The Diet Wars Pt.1: Intermittent Fasting

0 comments by Ashley Lah

If you're trying to lose weight, there are so many options available. Especially if you search online. There are so many sources on the web, arguing that they have the absolute best diet plan. It can be hard to decipher what will help you lose the weight. Intermittent fasting seems to be all the rage now a days. I'm sure you've heard the term before from a number of health and fitness websites, or even media networks. You might be familiar with the the idea of what fasting is: Eat in a specific time frame to help your body "reset" and handle calories more efficiently while also helping you lose weight faster. On the other hand, we have the “Eating every Three Hours” method. This involves you taking in more calories than when you're on an intermittent fasting schedule, making it easier for you to avoid feeling hungry. But which one should you choose? If any at all. There are a lot of pros and cons to whether or not you should be using either method on your journey to losing weight, but if you don't understand what it is, it can be even more confusing to know if it's something you should be doing.

In today’s post, we will be discussing the pros and cons of both methods, to help educated our readers and as always, make sure that whatever methods you chose in your own personal journey, are decisions based on real information and studies instead of trends, celebrity diets and Fake News.

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Many diets focus on WHAT to eat, but intermittent fasting is all about WHEN you eat.

With intermittent fasting, you only eat during a specific time. Research shows fasting for a certain number of hours each day or eating just one meal a couple days a week may have powerful effects on your body and brain and may even help you live longer.

In this respect, it’s not a diet in the conventional sense but more accurately described as an eating pattern.

Common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week.

Fasting has been a practice throughout human evolution. Ancient hunter-gatherers didn’t have supermarkets, refrigerators or food available year-round. Sometimes they couldn’t find anything to eat.

As a result, humans evolved to be able to function without food for extended periods of time.

Intermitent Fasting Methods:

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

During the fasting periods, you eat either very little or nothing at all.

These are the most popular methods:

The 16/8 method: Also called the Leangains 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.

Health Benefits:

Here are the main health benefits of intermittent fasting:

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.
Cellular repair: When fasted, your cells 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.
Weight loss: 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, intermittent fasting causes weight loss by changing both sides of the calorie equation.
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.
Inflammation: Some studies show reductions in markers of inflammation, a key driver of many chronic diseases.
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. 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.

But what about my muscles? Am I going to lose them?

There are a few scientifically based reasons why intermittent fasting may not be optimal for GAINING muscle.

In order to gain muscle, you must eat more calories than you burn, have enough protein to build new muscle tissue and have a sufficient exercise stimulus to cause growth.

But Research has shown that weight training can help prevent muscle loss when you are losing weight. What’s more, a couple of studies have shown this specifically in relation to intermittent fasting.

One 8-week study examined the combination of intermittent fasting and weight training three days per week

The researchers split 34 men who were very experienced with weight training into two groups: a time-restricted eating group (consuming all calories in 8 hours per day) and a normal diet group.

Both groups were assigned the same number of calories and amount of protein each day, and just the timing of the meals differed.

By the end of the study, neither group had lost lean mass or strength. However, the time-restricted group lost 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of fat, while there was no change in the normal diet group.

This shows that weight training three days per week may help maintain muscle during fat loss caused by intermittent fasting.

Other research on alternate-day fasting has shown that 25–40 minutes of exercise on a bike or elliptical three times per week can help maintain lean mass during weight loss

Overall, performing exercise is highly recommended for maintaining muscle during intermittent fasting.

Research has shown that you are more likely to lose lean mass, including muscle, when you lose weight quickly.

This means that if you are performing intermittent fasting, you should try to not drastically reduce your calorie intake all at once.

While the ideal rate of weight loss may vary, many experts recommend 1–2 pounds (0.45–0.9 kg) per week. However, if preserving muscle is your top priority, you may want to shoot for the lower end of this range.

In addition to the rate of weight loss, the composition of your diet can play an important role in maintaining muscle during intermittent fasting.

Regardless of which type of diet you follow, getting enough protein is important.

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.

This may only be temporary, as it can take some 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.

Now that you know…

Fasting seems pretty easy doesn’t it? And the health benefits? Out of this world…

But what about eating EATING EVERY 3 HOURS?

Is this technique better than starving yourself a couple days a week? Stay tuned for our next article: THE DIET WARS PT.2: THE 3 HOUR DIET.

No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.