Don’t Eat Lose Weight The Idea Seems Simple Enough But A Study Finds Both The Type And Quantity Of Weight Loss Leaves A Lot To Be Desired
Intermittent fasting is all the rage these days. What better way to lose weight than to fast longer between meals and therefore eat less? This may seem like a logical, if uncomfortable, path to weight loss, but new research finds that youre probably losing as much muscle as you are fat and even with that your losses are nothing to brag about. In the end, good old-fashioned calorie restriction is still likely your best bet for getting in fighting shape.
Many people believe that diets based on fasting are especially effective for weight loss or that these diets have particular metabolic health benefits even if you dont lose weight, said James Betts, Director of the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise & Metabolism at the University of Bath, who led the research. But intermittent fasting is no magic bullet and the findings of our experiment suggest that there is nothing special about fasting when compared with more traditional, standard diets people might follow.
Celebrities such as Jack Dorsey, Jimmy Kimmel, Jennifer Anniston, and Chris Pratt have credited intermittent fasting for weight loss and maintaining their bods. Betts team aimed to put that to the test by comparing a regular calorie restriction diet to two types of intermittent fasting. They found that the normal diet led to more weight loss, even when the number of calories eaten while intermittent fasting was the same, according to the study of 36 people.
The three diets tested were:
Diet Plan: What Can You Eat And What Are The Benefits
The 16:8 diet has been one of the most popular diet plans weve seen in years and with good reason.
The 16:8 plan also called the 8-hour diet is an easier and more consistent way of fasting that avoids heavily calorie restricted days found in other popular intermittent fasting plans like the 5:2 diet or Fast 800 calorie diet.
Studies have shown that intermittent fasting can have benefits on both your body and mental health, as well as being one of the diets that work fast for weight loss.
A famous fan of the 16:8 intermittent fasting plan is Hollywood icon Jennifer Aniston. In an interview with the Radio Times, Jennifer revealed that shes a big fan of intermittent fasting in general but specifically this plan. I do intermittent fasting, so no food in the morning. She said, I noticed a big difference in going without solid food for 16 hours.
What Else You Should Know
Cost: None beyond your shopping. In fact, because you will eat much less 2 to 4 days per week, your grocery costs should go down.
Support: There are several books and websites detailing variations on the basic idea of fasting a few days a week. So though there’s no single destination for support, there are plenty of resources once you’ve decided which version of the plan appeals most to you.
Read Also: Is Fasting Good For Women
Getting Started With Intermittent Fasting: Next Steps
Intermittent fasting can potentially have some very positive benefits for somebody trying to lose weight or gain lean body mass.
Men and women will tend to have different results, just like each individual person will have different results. The ONLY way to find out is through a conversation with your doctor and self-experimentation.
There are multiple ways to do an Intermittent Fasting Plan:
- Fast and feast regularly: Fast for a certain number of hours, then consume all calories within a certain number of hours.
- Eat normally, then fast 1-2x a week: Consume your normal meals every day, then pick one or two days a week where you fast for 24 hours. Eat your last meal Sunday night, and then dont eat again until dinner the following day.
- Fast occasionally: probably the easiest method for the person who wants to do the least amount of work. Simply skip a meal whenever its convenient. On the road? Skip breakfast. Busy day at work? Skip lunch. Eat poorly all day Saturday? Make your first meal of the day dinner on Sunday.
After that, get started! Take photos, step on the scale, and track your progress for the next month.
See how your body responds.
See how your physique changes. See how your workouts change.
And then decide if its something you want to keep doing!
4 years later, I have no plans on going back to eating breakfast. Sorry General Mills and Dr. Kellogg!
If youre worried about all of this stuff, or arent sure when to eat and stop eating, try out our new app!
-Steve
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.
Don’t Miss: What Does Intermitten Fasting Do
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.
Start your FREE 30-day trial!
Get instant access to healthy low-carb and keto meal plans, fast and easy recipes, weight loss advice from medical experts, and so much more. A healthier life starts now with your free trial!
Should You Do Intermittent Fasting And The Keto Diet
We have a crazy extensive guide on the Keto Diet in case youre not familiar with it, so here it is in a nutshell:
This process is called ketosis, and there are two ways for a body to enter ketosis:
- Eating in a way that induces ketosis .
- FastingHey, thats what youre reading about right now!
We actually have an amazing success story here on Nerd Fitness, Larry, who followed our strategies, went Keto and start intermittent fasting. He ended up losing weight, getting stronger, AND overcame the challenges of rheumatoid arthritis !
Heres how the fasting portion of it works:
As your body enters a fast period when there are no sources of glucose energy readily available, the liver begins the process of breaking down fat into ketones.
Fasting itself can trigger ketosis.
Fasting for a period of time before kicking off a Keto-friendly eating plan COULD speed your transition into the metabolic state of ketosis, and fasting intermittently while in ketosis could help you maintain that state.
I personally love fasting for the simplicity: I skip breakfast every day and train in a fasted state. Its one less decision I have to make, its one less opportunity to make a bad food choice, and it helps me reach my goals.
WHY KETO + IF WORKS = eating Keto can be really challenging. And every time you eat, its an opportunity to do it wrong and accidentally eat foods that knock you out of ketosis.
Youre also tempted to overeat.
Your value may vary!
You need to decide what works for you.
Also Check: How To Start Intermitten Fasting
It’s All About Changing Patterns
If you’re interested in fasting to lose weight, you’re on to a great idea. Fasting does help immensely at dropping pounds, although maybe not for the reasons you think. While the numbers on the scales will go down during a fast, many factors come into play as to how much of that weight will stay off.
Fasting will put you on the right track to losing weight if it’s used with proper attention and awareness. A commitment to lifestyle and behavior changes is still necessary or the weight will come right back. But a fast will make those changes easier as new decisions flow from you naturally.
This is because fasting offers a unique vantage point from which to view your life. It’seffects aren’t just physical, but allowgreater understanding and clarity on mental and emotional issues. There is much opportunity to expand and enhance your life as a whole, including any weight issues, if you are willing to pay attention.
Your body is already showing you the effects of the foods you’re eating and the mental and emotional patterns you’re holding. Some combination of these things must change in order for your body to change. Andfasting can lead you to that special combination.
~ Joel Fuhrman, M.D., Fasting and Eating for Health
Once you’ve tried fasting and understand how powerful the process is, you will prefera day of fasting over days or weeks of dieting. Since what we typically call “hunger” disappears in the first couple of days, it becomes much easier to fast than to diet.
What Are The Negative Effects Of Intermittent Fasting
In my own experimentation with Intermittent Fasting since 2014, I have found very few negative side effects with Intermittent Fasting.
The biggest concern most people have is that Intermittent Fasting will lead to lower energy, focus, and the holy crap I am hungry feeling during the fasting period and ruin them.
People are concerned that they will spend all morning being miserable because they havent consumed any food, and thus will be miserable at work and ineffective at whatever task it is they are working on.
The following are my thoughts and experiences, and your results may vary:
Yes, the initial transition from EATING ALL THE TIME, to intermittent fasting MIGHT be a bit of a jolt to your system it was for me.
However, once I got through the transition after a few days, my body quickly adapted and learned to function just as well only eating a few times a day.
Although I fast for 16 hours per day with no issues, the following might help assuage your fears that skipping breakfast will cause your body to eat itself and your brain to implode:
After 48-hours of fasting in a recent study , cognitive performance, activity, sleep, and mood are not adversely affected in healthy humans by two days of calorie-deprivation. Youll be fasting for far less time than that.
So why do I feel grouchy and lethargic when I skip breakfast?
If you eat breakfast every morning, your body expects to wake up and eat food.
You May Like: Will Fasting Get Rid Of Belly Fat
Top 6 Questions About Intermittent Fasting
1) Wont I get really hungry if I start skipping meals?
As explained above, this can be a result of the habits you have built for your body. If you are constantly eating or always eat the same time of day, your body can actually learn to prepare itself for food by beginning the process of insulin production and preparation for food.
After a brief adjustment period, your body can adapt to the fact that its only eating a few times a day. The more overweight you are, and the more often you eat, the more of an initial struggle this might be.
Remember, your bodys physical and cognitive abilities most likley wont be diminished as a result of short term fasting.
2) Where will I get my energy for my workouts? Wont I be exhausted and not be able to complete my workouts if fasting?
This was a major concern of mine as well, but the research says otherwise: Training with limited carbohydrate availability can stimulate adaptations in muscle cells to facilitate energy production via fat oxidation.
In other words, when you train in a fasted state, your body can get better at burning fat for energy when there are no carbs to pull from!
Ill share some of my experiences, now doing heavy strength training for 3 years in a fasted state:
Here I am pulling 420 lbs. at 172 BW after a 16 hour fast:
A post shared by Steve Kamb on Nov 21, 2018 at 10:43am PST
LeanGains digs into various options here, but here is really what you need to know:
4) Wont fasting cause muscle loss?
Make Sure You Eat Healthy
One thing Wright enjoys most about intermittent fasting is that you decide what kind of foods you want to eat . But she warns against .
Its definitely important to eat nutritious food when youre on the diet, she says. I feel like if I was doing intermittent fasting just eating pizza and burgers and fries, I feel like I wouldnt have had the amount of success I have right now.
She says its important to consume all the macros your body needs proteins, fats and carbs and to have nutritiously diverse meals
Ill have egg whites and spinach, and Ill have some carrots fruit on the side Ill have maybe a chicken breast with some quinoa on the side, Wright says.
Don’t Miss: What Can I Eat On Intermittent Fasting Meal Plan
Should I Eat 6 Small Meals A Day
There are a few main reasons why diet books recommend six small meals:
1) When you eat a meal, your body does have to burn extra calories just to process that meal. So, the theory is that if you eat all day long with small meals, your body is constantly burning extra calories and your metabolism is firing at optimal capacity, right? Well, thats not true.
Whether you eat 2000 calories spread out throughout the day, or 2000 calories in a small window, your body will burn the same number of calories processing the food .
So, the whole keep your metabolism firing at optimum capacity by always eating sounds good in principle, but reality tells a different story.
2) When you eat smaller meals, you might be less likely to overeat during your regular meals. I can definitely see some truth here, especially for people who struggle with portion control or dont know how much food they should be eating.
However, once you educate yourself and take control of your eating, some might find that eating six times a day is very prohibitive and requires a lot of effort. I know I do.
Also, because youre eating six small meals, Id argue that you probably never feel full, and you might be MORE likely to eat extra calories during each snack.
Although grounded in seemingly logical principles, the six meals a day doesnt work for the reason you think it would , and generally only works for people who struggle with portion control .
Thats why we made this:
Can You Eat 1200 Calories During Intermittent Fasting
Dont eat less than 1200 calories . Eating too few calories will slow metabolism. We ve heard this diet advice for years, including from Cooking Lights dietitians. Yet, intermittent fasting , or short-term fasts where calories are cut as low as 500 calories , are becoming increasingly popular.
Also Check: How Should You Do Intermittent Fasting
Also Check: How Many Calories Should You Eat When Intermittent Fasting
Change Your Eating Pattern
I often say that in my articles, but intermittent fasting is all about habits. Its not something you have to constantly be mindful of like counting calories or doing low-carb diets.
Youll have to be mindful at first of course, but once the lifestyle is implemented, youll follow it without thinking about it much, since you wont be hungry during your fasting window and, most of the time, you will be when its time to eat.
So you will have created a habit. As I already stated: the body adapts. Itll adapt to this habit, but itll also adapt to your weight-loss and screw up your progress.
If you can do it, try changing your eating pattern. Its not always easy to do depending on your lifestyle. But you dont have to stick to it to very long, the idea is to stress the body and force him to get out of its comfort zone.
This means if youre doing 16:8 intermittent fasting and you dont eat from 8 pm to noon the next day, skipping breakfast, try skipping dinner for a while.
You finish your lunch at 1 pm and you dont eat again before breakfast. This way you could even reduce your eating window from a few hours.
This can be hard since if youre used to eating dinner, youll get pretty hungry in the evening. But again, you dont need to do that for very long, a couple of weeks might be enough.
When getting back to your usual eating pattern, this could be enough to get through your plateau.
