The Intermittent Fasting Test: Could You Benefit?

• Do you get shaky or irritable if hungry?
• Do you get out of breath climbing stairs?
• Are you fatigued in the afternoons?
• Do you have trouble getting or staying asleep?
• Do you have stiff or painful joints?
• Do you have fluid retention?
• Do your ears ring?

If you have several of these symptoms, intermittent fasting might not be a good thing for you to do. More accurate testing could determine what WOULD work to lose weight. Often this will be a solution to improve your overall health rather than diet and exercise weight loss.

What’s Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. For example, you might eat only between 8 AM and 6 PM, or you might fast for two full nonconsecutive days a week. There are a lot of variations.

The benefits: The idea is to improve your health by mimicking ancient eating schedules instead of always having food available. Reportedly, you can increase your mental clarity, burn fat and lose weight, feel better overall and improve your health to avoid diseases.

I believe that some people may get substantial benefits from intermittent fasting. I’ve read the research and rationales behind it, and much of it does make sense.

Where I can’t entirely agree is that any diet, food, supplement, or treatment could work for “everyone.” As an example, in my practice, I see mainly severe chronic cases. These people are physically very stressed. They are very toxic and usually have some immune suppression. Intermittent fasting would be about the worst thing that many of these people could do to themselves.

“Testing,” a Weird New Idea?

I can’t think of any single food, supplement, or treatment that would be appropriate for every patient I’ve had in the past year. Well, except for maybe clean water.  Every person is unique in many ways and needs different solutions.

When I make this statement to people, they often ask, “But, how would you be able to tell who would benefit and who would not?” This confusion shows how foreign the concept of TESTING is to most people. If you could accurately test someone to determine what foods, supplements, diets, and treatments would be effective and safe for them—why would anyone make any decisions without testing first?

Medicine’s Failure to Test

When medical doctors treat patients with chronic illness, they test to diagnose but don’t test to determine causes. Not knowing the cause, the doctor must follow a fixed treatment protocol for that diagnosis and often only treat symptoms. The result is often a lessening of the symptoms but no solution to the actual problem. The undiscovered cause of their conditions or diseases may continue to deteriorate their health, and the patient may suffer from chronic health conditions for the rest of their lives.

“One Accurate Measurement is Worth a Thousand Expert Opinions”

—Admiral Grace Hopper

The practice of medicine relies on the doctor’s opinion as the primary method of deciding what is wrong with the patient and what treatment would be effective. This is so true that it’s normal to seek a second opinion to see if you can get more than one doctor to agree on your treatment.

My long experience is that many—maybe most—people are so used to this medical guessing that they’ll shrug and say, “So what’s the problem with opinions?” The problem is that an opinion is really a guess.

Doctors have been practicing this way for so long that we think it’s normal. But what other profession could get away with this approach? Would you need a “second opinion” on the engineering of a bridge or skyscraper or the design of your car? These and almost all other professions rely on accurate measurements and proven methods based on scientific and engineering principles that consistently get results.

Engineers do not guess. Neither do carpenters, chefs, pilots, accountants, or carpet installers.

Professionals are expected to “know their stuff” and get a predictable, effective result. Except for doctors! (Well, and, maybe philosophers, sports bookies, and politicians.)

The Takeaway:

Everyone’s body is different.

Your genetics, damage from illnesses and injuries, the diet you were raised on, your preferences, your environment, available food, your drug history, stress history, personality, and many more variables are all different from other individuals.

So, there is no “universal” diet, food, lifestyle, supplement, drug, or treatment that would get good results for everyone. Far, far from it!

The ability to test any of the above items before recommending them to an individual is not only of critical importance, it is obvious.

Because: the only other option would be to GUESS.