I did not start intermittent fasting to lose weight. I started because my body felt like it was on fire. Late thirties, an autoimmune diagnosis, and the main thing conventional medicine offered me was immunosuppression — in other words: turn down the defense system and hope it is enough. For me, that did not feel like a full strategy. It felt like an emergency bandage on a wound that was still bleeding.

Intermittent fasting became one of the turning points. Not because it was a miracle — but because it gave my body something daily life often removes: pause, rhythm and a clearer sense of hunger. And that is exactly what the diet industry often misses completely.

What intermittent fasting really does

When you eat, something specific happens: insulin rises. That is normal. But if you eat from morning to evening — a snack here, bread there, coffee with milk in between — your insulin signal may stay elevated much of the day. A constantly repeated insulin signal can make it harder to enter true eating pauses and other metabolic states. The body gets almost no distance from constant processing.

Intermittent fasting interrupts that cycle. When you fast, insulin usually drops. And when insulin drops, several things can happen:

  • Your body switches fuel use — from mainly sugar toward more fat oxidation. That is not a myth; it is basic metabolic biochemistry.
  • Inflammatory markers may go down — studies on fasting patterns have shown measurable reductions in markers such as CRP and IL-6 in some contexts.
  • Autophagy can become more active — the cellular clean-up process that breaks down damaged proteins and cellular debris. I will come back to that in a moment.
  • Insulin sensitivity may improve — your cells can become more responsive to the signal that tells them what to do with incoming energy.

These are not small lifestyle details. They are metabolic shifts that may help explain why eating rhythm matters so much when the body is already under chronic stress.

Autophagy — the process that received a Nobel Prize

In 2016, Yoshinori Ohsumi received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on autophagy. This is not an esoteric term. It is cell biology at a very serious level. Autophagy literally means: “self-eating.” Your cells break down damaged components and recycle them. Old mitochondria, misfolded proteins, cellular debris lying in the way — it can all be marked, dismantled and reused.

Why does that matter? Because disturbed autophagy is being studied in connection with many chronic conditions. Autoimmune processes, neurodegeneration, metabolic disorders — in many fields, researchers look at what happens when cellular waste is not cleared well. And the body? It needs time and the right signals for that kind of clean-up. If it is processing food all day, that window can become smaller.

Autophagy is not a wellness keyword. It is a cellular housekeeping process that matters for regulation, repair and resilience. Fasting is one of the signals that can activate it.

You cannot simply supplement autophagy. You cannot train it away. But you can give your body periods in which this process may run more deeply — by fasting. In many discussions, 14–16 hours without food is treated as a point where autophagy-related mechanisms may become more relevant. The exact timing is individual, and longer is not automatically better for everyone.

Why it is not really about weight loss

I understand why intermittent fasting is marketed as a diet. Weight loss sells. Before-and-after pictures sell. But if you only use intermittent fasting as calorie restriction, you miss most of its potential.

I know people who did 16:8 and then simply ate twice as much at the end of their eating window — and wondered why nothing changed. Of course. The fasting window is not magic by itself. The useful part happens during the pause — when insulin drops, inflammatory processes may quiet down and cellular repair has more room to work. If you use the eating window to stuff the same junk into a shorter timeframe, you have changed the timing, not the underlying biochemistry.

For me, weight was never the main issue. My question was: How do I lower inflammatory pressure? How do I help my immune system stop attacking my own body? Intermittent fasting became an important tool in that process — combined with an anti-inflammatory way of eating and with what I describe in my book “Gut Feeling — More Than Just a Figure of Speech”: the understanding that so much begins in the gut.

My experience with different protocols

16:8 — the entry point

I started with 16:8. Sixteen hours fasting, eight hours eating. Sounds hard? It was not. You eat dinner at 7 p.m., and the first meal comes around 11 a.m. the next day. You sleep through half of the fasting window. The adjustment takes about a week — your body has to unlearn constant incoming energy. After that? I felt clearer. More awake. Lighter.

16:8 became my foundation. Long enough to lower insulin for a while. Long enough for early autophagy-related effects to become plausible. But not so extreme that everyday life suffered.

OMAD — One Meal A Day

At some point I tried OMAD. One meal a day. Twenty-three hours fasting, one hour eating. That is intense. It is not for beginners and not for every day. But during heavier inflammatory phases, OMAD gave me the strongest sense of a reset. Twenty-three hours of fasting means: the body really gets time away from constant digestion.

I do not do OMAD permanently. I use it selectively — on days when I notice something simmering in my body. As an intervention tool, not as a lifestyle identity.

The most common mistakes

  • Misusing fasting as a diet — If you fill the eating window with junk food and hope fasting will cancel everything out, you have turned a tool into an excuse. Food quality still matters.
  • Too fast, too extreme — From zero to OMAD? Bad idea. The body needs time to get comfortable with fat oxidation. Start with 14:10 or 16:8.
  • “Snacking” during the fast — A splash of milk in coffee? It can interrupt the fasting state. Bone broth? Calories and protein. If you fast, fast. Keep it clean.
  • No electrolyte support — Fasting lowers insulin, and lower insulin can increase sodium loss. Salt can be your friend, not your enemy.
  • Ignoring stress — If you are already chronically stressed and then add fasting, cortisol may rise further. Fasting is a stressor. Sometimes stress has to be managed before fasting makes sense.

Who should NOT fast

This is the serious part. Intermittent fasting is not for everyone. Anyone who tells you it always works for everyone is not being honest.

  • Eating disorders — Anyone with a history of bulimia, anorexia or binge eating should be very careful and generally should not fast without professional support. The fast-binge cycle is real and dangerous.
  • Pregnancy and breastfeeding — Your body needs a steady nutrient supply. This is not the phase for fasting.
  • Underweight — If your BMI is too low, your body may not have reserves to draw from.
  • Type 1 diabetes without medical supervision — Fasting can drastically change insulin needs. This belongs with your doctor, not with a blog post.
  • Children and teenagers — Growth needs energy. Intermittent fasting does not belong in the developmental phase.

And once more, because it matters: I am a coach, not a doctor. What I write here is based on my own experience and on engaging with the research. It does not replace medical advice. If you take medication or live with a chronic condition, talk to your doctor before changing your eating pattern.

How to start — without drama

Forget the theatrics. You do not need to start with a 24-hour fast today. A grounded path looks like this:

  • Week 1–2: 12 hours fasting — Dinner at 7 p.m., breakfast at 7 a.m. Basically what your grandparents probably did. No snacks after dinner.
  • Week 3–4: 14 hours fasting — Dinner at 7 p.m., first meal at 9 a.m. You may notice that you do not need breakfast as urgently as you thought.
  • Week 5+: 16:8 — The middle path. 16 hours fasting, 8-hour eating window. Sustainable, realistic and long enough for meaningful metabolic effects in many people.
  • Drink water, black coffee or tea — No calories during the fasting window. And enough salt, especially at the beginning.
  • Eat high-quality food in the window — Real food. Protein, healthy fats, vegetables. Not sugar dressed up as self-care.

And the most important part: Listen to your body. If you feel weak, dizzy or unusually irritable, take a step back. This is not a competition. It is a tool. And tools only work when they are used well.

For me, intermittent fasting — combined with nutrition, better body awareness and medical support — was an important building block. Not the only one. And not something that automatically transfers to everyone else.

That is exactly why I do what I do. Because this knowledge was missing when I was sick. And because I do not want it to be missing for others too.