Intermittent Fasting For Women Over 50 Benefits May Extend Beyond Calorie Restriction
While some nutrition experts contend that IF only works because it helps people naturally limit food intake, others disagree. They believe that intermittent fasting results are better than typical meal schedules with the same amount of calories and other nutrients. Studies have even suggested that abstaining from food for several hours a day does more than just limit the number of calories you consume.
These are some metabolic changes that IF causes that might help account for synergistic benefits:
- Insulin: During the fasting period, lower insulin levels will help improve fat burning.
- HGH: While insulin levels drop, HGH levels rise to encourage fat burning and muscle growth.
- Noradrenaline: In response to an empty belly, the nervous system will send this chemical to cells to let them know they need to release fat for fuel.
Helps You Live Longer
Restricting your intake of calories is a way of living a longer life which is backed by the Scientists for a long time now. This is true even logically, as our body finds a way to extend life when starved. However, the good news in case of intermittent fasting is that you get the benefit of life extension without having to starve yourself. This is because fasting activates the similar mechanisms of life extension as calorie restriction
Pro Tip: You can find your ideal calories for weight loss using our TDEE Calculator.
Losing Weight Vs Losing Fat: Whats The Difference
When you watch the numbers on your scale drop, it can be exciting. But the scale doesnt reflect if youve lost fat or weight in general. You may think the goal of your health journey is to lose weight, when what you really want is to shed body fat. The reason is simple: When you lose weight, you can lose a combination of muscle, fluids, fat, and even organ size.
If you want to increase your health and add muscle so your body feels and looks toned, losing muscle and fluids likely isnt your goal. Instead, youll want to focus on fat loss, so any more than two pounds a week could undermine your goals.
According to research and Doctor Joel Seedman , when you shed upwards of five pounds per week, youll lose water weight and muscle along with your fat. Muscle and water loss can be dangerous, since it puts you at risk for dehydration, nutrient deficiencies, poorer fitness and mental performance, and puts you at risk for regaining the weight. To combat this, incorporate strength training into your workout routine. Cardio can promote fat burning, but you need resistance training to maintain your muscle mass. Also, the more muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolic rate. Basic strength training exercises, such as squats, lunges, and push-ups, can add muscle and improve your body fat composition.
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The Complete Guide To Intermittent Fasting 16/8
Intermittent fasting is an effective fasting method with research-backed health benefits, including healthy weight loss, better cognitive function, and lower inflammation. It has become a popular tool for improving overall health and reaching nutrition and fitness goals. The most well-known, approachable, and sustainable method is intermittent fasting 16/8.
How Much Weight Can You Lose In A Month With Intermittent Fasting
While you are in a hurry to lose weight, keep in mind that each person is different. In a pinch, your weight loss will depend on what you weigh, your age, your activity level, and the kind of food you eat during your eating window.
That said, you can expect to lose 12 pounds a week on a diet comprising healthy and nutritious meals. If you binge on junk foods, sweets, sodas, and highly processed foods constantly during your eating periods, you may not lose weight or may lose a very minimal amount.
If you lose even half a pound in a week, do remember that you will achieve your weight loss goals slowly but steadily. Intermittent fasting also has other health benefits like:
- Reduction in belly fat
- Increased mental focus
- Improved blood pressure
Of course, losing unnecessary weight has other health benefits, too. Obesity is a major factor in diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular problems, asthma, and cancer. So weight loss helps in health and longevity.
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How Can I Suppress Hunger During Intermittent Fasting
Eat high-fiber foods, such as nuts, beans, fruits and vegetables, and high protein foods, including meat, fish, tofu, or nuts, during your eating window, Varady advised. Chewing high-fiber gummies can also help.
Drink lots of water. People tend to think they’re hungry, when they are really just thirsty, she said.
Go for black coffee or tea, or cinnamon or licorice herbal teas. These beverages may have appetite-suppressing effects, Varady noted.
Watch less TV: I know this sounds strange, but while you are watching TV, you are bombarded with dozens of ads for food. This can make you feel hungry, when in actuality, you are not hungry at all, she said.
Remember, being “a little hungry” is the best thing that can happen to you, wrote Madelyn Fernstrom, health and nutrition editor at NBC News, calling it a “true mind-body connection” that helps you recognize fullness.
Weight Loss And Difference In Body Composition
The 16:8 diet has become a favored weight loss program among dieters, and for a good reason.
There is evidence that intermittent fasting may help you lose weight and boost your metabolism .
It does this in two ways:
First, fasting makes you eat fewer meals, resulting in decreased calorie intake and food consumption.
In general, individuals practicing the 16:8 fast skip breakfast and stop eating at a set time.
Therefore, unless you overcompensate by eating much more during meals, you end up consuming fewer calories during the limited 8-hour timeframe.
Additionally, your body also adjusts hormone levels during a fast to make fat stores more accessible .
Basically, when your body is cut off from its preferred sources of energy, namely glucose and glycogen reserves, it will adapt to start burning fat as its primary source of fuel.
This means that you are not only losing pounds, but a portion of that weight loss will come from body fat storage.
How Much Weight Can You Expect To Lose on an Intermittent Fast?
According to a 2014 review article, intermittent fasting was found to reduce body weight by 3 to 8% over 3 to 24 weeks.
This study also determined that participants had a 4 to 7% reduction in waist circumference, meaning that they lost belly fat .
A different review study found that intermittent fasting may cause a weight loss of 11 to 16% after 12 weeks.
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Week : My Experience Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss
General: Hunger and cravings were totally a thing of the past. As I explained in the first update, I had a difficult time figuring out how to curb sugar cravings. My first-day fasting, the sugar cravings went away and even after two weeks of intermittent fasting, they are STILL gone! I have not desired nor ingested any sugar since day one. This is pure magic because I could literally put away entire boxes of candy. Gross!
Intermittent fasting LITERALLY helped me overcome sugar addiction in just 24 hours.2 weeks later that still holds true. I remain amazed.
Also, I wound up hitting a 24 hour intermittent fast almost by accident. On one very busy day, I got in from running errands at around 5:30 pm and realized I hadnt eaten. 6:30 pm would make 24 hours fasting so I figured Id just push it there. Took a shower and got comfy for the evening, and by the time dinner was ready 24 hours had passed. Easy stuff.
When Should I Exercise
When Varady and her colleagues conducted a study that combined alternate day fasting and exercise, they allowed the participants to pick whether they wanted to exercise on a feasting or fasting day, and found there was no strong preference one way or the other. But the researchers were surprised the dieters actually reported feeling more energetic on fasting days.
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The Intermittent Fasting Workout Plan
Heres what you should do as far as exercise workout is concerned when youre doing the 16/8 intermittent fasting. If you follow this training schedule, youll reap huge benefits.
==> Exercise about 2 or 3 times a week.
==> If you exercise on your fasting days, do your workout towards the end of the fast period. The last hour of the fast period is best for fat burning.
==> Now if you are exercising intensely, you may want to protect your muscle mass. So, Id say take branched-chain amino acids about 30 minutes before your workout. See my article on BCAAs and intermittent fasting here.
Its not mandatory to take BCAAs. So dont sweat it!
==> Take bcaa supplements if you have them. If you dont, you can easily compensate by having a high protein meal after your workout.
==> A good balanced meal of Protein with lots of veggies and starchy carb will suffice.
==> Have your main meal soon after your workout. Prepare your meal in advance, so you are not tempted to go for takeouts or some junk food.
==> Eat as normal on fasting days that you are not exercising. You dont need to exercise every fasting day, by the way.
Mix it up. You can do Paleo-style in your non-exercise days by having a meal of Veggies, Healthy fats and Protein .
When you mix it up, you will be carb cycling and that would be in keeping with what I refer to as the Depletion-Repletion way of eating.
A typical high carb meal will be:
A typical low carb meal will be:
Why Fasting Everyday Is Not Your Best Plan
One major difference between intermittent fasting and other forms of diets is that you can preserve your bodys basal metabolic rate. Your basal metabolic rate should not drop off when you do intermittent fasting correctly.
So, the eat 8 hours, fast 16 hours per day for weight loss can lose some of its value, if you do 16/8 intermittent fasting every day for say 6 months continuously.
You will still lose weight. But the weight loss of 16/8 intermittent fasting may start to get marginal over time when abused.
What I am trying to say here is: we want to avoid going into the so-called starvation mode where your body adapts to current eating pattern and reduces your basal metabolic rate correspondingly. Energy saving mode, that is.
You want to keep your body guessing. It wont, if you get into a regular predictable pattern.
Dont forget the keyword: Intermittent. Makes sense?
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Is 1: 8 Diet Better Than Other Types Of Intermittent Fasting
It all depends on you. Researchers suspect that the 16:8 diet isnt quite as effective for weight loss as more extreme forms of fasting, like alternate-day fasting. On the other hand, studies suggest that alternate-day fasting doesn’t produce better weight loss results compared to daily calorie restriction. Plus, eating only every other day is very restrictive and can be tougher to stick to.
The 5:2 diet is another intermittent fasting method, which allows you to eat normally five days a week and restricts your calories to just 500 to 600 for the other two days. The advantage of following the 5:2 diet versus the 16:8 diet is that you can eat normally on any days you want, depending on your schedule. However, research shows that the 5:2 diet isn’t more effective than continuous calorie restriction.
So what if you think you could restrict your eating to fewer than eight hours, but arent sure you could commit to alternate-day fasting? You might want to try shortening your daily eating window a little bit more. Varady and her team are currently in the process of comparing 4-hour and 6-hour eating windows for shedding pounds. We are curious to see if these shorter eating windows result in more rapid weight loss compared to 8-hour time restricted feeding, she says.
Intermittent Fasting: One Of The Simplest And Most Successful Plans
Fasting starts in the evening and lasts for 16 hours extending to noon or 1 pm the next day depending upon when it started. This is the easiest plan to follow since for most people it means skipping breakfast, having lunch, snacks the next day. You are in mild ketosis and burn fat all night. Breakfast is coffee or tea with any high fat, zero- sugar creamer and 0 sugar artificial sweetener. The fat in the creamer increases the ketosis. Its great for Monday following weekend overeating or drinking. Fat is added in form of coconut oil capsules and olive oil salad dressings.
During the 16 hours only coffee/tea with a no sugar creamer and zero calorie drinks are allowed. Its ideal for those that routinely skip breakfast.
Metabolic Changes and Weight Loss:Two massive studies from the NIH have reviewed 815 and 2184 studies of weight loss and metabolic changes during fasting. Intermittent fasting causes decrease in insulin and increase in human growth hormone and norepinephrine which results in fat burning. Grehlin levels which increase appetite during the fast. Weight loss significantly above placebo studies and averaged between 1/2 to 1-2 lb per week depending on the frequency of the fasting days, the gender, weight and age of the dieter. Once a week fasting in a 45 year old, 175 lb female averaged about 1/4 to 1/2 lb.
This plan is useful for several weight management situations:
Expanding the Weight Loss in the 16 Hour Fasting:
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Week Intermittent Fasting Diet For Weight Loss
Whole foods, mostly vegetables with a few lean types of meat were still mostly my diet. I did introduce bread into the mix with a wheat burger bun but felt bloated and gross after, so I wont be doing that again.
Hubby and I went on a sushi date for lunch one day, and Im not sure whether it was the rice, the sodium, or just because it was outside food, but I bloated up immediately then, too.
We also went out to this delish all you can eat Brazilian BBQ restaurant for Mothers Day on Sunday. Normally Id have pigged completely out. But my appetite is so much smaller, and I was still freshly aware of that yucky, bloated feeling from dining out previously that I took it easy. I skipped everything carby and stuck to lean cuts of meat and helped myself to the veggie bar. No bloat!
I find it interesting that while I struggled with maintaining a high protein low carb diet plan in the past, intermittent fasting makes it so that it is almost necessary, as unintentional it may be. I dont seem to be tolerating carbs as well as I used to.
Does The 1: 8 Intermittent Fast Diet Actually Work
As far as the benefits of intermittent fasting go, one study found that it helped people lose a modest amount of weight and also lowered their blood pressure. Its suspected that the reason it helps people lose weight is that eating within an eight-hour window simply limits the total amount of calories consumed in a day, New York-based nutritionist Lauren Harris-Pincus, RD, tells Health. But ultimately, the only way to lose weight is to create a caloric deficit where you consume fewer calories than you expend.
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Intermittent Fasting Rule #: Stop Stressing About What Breaks A Fast And What Doesnt Break A Fast
Does chewing gum break a fast?
What? I dont even know what to say to that question.
You can fine tune as you get closer to that dream physique. Focus on starting your days off by getting shit done. Water, sparkling water, and black coffee will help you get through the morning. When youre ready to go from 6 pack to 8 pack we can apply the advanced tricks.
You dont need any fancy gimmicks to get started tomorrow .
Some people argue the rules for intermittent fasting to lose weight. The use labels like clean fasting and dirty fasting. I tend to disagree with those labels. Dirty fasts allow you to chew bubble gum and to drink bulletproof coffee as long as youre cutting calories back. Clean fast requires you to be more strict.
Our goal will always be progress over perfection.
Reduced Oxidative Stress And Inflammation
Oxidative stress occurs as potentially harmful reactive oxygen species build up within the cells of your body that are metabolically active. Reactive oxygen species are, as their name suggests, reactive. They can react with and cause harm to your proteins and even your DNA. If a cell in your body cant counteract this damage quickly enough, it might become senescent, spew out inflammation, or even die.
Intermittent fasting forces muscle, brain and other tissues to become more efficient in their breakdown of metabolites and production of energy. This can help reduce ROS and levels of inflammation. Fasting also triggers the body to produce more antioxidants that help clean up ROS.
A study with prediabetic men who shortened their eating window to 6 hours a day for 5 weeks showed that this fasting regimen reduced plasma levels of the oxidative stress marker 8-isoprostane, in addition to improving insulin sensitivity and blood pressure. Alternate day fasting has been shown to increase the expression of superoxide dismutase and catalase, two powerful antioxidant enzymes that can clean up ROS in your cells. Another way to increase antioxidant enzymes is through exercise! Physical activity increases the levels of superoxide dismutase, which has a lot of benefits for all of the organs in your body.
Starting your fast earlier in the evening is also associated with lower breast cancer recurrence.
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