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.
Why Use An Intermittent Fasting App
While Intermittent Fasting is one of the best ways to quickly lose weight and improve your health, in most cases, its not as easy as just reducing your eating window.
When first starting Intermittent Fasting you may be confused with fasting and eating windows. What time to start or stop eating and what fasting schedule you should follow.
An Intermittent fasting app can help you make lifestyle changes, keep track of your fasting schedules, recording weight loss, eating windows and give you guidance on how to best approach Intermittent Fasting.
It can keep you on track of your goals by holding you accountable. And, ultimately, it can make your Intermittent Fasting journey a whole lot easier.
The Best Intermittent Fasting Schedule For Women
Whats the best IF protocol for you specifically depends on your lifestyle, your body composition, and your goals?
Generally, the minimum I recommend everyone to fast is 16-18 hours because thats not really fasting and youll get used to it quite fast. You should be able to do this without any coffee or other stimulants as well because you want to keep your cortisol controlled.
How long you can fast depends on your workout routine as well.
- If you exercise right before breaking the fast then you can fast for 20 hours or do one meal a day quite successfully because youll be burning your body fat during the fast without going catabolic and then when you break the fast youll immediately refuel yourself and start repairing.
- If you workout somewhere in the middle of the fast and then continue fasting post-workout, then its going to be more difficult for you to progress in your training or maintain muscle because it becomes an additional stressor.
Whatever the case may be, you shouldnt feel the need to be eating any more than twice a day and how you choose to do it depends on your circumstances and your goals.
Dont get caught up with thinking that you have to stick to this one protocol all the time and that if youre eating any more than once a day youre basically getting cancer and gaining fat. Thats where a lot of eating disorders and poor food habits get created. What matters more is what you do consistently and how many calories youre consuming during the entire day.
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But Is It Really Healthy To Fast For 16 Hours
For starters, this diet might be hard to maintain. Say goodbye to dinner parties and late-night dates. And god forbid a friend is late to that 5 p.m. dinner you scheduled.
It may be sustainable if you stick to the strict regimen, Warren says. However, this is difficult to maintain in real-life scenarios like social functions.
Halle Berry uses intermittent fasting as part of her diet routine. Here’s how:
Beyond the downer of not being able to go out for a late-night fancy dinner, in rare cases the 16:8 diet could potentially lead to disordered eating, too, notes Hunnes. For example, if youre someone who doesnt do well with long periods of fasting, you might follow a 16-hour fast with a binge or even start to prolong fasting periods longer than you should. Both would be signs that the diets not working for you and that it could progress to something more serious like an eating disorder, she says.
If you eat too late, you could also potentially interfere with the quality of your sleepso its best to eat earlier in the day, suggests Hunnes.
That said, two recent studies in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolismshow obese adults can stick to the 16:8 diet without developing or exacerbating body image issues, disordered eating patterns, or sleeping problems.
These Handy Intermittent Fasting Apps Will Keep You On Track Whether Youre Fasting For The First Time Or Building A Consistent Schedule
Intermittent fasting is pretty straightforward, especially when it comes to popular diets. You simply limit the hours you can eat during the day to a specific window. Outside of this window, fast meaning, eat nothing. This simple diet can give your metabolism the kick it needs, help you lose weight and even help stabilize blood sugar levels.
Theres just one tricky aspect to this new way of eating: You need to really commit to your chosen diet and its schedule, eating only during select hours and fasting for longer. Thats why turning to intermittent fasting apps can be particularly helpful.
No matter which kind of intermittent fasting you opt for, an app can make everything easier. Thanks to the increasing popularity of intermittent fasting diets, theres now a wealth of handy mobile apps available so you can stay on track right from your smartphone or tablet. From planning meals to tracking fasts, the right app will help you master every little detail of your intermittent fasting plan.
Check out the following intermittent fasting apps, all of which will make scheduling, tracking and monitoring your progress a breeze:
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What To Do If Your Subscribed Directly On Fasthabit Intermittent Fasting’s Website
Here’s how to cancel your FastHabit Intermittent Fasting subscription when billed through a payments provider that is not the Appstore, Playstore or Paypal.
Sometimes, you may start a subscription directly on a company’s website without using an extra layer of security like Paypal or Apple. To unsubscribe, you might have to sign into FastHabit Intermittent Fasting’s website or directly reach out to the payments provider.
Generally, here are two steps you can take if you find yourself in that fix:
Zero Best Intermittent Fasting App
Zero is a beautifully designed tracker used for intermittent fasting, circadian rhythm, and personalized elongated fasting. As the largest fasting community via an application in the world, zero, it is easy for you to harness the power of fasting to improve your health.
Image Credits: apple.com
Zero can be customized to track your time of fasting, which means that it works regardless of the type of plan you are on . You can select from various preset fasting windows or create your own schedule that can last up to seven days.
Features of Zero app:
- Reflect on your fasting experience with the journal of fasting
- Weekly articles made by their expert team of content to keep you inspired and informed
- Earn badges to celebrate your milestones of fast and stay inspired
- Set a goal for weight and track your progress
- Stay progressive with special events and group fasts
- A beautiful design well thought out, it is easy to start fasting
- View your progress in fasting over time
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Intermittent Fasting By 5w Verlag Gmbh
Price: Free | Premium version starts at $3.99 per month
Plus Point: Diverse background knowledge on Intermittent Fasting with scientific evidence
The app makes fasting easier by providing an exact 14-day meal plan with delicious and nutritious dishes that allow you to survive lent without hunger.
It counts hours and tells you when to eat and when to fast. You can change the time as per your needs. It will remind and train you every day so that you can easily manage your 14-day intermittent fasting.
The app is equipped with an intuitive dashboard, where you can track your weight loss and success. The premium version offers support at the personal level. They have experts to answer your questions in detail.
Ate Food Diary: For Social Media Accountability
The Ate Food Diary offers you a visual diary showing the time between meals. You can easily look back at the food choices that you made and their results. If you are into social media, Ate Food diary allows you to share your eating habits easily on your channel. This is the best free intermittent fasting app android and iOS.
- Visual food diary
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So Can The Omad Diet Help Me Lose Weight
Yes, but again, some experts say it’s neither healthy nor sustainable weight loss.
OMAD is basically a starvation diet, if you follow all the stipulations, says Rebecca Elbaum, RD, clinical administrative dietitian at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. That’s because you’re not consuming enough calories with just one meal as you would by eating eating three or four times a day, so weight loss will occur.
Best Features Of Fastient Intermittent Fasting App
- Desktop Tracking: If your phone has a habit of disappearing or you just dont use your smartphone that often, the Fastient app can also be accessed through their website for easy tracking.
- Set Your Own Goals: Know exactly what kind of results you are looking for? Simply input your own personalized goals and be motivated by reaching milestones that you have set for yourself.
- Customize What You Want To Track: Whether you just want to track your fasting times or you would also like to track many different data points including weight, measurements, water intake, and daily calorie expenditure/intake, its totally up to you.
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Best Intermittent Fasting Schedule For Men
For most men, in my experience, it is possible to start directly with a 16/8 fasting plan. Finally, you will unlearn appetite in the morning in less than two weeks.
In addition, 24- or 36-hour fasting is also excellent for men, as they find it easier on average to fast for more extended periods at a time.
Those who are athletes and do not like to restrict themselves in everyday life are best served with 36-hour fasting. Because two nights lie in the fasting period, this method is feasible weekly and effective for health goals.
Men who have been engaged in intermittent fasting for a long time also tend to use more extreme methods more often.
People who travel a lot or have a physically active working day can optimize their health by skipping lunch.
So 16/8 becomes a 20/4 or OMAD fasting schedule. In any case, the daily routine must fit to increase the fasting window from 16 hours to 20 or more.
I practice OMAD, especially when I want to maximize productivity and free time. There is no question that lunch brings losses in concentration. Still, it has social benefits and may reduce stress on your working day.
Thats When I Sought Out More Info About Intermittent Fasting
My boyfriend was doing the 16:8 method for his own health reasons, and we had briefly talked about it. I was skeptical at first. But after finding an inspiring first-person article by someone who had success using intermittent fasting, I figured maybe it might work for me.
The woman whose article interested me followed the 4:3 method of alternate-day fasting, where she fasts for three days and eats for four, along with counting calories. It was then that I decided while munching on a snack of mixed nuts that I would commit to IF.
I decided to start my own method of complete intermittent, alternate-day fasting , where I would go every other day without eating, also counting my calories as I went.
When I first started ADF I calculated what my calorie needs would be for my body using a total daily energy expenditure calculator. During my first week of fasting, I allowed myself up to 500 calories on my fasting day to wean myself into going 40 hours without food. In reality, I didnt change much of what I was eating, besides just watching the number calories I was taking in. The second week of fasting, I was able to go the whole fasting day without intaking any calories. Intermittent fasting was a *lot* easier than I thought it would be.
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What To Look For In The Best Fasting App
- The best fasting app free must allow you to self-monitor your progress. You should be able to make choices and record your habits.
- The best free fasting app provides feedback on your performance that helps you identify blocks and overcome them. The app must have goal-setting options. Further, it should be customizable according to the focus: weight, fitness, or strict diet.
- Some of the best free fasting apps have journaling features to relieve stress and create space for positive talk.
- The best intermittent fasting app free must-have stressmanagement features such as mindful eating, easy relaxation methods, etc. to ensure it does not affect the diet cycle.
- Some of the best intermittent fasting app free provide communitysupport that helps the users to inspire and stay motivated.
The Most Social Media Friendly: Ate Food Diary
Ate Food Diary is like a social media platform for fasting. It allows its users to upload food images that they can look back on, share with friends, and track.
This visual food diary helps fasters see when they last ate, what they last ate, and summarise how it made them feel. Which is a great way for fasters to experiment.
The app allows friends to connect, engage with the food diary, and encourage each other. Users can share their diary on other social platforms by integrating accounts. It is ideal for those who enjoy staying in touch and finding inspiration.
Once you have finalized which intermittent fasting app is ideal for you, all you need to do is begin. If you have further concerns, here are some answers to the most asked questions about intermittent fasting methods and apps:
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What Exactly Is The Omad Diet
“Think of OMAD as intermittent fasting on steroids,” says Dena Champion, RD, of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “OMAD is literally when someone eats one meal daily during one hour of the day and then fasts the other 23 hours.” You are allowed to drink black coffee or other zero-calorie drinks during that fasting timebut nothing else.
On top of that, you’re instructed to eat that one meal during the same four-hour window every day, adds Jen Oikarinen, a clinical dietitian with Banner University Medical Center Phoenix. “Consistency is emphasized in the OMAD diet,” she says. And while it is recommended that you make healthy food choices, it’s more about when you eat than what you eat, notes Champion.
OMAD dieters are supposed to adhere to a set of rules known as the “four ones rule,” says Oikarinen. So if you’re on the OMAD diet:
- You should only be eating one meal per day
- You should only eat within one hour of your four-hour eating window
- You must eat off one plate
- You should limit yourself to one beverage that contains calories if you want one
Worth noting: While the OMAD diet is technically a fasting diet, it’s quite different from other intermittent fasting diets like the 16:8 diet, which instructs you to fast for 16 hours and eat three meals during the remaining eight hours.
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!
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Bodyfast Intermittent Fasting Tracker Diet Coach
With more than 19 million users worldwide, BodyFast helps you achieve the weight that you dream of. Improve your health condition and increase your energy levels with the use of this mobile app.
Unique Features of This Intermittent Fasting App
-> There are more than 10 fast options available on this mobile app for intermittent fasting.
-> Your weight and body measurements can be tracked to learn about your progress with this iPhone and Android app.
-> Get reminded of drinking water with the water tracker feature available on the fasting app.
Free
Google Play Store Rating: 4.6
Apple App Store Rating: 4.7
Do you want to further improve your fitness level with workout mobile apps? We have got you covered with this comprehensive blog, Best HIIT Workout Apps for all Fitness Enthusiasts.
