Intermittent fasting seems like the hottest health and fitness trend over the last few years. So much so that it is easy to wonder if this is the newest fad in a long series of fads to get people to shell out money for some gypsy magic nutrition advice.
I wrote a post about some of today’s popular diet fads. Spoiler alert: I hate them, and they do not work in the long run. That being said, I do not think that intermittent fasting falls in the diet fad category. In fact, it isn’t even a diet as much as it is a lifestyle change around when you eat, not what you eat.
Fasting is nothing new. It has been studied for decades. Your human body is actually evolutionary designed to operate in fasted states. Just think about our ancient ancestors: food came in large chunks like after a hunt, followed by periods of food scarcity. Our body is very efficient at using stored energy to keep us going during these food droughts. It is more natural for our bodies to have fasted periods of time than it is for us to consistently eat 3+ meals on a regular basis everyday.
So why has intermittent fasting gained so much traction recently? Your guess is as good as mine, but the research has been mounting that intermittent fasting offers numerous health and weight loss benefits. Let’s get into some of the health benefits first.
Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss
The most common reason you would turn to intermittent fasting is weight loss, and rightfully so. Intermittent fasting has been proven as a powerful tool to help lose weight. The most obvious reason doesn’t require a science degree and 10,000 studies to understand. You just eat less calories. Pretty simple.
If you are cutting out a block of time during the day, or even a whole day where you do not eat, your calorie intake naturally will go down. One pound of body fat is roughly 3,500 calories. If you follow the standard weight loss approach and plan to lose 1 lb per week, you can see that eliminating an entire day of calories or multiple meals throughout the week will make that 3500 calorie deficit much easier to obtain.
Here’s a more sciencey reason. Short periods of fasting can change the amount of certain hormones that the body produces in a way that will accelerate weight loss.
In a fasted state, your body will decrease insulin production. Insulin takes glucose from your blood and delivers it to your cells. If your cells don’t need it, guess what, that becomes fat.
Short-term fasting also increases the production of HGH (Human Growth Hormone), which will speed up your metabolism. Your metabolism is all of the chemical interactions that keep you alive. A “fast” metabolism means that you burn a lot of energy (and therefore calories) performing all of these reactions.
In addition, your body increases the production of a hormone called norepinephrine, which has been linked to weight loss.
Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
Everyone wants to lose weight and look great but intermittent fasting offers a bonus round of health benefits as well, which include:
- Reduction in inflammation, which can be a cause of certain chronic diseases.
- Reduces insulin levels, which is a driving factor in Type 2 Diabetes.
- Animal studies have shown that fasting periods can increase lifespan.
- Studies have shown an increase in mental function and may also help prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.
- Following a short term fasting plan can reduce the risk of heart disease by decreasing certain markers for it such as LDL cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood.
- Animal studies suggest that intermittent fasting may play a part in reducing the risk of certain types of cancers.
How to Eat Using Intermittent Fasting
You will be picking certain times where you can eat and certain times when you will abstain from food altogether.
There are a few common ways people go about doing this.
- The 16-8 method. This is by far the easiest to use and maintain. You have an 8 hour eating window followed by 16 hours of fasting. You can do this by starting your meals around lunch and eating until 8 pm. This means that most of your fasted period is spent sleeping so that shouldn’t be too hard. The only meal you will be skipping is breakfast and then having your first meal around noon.
- 5:2 – this means that you will eat normally five days a week and pick two non consecutive days to fast completely. This is great if you are planning a cheat day on a weekend. Simply fast the following day to minimize overall weekly calorie intake and get your bodies hormone levels functioning properly again. Choose your other day on a lighter exercise day during the week.
- OMAD-One Meal A Day is exactly what it sounds like. Do not eat anything all day except one large meal. After that eat nothing else until tomorrow’s big meal. This is the most extreme example of intermittent fasting, and I personally found it hard to stick to. But, if you think it could work for your schedule, more power to you.
There are many ways to approach intermittent fasting but the above are some commonly used examples and provide good starting points. The nice thing about intermittent fasting is that you can choose your fasting windows to best fit your schedule, and durations can be adjusted. I would not recommend fasting for less than 12 hours though, because you start to lose some of the weight loss benefits. You can also combine different styles, like 16-8 for six days, with one day of complete fasting. This is a great program to fit into a busy lifestyle, and it still allows you to maintain a social life because it is not restricting what you eat.
Common Intermittent Fasting Mistakes
I know this is all sounding like a magic fat loss cure-all but unfortunately it’s not. There are still some things that need to be done in conjunction with intermittent fasting to make it effective.
- If you want to lose weight, you still need to eat in a calorie deficit. Make sure that you figure out the calorie intake that you need in order to lose weight. Use a tool like MyFitnessPal to help determine that number.
- Do not overeat in your eating window. It is easy to assume that since you skipped one or more meals that you can binge come feeding time. Not the case. If you eat over your caloric deficit amount, you will not lose weight. Period. Whether you eat 10 calories at a time throughout the day or shove them all into a few hours your body will not shed body fat if you are not in a caloric deficit.
- Be sure to track what you eat. Once meal time rolls around, you may be hungry and just dive in. However, be sure that you are still tracking what you eat to ensure that you are both eating the right amount and getting the right amount of nutrients for your goals.
- Not being strict during fasting time can derail your goals and throw your hormone benefits out the window. You don’t get to have just a bite or a taste or a little morsel of whatever delicious food your friend or coworker is having. When it is fasting time, fast.
- Remember to stay hydrated when you are fasting. You can still drink water, coffee, or tea during fasting times, and you should. It’s good to keep your body hydrated and drinking will help to fill you up. Caffeine, in moderation, can also have an appetite suppressing effect.
- Don’t use this as an excuse to eat junk food. Even if you are watching your calories, you should still focus on whole, nutrient dense foods and avoid processed foods and sugars for the most part.
- Adjust your workouts to correlate with your eating times. Do not try to go into the gym and perform a heavy lifting session on an empty stomach. Your performance will decline if your body is not properly fueled. Plan a workout like that after you have eaten.
Wrap Up
Intermittent fasting is a great way to jump start your weight loss goals. It provides numerous advantages when it comes to losing weight as well as some additional overall health benefits.
Start out with the traditional 16-8 method and as you get more comfortable with fasting experiment with other fasting times that you like. Your fasting and eating does not have to be at any specific time; it can easily be adjusted to fit your schedule and social life as long as you maintain at least a 12 hour fasting window. A side benefit is that you will have less meals to prepare as well, which can save you some time and money.
Be sure to keep your calories within your weight loss range and try to consume a healthy diet. Just like any other plan, use the 80-20 rule for your eating periods. Eat good 80% of the time and, if you want, slack off the other 20%. Stay hydrated and remember to adjust your training time to optimize your workouts.
Intermittent fasting is a preferred tool of mine and one that I utilize regularly. It is easy to fit into my life, and most importantly, something that can be done consistently and for the long haul.
Let me know what you think and if you have any experiences with intermittent fasting of your own to share!
Thanks for reading!
