Studies On Intermittent Fasting
Here are some of the benefits of intermittent fasting that have been backed by countless studies:
- Fasting has been shown to improve biomarkers of disease, reduce oxidative stress and preserve learning and memory functioning, according to Mark Mattson, senior investigator for the National Institute on Aging, part of the US National Institutes of Health.
- Growth Hormone increases when in a fasted state.
- Autophagy occurs while fasting it is the bodys way of renewing the cells and getting rid of all the worn-out cells in the body. Autophagy is the primary driver of anti-aging .
Tips To Make Intermittent Fasting Easier
1. Drink Plenty of Water
Squeeze a little lemon or lime juice into your water to help get rid of any cravings you experience. You can also drink coffee, tea, or other calorie-free beverages. After a few weeks, you will find that intermittent fasting keeps you from craving sugar entirely.
2. Take in Caffeine in the Morning and Early Afternoon
The caffeine in coffee and tea may actually make intermittent fasting weight loss a little easier since its good for curbing your appetite. Be careful not to overindulge, as this may lead to you feeling a little too wired. I also recommend these natural energy boosting tips to keep you going during the day.
3. Avoid Artificially Flavored Drinks
One type of calorie-free drink that should be avoided are diet sodas and other beverages that use artificial sweeteners like Splenda and Sweet & Low. Studies show that the can actually stimulate your appetite like a drink that contains sugar and causes you to overeat.
4. Dont Gorge at Your First Meal
The first meal after your fast should be the amount of food you typically eat. Binging will only make you feel awful and diminish the benefits you get from the fast.
To avoid this, try creating meal plans, at least for the first few weeks. This will help you get into the rhythm of eating regularly portioned meals during your eating window.
5. Minimize Processed Carbohydrates and Sugars
You can find some carb sources that will aid your weight loss journey here.
My Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle: How I Dropped 50 Pounds
Updates :
- This guide has now passed 2,000,000 views! Big thank you to everyone who continues to share it
- Ive now lost 64 lbs to-date! to see my day-to-day journey with Intermittent Fasting & get tips/advice.
- Interested in fasting with me? Join my 30-day Starter Challenge or 8-week Lifestyle Challenge & optional private Facebook group. Over 3,000 people have completed it! Next kickoff is on Monday, learn more:
- I was interviewed by Megyn Kelly live on The TODAY Show about my Intermittent Fasting Journey. Its one of the most-watched videos on YouTube on the topic with over 3,000,000 views. You can watch it here!
Hi there My name is Sumaya and thanks to Intermittent Fasting , in 7.5 months Ive dropped 50 pounds, 10.5% in body fat and 40 inches around my body.These results are entirely as a result of IF as I was unable to exercise for the first several months due to a fractured foot.
After college, I spent at least 5+ years in the overweight category before spending another 5+ years in the obese category . Im now officially in the normal weight category .
I tried everything from Jenny Craig/Weight Watchers to going to the gym 45x a week to weekly meal prep. While I did see some results, I eventually couldnt keep up with it and then yo-yod. IF has been the simplest and most manageable way I have found to improve my health .
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Lose Weight With Intermittent Fasting: Top Tips To Get Lean On If
This article was co-authored by Olivia Mitchell, RDN, IFNCP. Olivia Mitchell is an Integrative and Functional Nutrition Certified Practitioner and a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist with a focus on women’s hormones and fertility. Olivia has her virtual practice where she helps her clients dive deeper into often overlooked causes of infertility with a customized diet, lifestyle, and supplement changes. She is also the co-founder of the Natalwork and Lead Nutrition Coach with On The Goga. Olivia received her Bachelors degree in Nutrition Sciences from West Chester University of Pennsylvania and her RDN from The University of Houston.There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 8,813 times.
Intermittent fasting, a dietary plan that restricts when you can eat, is a popular trend that supporters claim helps you lose weight and perform to your full potential. But does it actually work? While it might not be the magic cure that some proponents make it sound like, studies do show that intermittent fasting can be an effective weight-loss tool. If youd like to try it out for yourself, then you have a few choices for which plan to follow. Despite what you may have heard, intermittent fasting is actually easier than you might think. Just check with your doctor to make sure this is right for you, then you can get started!
Intermittent Fasting Rule #: Focus On Getting Stronger With The Main Lifts If You Want Your Body To Grow/transform/change
Changing your body is much simpler than you could ever imagine.
Sure, those exercises that you see on Instagram look cool, but the injury risk is high and you wont always get the desired results. Jumping on a tire or swinging a hammer will get you a cool video clip. However, nothing will ever replace the compound lifts that have been around forever.
You dont have to stop doing these group classes or routines. Just try to do it at the end of a weight lifting session if you have any energy left.
If you want real results get better at the following: overhead press, deadlifts, push ups, squats, bench, and pull-ups.
Use an app or a pen to track your main lifts. I want you to get stronger. Try to get in more reps or more weight with every session. Any basic barbell training program is enough. I dont want you to jump on a bosu balls or to injure yourself.
I dont want you to go program chasing. Just because a fitness magazine calls a workout fat burning it doesnt make it so. Every workout technically burns calories.
Read Also: How Long Do You Fast With Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Fasting Can Help Weight Loss
IF 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 , are quickly broken down into sugar, which our cells use for energy. If our cells dont 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 dont 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.
How Does The 1: 8 Diet Work
The 16:8 diet works on an hourly basis. So each day you can eat within an 8 hour time frame and fast for the remaining 16 hours. The best part? You dont have to restrict your calories when eating during the 8 hour window. As long as you eat healthily in your 8 hour time frame, youll see the weight drop off.
Experts say that the 16.8 diet restricted schedule gives our bodies the chance to process the nutrients stored in foods and burns away calories. Plus, you wont go hungry like you do on those two fasting days on the 5:2 either.
As Tom Jenane, nutrition and fitness expert explains, The 16:8 diet is a brilliant form of intermittent fasting that has proven results in a number of cases.
Jennifer Aniston is a famous fan of intermittent fasting.
As well as Jennifer Aniston, other Hollywood names who have seen success after following the 16:8 diet include Hugh Jackman, who reportedly used the diet to get in shape for his Wolverine films and actress Jennifer Love Hewitt.
Also Check: What Should Your Blood Sugar Be Fasting
Lose Weight With Intermittent Fasting How It Works
- Breakfast
- Nutrition
Anyone who wants to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way will sooner or later come across interval fasting as a nutritional concept. Unlike classic diets, it does without prohibitions and extreme calorie deficits, which is probably one of the reasons why it is so popular.
Here we tell you what Intermittent Fasting actually is and how it works. Youll also find out how to get rid of unloved kilos and which breakfast is particularly suitable for this. Lets go!
Take Out The Training Wheels
Dont take anything during your fast. Have a zero tolerance policy during your fasting window.
Im talking about putting butter in your coffee or MCT oil, drinking pre workout of BCAA before a workout even though its labelled as zero calories, or drinking diet soda or anything labelled as zero calories. Lets talk about each one of those items.
Im not saying that putting butter or MCT, also known as Bulletproof Coffee is bad. In fact, it can even help people get fat adapted. This is more commonly referred to as doing a Fat Fast or Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting.
Its where youre consuming some fat during your fasting window and this is actually helpful for a lot of people. Especially if youre new because pure fat doesnt have a lot of effect on your insulin levels.
Youre also still getting most of the benefits of intermittent fasting because it still keeps you in ketosis. Its basically a training wheel for absolute beginners.
But its exactly just that. A training wheel. What I mean by that is if youve hit a weight loss plateau, and youre not losing weight intermittent fasting. Keep in mind that butter and MCT still contains calories. A standard Bulletproof Coffee recipe for example has 440 calories.
Lets do some simple math. Were just going to round up to 500 calories just to make the math easy. Lets say youre feeling generous and put a little extra butter in your coffee.
Recommended Reading: How Long Is Fasting Blood Sugar
Alternate Day Fasting : 2 Method
Some people fast on alternate days to improve blood sugar, cholesterol, and weight loss. A person on the 5:2 method eats 500 to 600 calories on two non-consecutive days each week.
Some alternate-day fasting regimens add in a third day of fasting each week. For the rest of the week, a person eats only the number of calories they burn during the day. Over time, this creates a calorie deficit that allows the person to lose weight.
Resources on the Eat Stop Eat, Warrior, and Leangains fasting methods are available to purchase online.
What Can You Eat On The 1: 8 Diet
This diet isnt suggesting you cram all the food you can into 8 hours. You need to make sure youre eating a balance of fat busting and health boosting foods. Experts have suggest making sure you get a balance of lean meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables, nuts and beans each day.
Make sure to eat a balanced diet.
Tom said, Many people fail the 16:8 diet by packing in too many calories into the 8 hour period, often trying to get some in before the 8 hours ends. You should still be following a strict diet with a complete nutritional breakdown, to ensure you are consuming a targeted number of calories, not to mention macro nutrients and ensuring youre not consuming too much sugar.
Recommended Reading: How Fast Does Intermittent Fasting Work
How Intermittent Fasting Helps You Lose Weight
Eating this way has many benefits with regard to weight loss. The first is that when youre fasting, your body will be forced to use its stored body fat for energy. After several hours of not eating, your body will use up its sugar stores, which will cause it to start burning fat for energy, a process known as metabolic switching.
Intermittent fasting contrasts with the normal eating pattern for most Americans, who eat throughout their waking hoursIf someone is eating three meals a day, plus snacks, and theyre not exercising, then every time they eat, theyre running on those calories and not burning their fat stores.
Burning calories this way, instead of from the food youre eating throughout the day, will help you experience significant weight loss, but specifically lose weight from any excess body fat youre carrying.
This means that you wont just be thinner, but you will also look better and be much healthier than if you lose weight the old-fashioned way.
Intermittent fasting can help optimize the release of the key fat-burning hormones in your body. This is especially true for the two most important hormones: human growth hormone and insulin.
Human growth hormone plays a key role in turning on your bodys fat-burning furnace so that it gets the calories you need to work and play from stored body fat. Studies show that fasting can significantly increase the production of HGH.
Alternate Day Intermittent Fasting
| Regular Meals |
With this method, you fast every other day and on non-fasting days, you eat whatever you want. And you can decide if you want to completely fast every other day or if you want to modify on your fasting days and eat a low-calorie diet like 500-800 calories, much like the 5:2 method.
Why it works: Like the other methods, youre reducing your calories , but youre still getting enough food on the fasting days to feel like youre somewhat satisfied.
The catch: You have 3 days where you eating much less, or nothing at all, which can be challenging to follow.
If you decide on this method and you want to eat on the fasting days, you can follow the general ideas from the 5:2 method above as to what to eat and how much.
Recommended Reading: What Is The Range For Non Fasting Glucose
Tre + Keto Is Even Better For Fat Loss
Ketones are the alternative energy source your brain and body use when you fast for a while. Your liver makes ketones out of fat.
Other than fasting, another way to stimulate ketone production in your liver is to eat a lot of fat .
Hence, the keto-genic diet.
Now, lets take the same scenario as above . But instead of eating a Standard American Diet during your eating window, what if you tried eating low carb / high fat instead?
Well, heres what that could look like:
Since youre not eating carbs, your blood sugar and insulin wont go up nearly as much after each meal.
And since insulin stays low most of the time, youll be able to access your own body fat more readily.
Thats why eating a ketogenic diet makes it easier to burn body fat.
As a bonus, ketones also help suppress your appetite.
Ive found I dont get as many cravings for sugary processed foods when Im eating a ketogenic diet, and thats probably a major reason why.
My Style Of Intermittent Fasting: The : 3
Ive adopted whats called a 4:3 style of IF. This simply means, I eat 4 days during the week and fast 3 non-consecutive days of the week.
This is what my 4:3 weekly schedule looks like:
SUNDAY: Eat Day // I eat as I normally would throughout the day and I begin my fast at 9 pm PT .
MONDAY: Fast Day // On fast days I only drink coffee, tea, non-caloric drinks and water . I add a little half & half in my coffee, and those are the only calories I consume on fast days. If/when I feel hunger pains on fast days, I drink a bottle/can of sparkling water and that helps me get through the day.
TUESDAY: Eat Day // I break my fast at 9 am PT. I eat my full day of meals. The total calories I eat is my TDEE range. I use this tool to calculate my TDEE: I start my fast again at 9 pm PT.
WEDNESDAY: Fast Day // Same as Monday.
THURSDAY: Eat Day // Same as Tuesday.
FRIDAY: Fast Day // Same as Monday & Wednesday.
SATURDAY: Eat Day // Same as Tuesday & Thursday.
SUNDAY: Eat Day // Same as Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday.
In summary: MWF = Fast Days, TuThSaSu = Eat Days. Repeat every week and you will see and feel the difference.
For the visual types, this is what my schedule looks like:
I start my fast at 9 PM and end the day after next at 9 AM, but these time frames can also be changed. Some of my friends prefer 7 PM/7 AM, 8 AM/8 PM, etc. to better accommodate their work/family schedule.
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You Are Not Eating Enough Food
Though it might sound counterproductive, you need to eat well during your eating window.
Intermittent fasting does not mean starvation and you can continue with your normal diet.
When you are not getting enough calories during your eating window, chances are that you will eat a whole lot more during your next window. That is because of the uncontrollable hunger that you will feel.
Also, starving yourself might cause your body to store more fat long-term. Your body notices that you are going for extended periods with little or no food and to ensure that you have a reliable energy source during such periods, your body stores the extra food you eat as fat.
So, instead of burning energy from your meals, your body begins to conserve energy.
Calorie counting could help you ensure you are getting sufficient fuel for your days activities.
