Intermittent Fasting is trending right now but it’s not without merit. There are a variety of ways to go about it depending on your objectives and threshold for pain lol. Here is a simple example that works for some of our clients whom have tired it:
They skip breakfast each day and eat two meals, the first around 1pm and the second around 8pm. Then, they fast for 16 hours until they start eating again the next day at 1pm.
Intermittent fasting is not really a diet so much as a pattern of eating. It’s a way of scheduling your meals so that you get the most out of them. Intermittent fasting doesn’t change what you eat as much as it changes when you eat. Of course you can combine this with a modified diet and perhaps get even better results.
That said, the main reason people try intermittent fasting is to lose fat. But most importantly, intermittent fasting is one of the simplest strategies we have for taking bad weight off while keeping good weight on because it requires very little behavior change.
This is a very good thing because it means intermittent fasting falls into the category of “simple enough that you’ll actually do it, but meaningful enough that it will actually make a difference.”
Without going too deep into it it works because when you’re in the fasted state your body can burn fat that has been inaccessible during your fed state.
Many find this form of weight loss much simpler than dieting so often the results are better not because this form of dieting is always better but because it is more simple and thus easier to sustain.
You can find all sorts of research and examples online if you are interested and it takes many different forms including alternate-day fasting, whole-day fasting or like our example above, a time-restricted feeding plan.
Like any fast or diet, you should approach with an air of caution as there is no one plan for all as each of you has a different schedule and list of activities that your body needs to support.