Stand Up And Move More
One of the easiest ways to shed weight is to up your non-exercise activity thermogenesis the energy expended for everything you do outside of eating, sleeping or exercising. Little changes like carrying your groceries instead of pushing a cart, parking farther away from the entrance to the mall, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or even tapping your toe can lead to hundreds of extra calories burned.
Or try to stand more than you sit. Studies show that simply replacing sitting with standing leads to a greater daily energy expenditure, which directly translates into more calories burned and ultimately pounds shedSaeidifard F, Medina-Inojosa J, Supervia M, Olson T, Somers V, Erwin P, Lopez-Jimenez F. Differences of energy expenditure while sitting versus standing: A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. 2018 25:522-538. .
For example, if you weigh 160 pounds and alternate sitting and standing, you can burn approximately 35 additional calories an houran extra 280 calories a day, 1,400 calories a week and about 70,000 calories a year.
Set a timer on your phone, Fitbit or computer to remind you to get up and move around every hour, says Albertson. Youll burn more calories and may lower your blood sugar and risk of heart disease.
Stop Snacking And Limit Your Alcohol
Create a strict rule about snacks after dinner which will make it easier to kick off your fast, instead of being tempted to prolong your eating window by having a late dessert or midnight snack. Alcohol is metabolized like sugar, so be sure to limit alcoholic beverages and stop drinking at the same time you begin your fast.
What Is Intermittent Fasting
Many diets focus on what to eat, but intermittent fasting is all about when you eat.
With intermittent fasting, you only eat during a specific time. Fasting for a certain number of hours each day or eating just one meal a couple days a week, can help your body burn fat. And scientific evidence points to some health benefits, as well.
Johns Hopkins neuroscientist , has studied intermittent fasting for 25 years. He says that our bodies have evolved to be able to go without food for many hours, or even several days or longer. In prehistoric times, before humans learned to farm, they were hunters and gatherers who evolved to survive and thrive for long periods without eating. They had to: It took a lot of time and energy to hunt game and gather nuts and berries.
Even 50 years ago, it was easier to maintain a healthy weight. Johns Hopkins dietitian Christie Williams, M.S., R.D.N., explains: There were no computers, and TV shows turned off at 11 p.m. people stopped eating because they went to bed. Portions were much smaller. More people worked and played outside and, in general, got more exercise.
Nowadays, TV, the internet and other entertainment are available 24/7. We stay awake for longer hours to catch our favorite shows, play games and chat online. Were sitting and snacking all day and most of the night.
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Is 16/8 Intermittent Fasting Right For You
Its true that 16/8 intermittent fasting can be a sustainable, safe, and easy way to improve your health when paired with a nutritious diet and healthy lifestyle.
However, it shouldnt be viewed as a substitute for a balanced diet rich in whole foods. Plus, you can still be perfectly healthy if you dont follow intermittent fasting.
Though 16/8 intermittent fasting is generally considered safe for healthy adults, you should talk with your doctor if you have any underlying health conditions. This is key if youre taking any medications or have diabetes, low blood pressure, or a history of disordered eating.
Intermittent fasting is likewise discouraged if youre trying to conceive, pregnant, or nursing.
If you have any concerns or experience any side effects while fasting, be sure to consult your doctor.
Fast For 12 Hours A Day
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 1016 hours can cause the body to turn its fat stores into energy, which releases ketones into the bloodstream. This should encourage weight loss.
This type of intermittent fasting plan may be a good option for beginners. This is because the fasting window is relatively small, much of the fasting occurs during sleep, and the person can consume the same number of calories each day.
The easiest way to do the 12-hour fast is to include the period of sleep in the fasting window.
For example, a person could choose to fast between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. They would need to finish their dinner before 7 p.m. and wait until 7 a.m. to eat breakfast but would be asleep for much of the time in between.
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How Do You Know If Youre Eating A Ketogenic Diet
So measure your ketones.
Urine test strips, breath meters, and finger stick devices are all available. Any of those are okay, but if youre a beginner you may as well just get some cheap urine strips.
Theyre not perfect, but theyll at least give you a yes / no answer about whether youre in ketosis.
You should also count your carbs, at least to start.
You can work your way down gradually, but after a while try to keep your carbs under about 30 grams per day. And keep measuring your ketones to see how you respond to different foods.
Just like with fasting, its a good idea to ease into keto as well.
For example, you could slowly reduce your carb intake over a few weeks, so you dont go through major carb withdrawals.
One Downside Of If: Loss Of Lean Muscle Mass
While weight loss for cardiometabolic health is a sensible goal, weight loss from any intervention often entails a concurrent loss of lean muscle mass. This has been a notable finding what I might even call an adverse side effect of intermittent fasting protocols. Given the importance of lean muscle mass for revving your metabolic rate, regulating your blood sugar, and keeping you physically able overall, pairing resistance training with an intermittent fasting protocol is strongly advised.
Finally, the weight loss achieved through time-restricted eating is likely different than the cellular adaptations that happen with more prolonged fully fasted states. At this time, it is hard to determine the degree to which the cardiometabolic benefits of fasting derive from weight loss or from underlying cellular adaptations it is likely an interrelated combination of both.
Nevertheless, it seems clear that in a 24/7 world of around-the-clock eating opportunities, all of us could benefit from aligning with our circadian biology, and spend a bit less time in a fed state and more time in a fasted state each day.
About the Author
Richard Joseph, MD, Contributor
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What Are The Side Effects I Might Experience When Fasting
Fasting boosts energy levels, lowers inflammation in the body, and improves cognitive function, among many positive side effects.
However, it can also cause headaches and dizziness if not done properly for a few days in a row. If this happens, drink more water , eat enough food , and avoid overloading on stimulants such as caffeine.
Other Benefits Of Fasting
What is novel about the explosion in interest in intermittent fasting is the small but growing clinical research base behind it. Several studies have found improvements in various health markers.
These include:
- improving blood cholesterol and lipid levels
- lowering resting heart rate.
However, it is not clear whether changes to these health markers are due to the fasting pattern itself or the overall energy deficit.
Chronic inflammation occurs alongside the development of many chronic conditions. This includes heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some forms of cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and even depression.
Several studies have found intermittent fasting can decrease blood markers of inflammation. This means in the future it may be found useful in treating inflammatory conditions.
Outside of weight loss, intermittent fasting may have an extra advantage on insulin sensitivity and abdominal obesity compared to a traditional kilojoule-reduced diet.
There have been claims that fasting helps you to live longer. But these are harder to prove with most of the evidence coming from animal studies.
While some of the benefits of intermittent fasting are flow-on effects from any weight loss, there could be some extra beneficial changes happening. And that introduces the term ‘autophagy’.
Autophagy seems to decline as we age, so the benefits of fasting could be greater in older people. That makes sense because there has been a lot more time for cellular waste by-products to build up.
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How To Use Extended Fasting For Weight Loss
Once youve tried TRE, a ketogenic diet, and some medium-length fasts, if youre still trying to lose more weight consider this-
Option 1: Do a 3 day fast every other week.
Option 2: Alternatively, do a 5-7 day fast about once a month.
You can sprinkle in some 24 or 36 hour fasts as well. But dont do them right before or right after these longer fasts.
Instead, take some time to refeed.
For example, if you fast for 5 days, eat for at least the next 5 days before you start fasting again. This gives your body a chance to refuel and rebuild after your fast.
As always, eat plenty of high-quality food when youre not fasting!
Prepare Yourself For Success
Prolonged fasts are not a trivial matter, especially if youve never tried it before. So use the tips in my Easy Fasting Guide, and make sure you keep your electrolytes up.
As I mentioned earlier, the transition into fasting is significantly easier if you do a ketogenic diet for several days beforehand.
Ive done long fasts with and without this step, and its definitely worth it. Especially if youre a beginner.
Dont Go Completely Crazy
More is not always betterand there are some increased risks the longer you go . So no need to go hog wild.
Fasting For Healthy Weight Loss The Wrap Up
Intermittent fasting can play a role in your healthy weight loss lifestyle.
But remember, fasting is not a magic bullet. The rest of your diet and lifestyle still matter.
Also, remember our six tips for healthy weight loss with intermittent fasting:
If you follow these tips, theres a good chance that intermittent fasting can help you lose weight in a healthy way.
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What Is The Best Intermittent Fasting Window To Aid Belly Fat
The effects of meal timing are not limited to IF diets. Our bodies respond to meals and snacks differently throughout the day in nutrient metabolism and hormonal balance, so its no surprise that our bodies would react differently to various fasting periods.
There is still a need for continued research regarding the ideal fasting window, but one recent study found weight loss success when participants fasted for 14 hours and ate during the remaining 10 hours. Another study found similar weight trends for participants who fasted for 16 hours versus 12 hours but found that those who fasted for 16 hours actually had lower insulin levels, reduced insulin resistance, and lower blood pressure. Another review of studies showed no difference in weight loss or waist circumference between the IF regimens of 16:8 or alternate-day fasting.
Researchers are actively testing the science behind time-restricted eating, but there is still much to learn about fasting and if it can play a role in a healthy diet. Each person has individualized needs making it difficult to determine the best intermittent fasting window.
Heres How To Lose Weight Fast With Intermittent Fasting
What if I told you that there’s a red carpet trick that the stars use to get ready for red carpet appearances like the Oscars and that it’s safe, healthy, effective, and free and you can use it too. That’s the claim of a new book by a diabetes specialist who has studied the best way to get his patients off the insulin, free of all their meds, and slimmed down with a technique called ‘intermittent fasting.’ His name is Dr. Jason Fung and he gave The Beet a preview of his new book that he’s co-authored, called Life in the Fasting Lane.
The book is all about how to use intermittent fasting to lose weight and to do it safely, healthfully, and effectively to slim down in a matter of just days or weeks, depending on how much fasting you want to try. Life in the Fasting Lane is about to hit bookstores and make intermittent fasting, or IF the most followed diet in the country, since it’s healthy, it works and you can use it any time you need to lose weight fast.
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Water Fasting Vs Dry Fasting
There are many different ways that you can do your fast including:
- Fat fasting – Eating only fat during your fast for some length of time
- Water fasting – Consuming only water during your fast
- Dry fasting – Consuming neither food nor water during your fast
- Fasting mimicking diet
- And other variations
Each of these types of fasts has their own benefits and they are important to discuss because if you can’t do one then you might be able to do the other.
Water fasting is probably the easiest and safest way to get into fasting.
If you are water fasting, then during your fast you can consume as much water as you want.
This is beneficial because it reduces the risk and symptoms of dehydration, it can help you feel full and is probably safer for older individuals.
One potential downside to water fasting is that it may not be quite as beneficial when compared to dry fasting.
Dry fasting is when you go without both food or drink and you prevent putting anything inside of your mouth for an extended period of time.
Dry fasting can last for as few as 12 hours but go beyond 24 hours in some cases.
Dry fasting is said to be more powerful than water fasting because it puts more stress on your body as it has to deal with both a lack of food and water.
If you choose to do dry fasting then you need to be in a position where you have water available to you and it’s probably a good idea to have a friend or someone else around in your house just in case!
What Laura Martin Md Says
Most of the intermittent fasting diets recommend cutting back to 500-600 calories on fasting days. In general, for many people this would be medically safer and easier than not eating at all on those days.
Remember to drink enough on fasting days to prevent dehydration. And youâll need to eat a healthy diet on days that you donât fast.
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How Long Should You Fast
The concept calls for going extended periods of time without eating, and people generally follow three common fasting schedules:
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Alternate-day fasting entails switching from a fast day to a feast day. On fast days, you typically consume about 25 percent of your daily calorie needs. For example, you might eat one 700-calorie meal on Monday and resume your normal diet on Tuesday. Or you can break up those calories over the course of the day say, by eating a 350-calorie lunch and a 350-calorie dinner.
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Whole-day fasting is also known as the 5:2 fasting schedule, which means you eat roughly 500-calories two days a week. The other five days have no food restrictions.
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Time-restricted fasting typically follows the 16:8 format, meaning you only eat for 8 hours throughout the day and fast for 16. For example, noon to 8 p.m. is a good guide as many people only eat lunch and dinner.
People typically lose twice as much weight when they do alternate fasting compared to time-restricted fasting, says Varady. The catch, though, is that people usually cant do it for more than 6 months. Eating 500 calories every other day is pretty tricky it messes up their social eating schedules and is hard to stick to, she says. But people find it easier to incorporate time-restricted eating into their lifestyle.
Not sure which one to try?
“If you like it then see how you do extending it to a 24-hour fast,” says Sowa
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