My mate Sam collapsed at 11:03 in a glass-walled co-working space, and not one person said the word autophagy. People talked about coffee, looming deadlines, and whether someone ought to fetch him a croissant. Sam, meanwhile, was on day 19 of what he called a “clean 16:8 intermittent fasting reset”, logging every fast in an app that chirped for attention like a tamagotchi begging to be fed.
When he came round, he didn’t look spiritually upgraded - he looked mortified. His smartwatch had captured the entire performance.
Outside, he picked up his phone and found an advert already teeing itself up: a glossy new fasting tracker selling “cellular rejuvenation” and “mental clarity”.
Big wellness didn’t waste a breath.
Why the fasting fantasy feels so seductive
Open Instagram at 07:00 and it’s the same montage on loop: black coffee, clean countertops, empty plates, and bold captions about “owning the morning”. The aesthetic is pure, controlled, almost devotional.
As a pitch, intermittent fasting is wonderfully neat. Narrow your eating window, burn fat, think faster, live longer - job done.
But in practice it’s become an ideal playground for apps, supplements, and wellness gurus who realised that missing breakfast is the cheapest “product” they’ll ever persuade you to buy.
From the outside, Sam’s setup looked textbook “healthy”: standing desk, Coldplay pumping through noise-cancelling headphones, and a ruler-straight lineup of flavoured electrolyte sachets by his keyboard. He shared screenshots of 18-hour fasts like they were marathon medals.
What didn’t make it into the posts were the 22:00 binges. The bowls of cereal eaten under the laptop glow. The silent dread when he “broke” his fast at 10:00 with a single oat-milk latte and decided he’d wrecked the whole day.
A 2023 survey from a major diet app slipped in an awkward admission: a sizeable share of users couldn’t stick to strict fasting windows beyond a few weeks. The marketing outlasted the habit.
Here’s the dull, unfashionable truth: you don’t need a branded “fasting protocol” to sometimes eat your evening meal earlier or skip an unnecessary snack. People have done versions of that for as long as food has existed - no streaks, no push notifications, no premium tier.
The new trick is presentation. Take ordinary hunger cycles, wrap them in lab-coat language, add a colourful graph, and suddenly it’s a biohack.
The scam isn’t simply fasting as a concept - it’s the way Big wellness turns ordinary biology into a monthly payment.
How the intermittent fasting industry quietly cashes in
Begin with the apps: free to download, then “just” about £7.99 a month for bright charts, streak badges, and health claims written so vaguely they can’t be pinned down. Hunger becomes a game, and the game gets called “self-improvement”.
Some platforms push further, selling “premium coaching” in which a stranger online tells you when you’re allowed your first mouthful of the day. At that point you’re not reading your body - you’re obeying a notification.
A sentence that doesn’t get enough airtime: almost nobody keeps this up every single day.
One reader told me about her WhatsApp “fasting accountability group”. It began as a friendly place to check in. By week three, the tone had shifted into confession.
“I caved at 09:30 - ate half a banana.”
“Broke last night’s fast with chips, starting again tomorrow.”
One woman stopped joining family breakfasts because she didn’t want to “ruin” her streak. Another admitted she’d started lying about her fasting hours because she couldn’t stand being the only one who “failed”.
At the same time, the influencer who’d inspired the group launched a branded electrolyte line “to support your fast” for £39.99 a tub. Calories were forbidden; commerce was not.
From a business perspective, the intermittent fasting model is brilliant: sell the absence of food as a structured experience you can “do properly”, then surround that absence with things you can buy - books, supplements, timers, online courses, retreats.
The science cited is often genuine, but frequently cherry-picked and stretched well beyond what it actually shows. Mouse studies get recycled into confident promises for humans. Short-term results in specific groups are repackaged as universal hacks. The nuance disappears because nuance doesn’t sell.
And if it doesn’t work for you, the storyline is already prepared: you lacked discipline. You misunderstood the method. The protocol is untouchable - only the user is at fault.
A note on timing: intermittent fasting and real life in the UK
One reason intermittent fasting feels harder than the adverts imply is that everyday UK life doesn’t run on perfect lab conditions. Commutes, school runs, shift work, and social plans mean your mornings and evenings vary - and so do your hunger cues. A rigid “feeding window” can easily clash with the most ordinary parts of being human: eating with family, grabbing lunch with colleagues, or having a late meal after travel.
It’s also worth remembering that appetite and energy aren’t moral issues. Stress, poor sleep, and high workloads can amplify hunger and cravings, making “willpower” a very poor explanation for why a strict schedule collapses.
What to do instead of fasting your common sense away (without ditching intermittent fasting entirely)
There’s a simple, slightly old-fashioned move that cuts through most of the noise: pay attention to how you genuinely feel after eating, rather than how an app says you should feel.
Try this for seven days. Ignore named diets and stop obsessing over exact windows. After each meal, jot down three things:
- Energy: higher, lower, or unchanged
- Mood: lighter, heavier, or unchanged
- Hunger two hours later: still full, mildly hungry, or ravenous
You’ll notice patterns no glossy fasting guide mentions - because the patterns belong to you, not to a brand.
Many people arrive at intermittent fasting from a place that feels messy: late-night snacking, grazing without noticing, stress-eating between Teams meetings. When a strict schedule shows up, it can feel like rescue.
The catch is that swinging from chaos to control doesn’t teach you your own signals. Instead, it trains you to outsource trust to a clock and a guru - and then to punish yourself when your body refuses to cooperate.
If you’ve ever eaten before your planned feeding window and felt ashamed, that isn’t wellness. It’s diet culture in minimalist, science-flavoured packaging. What you need isn’t “more grit”; it’s less moral drama around food.
Sometimes, in a wellness culture addicted to extremes, the most courageous choice is something quietly moderate, quietly sustainable, quietly yours.
Switch from rigid windows to loose rhythms
Rather than “nothing before noon”, aim for “on most days, I’ll eat my evening meal a bit earlier and avoid late-night grazing”. Being flexible isn’t the same as failing.Question anything that needs a subscription to function
If a “lifestyle” collapses the moment you stop paying for an app, course, or coach, it’s worth asking who benefits most.Focus on quality, not gaps
A day with vegetables, enough protein, and satisfying meals beats a perfectly timed fast followed by ultra-processed food. Your body can tell the difference even if your fasting tracker can’t.
One more practical angle: food is social, not just nutritional
A hidden cost of rigid fasting protocol culture is the way it nudges people to avoid shared meals. When breakfast with your partner, a weekend brunch with friends, or a family roast becomes “a threat to your streak”, the method isn’t just shaping your diet - it’s reshaping your life. Any approach that routinely pushes you away from normal connection deserves scepticism, however “clean” it looks on a graph.
The uncomfortable questions big wellness hopes you won’t ask about intermittent fasting
Once you start prodding the intermittent fasting story, odd gaps appear. Why do so many programmes quietly sidestep people with a history of disordered eating? Why are common side effects - anxiety, disrupted sleep, hormonal changes - so often relegated to footnotes rather than treated as central considerations?
And why do the “success stories” always sound identical, when real people are complicated and rarely fit into neat before-and-after squares?
Maybe the core problem isn’t fasting itself. Maybe it’s what happens when a nuanced, context-dependent tool gets inflated into a universal miracle - and a cash cow.
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Fasting is sold, not just suggested | Apps, supplements, and coaching turn skipping meals into a monetised “protocol” | Helps you recognise when advice is profit-led rather than focused on your wellbeing |
| Shame keeps the cycle running | When you “fail” a strict window, you’re nudged to buy more tools instead of changing the rules | Stops you blaming yourself when the method doesn’t fit your real life |
| Your body is better feedback than your phone | Energy, mood, and genuine hunger cues beat charts and streaks | Offers a practical way to build an eating pattern that actually works for you |
FAQ
Is all intermittent fasting a scam?
Not quite. Some people genuinely feel better eating within a smaller window, particularly if it reduces late-night snacking. The scam is how Big wellness overhypes, overgeneralises, and overcharges for something that ought to remain simple and flexible.Are there people who shouldn’t try intermittent fasting?
Yes. Anyone with a history of eating disorders, people who are pregnant or breastfeeding, those with certain conditions (such as diabetes), and anyone prone to anxiety around food should speak to a qualified health professional first - not an influencer and not an app.What are some red flags in fasting advice?
Grand promises, “one-size-fits-all” language, pricey add-ons, demonising particular eating times, and content that shames you for feeling hungry are all signs you’re looking at marketing rather than care.How can I experiment safely if I’m curious?
Keep it gentle. You might bring your last meal a little earlier, or leave a comfortable gap between dinner and bedtime. Pay attention to sleep, how you feel on waking, and your mid-morning energy. If you feel worse, it’s not a character flaw - it’s simply not the right method for you.What matters more than fasting windows?
Regular, satisfying meals; enough protein and fibre; decent sleep; movement you don’t dread; and a relationship with food that isn’t powered by guilt. Those are harder to sell than a timer, but far more effective to live.
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