Intermittent fasting? Is this the answer to lose weight?

Intermittent fasting can be simply defined as going without food for a long period of time and consuming all your calories within a specific window of time.

And when I said consuming food it does not mean to go and empty McDonalds as you are starving! Or because you have not eating in the past 16 hours you have to eat as you have never been fed! Eating high glycaemic processed food after fasting DOES NOT work! In fact, it can create more problems, increase stress and gaining weight!

Chose and plan carefully and be methodical in your successful story. Plan your meals in advanced, make sure it is well balanced, nutritious and do not overeat all at once.

According to Dr. Dan Reardon, CEO and co-founder of FtnessGenes, any success in a nutrition plan, is largely based on if the diet is right for you. Two factors that play into this equation are your metabolism and genetics.

If you have a fast metabolism and you're trying to build muscle. Focusing on your calorie intake around exercise means you have lots of energy to work out. If you have a slow metabolism or you store energy easily, then eating all your calories in a short space of time might make fat loss hard for you because you will hang onto energy even in the fasting windows, so IF might not be a good protocol for you to follow.

Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Reducing calories (like you do with IF) has been shown to increase the lifespan of cells in the body. In animal models, calorie restriction can actually enhance the longevity of the animals and limiting food intake might also fight off disease.

From the perspective of body composition, one of the big selling points of IF is your body’s increase in responsiveness to insulin. The hormone insulin is released in response to food. It has the effect of causing the liver, muscle and fat cells to store glucose. In a fasting state, blood glucose levels drop, leading to a decrease in insulin production, which signals the body to start burning stored energy.

There are many potential benefits to intermittent fasting, including:

·         Weight loss

·         Improved mental state

·         Increased energy

·         Improved fat-burning

·         Increased growth hormone production

·         Lowered blood cholesterol

·         Reduction of inflammation

·         Improved cellular repair.

There is promising research showing that it can protect against diseases like type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease.

Should you, or shouldn’t you?

If you are contemplating intermittent fasting, you should talk to your doctor and consider the impact on your lifestyle.

If your IF diet conflicts with family’s nutrition needs or your work schedule, it might be challenging to commit to an IF schedule. Or let’s say you’re a performance-based athlete: You should think of your nutritional needs, including recovery. Finally, if you’re a woman, intermittent fasting might not be right for you due to hormonal implications.

Will you benefit from IF? The only sure way to find out if intermittent fasting is right for you is to try it for yourself.

There are numerous variations on the intermittent fasting protocol, so if you’re considering IF, start with one (say, breakfast skipper) and play around with what works with your schedule and hunger levels.

When can I have my meals?

Eat your dinner at least three hours before bedtime. For one, eating a meal will raise your blood sugar levels, which can interfere with deep and healthy sleep.

Lying down after eating also raises the risk that you'll experience heartburn or acid reflux.

In addition, having a big meal at night may interfere with weight-loss efforts. In 2013, the journal "Obesity" published the results of a study showing that overweight women who ate 200-calorie dinners lost more weight and more inches off their waists than women who ate 700-calorie dinners, even though the two groups ate the same number of total calories each day.

At "Normal" Times; your circadian rhythms dictate when you're naturally hungry and active, and they should also inform when you eat your meals. According to a study published in the journal "Obesity" in 2009, eating meals during the "wrong" times -- which is during dark hours for humans -- can and does contribute to elevated weight gain.

Lots of people use coffee or other caffeinated beverages while they fast, but if you put collagen (protein) in your coffee technically stops the "fasting" process. The biggest benefits come from ingesting less than 5 calories during a fasting period with water, tea or coffee only (without milk)!

·         Methods:

1. 16/8 Method

·         Fast for 16 hours, and then eat during an eight-hour window. This is the easiest as you can skip the evening meal and fast while sleeping! And then eat only in a window of 8 hours. Or if it is easier for you skip breakfast and eat from 12 to 8 pm. However, if you are a woman please fast only for 14 hours to prevent messing up with your hormones.

2. Fast Diet (aka the 5:2 Diet)

·         Eat for five days and significantly cut calories for two days.

This is a more advanced method of fasting in which you eat as you normally would for five days, and then reduce your calories significantly (600 calories for men and 500 calories for women) for two days.

3. Alternating

·         Eat one day, fast the next.

With this diet, on the fasting days you should eat a fifth of your recommended daily caloric intake, and then consume a normal number of calories on the normal  days. This is a slightly easier protocol to follow than Fast Diet.

4. Warrior

·         Fast for 20 hours a day and eat one large meal at night

This is a more challenging protocol to follow, as you’ll need to ensure you fit all of your important macro- and micronutrients into one meal a day.

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