What Is Intermittent Fasting (IF)?
Intermittent fasting is one of the popular methods to lose weight. It is used by people to reduce weight and for fitness trends. In this diet, people restrict their consumption of food to specific time periods throughout the day. Researchers say that this diet has many health benefits other than weight loss as this diet improves the health of the brain and heart, protects from type 2 diabetes, reverses some diseases, helps you live a healthy and long life, and it also simplifies the lifestyle of people.
Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that does not specify which foods you should take rather it focuses on when to take the foods. Therefore, it is not similar to traditional dieting plans but is more likely an eating pattern. Most commonly the gaps between food-eating cycles are 16 hours or 24 hours two times a week.
Working process of Intermittent fasting
Different methods are in place to do intermittent fasting and it depends upon the time periods of the day during which a person decides to eat and fast. For example, some people decide that they will eat only for 8 hours a day and will fast for the rest of the day. Or some people could decide to only eat one meal each day for two days per week. There are many schedules to do intermittent fasting.
Without eating food for hours body run out of sugar and starts to lose weight by burning fat. This is referred to as metabolic switching. Every time someone eats, especially if they are eating three meals a day plus snacks and aren’t exercising, they are burning off the calories they consume rather than their fat reserves.
The way intermittent fasting works is by extending the time it takes for your body to finish burning the calories from your last meal and start burning fat.
9 Best methods for intermittent fasting
Following are the 9 best methods for intermittent fasting that can show better results and help people to lose weight.
1. 5:2 Fasting
The 5:2 fasting method is one of the popular methods of intermittent fasting. In this method, people eat normally for five days without counting calories then eat women eat 500 calories and men consume 600 calories for the next two days. Then they can fast on any day that they have chosen. The notion is that brief fasting periods keep you compliant; if you get hungry on a fasting day, you just have to wait until the next day to “feast” once more.
Some people find this approach of 5:2 fasting as the best way to diet rather than cutting calories and starving for food. Researchers are of the view that fasting on those days when you are doing strenuous exercise is not a good idea. Before following this diet, you can speak to your nutritionist to ask for their advice.
2. Fast for 12 hours a day
This diet is very easy to follow as people who are following this diet plan will have to eat within a window period of 12 hours every day. Researchers say that 10-16 hours of fasting cause the body to
The rules for this diet are simple. A person needs to decide on and adhere to a 12-hour fasting window every day.
According to some researchers, fasting for 10–16 hours a day can release Ketones into the bloodstream as the body converts fat storage to energy. Thus, weight loss ought to be encouraged. causeTrusted Source the body to turn its fat stores into energy, which releases ketones into the bloodstream. This should encourage weight loss.
Beginners are advised to consider a strategy like this for intermittent fasting. This is so because there is a narrow window for fasting, the person can consume the very same amount of calories each day, and the majority of the fasting occurs while they are sleeping. They can also include the time that they have spent sleeping during this 12-hour fasting.
For example, A person can decide that he will not eat anything from 7 pm in the evening to 7 am in the morning. In this case, he will have to eat his dinner before 7 pm and will have to wait until 7 am to eat the next meal. However, they can sleep at this time too to spend it.
3. Time-Restricted Fasting
In this type of intermittent fasting, you will have to choose a window period every day. The period should be selected in such a way that it should leave a fasting period of 4- to 16-hour.
Women have a different type of body structure than men so because of hormonal issues they are advised to fast for only 14 hours.
Fasting encourages the process of autophagy “cellular housekeeping”. In this process, the body gets rid of debris and other waste material that obstructs the health of mitochondria. This process usually begins when the glycogen in the liver is depleted. This process helps enhance fat cell metabolism and improve insulin performance.
With this method, you may, for example, configure your eating window to be between 9 and 5 o’clock in the afternoon. It can be especially useful for someone with a family who already eats a late dinner. Then, a large portion of the time spent fasting is time spent sleeping. Depending on how your window is arranged, you theoretically don’t have to “miss” any meals. But how consistently you can be depended on. Daily periods of fasting might not be for you if your schedule is constantly changing, you require or desire the freedom to occasionally go out for breakfast, go on a late date, or attend happy hour.
4. Overnight Fasting
This strategy, which is the simplest of the bunch, entails fasting every day for 12 hours. For instance, decide to stop eating after dinner at 7 p.m. and start again at 7 a.m. the following morning with breakfast. At 12 hours, autophagy is still occurring, but the cellular benefits are less significant.
This approach has the advantage of being simple to use. You don’t have to skip meals either; rather, all you’re doing is forgoing a nighttime snack (if you ate one, to begin with). However, this approach does not fully exploit the benefits of fasting. A smaller fasting window means more time to eat if you’re utilizing fasting to lose weight, which may not help you reduce your calorie intake.
5. Eat Stop Eat
Brad Pilon, the author of the book, Eat Stop Eat: The Shocking Truth That Makes Weight Loss Simple Again developed this approach. His strategy is unique from others in that he emphasizes adaptability. In simple words, he states that fasting is just taking a break from eating food for a small time. You commit to a resistance training regimen and execute one or two 24-hour fasts each week. “When your fast is done, I want you to eat sensibly and act as if nothing ever happened. I’m done now. No other things,” he claims on his website.
In order to eat sensibly, one must return to a regular eating routine. This means avoiding binges after a fast but also refraining from severe diets and eating less than is necessary. According to Pilon, the optimal fat loss regimen combines regular weight training with sporadic fasting. You can eat a bit more on the remaining five or six non-fasting days by allowing yourself to go on one or two 24-hour fasts during the week. Because of this, he claims, finishing the week with a calorie deficit without feeling as though you must be on a strict diet is easier and more pleasurable.
6. Whole-Day Fasting
In this approach, you eat only one time a day. People chose the time to eat. Some prefer to eat breakfast while others prefer to eat dinner. After eating food, they will not eat for the whole day and will eat on the next day. The fasting periods are usually 24 hours from the time you eat food to the next day at the same time. However, in the 5:2 fasting, the total period of fasting is 36 hours. For instance, you might consume dinner on Sunday, “fast” on Monday by consuming 500–600 calories and then resume your normal eating schedule on Tuesday with breakfast.
The health benefit of whole-day fasting for weight loss is that it’s extremely difficult, but not impossible, to consume all of the calories for the day at once. The drawback of this strategy is that it’s challenging to get all the nutrients your body requires in one meal in order for it to operate at its best.
This strategy is quite difficult to follow. By the time dinner arrives, you can be so ravenously hungry that you make poor, calorie-dense food choices. This can affect your sleep and you may have brain fog throughout the day if you are not eating anything.
7. Alternate-Day Fasting
In this approach of intermittent fasting, people may fast on alternate days. On those days in which they are taking restricted calories, some individuals may consume only 20-25% of their normal calorie intake, while some people may consume about 500 calories.
The notion behind alternate-day fasting is that people with get benefit by losing weight and also experience metabolic health.
Studies have shown that alternate-day fasting can lead to significant reductions in body weight and body fat. This also upgrades insulin sensitivity by reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. Studies suggest that this increases the brain health of people, improve cognitive function, save them from age-related neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and increases the life span of a person by improving health.
8. Choose-Your-Day Fasting
Choose-Your-Day Fasting is a flexible form of intermittent fasting where you choose which days of the week you want to fast. It’s a great option for people who want to reap the benefits of intermittent fasting but also has some flexibility.
The key is to stick to a consistent fasting schedule, which can be anything from 12-36 hours. Some people choose to fast for 24 hours once or twice a week, while others prefer to fast for 16 hours every day. It’s important to remember to listen to your body and make adjustments as needed. Additionally, it’s recommended to consume nutrient-dense foods during your non-fasting periods and to stay hydrated throughout the day.
9. The Warrior Diet
This is based on the philosophy of intermittent fasting.
In this strategy, people do fasting in alternate periods with only a small window period in which they eat all the calories that they want to eat. The warrior diet encourages exercising during the day.
Throughout the day, people can eat fruits, vegetables, a small amount of protein in the diet, natural juice, water, coffee, and tea.
In the evening, you can eat a large portion of the meal. With this food, you will have no restriction on calorie intake. So, you can take any amount of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
Researchers believe that intermittent fasting is very beneficial and do more than just burn fats. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that there are many health benefits associated with intermittent fasting. These benefits include good health, a sharper brain, and a lean body.
Intermittent fasting can protect the organs from developing chronic and dangerous diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and cancer.
Some interesting facts about intermittent fasting are as follows:
Thinking and Working memory. Studies revealed that intermittent fasting can augment working memory in animals while verbal memory in adults.
Heart health. Blood pressure and heart rates can be improved by the intermittent fasting
Physical performance. 16-hour fasting young males demonstrated fat reduction while retaining muscular mass. Mice that were fed on different days displayed greater running endurance.
Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Intermittent fasting has been shown to prevent obesity in animal studies. It can also help people lose weight and in this way it can decrease the fasting blood glucose, leptin, and fasting insulin in people with type 2 diabetes. It also decreases insulin resistance, increase the levels of adiponectin, and decreases the level of leptins. Research shows that intermittent fasting sometimes works in such a way that it reverses the need for insulin therapy in some patients.
Tissue health. Intermittent fasting prevents tissue damage during surgery.
Side effects of intermittent fasting
The main side effect of intermittent fasting is hunger. Additionally, you can feel lethargic and maybe it can affect your thinking power and deplete the brain’s thinking power. However, this situation can be temporary as your body can take some time to the body to adjust to the new mealtime routine.
In case of any medical condition, you should consult with your doctor before trying intermittent fasting.
In the following conditions, you ought to be careful before starting intermittent fasting:
- Diabetes.
- Blood sugar regulation problems
- Low blood pressure
- Underweight
- History of eating disorders
- Female who is trying to get pregnant
- Amenorrhea
- Pregnant women or nursing mother
