances and skin tucks) to remove the fat due to gynecomastia. They are thankful for no longer being self-conscious about their chest areas. This is not an option for everybody for various reasons.
Others have worked hard to reduce their man boob size through exercise and nutrition.
Some have elected to not treat gynecomastia, or are working to reduce the fat around their pecs through diet and exercise before deciding what to do next.
If you’re concerned with “man boobs,” weight management is the path of action we’d recommend, whether you’re facing either gynecomastia or pseudogynecomastia.
One important note here. Your unique situation is just that: unique.
I know many men who have treated pseudogynecomastia with diet and exercise, and I know others who are VERY thankful they had surgery to treat the symptom and are much happier as a result.
No judgment here. You do you, brother.
At this point, I bet you have an additional question:“Can hormone balance be affected in the opposite direction? By increasing testosterone?”
Is there a way to boost my testosterone naturally?
If you do suspect you have a hormonal imbalance, speak with your doctor. They can run tests and tell you exactly what is going on, why, and how to treat it.
I will not be digging into medically supervised testosterone therapy (which is above my pay grade, and between you and your doctor), but here’s our guidance on naturally boosting your testosterone levels:
However, if you are looking for a natural way to boost testosterone, strength training would be a good way to go about it.
One 2017 study found, that although temporary, testosterone levels were shown to: “acutely rise immediately following an acute resistance exercise bout.”[12]
Because of the short-term increase, consistency is key with resistance training and testosterone levels. That’s likely why “regular exercise” has been linked with increased testosterone overal.l[13]
#2) Stress.Cortisol is a hormone that is promoted by stress and reduces free testosterone levels (in addition to signaling for your body to store fat).[14]
The more stressed out we are, the lower our testosterone will be. What’s a cure? Being mindful.
Meditation practices have been shown to help control cortisol levels.[15] Want to start a mindfulness practice? Scope out our Nerd’s Guide to Mindfulness to get going.
Do you know what else is connected with higher cortisol levels and increased stress? Lack of sleep! If this is you, shut off Netflix and get to bed sooner.
#3) Overtraining.There can be too much of a good thing. Studies have found that both professional basketball and soccer players drop their testosterone levels by the end of a season.[16]
Which makes sense.
Tons of activity in a short amount of time gives no time to repair and heal. The same phenomenon has been found in ultra-marathoners.[17][[17]]That study on ultra-marathoners is right here.[[17]. Make sure you get plenty of sleep and schedule rest days.
#4) Eat red meat.Red meat is a great source of the amino acid carnitine, which has been linked to improved fertility.[18] Plus, it’s a good source of zinc, which has also been shown to help regulate testosterone.[19]
#5) Your results may vary. My friend Brett over at Art of Manliness did a 90-day experiment in which he doubled his testosterone levels through diet and strength training.
To be honest with you, even if you don’t have low testosterone levels, you should strength train, be mindful, and prioritize rest.
And maybe even eat a little red meat.
And yes, I read that study that says red meat will kill you. I don’t agree with the fear-mongering.[20]
If you want help with strength training, nutrition, or even starting a mindfulness practice, check out Nerd Fitness Coaching! We help men (and women) level up their lives by providing actionable goals and accountability.
How to Start Reducing Man Boobs
So you have pseudogynecomastia.
And you’re interested in trying to do this the old-fashioned way before going down the route of surgery.
This would be my recommended path to everybody, though remember I’m not a doctor and I would recommend working with your doctor to put a plan in place together.
OUR NON-DOCTOR ADVICE FOR A DUDE TRYING TO GET RID OF MAN BOOBS NATURALLY:
Take front and side photos without a shirt on today. This will help give you a frame of reference as you move forward with your changes. Pictures will round out your story.
Consider a tape measure and take weekly chest measurements too. Just be consistent with how you take the measurements and look for overall trends! Here’s our Guide on Tracking Fitness Progress.
Follow the above nutritional guidance and workout routine for the next month. Remember, I gave you four tips for healthy eating. If you requested our 10-Level Nutrition Guide, it’ll help make those suggestions permanent. Plus, I want you to start doing push-ups (on your knees is a great start). Do it immediately. It’ll help prep you for those Advanced Chest Exercises I talked to you about.
If the scale is dropping, and your photos are showing “moob” improvement, keep it up! As I said earlier, consistency is the name of the game here at Nerd Fitness. “Slow and steady” beats “fast and quitting” every time.
If you want to talk to a doctor to see if anything can or should be done about it, go for it! Medical advice is generally good advice. Bonus points if you find a doctor who strength-trains and seeks to treat through nutrition and exercise first!
I do want to stress, that many male members of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion have reported improving their “man boobs” through the strategies listed in this article.
We are dealt a certain hand from the genetic lottery: whether we gain muscle quickly or slowly, whether we lose our hair or not, and whether we store fat in our legs or in our chest.
We can get mad about it, or we can play the hand we are dealt.
Until somebody develops robot legs, I’m not growing any taller.
However, let’s not justify our internal excuses, or throw ourselves too big of a pity party.
What we do with our genetic fate, is completely up to us. And we have hundreds of thousands of people in the Nerd Fitness Rebellion who have overcome shitty genetics to transform themselves dramatically.
If you want 1-on-1 help to transform yourself, we got you!
We come in all shapes and sizes: you do you.
The goal of this post is educational. To teach us how our body stores fat, and what can or cannot be done about it.
It’s more than okay to love yourself and also want to improve your physique.
Body positivity and wanting to look better are not mutually exclusive.
We’re all works in progress, and that’s great.
If you want to use this post to spur you to change, like cleaning up your diet or lifting some weights, awesome!
I’m glad Nerd Fitness can help lead you into action:
Reduce your body fat percentage through nutritional changes (which includes eating a caloric deficit).
Strength train to increase the amount of muscle you have, increase the “calories burned” portion of the weight-loss equation, and increase your testosterone.
Work with your doctor if you are reducing your body fat but not seeing any changes in your chest area – you might actually have a medical condition called gynecomastia.
Want help knowing exactly how to progress from here?
I have MULTIPLE options for you. Pick the path below that best aligns with your goals and timeline:
1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:
2) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign in the box below and not only will you receive our free weight loss guide, but our step-by-step plan for starting a Strength Training practice:
Download our comprehensive guideSTRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
I know it’s easier said than done to say “f*** the haters,” but seriously, f*** the haters.
Take your shirt off at the beach: you deserve to enjoy the sun and sea like everybody else.
We’re all a work in progress, and I hope this post helps you continue to work on yours!
-Steve
PS: No seriously, f*** the haters:
###
All photo sources can be found in this footnote right here [21]
Footnotes ( returns to text)
Check out Mayo Clinic’s report on gynecomastia right here.
Study on protein as most satiating macro-nutrient right here.
While guilt is a normal emotion we all feel—toxic guilt isn’t something you should have to deal with. Guilt is a complex emotion that you feel when you’ve done something wrong. As a child, and even as an adult, this is important. Guilt teaches you the difference between right and wrong, supports the development of morals that will act as a compass throughout your life, and so much more.
Toxic guilt, on the other hand, is what many women feel as adults. Instead of feeling guilty when you truly do something wrong—like hitting a friend on the playground—you feel it when you haven’t done anything “wrong.”
For example, you might feel guilt when you set a boundary with a loved one. You do something that’s healthy and supportive for you, but feel guilty for disappointing them or making them unhappy in the process. This isn’t helpful guilt—this is toxic guilt.
Over time, this becomes a heavy burden, holding you back from living a truly fulfilling life. In this blog post, I’ll explore the concept of toxic guilt and, of course, share some practical steps to find that liberation you’ve been seeking.
Your Daily Dose of Toxic Guilt
Toxic guilt refers to feelings that are disproportionate and irrational, and often disconnected from any real wrongdoing. The sad thing is, as an adult—and especially as a woman—you may feel this toxic guilt on a near-daily basis. Here are some examples of where you might see it show up in your life:
Taking time for yourself: You feel selfish or undeserving when prioritizing your own needs.
Achieving success or happiness: You may feel toxic guilt if others around you are struggling while you’re succeeding.
Making decisions for loved ones: If you’re a parent or a caretaker, you worry that your choices will negatively impact your children or the people you care for, even if those decisions are reasonable.
Expressing personal needs or desires: You may feel this more intensely if those needs or desires inconvenience others.
Not meeting unrealistically high expectations: You see others following the status quo and you feel toxic guilt when you’re not. This goes hand-in-hand with any and all expectations, from unrealistic beauty standards to the standards both parents and women are held to.
There are many reasons why you might feel that toxic guilt, so I want to talk about how to let it go and find a greater sense of peace in your life.
5 Steps to Let Go of Guilt (The Toxic Kind!)
Some level of guilt is normal—it’s an emotion just like love, fear, anger, or joy. It’s the toxic kind that we want to let go of. To do so, you have to be willing to self-reflect, tap into your self-compassion, and get intentional about changing those negative thought patterns that are keeping you stuck. Here are five steps that have been helpful for me in making this happen.
Step 1: Become Aware of the Guilt
Step one is being aware of that toxic guilt. This is something you’ve likely been experiencing most of your adult life. Like any habit you’ve been doing for a long time, you might spiral into that negative mindset without even realizing it.
One way to create this awareness is to make a list of trigger moments, or times when you know it comes up. For me, that unnecessary guilt can creep up when I need to take time off of work because I’m feeling under the weather or when I say no to a social gathering so that I can create more downtime for myself.
Knowing when it’s likely to show up will help you with the next step.
Step 2: Challenge the Toxic Guilt
This guilt is rarely the result of something you’ve done wrong. This is why it’s so important to challenge that emotion when one of those trigger moments happens. Doing this can be as simple as asking yourself, “Is this feeling of guilt real? Did I do something wrong?” This brings you back to reality and facts—rather than getting stuck in that spiral.
Step 3: Give Yourself Some Love
Now it’s time for self-compassion. You didn’t do anything wrong, yet you’ve been conditioned to believe otherwise. In this moment, it’s so important that you shift from critical to compassionate. For me, this often looks like a moment of talking to myself. I might say:
“This is a hard moment, Robin. It’s understandable that you might feel guilty right now because it’s what you’ve been taught. I know it’s hard to feel this and I understand why you’re struggling. I also know that you didn’t do anything wrong.”
The key to this is to talk to yourself like a best friend would talk to you. If you’re a parent, you can also think of how you would soothe your child. You want to be kind, loving and soft with yourself.
Step 4: Correct the Thought Pattern
According to the Principles of Neuroplasticity, you can literally change your brain (so cool!) over time. A therapist once taught me that all automatic thoughts are like train tracks. When you interrupt and correct the thought, you start building a new train track. Over time, the train follows the new train track that you built and thus, your thoughts change as well. The more you practice this, over time, you won’t automatically default to guilt. You’ll default to compassion, happiness or neutrality.
Step 5: Be Consistent
The key with this process is consistency. You have to catch that thought, give yourself some love, and then correct it again and again and again for this to work. The best way to ensure you stick with it is to build your mindfulness muscle. The more mindful you are, the easier it is to catch the guilt, and then follow through with each step.
Mindfulness for Overcoming Guilt That Doesn’t Serve You
Being mindful means that you’re present. Instead of living a busy life on auto-pilot, you’re engaged in each moment and aware of your feelings and emotions. Check out my blog post on mindful versus mindfull to learn more about the difference between these two things.
Living with more mindfulness means you’re not just letting thoughts take over—like toxic guilt. Instead, you’re aware and present, and can then tap into that compassion and challenge the guilt when it does arise.
There are many ways to develop more mindfulness in your everyday life, and here at Lindywell, we particularly love breathwork and Pilates. Both of these can be valuable tools in creating more mindfulness in every area of your life. Let’s look at how and why.
Mindfulness and Breathwork
This is a key mindfulness tool, according to Kiesha Yokers Head of Breathwork and Somatic Programs. As she said: “Breathwork is a perfect tool for building your mindfulness muscle because when you practice conscious, intentional breathing, you create space for rest. You also create space to turn down the volume on the noise that surrounds you and the constant clamor in your head, and you become more available to listen.”
With that greater capacity to listen, you can be more present and mindful—even outside of your breathwork session. Sign up for your free trial of our Pilates and breathwork app and get access to dozens of guided breathwork sessions, which our members love. Catherine said, “The breathwork sessions have also been such a gift.” While Jodene said, “The breathwork has been an eye-opener!”
Mindfulness and Pilates
The intentional and focused style of movement you do in Pilates gives you a chance to practice mindfulness every time you step on the mat. This is especially true at Lindywell, where you start each workout by tuning into the body and checking in with yourself. While studies have found this correlation between Pilates and mindfulness, we can also see just by looking at the 2,000+ reviews from our thousands of members across the globe!
Start your free trial of Lindywell and get instant access to 350+ workouts that range from 10 to 30 minutes. Even better, make one less decision each day and just do the workout of the day!
Let Go of Your Toxic Guilt
Toxic guilt is a bad friend—and it’s time to let go of her. While guilt can and does serve a purpose, this chronic form of guilt that comes up when you’re not doing anything wrong does not. I hope you can use these five steps to let go of toxic guilt that doesn’t serve you so you can make room for more joy and happiness in your life!
This is definitely true and not a holiday that I just made up.
Okay I did make it up, and it doesn’t matter what day it is – you’ve decided you want to try again, and you’re trying to make the changes actually stick this time.
Luckily, whether this is the first time you’ve had to respawn or the 50th, you’re in the right place.
I’m going to share the same step-by-step strategy we’ve used to help 15,000+ nerds restart their routines in our Coaching Program, and we’re gonna have a tiny bit of fun along the way.
So you already bailed on a goal or habit or routine this year.
Welcome to the club.
It’s called “being human!”
There are 8 billion of us.
Statistically speaking, MOST people have already abandoned the resolutions they’ve set for the year, because that’s just what humans do. [1]
We all start with hopes and dreams for what we hope to accomplish, but then we encounter this ugly thing called “reality.” We find out that maybe we picked the wrong goal, or we tried to do too much, or life managed to get in the way.
This is amazing news!
I like to think of life like a giant video game, which means we’ll need to get comforatble with dying, starting over, and restarting! That’s what makes a game actually fun.
As the saying goes, “Success is moving from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” So, congrats for already finding a strategy that doesn’t work for you right now.
Let’s get to work on fixing that!
First, we must…
STEP 1: FORGIVE YOURSELF
We’re often our own worst critic and our own worst enemy.
When we fail at a task or goal, that voice in our head will very quickly point out all the things we’ve done wrong or how we’ve screwed up.
We might call ourself a nasty name, or berate ourselves for not having enough discipline.
There’s another way to think about this:
You discovered a strategy or tactic that doesn’t work for you! For example, if you went Keto and bailed, great! That’s a diet that doesn’t work for you. I personally love carbs, so Keto sounds terrible to me too!
Treat the voice in your head like a roommate. You just both happen to occupy the same brain. Just because our brain thought something doesn’t mean it’s true! I like to think of my thoughts as if they came from Chaz, a weird roommate. He means well but he doesn’t always know what he’s talking about. Also, he has a ferret.
You’re reading this, which means you’re trying to improve your life.
You found a few methods that don’t work for you.
And you’re ready to try again.
This is amazing and should be celebrated.
As NF Coach Matt explains in the video below, “self compassion” is really important when attempting to fulfill New Year’s resolutions:
STEP 2: ASK WHAT WENT WRONG?
So, you conducted an experiment with your goals for this year, and you did not get the results you were expecting.
That’s neither a good nor a bad thing. Like any other experiment, it just… IS. You had a hypothesis (“I am going to stick with THIS diet, and THIS workout plan”), and that turned out to not be true.
Great! That’s information we can use, my scientist friend.
Let’s write down specifically what your experiment entailed.
“I was going to transform into a mythical phoenix.”
Look at your list: this is a combination of variables that don’t work for you right now.
IMPORTANT POINT: Learning from the millions of people that have come through Nerd Fitness over the past decade, my guess is that your experiment didn’t work out for one of two reasons:
#1) You built an idealized goal for a romanticized few of life, not reality.
Life is chaos, and we all have a lot going on. When we expect we’re going to have a beautifully organized schedule, and our kids won’t get sick, and work won’t run late…we’re setting ourselves up for failure.
As John Steinbeck said, “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
We need a plan that fits into the chaos that is life, and is not built for a clear/easy schedule! Those don’t exist.
#2) You tried to change ALL the things:
Your goal was 1,800 calories a day instead of your normal 3,000.
You tried to run 7 days a week when you don’t exercise at all now.
You said you were going to write 5,000 words a day but don’t write normally.
Instead of change all the things completely or don’t change anything, what if we changed a few things, a tiny bit?
We’re never going to get everything done, certainly not all at once. So like a video game, we need to stop trying to fight 10 level-100 dragons at the same time when we’re a wimpy level-1 wizard!
We need to pick ONE target, that’s our level, and then as we level up and get stronger, tackle bigger monsters.
So, let’s try to do less with our next experiment, okay? It’s better to succeed at ONE new habit, than it is to fail at all 10 aspirational habits!
STEP 3: CHANGE A VARIABLE IN YOUR EXPERIMENT
You’re reading this guide, which would lead me to believe you’re interested in trying again to lose weight, build muscle, and/or get in shape.
To avoid getting the same results, we need to change the variables in the experiment to try and get different results.
You know, science!
Remember, any good experiment has accurate measurements for their changing factors! You don’t just put “some uranium” in a nuclear reactor. You know the exact amount.
For your next attempt consider adjusting one of the following variables:
#1) Change the exercise variable:
Did you actually enjoy the exercise you attempted? If you discovered that you hate running, great! Never do that again. “Exercise sucks,” so I would pick something you actually enjoy.
Did you try to exercise 5 days a week for 60 minutes a day? What if you instead decided to just go for a 5-minute walk every day to build the habit first, and then increased the difficulty?
#2) Try a substitution rather than addition:
ADDING a brand new exercise routine into a busy schedule can be really challenging. The same might be true with severely restricting your calories, which can be really uncomfortable and make you hangry and angry.
Let’s try this instead: Substitution! Here are three examples:
Making healthy swaps with our diet: How you eat is 80-90% of the weight-loss equation, and you’re already eating every day. So focus on substituting a vegetable for fries once a week, or swapping sparkling water for soda. You can also keep a food journal and change up your breakfast twice a week.
Temptation bundling: combine an exercise/activity you want to do with an activity we already love: Listening to a great audiobook, but only when we’re out for a walk or on the treadmill, or joining a friend on a bike ride (to a winery or pub!).
Do ONE activity mindfully every day: meditation is amazing for developing the skill of being present and cultivating awareness, but it might be tough for us to set aside 20 minutes to sit alone with our thoughts. So why not practice being mindful during something you’re already doing! Practice mindfulness while brushing your teeth or washing the dishes in the sink. No extra time required, all of the benefits!
#3) Adjust your “win scenario”:
I get it. You were able to train in your home gym for the first few weeks of this year, going for at least an hour.
But THEN…work got busy. And you only had 30 minutes, which wasn’t enough time to get through your workout. So why not set the win scenario at “30 minutes,” or “15 minutes,” or just “1 exercise”? Lower the bar!
This is not an on-off switch. It’s a dial that we can turn UP or turn DOWN based on how busy our life is that day:
Let’s imagine we’re on a 10-year journey, and we’re trying out all sorts of tactics, strategies, and pace of change to see what works best for us.
Doing our workout today is not nearly as important as building a routine of working out that fits into your life for the next decade.
We can stop asking, “Do I have time for my workout” and instead ask “What workout do I have time for?”
Remember that it all counts. There’s nothing that says “a workout must be 60-minutes in a gym.”
Example: if you roll out your yoga mat for 1 set of 1 exercise, it counts as a win. Doesn’t matter if did a full hour workout or just a 5 minute set of push-ups.
It all counts.
We can turn the dial all the way down, we just don’t want to turn it off.
STEP 4: RESPAWN and try again
When you play a challenging video game, you’re going to die. A lot. (I died literally thousands when playing Hollow Knight, one of my favorite games in recent memory).
What happens after you die in a game?
You respawn, and try again!
You’ve learned a new tactic or pattern. You have a new technique. You’ve uncovered a secret. You also have all the knowledge of every past attempt. You’ve also just gotten better. So you try, again.
And again.
And again.
And then you succeed, and that works for a while. Until it stops working. And then you change your tactics again and keep going.
There’s no shame in failing when it comes to our health. Life is one giant experiment, we’re all disasters, and we’re all trying our best!
I know hacking your experiments to get better data isn’t exactly “scientifically smart” or “morally responsible,” but I’m the one writing this guide and we’re all friends here, right?
Once you start your new experiment, here’s how you can stack the deck in your favor:
#1) Write everything down. Write down your workouts. Write down what you eat. Treat it like a science experiment, and you’re collecting data! Plan ahead. Be PRO-active (“I will do Strength Training Workout A at 4pm and tonight I’ll have roasted chicken and bacon-wrapped asparagus) instead of RE-active (“What should I do for exercise right now?” and “Ah, what’s for dinner? Oooh, Burger King!”)
#2) Recruit allies to your team. Don’t go this alone, as you’re more likely to succeed based on the people you spend time with and hang around. So recruit allies. Start spending more time with healthy people that empower you (even virtually), rather than unhealthy people that enable you and drag you down. Join a running group online. Find a lifting “accountabilibuddy,” or someone you can check in with.
#3) Hire a professional. There are two types of coaches worth the investment:
An in-person trainer if you are looking to supercharge your form on specific exercises like Olympic lifts, squats, deadlifts, etc. An in-person trainer can be good for people that need the accountability of somebody they’ve paid to meet them in the gym. Here’s how to find a good trainer!
An online coach that represents mobile, worldwide accountability. I’ve had a coach for years and it’s changed my life. Knowing that I have a workout and nutrition strategy to follow each day is game-changing.
As Coach Matt explains below, sometimes “outsourcing” help can be a real game-changer when trying to get in shape (or back in shape):
GET BACK IN THE FIGHT
An old mandrill named Rafiki once taught me: “Yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.”
Okay maybe he taught that to Simba in The Lion King, but I too learned the same lesson:
TO RECAP:
#1) Forgive yourself. You wouldn’t talk to somebody else the way you talk to yourself. So have some freaking compassion! You’re trying.
#2) Identify what experiment you JUST tried. Write down what you believe went wrong over the past few weeks. Congrats – you found a strategy that doesn’t work.
#3) Pick a new path, try a different variable. A good scientist meticulously tracks their data and writes down their hypothesis. I would change one of the following:
Nutrition: change less. If you couldn’t stick with a diet for 3 weeks, it was too restrictive. Try a different path. For help, check out our Guide to Healthy Eating. It’s designed to build on one small tiny improvement over time.
Win scenario: don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good.”
#4) Then try again.
For #5 (“Supercharge your results”), I have two perfect ways to help you respawn today:
“Damn you Netflix, how did I just watch 10 episodes of Stranger Things, I have stuff to do!”
We’ve all been there. There are the things we know we SHOULD do, the things we NEED to do, and the things that we WANT to do.
More often than not, the WANT wins out over the NEED and SHOULD.
It’s like trying to win a tug-of-war against a tractor pulling in the opposite direction. It’s why we struggle to get to the gym after a long day of work. It’s why we opt for Taco Bell instead of taking the time to cook a healthy meal.
Today, we’re going to give you a quick life hack that can help you start leveling up your life and actually get things done that need to get done!
What is Temptation Bundling?
I bet you’ve said the following: “Before I can watch TV, I need to exercise.” And yet, TV ends up winning over exercise almost all the time, especially if it’s after a long miserable day at work.
So, instead of “if I do this, then I get this” What if we combined the two into one epic activity?
That idea is called “temptation bundling,” a term coined by Wharton Professor Katy Milkman: ultimately, you combine something that needs to be done with something you want to do.
She describes the idea in a paper entitled: “Holding The Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling.” [1] The goal is to get us to do things we need to do by combining them with things we want to do, removing the “either/or” temptation and getting us to ACTUALLY do stuff:
Participants were randomly assigned to a full treatment condition with gym-only access to tempting audio novels, an intermediate treatment involving encouragement to restrict audiobook enjoyment to the gym, or a control condition.
Initially, full and intermediate treatment participants visited the gym 51% and 29% more frequently.
Long story short: the people in the study who were told they could listen to addictive audio books only while working out visited the gym 51% more frequently than those who were just told they should exercise more.
Here’s some Nerd Fitness examples:
In love with the show Arrow? I am, and I want Stephen Amell to be my best friend. Don’t say, “I can only watch Arrow after exercising.” Change your phrasing, and try this instead: “I can only watch Arrow WHILE exercising.” Bring your iPad or Laptop to the gym, and only watch particular shows while you are on a treadmill, walking, or using the elliptical.
Addicted to Clash of Clans on your phone? Only allow yourself to work on your clan while at the gym, in between sets of deadlifts. Same goes for looking at TikTok or Instagram: only while resting in between squats!
Maybe you can only listen to Serial or The Rewatchableswhile walking, doing a particular work task, or even completing a chore at home like cleaning or laundry. An hour episode while walking could result in you racking up 3+ miles on your walk to Mordor!
Afraid to try cooking a new healthy meal? You can ONLY listen to a podcast or music in your house while you are cooking. BLAST it at top volume while having fun making a mess trying to cook.
Now, although this study teaches us that bundling a healthy life-improvement activity with one you enjoy can help you make a change, the boost can oftentimes be temporary.
The study went on to say that the “allure” of the audiobook + gym combo wore off after a few months, thus furthering the suggestion that the best chance for long term success is to truly “enjoy the journey.”
Long story short: this can a great strategy to get started, and a great way to identify types of exercise or strategies that work for you, long term results might require leveled up strategies!
But that’s fine – we’re going to be using it to build long term habits.
Try the temptation bundle challenge
If you can implement it properly, temptation bundling can both increase your time spent doing a healthy activity while also helping you limit the unhealthy one.
Now, you might be saying, “Steve, doesn’t this make the fun activity less enjoyable and the exercise/health portion less efficient?”
Possibly, but that’s not the point! Sure, I would love it if you went to the gym, completed a kickass workout, ate a healthy meal, and then got 8 hours of sleep.
However, this isn’t Imagination Land, and I know the best workout plan is the one you actually complete. This is infinitely better than the perfect workout plan that makes you say “meh, I’ll start tomorrow.”
So what do we do? We use temptation bundling to get us started, and then use drive to keep us going. When we build interest ih the activity itself, we shift our focus from “I’m enduring this workout” to “I can’t wait to see how much better I am this week.” The change can become permanent.
Your turn: what’s one activity that you love to do, and one that you know you should do more of? And how are you going to implement this strategy TODAY to your daily routine? Here are some other rapid fire examples:
Are you studying or getting some work done? Get your favorite snack or beverage only when you are doing it.
Try walking outside (or a cardio machine) – that’s now the only time you’re allowed to listen to your favorite podcast/audiobook.
Try pairing chores like ironing, doing laundry, or cleaning dishes while watching your favorite tv shows or a new movie you’ve been waiting for.
Your turn!
What’s one temptation bundle you are going to combine and start TODAY?
I’ve recently moved my online fitness classes from my living room at home to an office which I also use as a workout space. Until I started delivering classes, I hadn’t given home gym flooring ideas a second thought, to…
I dunno about you, but I feel like the number and quality of full push-ups I can do, is a good indicator of my upper body strength. However, for longer than I would like to admit, I’ve been carrying a…
We think about body image affirmations a little differently here at Lindywell. I use them often while guiding our workouts. Members will hear me say: “Meet your body where it’s at,” or “Take a moment to thank your body for all it’s done for you today.” I say this to remind them that, not only are our bodies incredible, but that these workouts are about so much more than how our bodies look.
At Lindywell we believe in the power of a grace-over-guilt mindset. This can relate to letting go of perfectionism and allowing room for mistakes, but it can also relate to how we view our bodies – choosing self-compassion over judgment, guilt, and shame.
We believe that strength and mobility are important, but so is the way we talk to ourselves and view ourselves. At Lindywell, appreciating your body on a much deeper level – a level that goes far beyond outward appearance.
I want you to slow down, regulate your nervous system, and find some joy and calm in your day too. I want you to see how showing up for yourself for even 10 minutes isn’t just about your fitness, but about releasing stress and anxiety too.
Research shows when you infuse these kinds of body image affirmations into your movement, you impact both your mental and physical wellness. So, let’s dive into the research and then talk about how to seamlessly incorporate this practice into your workout routine.
Why Combine Exercise with Body Image Affirmations
The prevalence of body image dissatisfaction has become a global health concern. You may have noticed this anecdotally, in your Instagram feed, for example—but it’s also being noticed and studied through global reports.
The internalized pressure that stems from a mainstream society that favors smaller bodies can cause anxiety related to weight, shape, size, age, muscle tone, and other external features. Over time, these body image anxieties can escalate into eating disorders or compulsive exercising—but even if it doesn’t, we’re still left in a place of constant dissatisfaction with our bodies.
One way to combat this is to speak more love, grace, and self-compassion over our bodies as we mindfully move them. Rather than using exercise as a tool to control the areas we feel critical or insecure about, body image affirmations remind us to celebrate the joy of movement, while listening to what our bodies actually need in the moment. I know this might seem “woo-woo,” but there’s scientific evidence to back it up.
If you believe you’re suffering from an eating disorder, we encourage you to seek support through organizations like ANAD or ProjectHEAL, where you’ll find educational resources and a 24/7 crisis helpline.
The Mental Health Connection
A recent study in the Behavioral Sciences Journal found that women who intentionally practiced self-compassion for three weeks reported an increase in overall body acceptance, confidence, and empowerment. This created an awareness of their capacity to reframe negative beliefs or behaviors around their appearance. The research also showed that this self-compassion results in less shame, depression, anxiety, body comparison, and critical inner dialogue. I know we can all use less of that.
According to another study, positive body image attitudes, practices, and beliefs will lead to appreciation for how the body functions, instead of just focusing on how it looks. It can also lead to higher self-esteem and more satisfaction in life.
Nurturing a positive body image can increase feelings of physical competence too. In other words, when you’re comfortable and secure in your body, you feel more confident in your own athletic or fitness abilities. This, in turn, reinforces the desire to be active, which correlates with improved muscular strength, endurance, and cardiorespiratory function. All of this impacts so much of your physical health!
Body image affirmations could even help to bolster exercise adherence, according to this recent report. That’s because this practice teaches you to notice when body ruminations or anxieties surface, so you can redirect those thoughts toward healthier exercise motivations that have nothing to do with appearance (ex. being active with your kids or fur babies).
When movement is about more than how your body looks, you’re more deeply connected to your “why,” which is a much more powerful motivator than image.
How to Infuse Body Image Affirmations into Your Workout
I am suggesting bringing these powerful body image affirmations into your movement routine to help you tap into the innate mind-body connection we all have. In doing so, you may find it’s easier to choose a pace that feels good for you or allow yourself to use more modifications. In other words, you’re more likely to honor what your own unique, miraculous body is capable of today—which is different from tomorrow or yesterday!
Instead of pushing or forcing, which makes you feel shame or frustration, you can simply allow yourself to move in whatever way feels good. That is what leads to the long-term commitment to movement you’ve been seeking. (It’s also not about having more motivation; check out my blog post on motivation vs. consistency to find out why!)
Create Your Body Image Affirmation
There are seemingly unlimited versions of different body image affirmations you can choose from or create. If you do a workout with us at Lindywell, you may even pick up on a few from me! The key is to focus on affirmations that feel true and accessible to you. Check out this blog post on self-love mantras from our Head of Breathwork and Somatic Programs to find out how to create the perfect affirmation (which is similar to a mantra) for yourself.
To help you get a jump-start, here are some affirmations that you can use as-is or customize to make it feel more like your own:
I meet my body wherever it’s at in this present moment.
I tune into what my body is telling me, then respond to its needs.
I grant my body permission to claim as much space as it wants.
I trust my body to choose the right pace and rhythm.
I honor my body’s strength, resilience, abilities, and limitations.
I know that nothing about my body must change to be worthy.
I can accept my body at its current shape, size, and weight, even if I want to change it.
I offer my body unconditional respect, love, and compassion.
I feel rooted, safe, and competent within my body.
I am grateful to my body for keeping me active and alive.
Weave Affirmations Into Your Workout
There is no one perfect way to use body image affirmations during your workout—it’s all about what feels good to you! I can, however, recommend a few simple steps if you’re looking for some guidance:
Step 1: Choose an affirmation that helps you connect to your focus or intention for that day or workout.
Step 2: Before starting your workout, sit or stand with your hands on your heart. Take three deep breaths in and out, and as you do, repeat the affirmation to yourself.
Step 3: Repeat this affirmation throughout the workout. As you start to feel frustrated or notice a negative thought pop into your head is a great time to come back to it.
Step 4: Finish the workout the same way you started. Take three deep breaths in and out with your hands on your heart, repeating the affirmation as you do.
Start your free trial of Lindywell and try it for yourself. Just choose your affirmation, pick from one of our 300+ workouts, follow these steps, and see how good you feel when you finish!
It’s Time for Body Image Affirmations
Body image affirmations can be a simple (yet powerful) way to connect with your body, and all it can do, during a workout. As with anything, this takes practice and time. Give yourself grace as you try on different affirmations. Some days, it might stick and feel great—others, it may be hard to hold onto it and believe it, and that’s normal.
Through it all, remember: you’re surrounded in nearly every area of life by a narrative that tells you your body size matters. Those beliefs won’t go away overnight, but you can slowly work toward shifting them for yourself with each affirmation you choose.
