What is Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting refers to an eating pattern that cycles between periods of eating and periods of fasting. Intermittent fasting has various potential benefits, including weight loss and improved heart health.
Intermittent fasting 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 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. 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.
Intermittent fasting help with weight loss
A Harvard Medical school article shared that Intermittent fasting makes intuitive sense. The food we eat is broken down by enzymes in our gut and eventually ends up as molecules in our bloodstream. Carbohydrates, particularly sugars and refined grains (think white flours and rice), are quickly broken down into sugar, which our cells use for energy. If our cells don't use it all, we store it in our fat cells as, well, fat. But sugar can only enter our cells with insulin, a hormone made in the pancreas. Insulin brings sugar into the fat cells and keeps it there.
Between meals, as long as we don't snack, our insulin levels will go down and our fat cells can then release their stored sugar, to be used as energy. We lose weight if we let our insulin levels go down. The entire idea of IF is to allow the insulin levels to go down far enough and for long enough that we burn off our fat.
Recent Studies about fasting
Short-term studies suggest that people stick to intermittent fasting diets as well as or better than they do to other diets. And according to a 2019 review article in the journal Nutrients, intermittent fasting promotes weight loss and may reduce risk factors linked to heart disease, including diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy blood lipid levels, and inflammation.
Flipping the switch from a fed to fasting state does more than help us burn calories and lose weight. The researchers combed through dozens of animal and human studies to explain how simple fasting improves metabolism, lowers blood sugar levels; lessens inflammation, which improves a range of health issues from arthritic pain to asthma; and even helps clear out toxins and damaged cells, which lowers risk for cancer and enhances brain function.
There is some good scientific evidence suggesting that circadian rhythm fasting (Circadian Rhythm: the 24-hour internal clock in our brain), when combined with a healthy diet and lifestyle, can be a particularly effective approach to weight loss, especially for people at risk for diabetes. (However, people with advanced diabetes or who are on medications for diabetes, people with a history of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, and pregnant or breastfeeding women should not attempt intermittent fasting unless under the close supervision of a physician who can monitor them.)
4 ways to use this information for better health
Avoid sugars and refined grains. Instead, eat fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats (a sensible, plant-based, Mediterranean-style diet).
Let your body burn fat between meals. Don't snack. Be active throughout your day. Build muscle tone.
Consider a simple form of intermittent fasting. Limit the hours of the day when you eat, and for best effect, make it earlier in the day (between 7 am to 3 pm, or even 10-12 am to 6 pm, but definitely not in the evening before bed).
Avoid snacking or eating at nighttime, all the time.
Overall, studies indicate that intermittent fasting may be as effective as traditional calorie restriction in relation to weight loss and the reduction of body fat. There is also evidence to show that intermittent fasting may be easier to stick to than other traditional weight loss methods. However, individuals should always discuss a new eating plan with a healthcare professional before starting.
Raquel Torres, MBA