Intermittent Fasting | Fact Or Fiction? (What Science Has To Say)

Intermittent fasting (IF) is currently one of the world’s most popular health and fitness trends. In this article, we’re going to review what?science?has to say about this method, and we’ll also discover the most optimal IF version that you can also start using to enhance your weight loss journey.?

Most diets focus on what to eat, but intermittent fasting is all about when you eat.

With intermittent fasting, you only eat during a specific feeding time window. Fasting for a certain number of hours each day or eating just one meal a couple of days a week can help your body burn fat. And scientific evidence points to some?health benefits, as well.

Our bodies have evolved to be able to go without food for many hours, or even several days or longer. In prehistoric times, before humans learned to farm, they were hunters and gatherers who evolved to survive — and thrive — for long periods without eating. They had to: It took a lot of time and energy to hunt and gather nuts and berries.

“Three meals every day may be a relatively novel behavior for our species.”

Intermittent fasting is often presented as a process of?stressing our bodies—in a good way. There is a concept in biology called?hormesis, which can be thought of as the “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” principle. Exercise is the classic example: You put stress on your heart and muscles, and as long as there’s sufficient recovery time,?you are all the healthier for it.

Now what happens in the US & Europe is a whole different story,?one study?using a smartphone app to record more than twenty-five thousand eating events found that people tended to eat about every three hours over an average span of around fifteen hours a day (The opposite of IF).

One of the consequences of?eating so frequently?is that we don’t give our bodies an opportunity to recover. This leads to eating more calories thus gaining weight, lower energy levels, increasing insulin levels, and higher inflammation rates.?

5:2, 16:8, Alternate-day- What's the best fasting method?

There are several different ways of doing intermittent fasting, all of which involve splitting the day or week into eating and fasting periods.

We will review each one of these methods so at the end of this article you’ll know and see is the most effective, sustainable, and healthy fasting regimen for weight loss.?

The?logic behind the different fasting methods?is that after a certain time period (usually 12-24 hours) without eating anything, the body will finish its glycogen storage (carbs which are stored in our muscles and livers) and will start?burning purely fat.?

1) OMAD- One Meal A Day

The “One Meal a Day” diet, or OMAD diet, which became pretty popular lately. It’s a type of intermittent fasting, where you eat one meal per day, consisting of whatever you want, typically at your regular dinnertime.

The?benefits?of OMAD are:?

1. Weight loss, it’s extremely hard to be at a caloric surplus when you’re?eating one time per day.?
2. OMAD is said to eliminate the sluggishness people feel while digesting their lunch because there is no lunch.
3. Diet freedom, finally people have the freedom to eat whatever they want with this regime, it’s gives you also a lot of mental space of not preparing meals 3-6 times a day.?

However, the?drawbacks?for most individuals outweigh the benefits here:

1.?Studies?show that this extreme restriction may lead to increased total and LDL “bad” cholesterol and higher blood pressure levels compared to normal eating patterns or less extreme fasting methods.

2. Study shows that in the “one meal a day” regimen, people are feeling extremely hungry, which can lead to cravings, low energy, bad mood, binge eating, and overall dissatisfaction with the diet. Very restrictive and intense diets like this one usually?don’t work in the long term.?

3. Moreover,?people report?feelings such as physical weakness, nausea, dizziness, irritability, fatigue, low energy, brain fog, and trouble focusing.?

4) With the OMAD, the focus is on 1 meal a day but not on the quality of the food people eat. Eventually, many people choose junk food and processed food in this one meal, without putting attention to the food quality and its nutrient density. Unfortunately, it can lead to impaired health, gut issues, deficiencies, and chronic illnesses.?

2) Alternate-Day Fasting

The basic idea is that you fast one day and then eat what you want the next day. This way you only need to restrict what you eat half of the time.

On fasting days, you’re allowed to drink as many calorie-free beverages as you like. Examples include water, unsweetened coffee, & tea.

The?benefit?of ADF is that it would leave the thirty-six-hour fasters with a large calorie deficit, equivalent to a caloric restriction of nearly a?thousand calories a day.

But then there is the fear of individuals that if they fast for one day the feeding day would be out of control, binging more calories, thus creating a no-calorie deficit overall. However, studies found subjects appeared to?eat no more?or?even eat less?on days after a daylong mini-fast.

So one of the potential benefits of alternate-day fasting, over regular caloric restriction, is that you get regular breaks from feeling constant hunger!

An interesting fact is that,?in a study?of a calorie deficit group and an ADF group, the two groups have lost the same amount of weight. Therefore, there is no evidence of improved weight loss in ADF, but you achieve other significant health benefits.?

Again as with OMAD, the?drawback?with ADF is that it’s difficult to maintain for the long term and that there is no focus on food quality.?

3) Time-Restricted Feeding

Now the Intermittent fasting method that rips the health benefits of fasting without the drawbacks of nonadherence and the constant fight with hunger is?Time-Restricted Feeding.

It usually refers to having a feeding window of 12-8 hours and then fasting for 12-16 hours.?

When people stopped?eating between 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. for two weeks, they lost about a pound each week compared to no time restriction. Those are outstanding results, considering the fact that no other recommendations or changes were introduced to the subjects in this study.?

In a?study?that lasted for a couple of months, obese men and women were asked to restrict eating to the eight-hour window between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Twelve weeks later, they had lost on average five pounds.

Besides getting the obvious fasting benefits such as accelerated fat burning ratio and faster gut-healing processes, another interesting explanation for those results is the surprising fact that?calories are more fattening at night compared to the morning.?

A calorie isn’t always a calorie…

Study?shows that nighttime snacks are more fattening than the same snacks eaten during the daytime. Thanks to our?circadian rhythms, metabolic slowing, hunger, carbohydrate intolerance, triglycerides, and our propensity for weight gain are all things that go bump in the night.?

??The bottom line:

Fasting can be helpful for better health and more effective weight loss, but without changing your eating habits and food choices, it won’t create any considerable changes.?

The time-restricted IF?version is the most optimal version- it delivers profound weight loss and health benefits, but compared to the other versions, it’s also sustainable and easy to adhere to for the long term.?

Furthermore, that’s also?our recommendation?to our clients- (among many others)- have dinner a bit earlier, and avoid snacking before going to bed. That way you can easily get these 12 hours of fasting and enhance your weight loss progress!?

???Stay tuned for next week, where we're going to discuss one of the most interesting "solutions" that modern society invented for treating obesity-?bariatric surgery.

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Also, have a look at our latest youtube video where I show how to overcome weight loss plateaus.