National coach Louis van Gaal lost 15 kilos with ‘intermittent fasting’ or periodic fasting. It is a dietary pattern in which people eat only certain parts of the day and fast outside of that. Many people use it to lose weight. Others see it as a way of life.
A beer here, a drink there. In his student days, Sander van Waardenburg (25) from Breda, like so many others, let himself go. Until he graduated two years ago and stepped on the scales. The pointer stopped at 98 kilos. “I had gained 23 kilos and I actually did not realize that at all,” he says now.
“A friend told me about intermittent fasting and I thought: you can never keep that up, that’s crazy. Still, I decided to do it. After the first two or three weeks it all went very well. I lost weight quickly and quite a bit.”
Intermittent fasting seems to be gaining popularity. Even Louis van Gaal does it. And with success: he lost 15 kilos, he told the SBS6 program De Oranjewinter.
“Among ancestors didn’t eat all day long, did they?”
Intermittent fasting is not a diet in which you eat or leave certain food products. It’s not about what you eat, but when. For example, only between twelve in the afternoon and eight in the evening. Many people use it to lose weight.
It is different with 33-year-old Amine Zouhair from Eindhoven. “I never really liked breakfast anyway. I always felt like I was stuffing myself in the morning. I see a lot of health benefits in it. I don’t think it’s healthy to eat 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as many people are used to. Our ancestors didn’t eat all day long, did they?”
The result? Amine does not use it for weight loss. “It makes me feel better about myself, that’s what I do it for. Although I also believe that my immune system gets a boost and that it is good for my organs. They get more rest because they are not always busy processing food.”
“A diet is only successful if you can stick to it.”
Whether that is correct, according to Sander Kersten, is the question. He is professor of Nutrition, Metabolism and Genomics at Wageningen University. In a podcast about intermittent fasting, he mainly mentions losing weight for people who are overweight as an advantage. Your blood pressure and cholesterol levels drop and blood sugar levels improve, but he doubts there are any long-term health benefits.
He further emphasizes: “A diet is only successful if you can keep it up. So if you change your eating habits permanently.”
Amine and Sander are convinced that intermittent fasting can be maintained. After all, they themselves are living proof. Sander has been doing it for a year and a half and his weight has been constant at 80 kilos for half a year. “I only do it during the week. At the weekend I loosen the reins. That is a very nice balance for me.”