Intermittent fasting (IF) restricts the number of hours you eat in a day or closing your feeding window. It is believed to have numerous health benefits like reducing insulin resistance, fighting inflammation, and aiding in weight loss. Intermittent fasting (IF) is presently one of the world’s most popular health and fitness trends. But did you know that it is not actually new? Fasting has been a normal part of life throughout human evolution. Ancient hunter-gatherers didn’t have constant access to food. There were no supermarkets, refrigerators, or food available year-round. Sometimes there was an abundance and other times a shortage. So, we have developed to handle some hunger and periods of fasting. Most religions incorporate some form of intermittent fasting in their spiritual pursuits as well. Maybe there’s a reason why most of the world’s major religions call for periodic fasting.
So What is Intermittent Fasting?
There are many different ways to fast, but they all include dividing the day or week into eating and fasting periods. During the fasting periods, you eat either very little or nothing at all. There are many different schools of thought regarding what you can consume during fasting periods. Some state just clear non-caloric beverages are acceptable; others believe drinks with a maximum of 50 calories are ok, while others think bulletproof coffee (coffee with fat) is permitted while others believe very low-calorie food is fasting.
The most popular methods are:
The 16/8 method: Is one of the most popular as it’s relatively simple to follow. You eat for eight hours a day and then fast for the next sixteen. You can adjust the timing to whatever best fits your schedule, but many find that an eating period between 12 pm and 8 pm works best. This way, they fast through the night while sleeping and early morning.
The 12:12 method: Is the easiest and more of a beginner’s fasting method. If fasting is challenging for you, you can start with this and progress to a smaller feeding window when comfortable. You fast for 12 hrs and have an eating window of 12 hrs. During the fasting 12 hrs, you should not consume anything with energy. So water, tea, and coffee are allowed but skip everything else.
The 14:10 method is a middle of the road method and often used while transitioning to stricter methods. Your feeding window is 10 hrs so you could stop eating at 8 pm and then delay the breakfast to 10 am.
The 20:08 method is the most effective method where your feeding window is only 8 hrs. Often just used a few days a week and not as a lifestyle. An example would be to eat dinner at 6 pm and then fast till 2 pm the next day.
The 5:2 diet is a more low-commitment form of fasting. You eat as usual five days a week and then drastically reduce the calories two non-consecutive days. These days, men should consume 600 kcal and women 500 kcal. However, it places a little more demand on the person who prepares the food to find very-low-calorie ingredients.
Eat-Stop-Eat: This is similar to the 5:2 method but stricter as it involves fasting for 24 hours. This way, you eat your regular diet for five days a week but entirely skip all food for one or two non-consecutive days. Zero-calorie drinks are ok.
By reducing your calorie intake and or skipping a meal or more, all of these methods should cause weight loss as long as you don’t compensate by overeating during the eating periods.
Doesn’t skip breakfast or fasting decrease your metabolism, you may ask? And the answer is no. Studies show that as long as you’re not in severe calorie deficiency for long periods, your metabolism or resting energy expenditure will not be affected.
What happens in the body?
Intermittent fasting can have many benefits for your body, brain, and overall health. It can cause weight loss and may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. It may also help you live longer.
Here are some changes that may occur in your body when you fast:
- Increased Human Growth Hormone (HGH.
- Improved Cellular repair through autophagy, where cells digest and remove old and dysfunctional proteins that build up inside cells. It is the body’s way of cleaning out damaged cells to regenerate newer, healthier cells.
- Promotes weight loss: As mentioned above, intermittent fasting can help you lose weight and belly fat without restricting calories all days consciously.
- Reduce insulin resistance, lowering blood sugar and fasting insulin levels, which could protect against type 2 diabetes.
- Reduced inflammation: studies show reductions in markers of inflammation (CRP), which are higher in many chronic diseases.
- Improved heart health: through reduction of LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers, blood sugar and insulin resistance, which are all known risk factors for heart disease.
- Improved brain health: by increasing the brain hormone BDNF and may aid new nerve cells’ growth. It may also protect against Alzheimer’s disease and fight dementia.
Does it seem too good to be true? Research is still in its early stages. Many questions have yet to be answered and replicated in higher quality human studies. But it is interesting, isn’t it?