JOPLIN, Mo. — Are you thinking about dieting in the new year? Intermittent fasting is an option but may not be the right call.

“Intermittent fasting is a popular topic,” said Susan Pittman, Freeman Diabetes Educ.: 1:19

Which some use as a diet plan, regularly switching between fasting and eating. And that can prompt some issues, according to the experts.

“My concern with that would be that it’s eliminating time where you need to be fueling your body. So we recommend that when you’re active when you’re up and about doing your work, school exercise that you need fuel for your body,” said Pittman.

Susan Pittman is a Diabetes Educator with Freeman Health System. She points out your body depends on a mix of nutrients.

“I think one of the things that we fail to realize is the body’s only way to get fuel is through food. Specifically, carbohydrates provide us with energy, but we also need protein for rebuilding. We need fats for restoring making sure that our vitamins are absorbed correctly, hormones are built correctly,” she said.

In other words, make sure the body is running correctly.

“So we need all those nutrients to make the body run correctly. And anytime we take one group away, or we don’t need at all the body is not getting what it needs and it’s going to have a stress response to that,” she added.

Pittman recommends a more balanced diet along with regular exercise as a healthier alternative.

“The fads come and go. It really is so simple. As to just taking care of our body, nourishing our body. There’s not a magical or there’s just not that silver bullet. There’s not that one thing that we can say hey, do this in in your body is going to be perfect. health consequences happen regardless of our diet. So I think we tend to blame everything back on diet, but just taking as good care of ourselves as we can. That’s really a good thing to do. And diet is a part of it,” said Pittman.