Q and A on Intermittent Fasting

Aesha Tahir: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast. Today, I am going live here on Instagram and LinkedIn, and this is gonna go out in a podcast format too, to talk about a couple of questions and comments that I’ve received for intermittent fasting and fasted workouts. So the questions that I’m answering are on the topic that keeps popping up in my feeds. It is kind of a topic that a lot of my patients and clients ask me about. It’s the, topic that is talked about right now i- in workplace break rooms and doctor’s offices, so it’s everywhere, and that is intermittent fasting, or IF. Now, [00:01:00]there are a lot of misconceptions around the idea of fasting, and I wanted to clarify a couple of them.

Aesha Tahir: First up, I wanna talk about what intermittent fasting actually is. So I wanna just break it down for you, give you a basic definition of it. Is it just a trendy word for skipping breakfast, or is there, like, real science backing it up? We are gonna dive into all of that. So right away, let’s clear up the biggest misconception.

Aesha Tahir: Intermittent fasting is not a diet. It doesn’t tell you what to eat. Instead, it’s an eating pattern that focuses entirely on when you eat. So the timing of your meals is what we are talking about. Essentially, you divide your day or your week into eating windows and/or fasting windows. [00:02:00]So fasting isn’t a new biohacking invention either, because a lot of people think, “Oh, this is something that we just came up with,” which isn’t true.

Aesha Tahir: Because historically, if you look at, the evolution of human beings and our ancestors, humans have fasted for thousands of years, and sometimes because food really wasn’t a- available to them. And so- at other times, humans have fasted for religious reasons or spiritual reasons. If you look at most of the major religions in the world today, they all have some way or form of fasting, in there.

Aesha Tahir: So that being said, it’s something that humans have practiced for a while. Our bodies are actually hardwired to go into periods of, [00:03:00] fasting or to last without food for a period of time. So how does it look in practice? There are three incredibly popular methods that are used today. The first one that I wanna talk to you about is the 16, six- 16/8 split method, which is probably the most popular style.

Aesha Tahir: You fast for 16 hours a day, and you restrict your eating to an eight-hour window. For example, you finish dinner by 8:00 PM, skip breakfast the next morning, and eat your first meal at noon. The second one, which is the most common, is the five to two diet. In this form, you eat normally for five days a week, like three meals a day.

Aesha Tahir: On the other two days, you restrict your calories to about 500 or 600 calories [00:04:00]total, which would mean that you’re eating one meal or two small meals a day. The third one is eat, stop, eat method. This involves a full 24-hour fast once or twice a week, for instance, eating dinner Monday night and not eating until, dinner on Tuesday night.

Aesha Tahir: So those are the three most common forms of fasting Or intermittent fasting. Now, during the fasting windows, you don’t consume calories, uh, except for the five to two diet where you are still consuming some calories. Now, water, black coffee, and unsweetened teas are totally fine, and they keep you hydrated.

Aesha Tahir: Let’s look under the hood. What actually happens to your body and your biology when you fast? When you eat, your body uses that food for energy, and it stores the [00:05:00] excess as fat. Your insulin levels go up after the meal. When you fast, the opposite happens. Your insulin levels drop significantly. This insulin drop signals your body to start burning its stored fat for energy instead of relying on recent meals.

Aesha Tahir: Further, fasting triggers a cellular cleanup process, which we call autophagy. Think of it as an internal recycling program where your cells clear out old, damaged proteins and waste products. Because of these mechanisms, people track a variety of benefits. Most common is weight loss and belly fat loss simply because you’re naturally reducing your caloric intake and lowering your insulin levels.

Aesha Tahir: Studies also suggest it can reduce insulin resistance, lowering your risk of type two [00:06:00] diabetes significantly. Some people even report better mental clarity and focus because your energy levels stay steady without those post-meal crashes. But I want us to be very honest over here. It’s not a magic bullet.

Aesha Tahir: No, it’s not, and it’s not for everyone. If you spend your eight-hour eating window binging on ultra-processed foods and soda, you won’t see the health benefits. Quality still matters, so the quality of the food that you eat is important. Side effects can also include more hunger, being irritable, mild headaches when you st– first start out as your body adjusts.

Aesha Tahir: Crucially, intermittent fasting is not recommended for pregnant or, breastfeeding women, individuals with a history of disordered eating, or [00:07:00] anyone who’s under the age of eighteen, it’s not recommended because it can, lead to malnutrition for those individuals. If you have an underlying health condition, if you have an underlying health condition like diabetes, you should absolutely talk to your healthcare provider before changing your eating schedule There are a couple of questions and comments that I received on my recent, posting of a reel of fasted versus fed workouts, and I wanna answer those here.

Aesha Tahir: The first question is from Rebecca. “Let’s say I crush a workout while fasting. Is it okay to keep going, or do I absolutely need a protein shake to refuel?” The short answer is yes, you can continue fasting after a workout. However, it’s important to remember that your muscles still need [00:08:00]nutrients to recover and rebuild.

Aesha Tahir: If your goal is to increase muscle size and strength, it’s ideal to schedule your workout close to the end of your fasting window, so you can eat a substantial meal shortly afterwards. Ideally, like if you wake up in the morning at 6:00 AM, you would be working out right after you wake up, so that you can break your fast right afterwards.

Aesha Tahir: So timing really matters if muscle growth is the goal. If building muscle is your top priority, post-workout nutrition becomes more important. If your schedule doesn’t allow you to eat after training while staying in your, within your intermittent fasting routine, then it’s worth taking a step back and identifying your primary objective because, you know, you can’t have both the things.

Aesha Tahir: A lot of times you are, we are aiming for fat [00:09:00] loss at the same time as gaining muscle mass. So at that… If that is your goal, which is a very noble goal to have, and I would recommend for you and everyone else to have that goal, then you have to, eat protein and carbs after your workout. So, I think we want every benefit at the same time and, you know, there are always gonna be trade-offs.

Aesha Tahir: If muscle gain is your main goal and your work schedule makes post-workout meals difficult, consider scheduling more intense training sessions on days when you have greater flexibility. That way you can support recovery with a meal after your workout without feeling restricted by your fasting schedule.

Aesha Tahir: And if you want to still stay in somewhat of a fasted state, make sure you’re, you are ingesting some protein, [00:10:00] like about twenty-five to thirty protein, in the form of branched-chain amino acids, BCAAs. You want all nine essential amino acids in there, right after your intense workout. It will…

Aesha Tahir: Technically, they say it will break your fast, of course. But if you’re just ingesting that, it’s not that bad. You’re just giving, BCAAs to repair your muscle fibers. The second comment that I received on Instagram on that reel was from, Patrick Schmidt. His comment is very good and that’s why I wanna highlight it over here.

Aesha Tahir: And his comment is, “People get confused. You don’t fast for weight loss, although it’s a by consequence of it. The main reason you give your stomach a rest, combined with fiber, it will be strong to fight bacteria and regulate your hormones. Your stomach is your [00:11:00] second brain. It makes all the decisions.

Aesha Tahir: I have fasted for the last fifteen years, and I don’t get sick and don’t get colds anymore.” So I do wanna, address that here, Patrick. Thank you for sharing, and highlighting some great physiological r- points. Research on gut-brain, axis confirms that our digestive system heavily influences, influences systemic inflammation and hormone regulation.

Aesha Tahir: Spot on. The gut really is our second brain. The enteric nervous system sends constant signals to our mind and impacts our mood and immunity. Combining fasting windows with high fiber is a science-backed way to produce f- short-chain fatty acids, which strengthen the gut barrier against bad bacteria. While a fifteen-year streak of [00:12:00] no colds is amazing on your part, I have to say, like kudos to you.

Aesha Tahir: The science definitely supports that fasting triggers cellular cleanup, and it can promote a healthier microbiome, and it can lead to a stronger immune system. Let’s talk about the science behind all of this, though. So your enteric nervous system, a John Hopkins research shows that the enteric nervous system, or in simple terms we call it the second brain, is true because your ENS consists of millions of nerve cells controlling digestion and constantly communicating with the central nervous system.

Aesha Tahir: It doesn’t make conscious decisions, but it directly influences mood, stress, and systemic inflammation. Second thing that I want to highlight [00:13:00] over here is this, the fiber. Yes. So combining IF with fiber makes a lot of sense, and it is backed by science. Combining fasting with fiber is an excellent strategy because when fiber enters the, intestines, gut bacteria ferment it into short-chain fatty acids, like butyrate.

Aesha Tahir: And according to research, these short-chain fatty acids, they strengthen the intestinal barrier, lowering inflammation, and they fuel your immune cells. Now, hormone regulation is also… Now, hormonal regulation is also a byproduct of fasting. Fasting triggers a metabolic switch that lowers circulating insulin and elevates growth hormone, which [00:14:00] helps with the cellular re- repair.

Aesha Tahir: However, fasting while you’re doing intense workouts is probably not recommended. Now, my favorite exercises to do while I’m fasting are the chill ones, like a long walk in the park or a hike in the woods. It’s one thing if you’re planning on eating a large meal after a really intense workout done in a fasted state, but it’s a completely other thing if you can’t replenish, your fuel after a very high-intensity workout or a very grueling strength training, regimen or, or routine.

Aesha Tahir: So here’s another way to look at it. Fasting is stressful, right? You’re putting, stress on your body and on your biological systems, and we call it the eustress or the good kind of [00:15:00]stress. So this type of stress makes you stronger, more resilient, yet it’s still stress in the end. So exercise stresses your body as well, especially intense training that requires a lot of recovery time.

Aesha Tahir: That’s a lot of stress on your body. So now you’re stressing your body with intense exercise, plus you are already in a fasted state, which, give… which provides a form of eustress on your body, but it’s a lot of stress on your body. So it is recommended by most experts who practice IF with the 16/8 split or the 16 hour/8 hour split, like, Martin Berkhan and Brad Pilon, they, come to my mind.

Aesha Tahir: They recommend no more than two to three weight training sessions per 10 days [00:16:00] of, being on that 16/8 intermittent fasting schedule. So take that into consideration before you try and, hit the gym or do fasted intense workouts. So then you might be wondering then, what can I do? Can you do cardio while practicing IF?

Aesha Tahir: Yes, you can do cardio while practicing IF, but depending on the type of cardio, you might want to time it right before breaking the fast. I-if I would do cardio in a fasted state, it would be a very slow, long run. And I still try to break my fast right after replenishing afterwards, with at least BCAs, 25 to 30 grams of it So that’s where it becomes a little bit tricky.

Aesha Tahir: Okay, I also want to address a little bit, I also want to address the comment that you made about, if fasting stops [00:17:00] you from getting cold. Now, autophagy or cellular cleanup is great because it is a byproduct of fasting, and it clears out damaged cells and pathogens, and it can boost certain innate immune responses.

Aesha Tahir: It also increases your microbiome diversity, which changes your gut microbio, gut microbiota, I should say. So when that happens, certain pro-inflammatory, pro-inflammatory bacteria, they are starved out, they are starved out. So pro-inflammatory bacteria are the bacteria that cause inflammation, so they are starved out because of IF, which boosts beneficial strains of bacteria, and that helps you rebuild the gut lining and defend against bad bacteria.

Aesha Tahir: While a [00:18:00] 15-year streak of no colds is super impressive But I want to share with you the human immune system is much more complex. Fasting supports a resilient immune system, but it cannot completely guarantee immunity from viruses. And we are all very unique, too. So what works for you, which could be intermittent fasting with those low-intensity workouts that you mentioned, might not work for someone else.

Aesha Tahir: So over-fasting, and especially combining fasting with high-intensity workouts with severe caloric restriction can raise stress hormones like cortisol, and that can actually lead to suppressed immune system. So that’s what I wanted to share about intermittent fasting and fasted workouts. These were a couple of questions that [00:19:00] came my way, and I wanted to share the information with you guys.

Aesha Tahir: So thanks for tuning in and listening to the podcast. I’ll be back soon with another podcast and addressing your questions and comments, so that we can all learn from them. Thank you so much for your comments and thank you so much for your questions. Keep them sending my way. You can go on my website, 9to5WellnessPodcast, and you can record an audio question, in an au- audio format, and I can play it for everyone to hear on our podcast as well.

Aesha Tahir: So thank you so much. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.