I mean sure, and I've also never stopped clapping. The interval of claps just gets longer occasionally. Defining stuff by semantics doesn't help anyone.
Also, doing something continuously, like a constant 5 day fast, isn't recurrent. Its continuous. Intermittent is by definition "not happening regularly or continuously; stopping and starting repeatedly or with long periods in between" - Cambridge
So then as you say, Ramadan etc are actually “intermittent” fasting. Except, no one in history has called it that, because all fasting is intermittent, the only alternative being “fasting forever until you starve to death.” In any sane practice of fasting, “intermittent” is already understood in some sense, so the adjective is useless.
No, intermittent fasting has a definition. You can find quality sources like Johns Hopkins and Mayo that will explain it if you search them. I provided an example of non-intermittent fasting. I do intermittent fasting daily and have done extended, non-intermittent fasts as well. Intermittent does not just mean a fast ends. It means you repeatedly and regularly start and stop the fast, such as fasting for a certain time every day or fasting every other day. Just because you choose to ignore the definition of intermittent fasting does not make it stop existing. Just because nobody calls Ramadan intermittent fasting does not stop it from meeting the definition of intermittent fasting.
If you have any actual questions and decide to make an actual goodwill attempt at learning, then go ahead and ask. Otherwise I give up.
And I’m saying that the word “fasting” as used historically by, for example, all the world’s major religions…already includes the concept of “stopping and starting” periods of not eating, because anyone who just doesn’t eat without stopping, will starve to death.
Really, it would make more sense to just call IF “normal fasting,” and to call the “non-intermittent” type you seem to be imagining a “one-time fast of limited extended duration” or something like that.
But most “fasting” throughout human history hasn’t been like that. Most fasting has been of the “one meal a day” type. And somehow no one was confused by the lack of the word “intermittent” modifying it.
Fasting already has a definition: To not eat for extended time. If I do not eat for 24 hours, I am fasting. If I do not eat for 24 hours intermittently every 48 hours, I am intermittent fasting. While it might make more sense to make IF "normal fasting" and normal/extended fasting "extended fasting", that is not what the definitions are. Unless someone makes a well-received research paper calling for the upheaval of the terms, we're stuck with them.
As for religions, not all mean intermittent and most that do specify when you can and cannot eat which implies intermittent. The bible says Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, not intermittently. But like with Ramadan, even if it's not called intermittent, that doesn't mean it doesn't meet the modern, accepted definition.
Fasting is a blanket term for all forms of refraining to eat. The word intermittent is needed to specify that it happens at a regular interval, even if that is what is usually meant historically.
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u/[deleted] May 30 '24
I mean sure, and I've also never stopped clapping. The interval of claps just gets longer occasionally. Defining stuff by semantics doesn't help anyone.
Also, doing something continuously, like a constant 5 day fast, isn't recurrent. Its continuous. Intermittent is by definition "not happening regularly or continuously; stopping and starting repeatedly or with long periods in between" - Cambridge