Highlights-what is Intermittent Fast? *Benefits of Intermittent *Fasting Different methods of doing* Research on intermittent fasting
Fasting has always had spiritual connotations in the Indian context. Fasting on a Monday, Thursday or Saturday is very popular amongst people for various religious reasons. But lately, Intermittent Fasting (IF) is gaining ground as a weight loss tool. Intermittent Fasting an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating.
It restricts when or how much you eat — and sometimes both. One variation, time-restricted eating, involves eating only during a certain time window, usually eight hours, over a single day. For example, you would eat only during the hours of 9 am to 5 pm or 1 pm and 9 pm and then fast during the other 16 hours.
The other approaches, alternate-day and whole-day fasting, actually don’t involve strict fasting. Instead, you choose two or more days during the week when you cut way back on the food you eat, limiting yourself to just 400 to 600 calories per day.
On the other days of the week, you follow your normal eating pattern. In one popular version, the 5:2 diet, you eat normally for five days, then restrict your calories on two non-consecutive days. With alternate-day fasting, you eat a calorie-restricted diet every other day.
Testa Jain, a nutritionist says, “If you want to give intermittent fasting a try, make sure to discuss it with your doctor first. Skipping meals and severely limiting calories can be dangerous for people with certain conditions, such as diabetes. Patients who take medications for blood pressure or heart disease also may be more prone to imbalances of sodium, potassium, and other minerals during longer-than-normal periods of fasting.”
How does Intermittent fasting help?
Unlike other diets where you are constantly counting calories, this diet keeps you disciplined. You will not feel deprived and the diet is easier to maintain.
You can eat a balanced diet that includes whole grains, nuts, legumes, fruits, and vegetables, which are rich in nutrients in the meal.
. “People who try whole or alternate-day fasting quickly realize how many calories are in certain foods. That helps them choose foods that are more filling but lower in calories,” says
However, intermittent fasting diets typically don’t specify what foods you should eat. However, that does not mean you could start eating burgers and French fries five days a week.You have to choose the healthier options of food.
But with any diet, it’s often a good idea to ease into the changes. You could start by trying a 5:2 diet or time-restricted eating. Once you start losing weight, you can gradually introduce more healthy foods, he suggests.
Don’t expect fast results, however. With intermittent fasting, people tend to lose weight fairly slowly — about a half a pound to 1 pound per week. But when it comes to losing weight, slow and steady is more successful and sustainable over the long term.
If you want to give intermittent fasting a try, make sure to discuss it with your doctor first. Skipping meals and severely limiting calories can be dangerous for people with certain conditions, such as diabetes. Some people who take medications for blood pressure or heart disease also may be more prone to imbalances of sodium, potassium, and other minerals during longer-than-normal periods of fasting.
Different methods of doing Intermittent Fasting
There are several different ways of doing intermittent fasting — all of which involve splitting the day or week into eating and fasting periods.
During the fasting periods, you eat either very little or nothing at all.
These are the most popular methods:
The 16/8 method: Also called the Leangains protocol, it involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 1–9 p.m. Then you fast for 16 hours in between.
For people who get hungry in the morning and like to eat breakfast, this method may be hard to get used to at first. However, many breakfast skippers actually instinctively eat this way.
You can drink, water, coffee and other noncaloric beverages during the fast, which can help reduce feelings of hunger.
Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours, once or twice a week, for example by not eating from dinner one day until dinner the next day.
From dinner one day to dinner the next day, this amounts to a full 24-hour fast.
For example, if you finish dinner at 7 p.m. Monday and don’t eat until dinner at 7 pm. the next day, you’ve just done a full 24-hour fast.
You can also fast from breakfast to breakfast or lunch to lunch. The end result is the same.
Water, coffee, and other noncaloric beverages are allowed during the fast, but no solid foods are permitted.
If you’re doing this to lose weight, it’s very important that you eat normally during the eating periods. As in, eat the same amount of food as if you hadn’t been fasting at all.
The potential downside of this method is that a full 24-hour fast may be fairly difficult for many people. You can compensate with black tea, coffee buttermilk or some light fruits.
Starting with 14-16 hours and then moving upward from there is fine.
The 5:2 diet: With this method, you consume only 500–600 calories on two non-consecutive days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days.
This diet is also called The Fast Diet and was popularized by British journalist Michael Mosley.
For example, you might eat normally every day of the week except Mondays and Thursdays. For those two days, you eat two small meals (250 calories per meal for women and 300 calories for men).
As critics correctly point out, there are no studies testing the 5:2 diet itself, but there are plenty of studies on the benefits of intermittent fasting.
By reducing your calorie intake, all of these methods should cause weight loss as long as you don’t compensate by eating much more during the eating periods.
Many people find the 16/8 method to be the simplest, most sustainable and easiest to stick to. It’s also the most popular.
The Warrior Diet: Fast During the Day, Eat a Huge Meal at Night
The Warrior Diet was popularized by fitness expert Ori Hofmekler.
It involves eating small amounts of raw fruits and vegetables during the day and eating one huge meal at night.
Basically, you “fast” all day and “feast” at night within a 4-hour eating window.
The Warrior Diet was one of the first popular “diets” to include a form of intermittent fasting.
This diet also emphasizes food choices that are quite similar to a paleo diet — whole, unprocessed foods that resemble what they looked like in nature.
Spontaneous Meal Skipping: Skip Meals When Convenient
You don’t actually need to follow a structured intermittent fasting plan to reap some of the benefits.
Another option is to simply skip meals from time to time, such as when you don’t feel hungry or are too busy to cook and eat.
The human body is well equipped to handle long periods of famine, let alone missing one or two meals from time to time.
So, if you’re really not hungry one day, skip breakfast and just eat a healthy lunch and dinner. Or, if you’re traveling somewhere and can’t find anything you want to eat, do a short fast.
Skipping one or two meals when you feel inclined to do so is basically a spontaneous intermittent fast.
Research on Intermittent Fasting
Research shows that intermittent fasting can be a very powerful weight loss tool.
A 2014 review study found that this eating pattern can cause 3–8% weight loss over 3–24 weeks, which is a significant amount, compared to most weight loss studies .
According to the same study, people also lost 4–7% of their waist circumference, indicating a significant loss of harmful belly fat that builds up around your organs and causes disease .
Another study showed that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than the more standard method of continuous calorie restriction.
However, keep in mind that the main reason for its success is that intermittent fasting helps you eat fewer calories overall. If you binge and eat massive amounts during your eating periods, you may not lose any weight at all.
https://unsplash.com/photos/Sxo1DL2ldVA
Courtsey _Marc Najera
https://unsplash.com/photos/NOAzwcMzZJA
Courtesy Kim Deachul