Eating Healthy / Nutrition

by Cameron Greene

What is intermittent fasting? Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern focused on a cycle of both fasting and eating. It doesn't focus on particular foods that you should eat, but rather on when you should be eating them. In other words, intermittent fasting is an eating pattern not a diet. Common intermittent fasting periods involve 16 hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week.

There are several intermittent fasting methods:

The 16/8 method: Also called the Leangains protocol, involves skipping breakfast and restricting your daily eating period to 8 hours, such as 1–9 PM. Then, you fast for 16 hours in between.
Eat-Stop-Eat: This involves fasting for 24 hours and is typically done once or twice a week. For example, you wouldn't eat 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, 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 over compensate by eating more than you should during your other eating periods. The most popular method is the 16/8 method, since it's the most sustainable and the easiest to stick to.

Weight loss is the most common reason why people try intermittent fasting. As a result of eating fewer meals, intermittent fasting can lead to an automatic reduction in calorie intake; thus changing hormone levels to facilitate weight loss.