Intermittent Fasting For Beginners; 7 Tips to Know Now

Beginner’s Guide to Intermittent fasting if you have Type 2 Diabetes. Intermittent fasting has been found to improve your body’s sensitivity to insulin, enhance glucose control, and aid in weight loss in people with diabetes.

However, the whole process can be confusing and tricky if you are a beginner. Because when care is not taken, you could experience hypoglycemia and end up in the emergency room or fall into a coma.

My goal is to provide you the information you need before you dive into intermittent fasting.

In this post, I’ve put together beginner tips to keep in mind before initiating intermittent fasting. I made my research and gathered information from Dr. Jason Fung and Dr. Majd.

No matter the intermittent fasting method you choose to begin with, you have to follow these reminders if you don’t want to appear in the emergency room.

Let’s start with the person you need most; your lifeguard!

#1. Speak with your doctor before you start intermittent fasting.

This is a very crucial step. Your doctor would be the best person to give you guidelines about how to go about your intermittent fasting.

Your doctor can help you determine if it’s the right time for you to intermittent fast or not, based on your medications and the current treatment you are under.

This makes sense, because not everyone is supposed to fast.

For instance, if you have recorded 9 or greater in an A1C test, I strongly recommend that you avoid fasting because it can result in dehydration.

In the same way, if you have been running a fever for about a week or so now, fasting could again put you at risk of dehydration.

Apart from these two instances, if you have a history of any diet-related disease like anorexia, you should never think about fasting.

Because fasting would bring back those tendencies.

Your doctor would be the one to have all this information. That’s why you should see him first before you start intermittent fasting.

In the end, you don’t want to solve health problems by creating more delicate ones.

#2. Watch out for hypoglycemia

Another thing that could cause a problem with diabetes when intermittent fasting is hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is a condition whereby your sugar level has dropped so low that you start to experience anxiety, confusion, heart palpitation, and shivering.

It’s very easy to have hypoglycemia when fasting because your sugar level can drop so rapidly in about between two hours. That’s why Dr. Majd recommends that you carry glucose tablets with you wherever you go.

That way, you can easily prevent hypoglycemia during your fasting period.

What about those taking metformin alone?

#3. Even if you are on metformin alone, you still need your doctor’s approval before you begin intermittent fasting

Metformin is one of the most common drugs used to manage sugar levels in T2D. Some people have less severe diabetes and therefore use only metformin to manage it.

You shouldn’t be surprised, because type 2 diabetes isn’t like cancer whereby one treatment may serve many people. Every type 2 diabetes case is unique on its own.

Even if you are one of the fortunate ones to have less severe diabetes, you still need the doctor’s advice and recommendation before you initiate intermittent fasting.

Why?

Because fasting while taking metformin could cause gastrointestinal disorders like diarrhea and stomach upset. The doctor would help you to see how to handle those side effects.

#4. Be mindful of what you eat

Even though you are allowed to eat anything you want during your eating window, as a diabetic, you still need to be very careful of what you eat.

It is best to eat a balanced diet. By a balanced diet, I mean meals from whole grains and fats. Please avoid eating processed foods. They would end up making your fasting irrelevant.

Foods like whole grains, nuts, fruits, avocados, and beans are the kind of foods that are recommended.

I’m really not a nutritionist and therefore can’t give you nutritional advice. I’ll recommend that you see your dietician regarding any major diet changes.

If you try to do these, you’d derive a lot of benefits from fasting, and your results would happen rapidly.

#5. Visit your doctor whenever you need to

No matter what happens, when you are not feeling well, don’t wait till your next doctor’s appointment before you see the doctor. This could be suicidal.

It happened to my friend once. She wasn’t a diabetic, but instead of going to the hospital immediately, she decided to wait for her appointment.

The rest was a sad history.

Even though you may visit your doctor once every week or every two weeks, as soon as you notice anything strange with your body, just make sure to rush to the doctor immediately.

Doing so would ensure your safety. It’ll also help you maintain your fasting structure until you reach your desired outcome.

#6. Keep close contact with your doctor

Keeping close contact with your doctor is one rule everyone with diabetes shouldn’t skip. Dr. Majd recommends that you check your blood sugar levels frequently during the day, and then record each of them in a special log book dedicated for that.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. You can rule out lines in a notebook and then label the columns as date, time, and the result.

You can create a column for your blood pressure and glucose level.

Make sure to take the log with you when you go to your next doctor’s appointment. Based on the results, the doctor would tweak your medications according to your needs.

It’ll also help the doctor to give you the advice you need while going forward.

Intermittent fasting is indeed backed by enough research about how it helps with sugar levels and all. However, doctors still don’t have all the facts about how to practice intermittent fasting when you have diabetes type 2.

Therefore, when your current doctor isn’t so comfortable with your new lifestyle, you need to change to another doctor.

An endocrinologist is more experienced with diabetes and everything that has to do with it. You’ll save yourself a lot of hustle when you speak with the expert himself.

#7. Be patient

Sure, maybe you’d notice your neighbor or your friend have rapid benefits when intermittent fasting. One thing you need to know is that everyone is different.

Therefore, you if don’t see the results now, It doesn’t mean that the fasting isn’t working for you.

Normally, how long you have lived with diabetes would determine your rate of results. It’ll be unfair and unreasonable to expect the same rate of improvement with someone who has lived with diabetes for 20 years and someone who has been diabetic for only 2 years.

That’s why you need to be patient with your body. If you want really really quick results, then you can try the 24hour (one meal a day) fast, the 16/8 or 18/6.

If you ask me, I’d say that it’s best to do intermittent fasting in a flexible way. With time you would be able to increase your hours of fast.

You also need to set small goals at a time. That way, you won’t be stressed out with the results. It’ll eventually help you to be more patient with your body.

With time, you’ll see significant weight loss and glucose level droping to manageable levels.

Conclusion

These 7 intermittent fasting tips for beginners are not so difficult to follow. When you see your doctor often and listen to his advice, you eat properly and exercise patience, you’ll see that it’s way easier to practice intermittent fasting.

Only just a little bit of motivation is what you need. If possible, find a partner who also is intermittent fasting.

That way, you both can encourage each other to persisit with the fast.

How was your first week of intermittent fasting like? Please share it in the comments.