Stoking The Fire For Long
Weight loss is a top priority health goal for many of us. While intermittent fasting or nutrient restriction is often an effective way of achieving weight loss, there are other lifestyle factors that are key to maintaining your metabolic health long-term. These include things like exercise, adequate sleep and stress management.
You can help your body accelerate and maintain weight loss and your broader health with the following lifestyle interventions that complement fasting.
1. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
2. Exercise. While exercise is often not in and of itself a sufficient intervention for achieving weight loss, it health impacts go far beyond weight. Physical activity and structured exercise can help you maintain a healthy weight and prevent metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Exercise preserves your bone strength and cognitive function as you age. It also makes your body and brain better able to handle stress with adaptation responses such as increased production of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory factors. You can effectively improve your heart health and prevent chronic diseases including obesity with 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity. National recommendations for physical activity also include two days per week muscle-strengthening activity.
3. Maintain a balanced diet.
4. Avoid added sugars. and other simple carbohydrates
What To Eat While Fasting
What you eat during your eating window can really dictate what fasting can do for you.
To elaborate, if you eat nothing but energy-dense and nutritionally void food in your eating window, you may not see any changes at allâ¦and you can still gain weight.
However, if you eat nutritionally dense, whole foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats, you will likely see many beneficial changes. Donât get us wrong, thereâs a time and place for everything …itâs about balance.
Now you may be wondering what you can consume during your fasting window and the short answer is: anything that doesnât contain any calories â water, tea, black coffee.
The long answer is: it depends. Some people will still consume some food during their fasting window, especially if the fasting window is very long. For example, some individuals practice modified alternate day fasting where they eat one small meal on their fasting days.
While this choice is entirely up to you, choose wisely. If you decide to try a fasting routine where the fast isnât very long, like the 16/8, you should definitely aim to fast throughout the entire window.
What You Get In The 2 Meal Day Intermittent Fasting Fat Loss Plan
As you now know, the 2 Meal Day philosophy touches on so many different areas of life, so it makes sense that the 2 Meal Day plan does so too and provides you with the tools and tips to make positive changes to your lifestyle as a whole. Here are some of the benefits of having the 2 Meal Day plan.
A Tailored Intermittent Fasting Fat Loss Meal Plan
Over 80 different recipes all designed to be quick, low-cost and seriously tasty. The recipes are designed around your individual energy requirements both macronutrient and calorific. The plan will contain example meal plans for whether you wish to skip breakfast or dinner and detained information on macronutrients and my message of eating real food.
Your Intermittent Fasting Guide
A full guide containing the current science behind Intermittent Fasting, all the known associated health benefits, and my top tips on how to make Intermittent Fasting into a sustainable way of life.
A Full Workout Plan
A combination of Cardio, Strength and, Yoga videos will give you the tools to train efficiently and safely, in the comfort of your own home. The exercises in this plan have been carefully developed to help facilitate fat loss and increase muscle gain. There are also videos that are specially designed for people that have injuries or limitations that may prevent them from following other exercise routines.
Unlimited Email Support
Recommended Reading: Is 119 High For Fasting Blood Sugar
Reasons Why You Should Consider The 2
If you are considering a simple form of intermittent fasting, the 2-day meal plan is known to be the simplest and most sustainable form of fasting, here are some of the reasons to consider the 2-day meal intermittent fasting:
- It teaches you how to understand your hunger better
- You can eat delicious meals
- The 2-day meal plan helps to transform health, fitness, and physique in the long term
- Lose fat effortlessly
- Improve your overall relationship with foods
Examples Of Different Intermittent Fasting Schedules
If youre considering giving fasting a shot, there are a few different options for working it into your lifestyle.
Daily Intermittent Fasting
Most of the time, I follow the Leangains model of intermittent fasting, which uses a 16hour fast followed by an 8hour eating period. This model of daily intermittent fasting was popularized by Martin Berkhan of Leangains.com, which is where the name originated.
It doesn’t matter when you start your 8hour eating period. You can start at 8am and stop at 4pm. Or you start at 2pm and stop at 10pm. Do whatever works for you. I tend to find that eating around 1pm and 8pm works well because those times allow me to eat lunch and dinner with friends and family. Breakfast is typically a meal that I eat on my own, so skipping it isn’t a big deal.
Because daily intermittent fasting is done every day it becomes very easy to get into the habit of eating on this schedule. Right now, you’re probably eating around the same time every day without thinking about it. Well, with daily intermittent fasting it’s the same thing, you just learn to not eat at certain times, which is remarkably easy.
Weekly Intermittent Fasting
One of the best ways to get started with intermittent fasting is to do it once per week or once per month. The occasional fast has been shown to lead to many of the benefits of fasting we’ve already talked about, so even if you don’t use it to cut down on calories consistently there are still many other health benefits of fasting.
Read Also: 14:10 Fasting
Intermittent Fasting Can Be Difficult To Maintain Long
No matter what method you choose, registered dietitian Chandler Ray, RD, said that intermittent fasting can be difficult to sustain long-term, especially for someone who enjoys eating every few hours.
If you do decide to try intermittent fasting, she recommended consulting with a dietitian first to get personalized guidance.
What Is The 2 Meal Day And Why Is It The Most Effective Method Of Intermittent Fasting
I truly believe that the 2 Meal Day is the simplest and most effective form of Intermittent Fasting. There are currently thousands of people all over the world who are achieving their goals of safe and sustained fat loss, muscle gain, leanness and overall weight loss. They are also experiencing a better quality of life and positive effects on their overall health all thanks to following the 2 Meal Day Intermittent Fasting Fat Loss Plan. You deserve to be the best you possible and if I can help you get there with 2 Meal Day, then that makes me very happy!
Recommended Reading: 119 Blood Sugar After Eating
Why Is The 2 Meal Day Different
The 2 Meal Day is very similar to the 16:8 method, where you fast for 16 hours and eat in an 8 hour eating window. There is one small but very significant difference Rather than focusing on the clock and eating when the clock tells you to, you focus your attention on your body and perceived feelings of hunger.
For me, this is where the power of intermittent fasting lies, you begin to understand what hunger actually is something that occurs every 16-24 hours, not every four hours!
This slight change in focus makes a MASSIVE difference. It becomes a way of life rather than something you do in the short term to get you to your weight loss goals.
Q What Is The Best Fasting Method For Weight Loss
A. We talk about intermittent fasting like its one thing, but its actually an umbrella term that refers to several different eating patterns that restrict eating in some way. The way that each style restricts calories differs. In some styles of fasting, you avoid all food for a day, others have you shrink the amount of time in which you can eat your meals into a small window, and there are plans that have you eat every dayjust small quantities some days and regularly other days. These plans are sometimes called fasting-mimicking diets.
Although its reached peak popularity in the past few years, fasting has actually been around a long time. I believe fasting comes from religion, and you may already know about some religious traditions involving fasting such as Ramadan. In the past few years, Ive seen a lot of talk on blogs about all the purported health benefits of fasting, from aiding weight loss to helping you live longer. But even though there is research done on fasting, its important to remember that its mostly preliminary, and blogs dont always portray the clinical trials correctly. A lot of the studies are done on animals. The human studies are small, mostly 20-30 people, and rely on self-reported data from participantswhich is known to be at least slightly inaccurate.
Meet Plenityan FDAcleared weight management tool
Also Check: What Is 14 10 Intermittent Fasting
The 2 Meal Day Is Scientifically Backed By Dr Adam Collins Phd
Dr Adam Collins is the head of programming at Surrey University with well over 20 years experience in the field of Nutrition and Health and is regularly featured on the BBC for his expertise.
Adams specific areas of interest can be summarised as energy and macronutrient manipulation for metabolic health. This has led to several projects investigating intermittent energy restriction , time restricted feeding, macronutrient meal patterning, exercise and energy balance, and timing of feeding around exercise for fat oxidation .
He has personally verified The 2 Meal Day as an effective way to reap all the benefits from Intermittent Fasting, heres what he had to say about the benefits:
Independent of weight loss, IF exerts certain metabolic benefits collectively contributing to improved metabolic health. Via IF, you are moving the body into the fasted state in a more pronounced way, adapting the body to cope with this situation. Much of this relates to the improved efficiency by which the body can clear away and utilise carbohydrate and fat in the body. In effect, your fuel management in the body is improved, which impacts on your metabolic health .
Can I Exercise During Fasting
Yes. You can continue all your usual activities, including exercise, while fasting.37 You do not need to eat before exercising to provide energy.38 Instead, your body can burn stored energy for fuel.
However, for long-duration aerobic exercise, eating before exercise may increase performance.39 Its also important to drink fluids and replenish sodium around exercise when fasting. This is good to know if youre competing. Learn more
Recommended Reading: Does Pickle Juice Break Autophagy
But Is Intermittent Fasting Good For You
While some researchhas shown the benefits of IF, such as weight loss, lowerblood pressure and improved metabolic health, more investigation isstill needed, especially regarding long-term outcomes of IF. There is also theaspect of sustainability. Severely restricting calories or not eating for longperiods at a time isnt for everyone. Some researcheven shows that those who do intermittent fasting dont usually stick with itas compared with those trying to lose weight on more traditional diets.
Still, IF has been shown to be an effective form of weight loss but so have other options like eating a well-balanced diet paired withexercise. One studysuggests that IF is not more effective at supporting weight loss or improvingblood sugars than other well-balanced approaches.
Weight loss is never a one-size-fits-all approach, saysTaylor. IF may be sustainable for some people, while others find that this approachjust isnt for them.
If you want to try IF, youll first need to figure out how you are going to incorporate this style of eating into your life, especially when it comes to things like social events and staying active, she advises.
Ready to explore your options? Here Taylor explains some of the most popular IF methods.
Why Might Changing Timing Help
But why does simply changing the timing of our meals to allow for fasting make a difference in our body? An in-depth review of the science of IF recently published in New England Journal of Medicine sheds some light. Fasting is evolutionarily embedded within our physiology, triggering several essential cellular functions. Flipping the switch from a fed to fasting state does more than help us burn calories and lose weight. The researchers combed through dozens of animal and human studies to explain how simple fasting improves metabolism, lowering blood sugar lessens inflammation, which improves a range of health issues from arthritic pain to asthma and even helps clear out toxins and damaged cells, which lowers risk for cancer and enhances brain function. The article is deep, but worth a read!
You May Like: Can You Drink Alcohol While Intermittent Fasting
Daily Fasting Or Time Restricted Eating
This is a sustainable method of fasting that can be incorporated into daily life. As a general rule, you restrict eating into a 4â11 hour window, while the remaining 13â20 hours are fasted. Essentially, you prolong your night time fast ð by delaying your first meal of the day, or stop eating earlier in the day . This type of fasting is normally done on a daily basis, but some people dip in and out of it, depending on their schedule.
Fasting For Longevity: Its About More Than Weight Loss
One of fastings greatest health benefits is prolonging the period of time that you deprive your body of immediate sources of energy. When you go 16 or 18 hours without raising your blood glucose levels, you dont have any insulin present. Once you finally do eat and trigger an insulin response, the insulin shows up, does its job, and disappears. This creates insulin sensitivity the opposite of diabetes!
Fasting isnt food deprivation its food appreciation. You eat real foods when your body actually needs them, rather than snacking mindlessly and suffering through your days in an overfed trance.
In Zanes experience and my own, intermittent fasting is the gateway to applying discipline to the art of eating. Since it can be tackled with defined goals and plans, intermediate fasting is realistic and attainable for busy, highly successful people.
And yes, fasting is safe. You can maintain 16-hour intermittent fasting on a daily basis, and all youll do is make yourself healthier. Zane is living proof.
Ive done it daily for years! I look at fasting as a way to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle into those years of my 60s, 70s, 80s.
I couldnt agree more. When you unpack it, fasting is a way to map your short-term goals, like losing weight and gaining more energy, with your long-term goals, such as delaying the onset of chronic diseases.
Recommended Reading: Can I Drink Alcohol During Intermittent Fasting
Schedule #: Occasionally Skipping A Meal
Meal-skipping is a simple method to ease into IF, but it may not provide all of the physiological advantages of genuine IF.
What it entails
This timetable may be tried in a few different ways.
Level 1: Eat just when youre hungry. You may recall this as IF Lite from Chapter 4. If youre not hungry for breakfast when you get up, for example, you might wait until 11 a.m. to have your first meal.
Whats the second level? Dont eat a dinner that you usually would.
For example, if youd usually eat supper but arent really hungry, dont. Alternatively, you may skip lunch. Alternatively, breakfast. See how you feel if you miss a meal once or twice a week on purpose.
Those who gain from it
This is a simple method for newcomers to learn about how their bodies and brains react to hunger.
Youll find out whether youre the kind of person who can deal with hunger, ride it out, and then apply what youve learned to more rigorous fasting regimens. Or are regular meals and snacks more your style?
If you give it a go,
Fasting Regimen May Fall Short Due To Less Activity
After three weeks of the diet, the second group showed the greatest losses of both total weight and fat, with an average weight loss of 1.91 kilograms and an average fat loss of 1.57 kilograms .
Meanwhile, the first group of alternate-day fasters lost weight as well an average of 1.6 kilograms but lost less fat, with an average fat loss of .74 kilograms . The last group showed no significant drops in either weight or fat.
The scientists didn’t just weigh their participants, but also used a type of x-ray to compare muscle and fat tissues. The x-rays revealed that only half of the weight loss in the alternate-day fasters was from fat loss, with the rest coming from fat-free mass such as muscle tissue.
In terms of general health, the scientists didn’t find any key differences in health markers, appetite hormones, metabolic molecules, or the activity of genes in fat cells across the three groups.
Templeman and Betts’ team also found that the alternate-day fasters tended to be less active than before starting the diet, particularly on their fasting days. They suggest that the drop in activity, perhaps as part of a behavioral adaption to less nutrition, may explain part of the difference in fat loss between the groups.
“I would say that anybody out there who’s experimenting with intermittent fasting should be aware that what might look like successful weight loss according to your bathroom scales, you need to think whether you may be losing muscle mass too,” Betts said.
You May Like: How To Get Electrolytes While Fasting
