Intermittent fasting (IF) is an eating pattern those cycles between periods of fasting and eating. Common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week. Fasting from time to time is more natural than always eating 3–4 (or more) meals per day. Fasting is also often done for religious or spiritual reasons, including in Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.
Those who engage in this method, do it voluntarily for health purposes mainly. Those who do it are not underweight and have enough stored body fat to fast and still be healthy. If it is done correctly, it should not be hard and let alone contribute to health problems. You are the one that chooses not to eat even if you do have food. This can range from a few hours to even a day; however, it should never be done without supervision.
Intermittent Fasting Methods
The 16/8 method: Also called the Lean gains protocol, it involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 1–9 p.m. Then you fast for 16 hours in between.
Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours, once or twice a week, for example by not eating from dinner one day until dinner the next day.
The 5:2 diet: With this method, you consume only 500–600 calories on two nonconsecutive days of the week, but eat normally the other 5 days.
By reducing your calorie intake, all of these methods should cause weight loss as long as you don’t compensate by eating much more during the eating periods.
Many people find the 16/8 method to be the simplest, most sustainable and easiest to stick to. It’s also the most popular.
Powerful Weight Loss Tool
Weight loss is the most common reason for people to try intermittent fasting .Intermittent fasting changes hormone levels to facilitate weight loss. In addition to lowering insulin and increasing growth hormone levels, it increases the release of the fat burning hormone norepinephrine (noradrenaline).
By helping you eat fewer and burn more calories, intermittent fasting causes weight loss by changing both sides of the calorie equation.
Main health benefits of intermittent fasting:
Weight loss: As mentioned above, intermittent fasting can help you lose weight and belly fat, without having to consciously restrict calories.
Insulin resistance: Intermittent fasting can reduce insulin resistance, lowering blood sugar by 3–6% and fasting insulin levels by 20–31%, which should protect against type 2 diabetes
Heart health: Intermittent fasting may reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides, inflammatory markers, blood sugar and insulin resistance — all risk factors for heart disease.
Brain health: Intermittent fasting increases the brain hormone BDNF and may aid the growth of new nerve cells. It may also protect against Alzheimer’s disease.
Anti-aging: Intermittent fasting can extend lifespan in rats. Studies showed that fasted rats lived 36–83% longer.
