Intermittent Fasting 101 — The Ultimate Beginner Guide
Contrary to popular belief humans are able to function without food for extended periods of time.
Fasting has been a practice throughout human history for practical reasons (no access to cold storage of fresh products or unavailability of a food source), religious and health reasons.In fact, fasting from time to time is more natural than always eating 3–4 (or more) meals per day.
What Is Intermittent Fasting (IF)?
Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting (where you eat either very little or nothing at all) and eating. Although this method doesn’t specify WHICH foods you should eat but rather WHEN you should eat them, it does not give you free reign to eat unhealthily.
In this respect, it’s not a diet in the conventional sense but more accurately described as an eating pattern. Different diets such as vegan, keto, paleo etc. apply their specific dietary choices into this eating pattern. Common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week.
Intermittent Fasting Methods
The most popular methods for splitting the day or week into eating and fasting periods are:
• The 16/8 method: Also called the Lean Gains Protocol, 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 non-
consecutive days of the week and 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 than normal or unhealthy junk foods 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.
Benefits of Intermittent Fasting:
When you fast, several things happen in your body on the cellular and molecular level. For example, your body adjusts hormone levels to make stored body fat more accessible. Your cells also initiate important repair processes and change the expression of genes.
Here are some changes that occur in your body when you fast:
• Human Growth Hormone (HGH): The levels of growth hormone skyrocket, increasing as
much as 5-fold. This has benefits for fat loss and muscle gain, to name a few.
• Insulin: Insulin sensitivity improves, and levels of insulin drop dramatically. Lower insulin
levels make stored body fat more accessible and can reduce insulin resistance, lowering
blood sugar by 3–6% and fasting insulin levels by 20–31%, which should protect against
type 2 diabetes.
• Cellular repair: When your cells are in a fasted state, they initiate cellular repair
processes.This includes autophagy, where cells digest and remove old and dysfunctional
proteins that build up inside cells.
• Gene expression: There are changes in the function of genes related to longevity and
protection against disease
• Heart health: Intermittent fasting may reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, blood triglycerides,
inflammatory markers, blood sugar and insulin resistance — all risk factors for heart
disease.
• Cancer: Animal studies suggest that intermittent fasting may prevent cancer.
• Brain health: Intermittent fasting increases the brain hormone BDNF and may aid the
growth of new nerve cells and may also protect against Alzheimer’s disease.
• Anti-aging: Studies showed that fasted rats lived 36–83% longer.
It changes hormone levels to facilitate weight loss and this is the most common reason for people to try intermittent fasting. The eating of fewer meals also causes a reduction in in calorie intake.
In addition to lowering insulin and increasing growth hormone levels, it increases the release of the fat burning hormone norepinephrine (noradrenaline). Because of these changes in hormones, short-term fasting may increase your metabolic rate by 3.6–14%.
By helping you eat fewer and burn more calories, it causes weight loss by changing both sides of the calorie equation.
A 2014 review study found that this eating pattern can cause 3–8% weight loss over 3–24 weeks, which is a significant amount, compared to most weight loss studies. According to the same study, people also lost 4–7% of their waist circumference, indicating a significant loss of harmful belly fat that builds up around your organs and causes disease.
Another study showed that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than the more standard method of continuous calorie restriction.
However, keep in mind that the main reason for its success as a weight loss tool is that intermittent fasting helps you eat fewer calories overall. If you binge and eat junk or massive amounts during your eating periods, you may not lose any weight at all.
A simpler lifestyle
Eating healthy is simple, but one of the main obstacles is all the work required to plan for and cook healthy meals. Intermittent fasting can make things easier, as you don't need to plan, cook or clean up after as many meals as before. For this reason, it is very popular among the life-hacking crowd, as it improves your health while simplifying your life at the same time.
Should Women Fast?
There is some evidence that intermittent fasting may not be as beneficial for women as it is for men.One study showed that it improved insulin sensitivity in men, but worsened blood sugar control in women. Though human studies on this topic are unavailable, studies in rats have found that intermittent fasting can make female rats emaciated, masculinized, infertile and cause them to miss cycles.
There are a number of anecdotal reports of women whose menstrual period stopped when they started doing IF and went back to normal when they resumed their previous eating pattern. For these reasons, women should be careful with intermittent fasting. They should follow separate guidelines, like easing into the practice and stopping immediately if they have any problems like amenorrhea (absence of menstruation.)
Safety and Side Effects
Hunger is the main side effect of intermittent fasting. You may also feel weak and your brain may not perform as well as you're used to at first. This may only be temporary, as it takes time for your body to adapt to the new meal schedule. If you have a medical condition, you should consult with your doctor before trying intermittent fasting.
This is particularly important if you:
• Have diabetes.
• Have problems with blood sugar regulation.
• Have low blood pressure.
• Take medications.
• Are underweight.
• Have a history of eating disorders.
• Are a woman who is trying to conceive.
• Are a woman with a history of amenorrhea.
• Are pregnant or breastfeeding.
All that being said, intermittent fasting has an outstanding safety profile. There is nothing dangerous about not eating for a while if you’re healthy and well-nourished overall.
FAQ’s
Here are answers to the most common questions about intermittent fasting.
1. Can I Drink Liquids During the Fast?
Yes. Plain filtered water or water with lemon and or Apple cider vinegar, black organic coffee, and tea are fine. Do not add sugar or milk to your coffee/tea. Only consume organic coffee if you are not having adrenal or stress issues as the caffeine can overstimulate your already stressed adrenal glands.
2. Isn't It Unhealthy to Skip Breakfast?
No. The problem is that most stereotypical breakfast skippers have unhealthy lifestyles. If you make sure to eat healthy food for the rest of the day then the practice is perfectly healthy.
3. Can I Take Supplements While Fasting?
Yes. However, keep in mind that some supplements like fat-soluble vitamins work better when taken with meals. 4. Can I Work out While Fasted?
Yes, fasted workouts are fine. Some people recommend taking branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) before a fasted workout. Pea Protein is a great source of these.
5. Will Fasting Cause Muscle Loss?
All weight loss methods can cause muscle loss, which is why it’s important to do weight bearing exercises and eat properly. One study showed that intermittent fasting causes less muscle loss than regular calorie restriction.
6. Will Fasting Slow Down My Metabolism?
No. Studies show that short-term fasts actually boost metabolism. However, longer fasts of 3 or more days can suppress metabolism.
7. Should Kids Fast?
Allowing your child to fast is probably a bad idea.
Getting Started
If you've ever eaten dinner, then slept late and not eaten until lunch the next day, then you've probably already fasted for 16+ hours. Some people instinctively eat this way. They simply don't feel hungry in the morning. Many people consider the 16/8 method the simplest and most sustainable way of intermittent fasting — you might want to try this practice first. If you find it easy and feel good during the fast, then try moving on to more advanced fasts like 24-hour fasts 1–2 times per week (Eat-Stop-Eat) or only eating 500–600 calories 1–2 days per week (5:2 diet).
Another approach is to simply fast whenever it’s convenient — simply skip meals from time to time when you're not hungry or don't have time to cook. There is no need to follow a structured intermittent fasting plan to derive at least some of the benefits. Experiment with the different approaches and find something that you enjoy and fits your schedule.
Intermittent fasting is simply one of many lifestyle strategies that can improve your health. Eating real food, exercising and taking care of your sleep are still the most important factors to focus on.
If you feel good when fasting and find it to be a sustainable way of eating, it can be a very powerful tool to lose weight and improve your health.
