How Often Do You Do Intermittent Fasting

Around One Day Long Fasting Periods

24-hour fasts

A 24-hour fast lasts from dinner to dinner, or breakfast to breakfast, whatever you like. For example, you would eat dinner at 7 pm and then fast until the next days dinner at 7 pm. In this regimen, you do not actually go a full day without eating since you are still taking one meal on that fasting day.

This is very similar to the Warrior style of fasting although that allows a 4-hour eating window so is technically a 20-hour fasting period.

This period of fasting has several important advantages. First, as a longer duration fast, it tends to be a little more effective. Because you still eat every day, medications that need to be taken with food can still be taken. For example, metformin, or iron supplements or aspirin should all be taken with food and can be taken with the one meal on the fasting day.

The major advantage of 24-hour fasting is that it is easily incorporated into everyday life. Most people, for example will eat dinner with family every single day. As you still eat dinner every day, it is possible to routinely fast for 24 hours without anybody knowing any different, since it really only means skipping breakfast and lunch on that day.

Another name for a similar fast is OMAD, short for One Meal A Day.

The 5:2 diet

Alternate daily fasting

She wrote a book about her strategy in The Every Other Day Diet, although this was not the blockbuster success of the 5:2 diet.

Frequently Asked Questions Concerns And Complaints

Im a woman. Should I do anything differently?

I havent worked with women on implementing an intermittent fasting schedule, so I cant speak from experience on this one.

That said, I have heard that women may find a wider window of eating to be more favorable when doing daily intermittent fasting. While men will typically fast for 16 hours and then eat for 8 hours, women may find better results by eating for 10 hours and fasting for 14 hours. The best advice I can give anyone, not just women, is to experiment and see what works best for you. Your body will give you signals. Follow what your body responds favorably to.

Also, if youre a female, there is an allfemale page on Facebook that discusses intermittent fasting. Im sure you could find a ton of great answers and support there.

I could never skip breakfast. How do you do it?

I dont. Breakfast foods are my favorite, so I just eat them at 1pm each day.

Also, if you eat a big dinner the night before, I think youll be surprised by how much energy you have in the morning. Most of the worries or concerns that people have about intermittent fasting are due to the fact that they have had it pounded into them by companies that they need to eat breakfast or they need to eat every three hours and so on. The science doesnt support it and neither do my personal experiences.

I thought you were supposed to eat every 3 hours?

Here’s why this was a popular idea for a brief period of time:

Here’s the problem:

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Tips And Tricks About Fasting

#1) Dont freak out! Stop wondering: can I fast 15 hours instead of 16? or what if I eat an apple during my fasted period, will that ruin everything? Relax. Your body is a complex piece of machinery and learns to adapt. Everything is not as cut and dry as you think.

If you want to eat breakfast one day but not another, thats okay. If you are going for optimal aesthetic or athletic performance, I can see the need to be more rigid in your discipline, but otherwisefreaking chill out and dont stress over minutiae!

Dont let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to your intermittent fasting plan.

#2) Consider fasted walks in the morning. I found these to be very helpful in reducing body fat, and also gave my day a great start to clear my mind and prepare for the day.

Simply wake up and go for a mile walk. Maybe you could even start walking to Mordor?

#3) Listen to your body during your strength training workouts. If you get light headed, make sure you are consuming enough water.

If you notice a significant drop in performance, make sure you are eating enough calories during your feasting window.

And if you feel severely off, pause your workout. Give yourself permission to EASE into intermittent fasting and fasted workouts. This is especially true if you are an endurance athlete.

#4) Expect funny looks if you spend a lot of mornings with breakfast eaters.

#7) Track your results, listen to your body:

This is just one tool that can contribute to your success.

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You Can Tweak Your Fasting Schedule For Weight Maintenance

Here is the thing.

Even if you have hit your goal, you shouldnt rest on your laurels just yet. How about considering maintenance intermittent fasting protocol to keep your goals sustained?

Lets say you were doing alternate day fasting where you may have fasted for 4 or 5 days a week and you have now hit your target weight loss objective. How about you reduce that to fasting 2 days a week for maintenance.

How about you adopt the 5:2 intermittent fasting method where you cut down on your calories requirement to 20 or 30% for 2 days a week. Feasible? I sure think so.

How about you start skipping breakfast say 5 days a week and have your first meal of the day at 1pm and have one more meal at 8pm. Nothing else to eat again until 1pm the following day. Feasible? Definitely.

You can adopt any method that suits your professional and social life and tweak it to fit your lifestyle and carry on doing intermittent fasting for as long as possible and reap the benefits for life.

I personally always skip breakfast and I dont have my first meal until about 1.30pm, if I am lucky. Sometimes 3pm on a busy day at work. Then my main meal of the day is usually around 8pm. Lately I go straight for the 24-hour fast. Even better. Works for me!

The book below explains the 5:2 fasting plan. Get a copy from or over here on

Which Type Of Intermittent Fasting Is Best

Here, Ill explain how to do it through three different methods and Ill tell you which one I employ on a weekly basis in addition to being a prominent feature in The All-Day Fat Burning Diet.

Alternate Day Intermittent Fasting:

Alternate day intermittent fasting is basically fasting every other day for a 24-hour period. For instance, you would eat normally on Monday, fast Tuesday, eat Wednesday, fast Thursday, eat Friday, fast Saturday, and so on.

This style of intermittent fasting is the most popular form used in research studies, but from what I have seen it isnt very popular in the real world. Ive never tried alternate day fasting myself and I dont plan to do so.

In my eyes, its a bit excessive and many of the negative effects seen in some women while fasting tend to be related to this type of fasting.

And it makes sense since youre not eating half the time, which is not advisable, especially for women for whom carbs and caloric intake are important for hormones and fertility.

If this is the first method you try as you figure out how to do intermittent fasting, my fear is that it will be too difficult for you and youll give it up altogether.

The truth is, its just not sustainable for most people unless you enjoy feeling miserable 50% of your life. As a result, I think youre better off using either of the following two intermittent fasting methods.

16/8 Daily Fasting:

Basically, you fast for 16 hours and eat during the remaining 8.

The 1-Day Fast:

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How To Start Intermittent Fasting

Heres the bottom line when it comes to intermittent fasting: Theres really no wrong answer here. Just pay attention to how your body responds to what youre doing, and consult a dietitian or doctor with any concerns over potential negative side effects. You might want to:

• Test your glucose and ketone levels and monitor your glucose-ketone index for changes.
• Consider your carb intake. Eating lower carb helps reduce any hunger pangs when starting intermittent fasting.
• Start with the 16/8 window first and make changes from there based on what works for your lifestyle and schedule.

Adjust what youre doing as needed. Also, keep in mind that life changes can happen, so you might find its better to tweak your eating window over time or be a little more lenient at certain periods.

Give yourself time to adjust to the schedule of intermittent fasting too. Some people adjust easily within a few days, while others need a couple of weeks to get used to it.

It May Be Difficult For Some People To Stick To

One of the most obvious limitations of the Warrior Diet is that it restricts the time during which you may eat substantial meals to a four-hour period.

This can be difficult to stick to, especially when participating in normal social activities like going out to breakfast or lunch.

While some people may feel great when consuming very small amounts of calories over a 20-hour period, others may find that this way of eating is not ideal for their lifestyle.

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The 21 Day Primal Reset

But we can shorten that adaptation period to just 21 days by doing a complete reset which is something I cover in the Fat Loss Accelerator.

I like to call it the 21 day primal reset where we just go back to our roots on how were supposed to eat. We do a complete purge of your pantry and we start stocking it with the right foods.

You then supplement this change by making supportive lifestyle choices that up regulate your fat burning metabolism. If you do this reset properly, it will then turn you into a fat burning machine after just 21 days.

Because you need to have a multifaceted approach to this life changing transformation.

80% of your body composition is determined by your diet. While the other 20% is determined by your genetic predisposition to store fat and making supportive lifestyle choices that up regulate your fat burning metabolism.

During your 21 day reset, intermittent fasting should just be optional because fasting is basically step number 10 in all of this.

You need to learn how to walk first, before you can run. Its not about going from 0-100. Its about going from zero to 1.

You need to establish a baseline first that you can work with, hence the 21 day reset.

Again, this is where you also take the time to learn how to make supportive lifestyle choices like proper sleep hygiene, managing your stress levels, incorporating movement throughout the day, and doing proper workouts that promote fat burning.

Why Do I Get Cold When Intermittent Fasting

Fasting increases the blood flow to your body fat .

So when you are fasting, more blood is travelling to your body fat, presumably to help move it to your muscles where it can be burned as a fuel. Due to this increased travel to your body fat, vasoconstricton occurs in your fingertips and sometimes toes to compensate.

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Are You Really On A Plateau

A plateau in weight-loss happens when your bodys not burning fat anymore. I mentioned weight-loss, but its really fat-loss that we are interested in.

Meaning you shouldnt think youve reached a plateau after two weeks of implementing a diet and losing a few pounds. Because when youre changing your diet, you most likely will lose tons of water.

I have a friend whos tracking its weight and goes on the scale every day. Sometimes twice a day, seeing he lost two pounds on Wednesday when he ate a huge meal and gaining 3 pounds the next while eating salad.

Im trying to tell him it makes no sense to obsess about the scale, 95% of these fluctuations come from water-loss and water-retention.

If you start the ketogenic diet for example, when youre glycogen stores get depleted, your body will lose tons of water. The impressive weight-loss results when starting keto on the first week mostly account for water.

So if youve just started intermittent fasting or any diet, see crazy results for two weeks, then none for one, dont panic, youve not reached a plateau yet, your bodys adapted to the new diet and now youll start burning actual fat.

Intermittent Fasting Increases Several Fat Burning Hormones

Hormones are chemicals that act as messengers. They travel through your body to coordinate complicated functions, such as growth and metabolism.

They also play an important role in the regulation of your weight. This is because they have a strong influence on your appetite, the number of calories you eat, and how much fat you store or burn .

Intermittent fasting has been linked to improvements in the balance of some fat burning hormones. This could make it a helpful tool for weight management.

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How To Do Intermittent Fasting: 4 Fasting Schedules To Try

• Calories and Nutrition

Whether youre new to keto or have been doing it for a while, you may be wondering how to do intermittent fasting. At one point, the health and wellness industry advised eating 5-6 small meals per day for optimal metabolism. The claim was that smaller meals lead to weight loss, while a fasted state puts the body into starvation mode, causing it to hold on to calories.

Reduce Stress And Improve Mental Health

The 16:8 diet help reduce cortisol levels and help reduce inflammation. Plus, since you wont be dealing with hunger for two days a week, its better for your mental health.

Those whove tried the 16:8 diet say how much more productive they are during fasting hours, spending less time stressing over food and more time channelling their energy into other beneficial tasks throughout the day.

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Can I Drink When Intermittent Fasting

Yes you can but make sure there are no calories.

That also doesnt mean drinking diet soda is ok, because its not. Just drink water or herbal tea.

Some people tell you that black coffee is ok to drink during a fast but I wouldnt advise that. Yes, the caffeine in the coffee will skyrocket your epinephrine which can assist with fat loss, but since I dont advise drinking coffee in general, youre better off without it, especially when its caffeine isnt buffered by food.

Instead, focus on drinking plenty of water and/or any herbal teas that you enjoy without the use of milk, sugar, or sweeteners. Remember, this is a day of rest for your body so that means no calories of any kind.

Potential Negative Effects Of Intermittent Fasting And Lchf

Is it normal that during fast I am quite cold? like hands and feet especially feet at night thanks. Hope Its not the sign my REE is going down.

No, it is not normal to be cold it means your REE is going down. Try to eat sufficiently on eating days or consider fasting less often. If it continues, you should consult your physician.

I have started intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast. Today i saw this on medXp: In study, skipping meals is linked to abdominal weight gain

I am sure the study was not done with low carb diets so there is that. What do you think?

This was an animal study and I would ignore it. Most studies proving that you must eat all the time prove nothing of the kind. Eating all the time to lose weight? I dont think so.

My health care practitioner is completely on board with LCHF in fact, advocates it for all patients. I have had limited success in using LCHF in fat loss. Although gaining muscle, my weight loss is minimal after 4 months of solid, no-cheating LCHF plan .I am currently trialling 16:8. My HCP is completely AGAINST fasting, as he claims that there is definitely protein status loss. He didnt mention starvation mode or anything like that, just a major concern that the level of protein in the body is always affected by IFWhat is your take on this? Does protein get used in the same way that fat stores do? If so, can you compensate by eating more protein in the 8 hour window?

No, it does not make sense to me.

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Benefits Of 16/8 Intermittent Fasting

16/8 intermittent fasting is a popular diet because its easy to follow, flexible and sustainable in the long term.

Its also convenient, as it can cut down on the amount of time and money you need to spend on cooking and preparing food each week.

In terms of health, 16/8 intermittent fasting has been associated with a long list of benefits, including:

• Increased weight loss: Not only does restricting your intake to a few hours per day help cut calories over the course of the day, but studies also show that fasting could boost metabolism and increase weight loss (
• ).

Summary

16/8 intermittent fasting is easy to follow, flexible and convenient. Animal and human studies suggest that it may increase weight loss, improve blood sugar levels, enhance brain function and extend longevity.

What Is The : 4 Method

Often referred to as the Warrior Diet, the 20:4 fast was created by health and fitness writer, Ori Hofmekler, in 2001. This is one of the more extreme intermittent fasting methods and is based on Hofmeklers observations and experience keeping fit while in the Israeli Special Forces.

The 20:4 fast is designed to reflect the eating patterns of ancient warriors and timing is the key. Its based on the idea that in primitive times, people spent their days actively hunting and gathering before an evening feast. Those who follow the Warrior Diet claim that by eating in the evening, the body utilises the nutrients in line with its natural circadian rhythm.

During the eating window, fasters are encouraged to consume up to 90% of their daily caloric intake or until they are completely full. There arent any guidelines around the types of food you can consume during the 4-hour period, however, it is encouraged you consume nutrient-dense whole foods where possible.

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